Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Burnley

The point I am trying to make is that our best players playing our optimal strategy is always better than a second string playing a sub-optimal strategy. There is not enough information in the fact that you've only scored one goal to make the change. So you should never make tactical subs when you have a narrow lead unless to replace players who are tiring. Changing a game by making a tactical sub is almost entirely fiction (although it can happen in limited circumstances eg if the opposing team has lined up completely different to expectations and has different strengths and weaknesses from the ones you expected).

 

And specifically - who in the starting eleven has worse passing skills than Janssen? Or are you saying that because we have been passing badly you are going to resort to hoofball? That again is assuming that the lack of good passing in the first hour was something other than random. I thought replacing the tiring Son and Eriksen with the closest players we had available was exactly the right thing to do. If Kane had taken the ball into the corner in the last minute rather than trying a Hollwood pass to Winks we would have got all three points, as we would if Dembele hadn't been nudged off the clearance or one of Alderweireld or Trippier had been one yard nearer Wood.

 

I'm going to have to defend Sissoko, too. He did pretty well.
Covered plenty of ground, supported the players around him and made a few good passes.
Crappy left-foot shot, but other than that he did little wrong. More than I can say for some others.

Main problem at the moment, though? Fitness. Loads of the players look miles off the pace.
Son is understandable and so was Wanyama last week, but half the squad look like they're at 80%.
Our pre-season was **** again and this is the result, in my opinion.
We travel halfway around the world, play a handful of half-arsed games and come into the campaign unprepared.
It takes us a month to get up to speed and we're playing catch-up.

Oh, and Lloris' distribution. Sort it out, FFS.

 

I have the terrible feeling that I'm not joking when I say that Spurs haven't had a proper pre-season since AVB was in charge.

 

As a complete contrast, Neil Warnock had Cardiff playing non league sides in Cornwall, held a barbecue for his players at his house and currently sits top of the Championship with 5 wins out of 5.

 

Started surprisingly well, has Colin. Not sure where that came from. Patchy last season.

 

A bit harsh on the current state of Villa, that...

 

With Kane not being able to find the net........I watched Real Madrid play this weekend.Their center forward missed a hatful of goals for them.He tried but it was one of those days. So it happens to all of them....even our Jim (G).

 

Bye Wimmer.That was a waste of time,wasn't it?

 

He knows the formula for getting promoted from that league.
Sausages burnt on the outside, but raw in the middle are obviously part of that.

 

Good business at £18M though

 

He may do well there.Stoke usually rely on playing many defenders.