Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Arsenal

Right, having had my day of celebrating, here's my two cents on the game:

I said before the match that, although neither of us want to lose, it won't be season-defining and there are still 30 matches to play after it's over. I obviously still stand by that. You guys lost at our ground last year too, but ended the season ahead of us. Therefore, this game is no barometer of how each team's season will go.

Like most of you, I was very surprised to see Conte start with a 3-4-3. I was genuinely expecting Bissouma to start alongside Bentancur and Hojbjerg. It seemed the most logical thing to do to combat us.

As soon as I saw he hadn't done this, I was thinking "advantage Arsenal". Us playing a midfield 3 of Partey, Xhaka and Odegaard, with Jesus occasionally dropping deep, meant that we could overwork and outrun you in the middle of the park with you guys having a double pivot. Had you employed a 3-5-2, it would have meant that we wouldn't have as much space in between the lines or in the half-spaces and we'd have to battle harder to win duels in midfield, especially to avoid transitions. In possession, it would have blocked off a lot of the passing lanes and positions that our players like to take up as well, meaning we would have the ball in non-threatening areas of the field.

However, even in spite of this personnel/formation error, I understood what Conte tried to do.

As Arsenal like to have a 2-3-5 shape in possession when attacking, Conte playing a low block limits space around the box. This meant we couldn't thread the ball through to feed our attackers, so we would keep passing the ball from side to side. Then, as soon as we turnover possession, you would pounce on that and exploit the spaces available out wide with the speed of Son and Richarlison. The gameplan is sound. The execution wasn't. Your players didn't close down at the right moments and were sitting off too much. Partey had all the time in the world to take that shot - which he scored - and subsequently meant you had to start being more open.

After you won and scored the penalty (which came about from a series of defensive errors that funnily began in your half), you then grew in confidence and we started to look shaky. Richarlison in particular was causing a lot of issues. We managed to weather the storm a bit and get into half-time level.

I was frustrated because I thought that, for most of the half, we were better and I didn't think you were going to be that poor in the second half.

However, we started the second 45 with a lot of energy and intensity, culminating in Saka's dangerous cross/shot which Lloris fumbled and Romero deflected into the path of Jesus to put us back into the ascendancy. Then we controlled the ball a bit better and looked the more threatening side. Again, I was surprised there was no proactive subs from Conte to wrestle control of the match. He should have made changes earlier.

RE: Emerson's red card - although I understand why many feel it was a yellow, I can equally understand why a red was given and why it wasn't overturned. Emerson catches Martinelli late, his studs are up, it's above the ankle and it was a poor challenge. It wasn't the most malicious tackle ever, but it wasn't great. The amount of uproar about it did surprise me, though. I didn't think it was that contentious.

After going down to 10-men, Conte decided to bring on 4 subs, then play a 5-3-1 - having taken 2 forwards off with Kane totally isolated. I'm not sure whether this was just damage limitation to keep the score low or whether he genuinely felt that was the best avenue back into the game. Either way, we were just keeping the ball as the game was merely a formality at that stage.

Conte's record against us is very poor in general. He's won 2 out of 10 matches, drawing 3 and losing 5. I thought that by this point he'd have learned his lesson. Clearly he hasn't yet. He has to take most of the blame for that defeat because Spurs were at a disadvantage before a ball was kicked.

That said, it is only your 1st defeat of the season. Whilst I appreciate you never want to lose a North London derby, in the wider picture, there's still plenty at stake and lots of football to be played.

 

At the moment, the only player we have any concrete evidence can play the WB role and play it well is Doherty.

Granted, the evidence on show is far from extensive or comprehensive and is based on a relatively small sample of games, but in that stretch of games he was by a mile the best of the bunch - and I firmly include Perisic in that statement, sorry DH.

I fully expect Emerson to start against Frankfurt given his suspension at the weekend, so the Brighton game - which will be a stern test and one of the hardest fixtures of the season - will be the litmus test. If we see Conte pissing about playing Sess on the left and Perisic on the right, we can pretty much say for certain that he is fixed on cutting off his nose to spite his face.

I don't expect Spence to suddenly get a run of games, and that is fair enough. As Bobby pointed out and as Sess has shown, not everyone can be Oli Skipp and make the transition from Championship to PL seamlessly. I'd like to see him get a chance against Forest in the cup and more opportunities off the bench, especially when we're looking to inject some pace into the team. As far as starters go though, his time will come but this is surely Doherty's chance to show what he can do. I'm hoping and praying he'll get that chance against Brighton and then hold on to it for the foreseeable future.

 

You're welcome to keep up the anti-Perisic slander but with 4 assists in his first 10 games in a new team and the best crossing accuracy in the Prem, whilst also comfortably being one of our better performers so far, I’m respectfully gonna take it with a pinch of salt and laugh it off.

 

For me hes always been a winger and lacks the energy and defensive ability of a true wing back (his age more than anything). Maybe the system should cover for him but hes a poor mans trent alexander arnold.

 

Trent’s a FB that can’t defend.

Perisic is a winger turned WB, defending was never gonna be his forte and shouldn’t be what he’s primarily judged on, especially when we’re playing 3 CBs and two midfielders who edge more towards the defensive side of the game. It’s why Emerson gets pelters because he’s so ****ing useless going forward when we need him to be more like Perisic.

 

It's also worth noting that, at Inter, Perisic played as LWB in a 352

What this effectively means is we have personnel to play 343 and 352, but the issue is that at the moment we have Perisic and Richarlison starting over Sessegnon and Kulusevski in spite the latter two being the better options for 343 - while also kicking the headache down the road about who plays up top in 352 as we have Kane, Son and Richarlsion for two spots

 

Sorry but Sessegnon isn’t a better option at anything. He’s a dreadful footballer.

 

Sessegnon is the final one of Pochettino's disastrous last 4 signings for us which wasted £150m.
We got rid of Clarke, Lo Celso and Ndombele and tbh he's next.

 

This is my main concern with him. If Conte continues to insist on playing a 2-man pivot, the workload on the WBs especially in tougher fixtures against high press, high energy teams, is simply immense. It is why he likes Royal so much - the guy is a tremendous athlete albeit not a tremendous footballer. Perisic doesn't have the legs to do it and tbh his game was never about bombing up and down the wing so I'm not sure why we signed him to play that role. I was hoping to see him further forward as cover/competition for Son, playing level with Kane - but that isn't happening either.

Meanwhile the one LWB we did have who could bomb up and down the wing all game was sent out on loan for reasons very few of us can fathom.

 

Sessegnon's game meshes much better with Son's in a 343, though, as he plays the sort of short passes that lead to Son getting sent on his way
Perisic, on the other hand, meshes much better with a Kane/Richarlison pairing up front due to his crossing

This is the difference between the two systems: 343 is based on the wide players cutting inside to score while the CF either sets them up (as Kane and Firmino do) or being a failsafe to mop up, while 352 is based on the CFs staying up top and finishing chances created by the wide players

 

I don’t buy that to be honest.

Son is just out of form, he’s always been inconsistent and this is probably his worst patch, nothing to do with who’s playing in support of him. He just needs to get his head right.

Sessegnon is a poor footballer that doesn’t bring anything to the team. Just like Winks, Lo Celso, Emerson etc.

 

Funny how a player can be out of form at the exact same time that Kane is being played up top instead of sending him on his way from deep, coupled with a WB whose role is to send in crosses for Kane and/or Richarlison and not interact with him

 

Probably won’t get our wish in January but the summer could be an option with Udogie returning.

Though I genuinely fear we’ll give him a new deal, I still think the club believes he’ll become something. Same situation as it was when Winks was like 21 or 22.

 

So what’s been Son’s excuse over the other years he’s been painfully out of form?

It’s on him, just as his brilliant form is on him. The guy can’t even string a couple passes at the moment.

 

He's had since 2019...3 years is long enough imo

 

He's barely touching the ball at the moment, because he's playing as a second left-back.

 

He's not receiving the ball at the moment, due to our passing into the final third clearly nosediving due to pushing Kane up top and the pivot having to make up more of the slack than they were expected to last season

Look at how many of our forwards are having trouble stringing together two passes at the moment. That's not on Son, unless he's telepathic and sending bad vibes to them

 

His heat map would say otherwise:
https://www.sofascore.com/player/heung-min-son/111505

 

Isn't a heatmap where he touches the ball?
He's spending 99% of his time not touching it and hovering around in front of the LWB.
That won't be reflected in a heatmap or anything that goes by touches.
Even there his hottest touch area is in our half.

 

The heat map’s showing him getting the ball in enough forward positions so the notion he’s been a second LB is far fetched. He’s just often doing nothing with the ball. We’ve seen this version of Son just about every season, this has just been his longest patch of inefficiency.