Postecoglou & Lange (& Paratici) Watch

I don't see how it is damning that Conte is our third best manager ever on a stat that isn't even a good performance measure.

 

Because AVB was considered a huge failure at Spurs yet Conte has lost league games at a quicker rate.

 

The stats show that AVB was our best ever manager up to that time and that Conte has got more points per game than he did. Conte wins more and loses more which with 3 points per a win is actually better.
So a stat you think is damning is part of a set of data that actually points to Conte being our best ever manager.

 

The obvious point is the wins stop happening after a certain point, and those wins are seldom replaced with draws

 

Yeah winning a game and then losing one works out better points wise than drawing 2. My main worry is how many Spurs lose under Conte, it’s not sustainable if you want to become a top side.

 

That's back to front. We will lose fewer as we improve. The issue is whether Conte is the one to improve us. As far as I can see he has the most points ever for a Spurs manager from his first 50 league games. The past isn't a predictor the future but I don't think that shows he is the wrong coach for us.

 

Spurs don’t seem to be improving under Conte, I don’t have the statistics in front of me but it feels like his first 25 league games were better than the next 25 league games.

 

Had a dental appointment this morning

They asked if I'd been grinding my teeth a lot recently...

 

The "season compass" is your "broad brush" friend.
The "squad performance watch" gives the "fine grain"
details that offers reasons for the former.

 

I don't think Conte started particularly well, but the end of last season was much better, generally.
We don't seem to have got off the ground in this one, though.
Even when we're winning we're not playing that well or being entertaining.
We've had some absolutely terrible performances, too.

 

47 points out of the first 25, 48 out of the next 25, I think. Both usually good enough for top 4 if continued for a whole season.

 

So results wise he’s doing ok, like PNP says, it’s the performances, even some wins feel like hard work and not very positive.

 

If it was Man Utd grinding out results despite playing badly, everyone would say it was because they were a winning team.

 

A lot of this seems self-inflicted by him suddenly switching from the 3421 that worked last season to going to a straight 343 to get Richy into the team while also making Kane an out-and-out forward

It would be one thing if we did that in pre-season, but we didn't - we suddenly switched after the Wolves match, so the first four games had us play like we did last season, and then suddenly we switched

 

And it wouldn't necessarily be true.
It's just a pundit thing to say about traditionally successful teams.

 

...which they never said about us under Poch when we were grinding out wins

 

Completely agree, but it isn't just pundits, you see posters on here saying the same.

 

Every successful team needs to have the ability to grind out a result in their skillset. Winning 38 games at a canter, especially when juggling up to 3 other competitions plus international football, is basically impossible. Just look at Arsenal's 'Invincibles' team. The key to their success was grinding what otherwise would have been narrow defeats into draws - they finished the season with 12 of them. Or look at City's 100 point, +79 GD team in 2017/18...despite smashing records for fun, 9 of their wins that season were by a single goal.

The problem is when all a team tends to do is grind out results, which is I feel where we've been 'at' for most of this season. Everyone loves a good comeback, last-minute winner etc. but to make a habit of it is to dance with the devil. If we were balancing out the grinded results with proper thrashings, I wouldn't be so worried, but the fact is even when we win, we don't win convincingly. And I say that about most of our big wins on paper too. 4-1 v Soton we really didn't play well. 6-2 v Leicester hinged on a tactical change before the hour mark; at HT it was anyone's game and if anything Leicester had the momentum. 4-0 v Palace same story as Soton, we were abysmal in the first half and should've been 3-0 down by HT.

And none of this is coincidental. Conte's tactics by design tend to remove the ability to control a game. By design, our default is to grind out results but we lack the personnel to do so on a consistent enough basis to make that approach acceptable.

 

But it's the other way around. If there are two or more teams of roughly equal performance challenging for a title, the one that has the most narrow wins and last minute draws will likely win it. No-one can intentionally achieve narrow wins so it can't be a result of some clever strategy or good play.

And despite everyone's opinion of Conte he has had the best performance in his first fifty league matches of any Spurs manager as far as I can see.

 

I think we're talking at cross-purposes.

Name one side that has achieved success purely through grinding out results.

Doesn't exist. Leicester in 2016 is probably the closest example in recent history.

My main point was the only reason teams get praised for grinding out results is because they are concurrently notching up an equal or greater number of wins at a canter. Pundits tend to notice that because it means even when the going is tough, the opposition are playing out of their skin and the successful team just isn't clicking, they still find a way to win and that therefore becomes the early indicator any pundit or fan looks for in predicting who will compete for the major honours that season. Because, as I said, not a single team in the history of the PL has won 38 games at a canter.

There is zero point praising a team that only grinds out results (i.e. us) as all that indicates is that said team are never more than one individual mistake or one injury to a crucial player away from losing. Which again, is us.