Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur Pre-Season Thread 21/22

3-1 FT. A fairly useful run-out, but still a lot of big names missing.
Moura did well, Bergwijn was lively, Alli showed more promise in his new role and Son was Son.
Skipp had a quieter game, but still did a lot right and John continued to display some quality.

 

Ollie Skipp is pinging balls about , looking so confident

 

Yeah, thought he did great in the one-on-ones.

 

Some good individual performances but still feels quite disjointed from a team perspective at times. Will help with more of the first team back of course and more minutes.

Bergwijn very lively but typically poor in front of goal. Lucas brilliant and MOTM. Son and Dele doing okay too. CCV relatively solid at the back as well.

 

Adequate pre-season stroll, could and probably should have scored 6 or 7, but poor finishing and poor decision making cost us a few times.

We were opened up a little easily at times and our full backs were a little rusty which is no surprise.

Lots of positives about the style, but MK are a very average league 1 side. they get a lot of plaudits for their style, they keep the ball well and I do recall seeing them play Gillingham last season and have over 70% of the ball - but they lost 3-2! And that sums them up for me.

 

First preseason game I've caught. Not a huge amount to learn but nice to see the young lads out there.

I'm quietly starting to get quite excited by the Nuno/Paratici pairing, think they could do very well for us in the long term so long as Nuno can survive the short term.

 

I might have said this before but I'd like to see Bergwijn converted to midfield, like Dembele. Think he'd be good at breaking up play and bring it forward/lay it off role. He's always been good defensively for us.

 

I think he may be a bit too lightweight in midfield and I’m not sure he has the ball retention skills to play CM/ a central role well enough.

I think he can be a very good winger/ wide forward but he’s really got to improve on his finishing, if he doesn’t sort it out I’d imagine he’ll struggle for game time again because despite his good play it feels pointless if there’s little to no end product. He’s certainly looking promising so far in pre-season but the end product absolutely needs work if he’s to stay in the side.

 

I don't think that he starts for us now, if we've got everybody available.
Assuming we stick with the front 3, then you'd expect it to be Son, Kane and Moura.

 

Match highlights:

Son interview:

 

More or less what I was thinking. Spurs struggle to move players on for nothing, and never seem to get more than small fees for them (other than Bale, of course). Now Paratici is able to get 13 million for Alderweireld at 32 and whatever he gets for Lamela at a very injury prone 29, he seems like a magician.

Nuno has gotten off to a promising start mixing clever diplomacy with cold-blooded decision making. I think he may be considering a more laissez faire approach, at least in the short term. It would make sense both in terms of the type of players Spurs have and the fact that IMO there's neither any hope of big prizes this year or any danger of disaster either. So why not entertain?

The problem is that things go south for managers very fast everywhere, especially in the PL. I haven't fully formed my opinion of him yet, but ATM he seems like the kind of professional who could build a top team from young players. One thing that helps is that he really seems to want to be at Spurs, and is spreading that feeling. That's the downside of a big name manager: your club is just another name on the resume.

 

Sessegnon’s been missing due to a minor hamstring issue according to Ally Gold (thanks for letting us know, Spurs!).

Apparently he’s had positive talks with Nuno though about his future and is currently back out on the training fields although not expected to fully return for another 7-10 days and will likely miss the first game of the season.

 

Anyone else already getting bored with blue tick ITKs fighting about how much we received for Toby?

The initial fee quoted before the deal was signed off was £10m
The Sun are quoting we received £3m
There's also the figure of £13m kicking about

It is quite useful for gauging which faction r/coys users are part of based on the figure they quote, though...

 

Not really an issue, as Reguilon and Davies both played yesterday. Rather unfortunate timing for him, though.

Any news on Dier being missing?

 

Couldn't see anything on him. Looks like he was training today though judging by a few pics on Twitter so I doubt he was injured.

 

Makes you wonder why he didn't make the squad...

 

Lucas is becoming my current second favourite current Spurs player behind Son.

Look at this. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/58002704

It is a shame that the dedication to, and appreciation for, the club that these two demonstrate, apparently doesn't inspire the likes of Kane who has seemingly been seduced by media and Spurs haters drilling him with anti-spurs rhetoric.

Lucas has been separated from his family for the duration of this pandemic. Yet still performs in a clearly focussed manner, grateful for his role in the team.

I've said it elsewhere, but I won't have a bad word said about Lucas.

 

He's a very, very likeable guy but he's been frustratingly inconsistent at Spurs. I think last season was probably his best though, not sure how he fared statistically with other seasons but I felt he was a lot more involved than previous campaigns and was probably our standout player in the Europa League.

Though even now, I think the fanbase will debate whether he should be a starting XI player or not. Of current options and taking into account recent form of him and others, I think he should be in the XI, at least to begin with but the fact that after about three and a half years it's still debatable tells me he does need to up that consistency if he's to stay in the side. He's certainly got a lot of talent but I feel he needs to start trying to reach Son and Kane's levels of consistency up top if he's to cement a spot in the XI.

He seems happy here though, regardless of whether he's starting or not and that for me is a plus point. At worst he's a good squad player, at best he can be a decent starter.

 

I think playing on the right of a front three could really suit him, if we can be more attacking and we can sort the midfield out.
He's always had the ability to create space for himself, but Beardy Bloke seems to have got him playing with his head up.
I know it's just a few friendlies against lower league sides, but he's looking for early passes and laying it off into space well.
It makes him very hard to play against, as you can't stand off him and he murders players that get too tight.

 

He’s got a lovely running style with the ball, so smooth, it’s like seeing quicksilver run across the pitch.

There’s so much there that makes him a good player - quick, great control, surprisingly good in the air, tactically intelligent and a hard worker. But he’s just never put it together consistently for us.

By all accounts a terrific lad though and seems a wonderful guy to have around the place as well as a handy squad player at the very least.