Spending the afternoon looking for excuses to not test my niece's aerodynamic properties from a first floor window...
Not wishing to piss on anyone's strawberries, buy maybe worth remembering that we were top of the PL after 10 games last year. And look how that turned out!
This is something I cannot ever get my head around - Villas Boas had us top of the league - The ubermensch had us top of the league - Nuno has us top of the league - Poch never had us top of the league
Weird indeed... But it's the table at the end of the season that counts and Poch got closer than any of the others.
Good point but here's a few interesting things... Our attempts and on target attempts are... This season v City ... 13 attempts 3 on target 3 pts v Wolves ... 8 attempts 6 on target 3 pts v Watford ... 15 attempts 8 on target 3pts Total ... 36 attempts 17 on target 9 pts 3 clean sheets Last season v City ... 4 attempts 2 on target 3pts v Wolves... 6 attempts 3 on target 1pt v Fulham ... 15 attempts 6 on target 1pt (I used Fulham as they too played well v us and the stats are similar) Total 25 attempts 11 on target 5pts 0 clean sheets I ain't saying we turned a serious corner but we appear to be more attack minded and more defensively sound. Obviously we need to see where we are by November's International break... Our prem games by then are... Palace away, Chelsea home Arsenal away Villa home Newcastle away West Ham away Man Utd home Everton away Last season we drew 3 of those and lost the rest. We scored 9 conceded 15 and kept no clean sheets. That run will be a key test that shows if we have made progress.
Yeah but we had a Portuguese manager back then, we won't **** thi... oh. Well he didn't have a beard.
Just got home via a couple little tourneys in the Pool club (of course I won one!). Happy with the result and despite what I thought was a pretty "meh" performance, it should've been more. Dele fluffed a massive chance whilst Kane had Lucas' cross literally nicked off him by a great toe from the defender. I think today is a game that really lacked an Eriksen/ Modric for us though. The three CMs graft their arses off but there's very little by way of creativity between them and I think that could potentially harm us in other games against stubborn opposition as the front three were feeding off scraps or trying to create as well as attack, Kane especially was dropping very, very deep. On the flip side, the work rate of the CMs gives Sanchez and Dier a much easier game where their concentration isn't overly tested and I think Skipp's inclusion especially has been a real key factor in that. In each of his three starts, his first 10-15 minutes have been shaky but then he massively grows into the game and snuffs out a good number of attacks and loose balls, he's gonna be a star though, I'm sure of it. Great to see the receptions for Rose and Sissoko during and after the game, especially Rose. Blew the south stand a kiss before he started his lap round the pitch and then gave us a wave again when he left. Had to grab a pic, albeit it ain't the best.
Passmap time please log in to view this image Obviously the first thing which jumps out is the parallelogram between the CBs, midfield and Tanganga because not only are we doing a lot better at retaining possession due to the five of them routinely finding one another when they want to move on the ball, but there's also a good amount interplay between them where, for the most obvious example, Hojbjerg is regularly getting the ball from Tanganga, Skipp and Sanchez as you would expect, but also Dier is switching the ball to him However, something else sticks out, which is more obvious when you look at Watford's map please log in to view this image Watford's main outlet was Masina, whose options once he had the ball were to either take on his man or to move it on to either Dennis or Kucka. And yet when you look at our map, you see that we're leaning in hard on that side of the pitch, in much the same way we did against The Sheikh Mansour Team, but instead of a more counterattacking approach like we had in that game instead we won the ball and recycled it - which we were able to do due to the lack of traffic going through Watford's centre - waiting either for Harry Kane to drop deep and receive the ball or to switch it to the other flank and send Reguilon or Bergwijn on their way Of course, the other benefit of recycling the ball so much was that it kept Sarr out of the game not by having Reguilon shadowing him everywhere he went, but by keeping the ball as far away from his side of the pitch - which is something we did to remove Traore from the Wolves match So while the scoreline is drawing comparisons with last season's manager, the approach is different as we've played three different games yet had three different passmaps, with today's not only demonstrating a much better controlling of possession than anything we had last season, but also giving a tantalising glimpse of what we would be like if we had a playmaker alongside Skipp and Hojbjerg, because with the ball moving around so easily you can imagine what it would be like if we had somebody capable of either playing a through ball or simply driving through the lines in Dele's spot
He played well but two of those missed long passes should have been better placed and we would have had good scoring chances. And any mistakes he does make are less likely to lead to goal chances now Skipp is behind him.
I think that we're playing similar tactics to Liverpool, but we don't have the personnel. Reguilon and Tanganga aren't as creative as Robertson and Terence Trent D'arby, for a start. Having a half-fit Kane and playing Son on the right didn't help, either.
Yeah CK's mentioned this once or twice about trying Liverpool's tactics and I agree about lack of personnel. Surprised Kane started and played the full 90, Nuno went Poch/ Jose-esque there. I thought Son also looked knackered on about 70 mins, when he came over to take a corner he was moving like he'd just finished a marathon, he did take a knock earlier on though which look like it winded him so that may have had something to do with it.
For the Goons, in 2011-12 after 2 games Spurs were 0 pts with GF/GA of 1/8. Then immediately went on s 10 game winning run.
