That just rewards teams with larger, deeper squads and results in punishments against other teams. Just apply the rules, card the offenders and introduce a new way of dealing with injuries. Allow trainers to enter the field of play or remove players with non-head/dangerous injuries from the field of play.
1. Said teams already benefit from the card equivalent. Get the punishment done objectively, and without impacting on the game in real time, 2. There doesn't seem to be an answer for feigned injuries (didn't we have the stretcher debacles a few years ago ?? ) .
What you need is a rule that makes time wasting pointless. How about a timekeeper tots up the number of seconds wasted by each time. At the end of the half each team has the choice of playing on for double the number of seconds wasted by their opponents less double the number wasted by themselves.
Teams would continue to do it anyway, as timewasting isn't the only point of timewasting. As I said in my original post on the subject, Flekken was doing it yesterday when Brentford were losing. He wasn't trying to run the clock down. He was trying to disrupt the flow of the game.
I think we did go for him initially, but he wanted to move to Arsenal once that was clear we moved onto our next target.
The performance was so much the best of the Ange era (both to my eye and by xG difference), I really wonder if it's a big step forward or a fluke. It reminded me more of Pochettino, the way the players actually tried to attack the goal when they could. I've got to say Spurs may score more tasty goals these days than any I can remember. Maddison often adds something special. The change of direction and toe poke to Kulusevski on Spence's goal against Coventry was sublime, and the chip against Brentford was nice as well. But Kulusevski, Spence, Udogie, Bentancur, Johnson and Bissouma have all had moments, among others. I suddenly have some hope for this year...which I may as well enjoy while it lasts. Incidentally, that was the first match I watched Solanke. He seems really good at everything except finishing. I hope somebody sees what I see--or that I'm wrong. He nears the far post and stops two steps short of where he could tap the ball in. Then he watches the ball fly in front of him. It was obvious that was what Johnson was trying to do, but it seemed Solanke didn't understand the geometry, or didn't do what he should have done, which was assume the ball was going to get through as Johnson planned it. Offsides permitting, he ought to think of himself as a bumper attached to the far post that Johnson can bank the ball in off of.
I remember last week against the Goon c*nts he took an extra touch before releasing a tepid shot which the keeper could have thrown his hat on to stop and I thought, that extra touch wasn’t the thoughts of a ‘natural striker’.
Or it could be a man new to his surroundings and not wanting to make a mistake and look silly. Striking first time is about confidence and being instinctive (which is what you are referring to), hopefully his confidence will grow with games.
We've been spoiled rotten by a near-decade with Kane. It has conditioned us to forget what the overwhelming majority of strikers are like. I'm sure you do this too, I lose count of the number of moments in games where I think 'Kane would bury that', forgetting that the guy is a machine and what I'm watching is human. There is a real dearth of quality strikers out there at the moment. I think Solanke suffers due to the massively inflated price we paid for him, but that wasn't his fault. Just browsing various 'Best Strikers in the World' lists and it's only really when you get to the top 10 that you encounter players who are significantly better than Solanke, and most of those are either never coming here or are unaffordable.
New team, new style of play, new team mates. While the fee for him was ridiculous and he won’t score the same amount of goals as HK (who would) he should improve and hopefully score a decent amount to show last season wasn’t a one off.
