He did 3 then 2. Left Skipp out of the initial block of 4, for some reason. Should've made at least one really early in the second half. See how that went, then make more if it doesn't fix things. Waited until the game was over, then panicked.
Pride and ego. It’s what’s driven him to be the best. Not a great team player - except when he’s the focal point of that team His face clearly doesn’t fit with ten Hag
It’s not even about panicking. Our transitional play mainly requires Kane having players running around and off him. That wasn’t happening in 352 as 2 of the midfielders were knackered and Son is naturally a bit further away from him in that formation. Therefore we either need to make a conscious effort to hold onto the ball and get Kane more touches, which should have been possible, or switch things up with the formation. In 343 you naturally have the 2 additional forwards nearer Kane, even if one drops a bit to help the progression, you still have a player to pop the ball off to, and another to spin in behind. As it was we were playing a bit lopsided in the first half as Perisic was getting up and staying up. This didn’t help pin the fullback though as Dalot had the legs on the Croat. I don’t think United pressed us as well as some teams can but we struggled to look like we had an extra man at times, which is the whole point of 352. We couldn’t get players around Kane and make the overloads needed to make the system work. Part of this was Fred having a stormer and being ****ing everywhere and actually doing good things, part of that was United being set up well, and part of that was players who were either worn out or old. If we can’t hold onto the ball in a consistently meaningful way when we’re playing the system that should let us do that, and are just trying to go long, then surely we should have switched it far earlier so the team was set up to let us to that in the most dangerous possible way. To be clear I wanted us to play 352 this game. But I didn’t realise how tired Bentancur and Højbjerg would be, or that Conte either wouldn’t see this or just refused to start Skipp for his energy. And I think Perisic is a quality player but against teams who don’t sit in, it’s increasingly apparent that he doesn’t get up and down enough to be effective. Sess has his faults but at least he has energy. It was, undoubtedly, a bad day at the office for everyone apart from Lloris, and I doubt he was too happy either. Saying their first goal was a big deflection and that for the second Fernandes was lucky the ball broke like that and that he had a moment of quality from what was probably a chance with a low xG - those are valid. But you have to play well enough that when those things go against you, it matters less.
That’s madness I thought we made them look good as usual I think Conte believes in the system more than he believes in the players tbh
Playing 3 games a week was always going to catch up with our team, Conte has not rotated anywhere near enough to keep players fresh. The consequence is shiete performances like tonight, we were our own worst enemy, constantly playing out from the back and losing possession in our own third of the pitch. All 3 midfielders had poor games, giving away the ball all too often. The two goals were brought about by our own stupidity, not Penited`s great play, also a deflection and ricochet but they deserved their win, Spurs were abysmal. On the bright side, it has been our best start to a season since the 60`s, so lets not go too overboard with the criticism of Conte.
I guess this explains why Conte’s record in Europe isn’t great. rotation seems to be his Achilles heel
And the worst thing is that he’ll likely rotate in the domestics but the team will be so badly lacking match fitness and cohesion that we’ll probably crash out early, especially if we draw decent opposition.
Comments like that never end well. Poch made stupid and sappy comments towards the end of the 18/19 season then was sacked a few months into the following. Jose was moaning and also throwing players under the bus months before he got canned. Now this nonsense. Poch is probably checking his phone every five minutes…
Totally gutless performance by the outfield players and the manager.First sub should have been Gil for Son and Skipp for one of the three midfielders. We will never know if that would have been the answer, but doing nothing was was bad judgement by Conte, If we play that way at the weekend we are not going to get anything .
I have zero doubt in my mind that the club (Levy) sees Poch back at some point and I think Poch sees it too. Whether it’s in about 8 months or a few years remains to be seen though, if we keep playing like we’re doing this season it’ll be the former I’d imagine.
Well, sleep fatigue has some use (spared me being awake while the game was on) , Just had a look at the match stats, and even allowing for the fact Man Utd needed to put in a performance after their last game, that is really shocking. One thing that is obvious is that a manager/coach permeates an atmosphere throughout the squad. If it becomes toxic for any reason, the results will soon do for the manager. IMHO the atmosphere at the moment is just as it was for Jose and Nuno ball : risk aversion. Where winning 1-0 is valued far more highly by the manager than say winning 4-2. We are already seeing this with the "season compass" GD slowly spiralling to negative territory (which I have predicted) . So far the losses are limited this season to away games against the usual suspects, But the moment that is no longer the case ...
Yeah Chelsea was an awful performance but the team escaped with a draw. This and the Arsenal game they’ve been deserved beat.
Given you’ve made your best start to a Premier League season under Conte, and are on course to qualify for the KO stages of the CL, I am a little surprised at how robust some of you are in your criticism of him. That’s not to say he doesn’t deserve it, because I do think you were very poor against Chelsea, us and Man United. He has to take ownership for that. But some of you saying you’d hold off on contract talks or that you’re giving him until the WC to decide whether you want to explore new options is quite bold. Do you reckon your current league position isn’t reflective of your displays? Or do you worry that, in spite of (largely) positive results, his squad management will lead to problems being exacerbated further down the line?
Poch isn’t the answer, no doubt the man will give his all for the club and would love to return and win a trophy to cement his legacy but how often does it work out when someone goes back?
From the outside looking in, it does seem like all is well at Spurs and the team is where they’re supposed to be. My issue is this can’t carry on all season because sooner or later the results will drop off and then you’ll left with not much at all. It’s not like Conte is a new manager who needs time to get the players used to his ideas etc. Nor does he play attractive football, all he is, is results.
Almost never. But it feels like some weird love story with the club and him. One of those ****ty rom coms where 5 years after separation they’re back together and then married with kids. Problem is, in footballing terms, we won’t get married or have kids, we’ll just split again in 18 months or so, lol.
