I see why they overturned the penalty decision. On one angle, the angle which they eventually decided was definitive, it appears that the ball hit the defender's head first before his arm. It didn't appear that way initially. But did it hit his head, or did it just seem to hit it from a certain angle? All I know is that I don't think I've ever seen a player *not* react to being unexpectedly hit in the head by the ball. The defender gave no indication that it had. Neither react to the impact, nor gesture that the ball had hit his head so the penalty should not be given. He didn't protest much at all. So I wonder if it really did, or whether it just appeared to happen from the angle they chose to use? Also, as was said, what would be the chance of a Varpool or Penunited penalty being overturned under the same circumstances?
As soon as I heard Hoddle the sound was turned off ,I cannot stand him considering I worshipped him as a player
Passmap time please log in to view this image That's another match where the CB to WB traffic has been poor, and while it's easy to make Sanchez the scapegoat it's a similar story between Davies and Perisic, albeit one that shows Davies' mobility is opening up space in the way that Sanchez' being static doesn't. As a result, we wound up making sausage through the middle so our play wasn't as expansive Or, to put it another way, this is what happens when our back line is put under pressure without Romero to relieve it, as Davies had to do twice the work
Our defence spent a lot of time dithering with the ball at the back yesterday. Moving the ball forward and OUT of our box should surely have been the priority as West Ham were only dangerous when in our box. It would have been better IMO if our goalkeeper and defenders had cleared the ball upfield where we had more than an even chance of picking it up and inflicting damage. Despite all the systems and assorted line ups football is still essentially a simple game. Keep it out of your box and put it in theirs is still quite effective.
I think this illustrates two things - firstly that Emerson is a problem at RWB. From watching us this season and seeing that graphic from yesterday it confirms that him being there just leaves Deki out of the game and presents problems all over the pitch - the RCB, especially if it’s Sanchez, doesn’t have an easy out ball in possession, and that makes him more vulnerable to the press and also makes us more predictable as our more technically able left side is where we obviously want to put a lot of the ball, but as teams have shown already this season, you can cause us problems by marking Sonny out of the game. Having Kulu on the right only helps us stretch the game if we can actually get him the ball. Secondly it looks like from the graphic that Højbjerg and Biss were basically playing in the same space. This isn’t good at all. I think a bit of that probably comes from a lack of familiarity with each other and Biss maybe still adapting, but also as our right side isn’t functioning like they left, they probably both want to play in the central/left space so they have more progressive options on the ball, than if they’re on the right and there’s less open for them. I think we can get away with Emerson at RWB if we have Romero in the team as he’s better on the ball than Sanchez. But Emerson and Sanchez together unbalances the team, isolates Kulu, contributes towards negating Son, and causes structural issues in our midfield. We need to learn from that. Hopefully, as we have other options coming back in CM and the likes of Spence and hopefully Doherty get more game time in the coming weeks, some of this will be solved.
The thing is he is an out ball for Romero, but there's a key difference: Romero tends to move the ball upfield before releasing Emerson, which is reflected in passmaps as his dot is usually about halfway between where Sanchez and Davies are on this one, but Sanchez doesn't and that does create a distance between CB and RWB that makes the pass that bit easier to pick off if our defence is under pressure - as well as force our play into the middle This is why changing up the back line really should have been considered when the cheap yellows came into play, as either putting Lenglet in the middle and moving Dier to the right or a straight swap of Tanganga for Sanchez would (in theory, anyway...) have improved our moving the ball from the back either by passing or moving the ball upfield
Sanchez cannot make a pass to anyone without taking a touch. You can endure loadsa passes when they are fast + forward but the slow + sideways sh*te is IMHO unacceptable for pros playing at this level. If I was coach they would be spending a whole day in training doing nothing but positioning for / making the fast + forward passes.
I don’t think shuffling the CBs solves anything. Japh isn’t any better on the ball than Sanchez and Dier could play RCB but he’s also the only proven option we have in the middle so moving him out destroys the balance. I think it’s more about making sure we have a technically reliable and progressive RWB who can help mitigate some of the deficiencies on the ball we see from Sanchez. Romero tends to carry the ball well but will also send it down the right, usually trying to force some sort of interplay between Kulu, a CM and the RWB as a result, but with several ingredients of that situation missing, we badly lose an outlet.
You need to distinguish between "derby" and "cup final" . All the London teams have N games against each other, but only the Spanners have two of them as "cup finals" .
I think that the balance was off for a lot of reasons last night. Perisic and Son haven't clicked yet and Sanchez and Emerson lack creativity badly. We might have got away with that if we could sit back and break, but that was their plan, too. Bissouma ****ed himself with the early card and was far too conservative with his passing. All that together meant no width and nothing through the middle. We managed ok in the first half and should probably have killed it off. We dropped off heavily after their equaliser though and I think that's Conte's fault. A hobbling Hojbjerg, ineffective Son and too deep Kane and we only made one sub? Poor.
The fact that Hojbjerg became increasingly less mobile as the game progressed due to the clattering to his ankle in the first half probably had some effect as well.
You’re right it’s not a foul throw. Only thing wrong with the goal was the lack of defending by Spurs.
Everyone switched off. Lloris was immediately appealing for something, which is unusual. Maybe it was that? Don't get beat at your near post and it's not an issue, though.
Hojbjerg doesn't do well at all but Sanchez was far too slow to pick up on the danger and move out to close Soucek down. And Hugo got beat at his near post for the umpteenth time. It was bad all round.
