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Manager Jose Mourinho

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It’s not just down to a few poor players. Jose said after last night’s game that “you cannot win football matches with (individual) mistakes like that..”.
For an individual mistake to happen there first had to be a tactical team mistake to put the individual in that position. For a defender to be in a position to make a mistake we first have to lose possession and the defensive midfield has to have let the attackers through.
I hope Jose doesn’t just write the loss off to an individual, otherwise the glaring tactical problems will not get addressed.

Really?
You think professional football players at an elite level only make mistakes because they followed the coaches tactics and the tactics were wrong?

If a goalkeeper fucks up, is it the coaches fault? Nope, Individual error.
If Kane heads wide of an open net, is that the coaches fault? Nope, individual error.
Dier has no fucking idea where his man is, Rodon looking the wrong way - Coaches fault. Go figure.

The fault isn;t the tactics. They're over rated.
The fault is mainting faith in terrible players.
 
Jose could argue that we lost because of 3 individual errors
The problem is individual errors are happening every week because the players he is picking are not good enough and if he takes out eg. Rodon he puts in Sanchez who is error prone. Of all our defenders I only really trust Tanganga and Reguilon and we have 9 defenders. That's just not good enough.
The thing that Jose has to understand is perhaps his style of relying heavily on his defense won't work with this personelle and its up to him to adapt that.
 
The main point is I've watched many a team play progressive football under the tutelage of a good coach with limited players, who has them performing better than the sum of their parts. This is absolutely fundamental part of identifying a talented manager. (I've listed them before and I think we are on the same page on these managers) and Poch was also a classic example of this when he joined us.

The results may not be there, but the performance can be and conclusions can be debated about what is lacking etc. The biggest example of this is Hasslehuttle and Potter. Their squads are completly bare of any world-class talent but they play well but ultimately let down by not having player 'X', 'Y' or 'Z' in whatever position.

Playing as we are it's simply impossible to draw too much onto player 'X' as shit when none of them, with the exception of Son and Kane, are set up to succeed. I have said from the day we signed Doherty that he's not as good as Aurier, whilst taking a ton of flack at the time I think it's fair to say I might have been right on that score. BUT, I'm not bashing the fella because they way we are set up means all of our defenders are going to make errors and will eventually result in the oppo profiting from it. The said player then becomes the object of derision, led by the chief cheerleader Jose himself.

The pressure that our players are now having to perform under is immense, they are terrified at making a mistake, which either manifests in them making a mistake or us playing risk-averse pass and boring shite, or as in our case BOTH! When a team is drilled to be fearful of an opponent’s threat, this is the approach to which we will default in times of stress. The defensive line that drops just a couple of yards, the ambitious through ball eschewed in favour of a safe sideways pass, the little cues that alert an opponent that the momentum is shifting, the forward 10yrd run to receive the ball is not made as they think the player on the ball will lose it, and they will then be out of position, to not show for the ball at all as this might invite an error. This is the downward spiral of what is manifesting itself on the pitch.

Good managers have the players walking on air, having them confident and therefore wanting the ball, looking for it, showing for it. From this baseline, good and poor players can be identified. Potter can look at his attacking options and know that with a better forward selection they can score more goals, Ralph will know another CB with pace and an aggressive 6 is a must if he wants to maintain his high-line.
It's not just Hasenhuttl and Potter with their squad quality, DAVID FUCKING MOYES is making Mourinho look like an amateur at WEST FUCKING HAM.

This is where Mourinho has this squad right now. I don't know how people can defend it.
 
Toby didn't look convincing against Wycombe and would likely disrupt the back 3. He is also right footed and would likely need to play deeper to make up for his lack of pace.

Doherty played RWB, so except for not being left footed, he would seem the most logical choice.

Whoever played there was always going to be an issue as there was no training session left to try things out. Doherty confined the problem to only one position. Moving people around might have propagated it to multiple positions.

Then don't play with a back 3. If the formation he wants means we have to put out weaker players in positions they are not good in then change the formation.

Toby has been by far our best CB this season, if putting him in the line-up disrupts anything that is a problem with the other guys not him.

Davies starting isn't ideal but as a LB in a back 4 he would have been a much better option than playing a struggling Doherty out of position.
 
Can’t remember who it was that said this on this forum.
Think it originally came from here

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Got my suspicions that going to a back three is because Ndombele has been moved deeper into the midfield two. I don't think Mourinho fully trusts him yet, sees it as opening up the midfield, and so is adding defensive reinforcement to compensate.

Doesn't explain the selections though. I can only assume that he sees neither Dier or Alderweireld as the wider centrebacks stationed in the channels, so becomes a choice between them.
 
It's not just Hasenhuttl and Potter with their squad quality, DAVID FUCKING MOYES is making Mourinho look like an amateur at WEST FUCKING HAM.

This is where Mourinho has this squad right now. I don't know how people can defend it.
Southampton are 11th
Brighton are 17th
Why exactly are you jealous exactly?

Surely you don't wanna watch us tippy tappy the ball about every week and get beat and finish bottom half/go down?

Wst Ham won't last. You know it. They know it.
 
Then don't play with a back 3. If the formation he wants means we have to put out weaker players in positions they are not good in then change the formation.

Toby has been by far our best CB this season, if putting him in the line-up disrupts anything that is a problem with the other guys not him.

Davies starting isn't ideal but as a LB in a back 4 he would have been a much better option than playing a struggling Doherty out of position.
You never cease to amuse.

He had the players to play a back 3 and played it successfully against sheffield. The last minute injury to Reguilon was just unfortunate.

Toby was poor against Wycombe. Your mind seems to be stuck on Toby from a few seasons ago. Rodon was better than theToby we saw a few days ago.
 
You never cease to amuse.

He had the players to play a back 3 and played it successfully against sheffield. The last minute injury to Reguilon was just unfortunate.

Toby was poor against Wycombe. Your mind seems to be stuck on Toby from a few seasons ago. Rodon was better than theToby we saw a few days ago.

You focus so much on that one game. It wasn't Toby from a few seasons ago it is Toby from this year that has been better by far than any other CB we have. Not in the past but this season. Rodon certainly was not better than Toby a few days ago.

And playing successfully against arguably the worst PL team of all time does not mean you should shoe horn players into position because of it. We have played better games against better teams with 4 at the back just fine.
 
It's not just Hasenhuttl and Potter with their squad quality, DAVID FUCKING MOYES is making Mourinho look like an amateur at WEST FUCKING HAM.

This is where Mourinho has this squad right now. I don't know how people can defend it.
100%!! They were just two managers and Clubs that I think demonstrate at an extreme of what I think constitutes a good manager getting their teams to perform far better than the sum of their parts and play better football than us, while it's crystal clear their individual players are substantiality worse players than us to a man than ours.

When they drop points and they do frequently, you can still witness what it is they are attempting to do and how they are trying to do it. And in both cases their issues are laid bare, it's easy to identify where the holes in the squad are, what they miss and why they didn't win a game where they deserved to on the balance of play.

As I said it's an extreme example, for which I choose deliberately to illustrate a point.

I think West Ham have signed some good players in the last couple of seasons, they have always had a manager who's struggled to get them to play. To Moyes's credit, he has got his team to run and work hard, I don't think they are a joy to watch, but they have some significant injuries to that squad and he's got them playing effectively, basically, he's got them playing the way Jose wants us to play. West ham have some better players than both Brighton and Southampton.

I maintain that there are at least 15 other mangers that will improve us over Jose.
 
Southampton are 11th
Brighton are 17th
Why exactly are you jealous exactly?

Surely you don't wanna watch us tippy tappy the ball about every week and get beat and finish bottom half/go down?

Wst Ham won't last. You know it. They know it.
Brighton advanced metrics are far better than ours have been this season. You implement Potter's methods with a squad quality of Spurs and we'd be in much better position than we are now.
 
You focus so much on that one game. It wasn't Toby from a few seasons ago it is Toby from this year that has been better by far than any other CB we have. Not in the past but this season. Rodon certainly was not better than Toby a few days ago.

And playing successfully against arguably the worst PL team of all time does not mean you should shoe horn players into position because of it. We have played better games against better teams with 4 at the back just fine.
Rodon did well against one of the best attacks in the PL while Toby made one of the worst attacks in the championship look like CL contenders. But we should ignore that cos it doesn't suit your narrative.

He was not shoehorning players by choice. A last minute injury and the lack of depth is what changed things and he decided to play someone who was a RWB for the past few seasons as LWB - it was a reasonable choice that's no different from playing a RB as a LB. If the injury had occured earlier, of course they might have gone a different route. But you don't tell players to simply forget all they had been training for and switch at the last minute for an already high pressure game.

More so, while Doherty struggled offensively his positioning was still good and most of the threat came on the other side where the more natural footed Aurier was having one of his usual games. Aurier repeatedly left Mane and Robertson free until it cost us a goal.
 
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Apparently 9 other teams in the league have a better quality squad than Spurs. We are actually overperforming our underlying metrics somehow, both xG and xGA. Higher than xG makes sense because of our finishing from Son/Kane, but our bad players in defense are somehow overperforming as well.
 
Jose could argue that we lost because of 3 individual errors
The problem is individual errors are happening every week because the players he is picking are not good enough and if he takes out eg. Rodon he puts in Sanchez who is error prone. Of all our defenders I only really trust Tanganga and Reguilon and we have 9 defenders. That's just not good enough.
The thing that Jose has to understand is perhaps his style of relying heavily on his defense won't work with this personelle and its up to him to adapt that.
i agree, the problem is no matter what system or style you play you still need a competent defence and we are far from having that. the defence needs a major overhaul and asap. donkeys on the ball and donkeys off the ball.

aurier, doherty, sanchez and dier.....jesus fucking christ. its actually comical
 
Rodon did well against one of the best attacks in the PL while Toby made one of the worst attacks in the championship look like CL contenders. But we should ignore that cos it doesn't suit your narrative.

We should ignore it because it is complete BS.

If you think Wycombe in any way looked like CL contenders then that says everything we need to know about your argument. If you think Toby was anywhere close to the poorest defender in that game it says an equal amount of how clueless you really are.

Rodon was fine, not great. I know people are excited about him because he is kind of young and fans always want to hope that a player like him is secretly the answer to our problems because that is easier than facing reality but there is no reason to overrate his performance.
 
We should ignore it because it is complete BS.

If you think Wycombe in any way looked like CL contenders then that says everything we need to know about your argument. If you think Toby was anywhere close to the poorest defender in that game it says an equal amount of how clueless you really are.

Rodon was fine, not great. I know people are excited about him because he is kind of young and fans always want to hope that a player like him is secretly the answer to our problems because that is easier than facing reality but there is no reason to overrate his performance.
What we saw against Wycombe is the most relevant evidence and not Toby preinjury or from one or more seasons ago. Toby made Ikpeazu look like the second coming of Drogba. Maybe he is not fully recovered from his injury or has just declined further, but by the latest evidence he shouldn't be starting ahead of anyone except Sanchez.

There is nothing to overrate about Rodon's performance. He simply played well against a very good striker like Mane. I personally still want to see him in a back 4, but weighing all factors, he is the best of the lot, which just simply shows how bad the rest are.
 
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