Conte is right we don’t have the minerals for the big occasions something else a few of us have been calling for years
Not sure how you fix it though. Our best player (HK) goes missing - or at least doesn't dominate - in semis and finals, we've bought Perisic, Romero, Bentacur and Kulusevski and still the issue remains. It's more than just swapping out a few players.
That’s our problem..I still don’t know how it gets fixed but I do believe that’s our problem. Harry Kane and Son for me don’t lead by example in the big ones...I’m afraid it seems to be the case for us that our 2 biggest stars don’t have that thing in them so we don’t get that edge that truly takes us over the line in these situations against the big teams. Only time I can say Harry did that was when we beat the Goonz 2-1 and he scored a belter from the right wing cutting in and curling it…then the header. That was someone grabbing the game by the balls with intent. It was like…no…I am not losing today. I don’t sense that no where near enough as I expect from someone who is the leader. I can’t help but look at Pool because I believe we have been on similar journeys for the past 8 years. Liverpool took their period of strength and made the most of it…is that because of their mentality? The ethos of the club? I just know that we were where they were recently…but they banked the trophies and we just coasted through as nearly men through our period of strength. I don’t want to pull out the ENIC stick because then it’s like I’ve gone off on a tangent but I do believe the mentality of our owners has moulded our club and they don’t crave silverware like they crave buying another plot of land. If nothing else we should be concerned that we have the ability to turn great managers into absolute turd…that’s concerning but very telling imo. we got the formation most on here have been craving..we got Doherty instead of Emerson and we got Bissouma instead of Richy for better balance…result? the same spineless stench about our game.
It's quite simple. In the big matches we are almost always up against teams that have better players than us because they have had bigger budgets for many years. It will take a good while longer to turn that around and the only short cut is dodgy money. Conte and Pochettino have both got us into the top four despite this big disadvantage because they are excellent coaches who get more out of the players than an average coach. I think they are the only Spurs' coaches in my lifetime that this is true of. Even Bill Nicholson didn't really outperform given the team he had. What went wrong with Pochettino is that we trusted him on big buys despite him having no track record in that regard. We need to keep Conte and give him the best players we can afford.
Having slept on it and paused for reflection, I think it is important to remember that we still have an awful lot of players who just aren't top 4 quality, let alone of the standard to challenge for major trophies. Most of these players were here before Conte. Some of them have improved massively since his arrival, but fundamentally at their core, they just aren't good enough for what we require. I would list them as follows: Dier Doherty Sess Royal Lucas Richarlison Perisic (no longer has the legs for it, sorry but this is the cold hard truth) Sanchez Gil Let me be clear: I'm not saying these guys are all bad players. I'm just saying that the overwhelming evidence from their careers so far suggests that they aren't quite good enough. January and this summer gone were important windows to begin to address the neglect of the previous 3 years, but let's be honest we still have an awfully long way to go to fix this, especially when you consider the fact that we have a bunch of players out on loan who are of an even lower standard than the ones I've just listed, who all preceded Conte and who are all unsurprisingly proving bloody hard to get rid of. We improved our overall squad this summer and Conte deserves the criticism he's getting for not making the most of a newfound strength in depth. But our first XI? Barely improved it at all. In the cold light of day, we are still found lacking on both flanks (signing two prospects rather than immediate improvements), in the central CB position (Dier has improved massively but just isn't quite good enough nor will he ever be), and the jury is out on CM and LCB where we have solid if unspectacular options. We are at a minimum 3 first team players short of where we need to be to even begin thinking about properly challenging. January will be crucial. Doesn't need to be a huge splash like the summer was. Just 1 or 2 genuinely quality players who like Bentancur and Kulu will walk straight into the first team and improve it. I don't think we'll manage both flanks, nor do we necessarily need to with Udogie coming next season. But CB and RWB need to be addressed urgently and we need better options in creative midfield and attack. The following players are out of contract in June; we'd do well to look into them: Zaha Trossard Skriniar Tielemans Asensio Ndicka Mac Allister Kamada Aouar Brererton Diaz
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them. ― William Shakespeare In football, the first two means that the leaders are evident from the outset or soon emerge in time. The latter is that when the burden is thrust upon them, the player rises to the task of leader. The latter is therefore on the manager. For example, does Conte have the balls to say make a fully fit Skipp captain in a starting XI, and say : Show me what you can do
I'm sorry, but I'm not buying that it's all on the players. Brentford battered this lot. They don't have better players than we do. If this is all down to mentality, then that's on the manager. He was backed financially and he's got a lot of what he wanted. It's up to him to get the players up for it and in the right frame of mind. I don't think that it was mentality, anyway. He made some poor choices, it went badly and he failed to adjust. The same thing happened at Stamford Bridge and the Emirates. He nearly let it get away from us at the Spam, too. Perisic hasn't adjusted yet and he's getting exposed a lot. How does he stay on the pitch for 89 minutes? I still think that we can use him, just not in the role that he's doing right now. He nullifies Son with his positioning and leaves the LCB far too open.
That list doesn’t really contain too many who’d genuinely improve us. Diaz isn’t better than Richarlison. Ndicka is still relatively unproven and doesn’t have a higher pedigree than Lenglet. Aouar isn’t being touched by any club, likely an unspoken issue with him, hasn’t been that good for a while either. Mac Allister is ok but doesn’t really improve us. Asensio’s fallen off a cliff. Tielemans has been **** for a while now. Trossard does look a player and I’d warm to the idea of signing him but I don’t think he’s better than Perisic, albeit could probably play in the same team. Zaha improves the squad, we should’ve signed him instead of Richarlison this summer. Skriniar is the only one who’d offer genuine improvement in the first XI.
Zaha will run his contract down and join a good team where he'll expect to start. He wouldn't displace Son and certainly wouldn't have expected to after last season. It would be a very odd decision to join us.
It would’ve been the same situation for him as it is Richarlison. Both would’ve known that displacing Son on the left would’ve been almost impossible but likely would’ve fancied their chances of beating Kulusevski into the team, along with knowing they’d get plenty of games regardless though. Zaha is also more versatile as he really can play both wings and has done a job centrally for Palace too. Richarlison can’t play on the right.
Richarlison wouldn't have joined us either if he had a year left on his contract. He can't really play on the right and he definitely can't do it in our system. He can play as a proper striker though, so he probably expected to be rotated. Conte really doesn't seem comfortable doing that with a lot of players, though. I can't say that I understand his problem with it or how he manages it, to be honest. Lenglet and Davies have both played well, but he's happy to switch between them. It's clearly not an issue with the concept itself. He'll trust players who aren't playing well and won't give others chances. It's odd.
It’s hard to say if he would or wouldn’t have. Zaha has been desperate for a big move for years, I think had any team in Europa or above made an acceptable bid in the summer he’d have left Palace in a hurry, I suppose the sticky point would’ve been what Palace deemed acceptable, they’ve priced him out of moves in the past and probably wouldn’t have lowered the valuation too much, even though he’s soon to be 30 with 12 months left on his deal. As for rotation, I’ve borderline given up on trying to understand Conte’s decisions. I thought Lenglet would’ve played last night seeing as Davies played on the weekend and the formation probably would’ve suited Lenglet better but in general it’s just a load of **** what Conte’s doing at the moment. We’ll see Emerson and Sessegnon on the weekend though, that’ll be fun.
Brentford played them without fear we don’t play big names without fear due to our expectancies Brentford probably felt they had nothing to lose, everything to gain I sense with us it’s everything to lose and the fear at the thought of it and we usually crumble in them situations
Sitting back and attempting to counter with no creative players will do that. The only way that we can release pressure and put it on the other team is by scoring. The setup was all wrong yesterday and the manager failed to change it.
Oh I agree, to genuinely improve the starting XI we'd have to spend and spend big, just like the teams we're trying to catch. The players I listed there could be got without breaking the bank and would improve our options and in some cases (Trossard and Skriniar) might even improve the first team. Our failure to invest properly in the wing back positions is killing us this season. And I know you are a massive fanboy of his and probably have posters of him up in your bedroom, but replacing Reguilon with Perisic has taken us a step backwards. As PNP argued above and I pointed out maybe a month ago, his class is indisputable but he simply hasn't got the legs anymore. He can't stretch defences or get back quickly enough to help our own back line. There is no coincidence that since his arrival, Son's form has evaporated as he hasn't got a live wire winger creating space for him to exploit, while out back line suddenly looks shocking because there are fewer men back to help. A couple of good crosses and set piece deliveries per game just isn't enough at this level. Sure, we'll gain around 10 goals a season from them, but if Son loses 11 goals across a season we've made a net loss. He's a great option to have on the bench, for weaker opposition and to generally have around the training ground due to his experience and CV. But starting against the better sides? Absolutely not. If I had my way, come January we'll recall Reguilon, sell Sess and drop Perisic to the bench.
Our whole system relies on us scoring first That’s the biggest turd thing about it if we don’t score first then we are gazumped and it is null and void I was chatting to my lad last night and I was saying that we are renowned for being a counter attacking team nowadays but I don’t see why we carry that title because we are not very affective with our one and only weapon so how can it define our style? it’s baffling
This game was a "free throw" in "season compass" terms (as was the NLD) . Therefore the only "fear" of going Audere est facere in those games was losing worse than the 1-3 + 2-3 of last season. So how did that go this time ?? 1-3 + 0-2. - no points gained - one less goal conceded - two less goals scored (the first time this season a PL club has prevented Spurs from scoring) . < chapeau >
