He'll calm down after a good cry... he needs to take it all out on someone.. a little vent if you like. You're all good lads never take it badly. Laters.
We're not minnows, not by long stretch. But I'm equally confused by your readiness to group us in with the likes of City, Pool, Bayern, Real etc. It's like when pundits lump us in with the 'Big 6' when the other 5 have cumulatively won over four dozen trophies between them, and we've won two...league cups. We are miles away from them. Eze is good enough to play for a better club than Spurs, it's as simple as that. Unfortunately, Solanke is the measure of what we can attract right now. A poorer player than Eze from a poorer team than Palace.
I think middle is more on the players than the tactics/ manager to be fair. Our defensive tactics are just too chaotic in my opinion, it’s nice having the attacking intent but we just leave ourselves so open. As for the midfielders, I think they just aren’t playing to their full potential. Sarr’s really gone off the boil since around Feb whereas Bissouma is just proving too inconsistent for a player with so much natural ability. Maddison and Bentancur are - for me personally - great players but haven’t rediscovered their pre-injury form, I’m hoping they do soon though otherwise it might be a something the club needs to address sooner than we’d liked. Frustrating that’s for sure.
I’ve not once put us in the Real/ City/ Bayern bracket. There’s a level below the elite and that’s generally where Spurs are in terms of stature. Go across all the clubs in Europe and there’s probably only about 8-10 more desirable clubs than Spurs. Solanke isn’t the measure of what we can attract, he’s just the level we’ve chosen to settle on.
Do we have defensive tactics? The art of defending appears to have gone in recent years and let's be honest the 2nd goal was U15 stuff. I'm still unsure about that midfield though, far too wasteful, especially with the final pass.
Then perhaps our disagreement is over the player himself. I think Eze is good enough to play for one of those elite teams. He is of an age where he only has one more big contract left in the tank. Therefore it wouldn't surprise me if he is waiting for one of those elite teams to make a move.
If we were in competition with Bayern/ City for Eze or any player then there’s no doubt they’d almost certainly pick them, especially a player in their prime. Younger ones may choose us for game time purposes. But had we paid Eze’s asking price early doors without anyone else showing signs of an incoming bid, I’m almost certain he wouldn’t have turned us down in the hope of waiting for a better/ bigger club.
We need a proper DM shielding the defence, especially in transition and especially in a system that plays such a high line and encourages the FBs to basically play as wingers. And we need far better communication and organisation across the back line. Against Leicester, Porro and Romero totally lost Vardy. This afternoon, for the first Bissouma and Udogie lose Barnes, and for the second Udogie and Romero lose Murphy. There's a slight common denominator in that and tbh I wouldn't mind him leaving next summer. He can't seem to organise a back line.
I think we’re playing much better than when we had bad results last season. Hbic hasn’t posted his pass/positioning map yet but I just saw one on twitter and there was a gaping hole at 9. Some of that is because Kulu switched positions but it’s clear that we were creating chances despite not having a real striker, and would have created more if we had a penalty box 9 on the pitch. Writing Solanke off after one game is crazy IMO and we’re in a somewhat ridiculous position where both our senior strikers, and the youth team backup, are all injured. I think things will settle down after the international break. I’m encouraged that we’re creating more dangerous situations against low and mid blocks than we managed to last season, having Kulu as a real option in midfield, and better options on the wings, is helping there. I think Bentancur needs a run at 6 as he’s capable of being a far more consistent DM than Biss is, and that will help the defensive structure. I really think things are going to settle down.
Yep, my son and I said exactly this! As @The Huddlefro just pointed out above though it is very early days, and having all three strikers injured is a bugger but... The middle of the park still worries me, both defensively and from a creative point of view. However, my ever present optimism to see them win something before I keel over is still present and we shall see. Our first visit this season is in a fortnight at the NLD. Now that should be interesting....
I’d say we’re playing with more urgency at the moment but not necessarily playing better. And I’d put that down to it being early in the season, look at the zip we had in Ange’s first 10 or so weeks, we looked electric, then as fatigue set in we were playing in spurts or not playing at all. As for Solanke, it’s more of a case of not expecting much. Signing him has a similar feel to when we signed Richarlison. They're midtable calibre strikers whom we hope turn into top six calibre ones. I said it back when we signed Richarlison but these types of signings somewhat mirror what Utd paid £80m for Maguire, everyone (bar the Utd hierarchy) knew they weren’t going to get a good ROI on the deal and that’s the vibe I get with these two.
