The problem isn't bridging the talent gap between Spurs and the big clubs it is that the gap between Spurs the middle of the table isn't as great as we want to believe. It's true in most every sport that you know more about the guys on your team and rate them higher than players on other teams you don't know. Spurs are what the table says they are and it underlines what Conte has said. This is a long term project.
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Completely pissed away the first 45mins.
Better in the second half, but even then; totally infuriating the mount of times the ball was passed backward from wide positions to be recycled by the CBs or Winks. Without incisive aggressive passing, Burnley will soak such ponderous shit up for fun.
Gave away too many silly FKs in the FB position and whadya know; a header from a set piece was our eventual undoing........ Romero crap for their goal.
Lucky they didn't double their lead not long after.
Well fucked off! .......Beating City counts for nothing now.
Hope Bentancur isn't too messed up.
Better in the second half, but even then; totally infuriating the mount of times the ball was passed backward from wide positions to be recycled by the CBs or Winks. Without incisive aggressive passing, Burnley will soak such ponderous shit up for fun.
Gave away too many silly FKs in the FB position and whadya know; a header from a set piece was our eventual undoing........ Romero crap for their goal.
Lucky they didn't double their lead not long after.
Well fucked off! .......Beating City counts for nothing now.
Hope Bentancur isn't too messed up.
Romero with another lapse in concentration.
Yeah, good post. I was pretty annoyed by a couple of match thread posts talking about how Kane was selfish for taking on the shot that he sledgehammered a foot past the right post. Not only was it not a bad shot but Kane has scored so many goals, some of them important, from that sort of position, to the point where I remember, a couple of years ago, fans were begging him to take more long shots and be more selfish. As an England fan, if Kane hadn't got fed up of his teammates not creating anything and decided to take care of things himself by hitting that absolute screamer from 30 yards against Poland, we would've had to take our WCQ campaign down to the wire.
For no reason, I'll include the video. I'll never get tired of watching this. In slow-motion, it's one of the best international goals of all time.
Fortunately staying in a hotel near Burnley so haven’t got the five hour drive home. We are doing a bit of a northern tour-going to Leeds on Saturday then on to Middlesbrough on the Tuesday. Suckers for punishment.1chriswaddle andSpurshaker
Fair play to you and all the others who travelled to watch that shit in those conditions.
And yes, it was shit.
COYS!!!!!
Just spoken to a dejected Antonio Conte who described a 4th
@SpursOfficial
defeat in 5 as “a disaster”. Said conversations needed to be had and a solution found, and was willing for his future to be part of those conversations
@BBCSport
#bbcfootball
@SpursOfficial
defeat in 5 as “a disaster”. Said conversations needed to be had and a solution found, and was willing for his future to be part of those conversations
@BBCSport
#bbcfootball
Believe me, the same morons whinging would also be the first to complain if he didn't shoot often enough. Every striker will generally take a shot 9 times out of 10 even if better options are on, because all the best strikers around are greedy. Nobody shoots more than Lewandowski in the German league game after game and is a big reason why he scores as many goals as he does. While Kane does hit shots off target and there have been and are more clinical strikers around, there isn't anyone else at the club I would rather be taking a shot for us.
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We are in desperate shape. If we don’t get Europa no one will come here that’s in their prime. We will have to get lucky and find another Dele for five mil and hope he turns into a world beater. Hindsight and all but if we are gonna be stuck in mid table we should have sold Kane to City in the summer. Maybe we should sell him and Sonny both this summer if we don’t get an EL spot.
I've been saying it week after week. Unless Levy goes, which he won't, Conte will be gone at the end of the season, 100%. Enjoy him while we can, although he's clearly no magician.
We struggle against teams the sit and also those press.
The reason is simple. Technical deficiency is the common denominator for both.
At this level quality makes the difference. Not heart and running yourself into the ground. Quality. This quality we severely lack. The other thing that makes a difference is IQ. Decision making is critical at this level. Another thing which we lack severely.
Technically deficient players struggle against teams that press because they don't have time on the ball. They panic and cough up the ball particularly in dangerous areas allowing the opposition good chances. You need players comfortable on the ball and able to control and manipulate it. This is why Modric and Dembele are so valued by their fellow footballers because in tight situations you give them the ball and 99% of the time they know its safe with them.
Technically deficient players struggle against teams that sit back too.
You need the IQ also to know when to pass, shoot, dribble against a team that sits. But you also need the quality to be able to play a through ball. City are the best at this because they have quality to break teams down but also high IQ players like Bernardo and historically David Silva. We had Eriksen do it for us. It also goes into more depth, people didn't appreciate Eriksen and Dembele enough for me.
There's one thing passing but Eriksen was different to an average no. 10. He knew when to pass short, or pass long. He knew when to switch the play. He knew when to keep the ball to recycle it, or play a through ball. This is all football IQ. Literally Kane is the only player in the whole squad who has this.
When we faff about in the first half of games , like we did tonight , you just know in your heart of hearts what the outcome is going to be . Frustrating as fuck!Completely pissed away the first 45mins.
Better in the second half, but even then; totally infuriating the mount of times the ball was passed backward from wide positions to be recycled by the CBs or Winks. Without incisive aggressive passing, Burnley will soak such ponderous shit up for fun.
Gave away too many silly FKs in the FB position and whadya know; a header from a set piece was our eventual undoing........ Romero crap for their goal.
Lucky they didn't double their lead not long after.
Well fucked off! .......Beating City counts for nothing now.
Hope Bentancur isn't too messed up.
Can't see the video, but the other side to that coin is when, in one of the few times we got behind them in the first half, Sonny went alone when Harry was in an acre of space and only Pope to beat.
I suppose it's striker syndrome, the very thing that makes them killers in terms of goals also makes them miss the bigger picture.
And this is the best pairing in Premier League© history with the greatest mutual understanding.
Shadydan
That's why this game is harder than City.
I rest my case.
I see right through this lot.
Predictable.
I apologise
Ryan Sessegnon embodies what is wrong at Spurs right now. He just isn’t up to it and yet he’s in the team, even getting a start.
People on here say he lacks confidence. Some why then is he even a professional sportsman?
Footballers seem to get away with it because they lose themselves in the team but a tennis player, a golfer, an athlete wouldn’t get this far if they didn’t have the two attributes of a top (ie professional) player, that is pure skill and a competitive brain.
The mindset is key to being a top sportsman. If Sess doesn’t have it we should not be employing him.
People on here say he lacks confidence. Some why then is he even a professional sportsman?
Footballers seem to get away with it because they lose themselves in the team but a tennis player, a golfer, an athlete wouldn’t get this far if they didn’t have the two attributes of a top (ie professional) player, that is pure skill and a competitive brain.
The mindset is key to being a top sportsman. If Sess doesn’t have it we should not be employing him.
I think you've hit on the right point, that we have a midfield problem and I think it's been both an offensive and defensive issue. We've had some decent enough players, but never the right mix since the peak Pochettino years.
I agree with you on Dembele, he was the key to our best sides. I won't get into my opinions on Eriksen, as I think he's given far too much credit for our success during those years and went missing incredibly regularly. We've lacked tough midfielders who can both win and progress the ball like we had with Dembele, Wanyama, young Dier, Our midfielders since then can only do one of those things or neither.
I do look forward to hopefully seeing Skipp and Bentancur play and develop together though. They have a bit more diverse, consistent, and balanced skillsets than the likes of Hojbjerg, Winks, Sissoko, Ndombele, Lo Celso, and the washed up versions of Wanyama, Dele, and Eriksen who have dominated our midfield minutes since Poch left.
Ironically, considering the amount of whining, not really at all. He was among the top 2-3 strikers in Europe by G/xG (which is the best available quantitative metric of pure clinical-ness) from the time between his breakout season and last season, consistently beating Messi, Ronaldo, Lewa etc. Unsurprisingly, it's for the exact reason you gave: Lewa, for example, gets so many opportunities to shoot and thus shoots so much that despite his ridiculous goalscoring record, he's misses plenty and is actually not that clinical. Maybe Lewa et al. would be more clinical if they had to really focus on a smaller number of chances like Kane but as it stands, Kane has had a much more clinical career than them thus far.
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Kane does miss chances, especially this season, but I'd always be far more worried if he started hiding but he never does. But if he's one vs one with a keeper you would generally back him all day long, as you would all the better strikers and forwards around.
I've made that point about Lewandowski here many times. He has games where he scores a hat-trick against some German pub team and that's all people really focus on. But I've seen plenty of games where he could have had four, five and six, such are the amount ot chances his world-class team mates make for him.
I get that, but he's only playing because Reguilon is out and we don't have another LB. I don't think mediocre rotation players in the crux of the problem with Tottenham right now, even at our best we always struggled when our top choices were injured.
The real problem is at full strength, we can't field an 11 of top-four quality players. It's Kane, Son, Lloris, Romero, and maybe in-form Dier and Reguilon if we're really stretching the parameters. Then TBD on the two new signings.
I think Sessegnon is more indicative of what is wrong with Spurs in that he was another big money signing who is a capable bench player, but not good enough to improve the starting 11. Same with Bergwijn, Lo Celso, Gil, Doherty, Sanchez, Rodon, and Emerson. We've struggled so much in the last five years to buy players that become consistent first 11 players.
Maybe you could call Emerson and Doherty shocking signings, but most our recent signings have ability and aren't total shit, but aren't starting 11 caliber for a side with top 4 ambitions. So we have more depth than ever, but we don't have enough first team quality for them to be in depth roles.