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Manager Ange Postecoglou

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BJK said:
Totally agree. I also consider this squad to be handmade for some variation of a 3 at the back.

CBs: Romero and VdV are already doing a good job at the impossible task of trying to defend in a back 2. Because that's what we play right now. 2 full backs marching forwards, no holding midfielder dropping between CR and VDV. As soon as we turn it over these two are faced with covering the whole width of the pitch, until full backs get back at least. I assume having another CB between them can only do good.

WBs: I also agree that Porro and Udogie are well-suited as WBs because that's essentially what they're right now anyway. Only difference is they can't freely hug the touchline like actual WBs because there are wingers in the way. If those wingers don't offer much threat with the ball anyway (they don't), then just getting rid of them and allowing Porro and Udogie to have the entire flank for themselves will probably make their job easier. At least in possession.

MCs-AMCs: I don't want to spend much time talking about them as I don't think their responsibilities would be vastly different in a 3 at the back compared to current 4 at the back we're playing. Just take your pick of 2 or 3 among them depending on scoreline, opposition, conditioning and so on.

Striker: Now that's interesting. IMO none of our three main wingers are wingers in the more traditional sense. Especially Johnson and Werner are very limited on the ball. They don't have much tricks in their sleeve when taking a defender on 1v1. They barely beat their man and deliver a good ball like traditional wingers do. I don't think they belong to this team but if they have a saving grace, especially Johnson, it's their off-ball movement. Solanke is an all-around striker who's suitable for a target man / decoy role. Bringing these two together, I suggest a frontline where Solanke as the lone striker is closely surrounded by runners like Werner, Son, and Johnson moving into openings created by him. Even the likes of Maddison or Kulusevski can be fitted into this role. As I said it's not great. I would rather not to see the likes of Johnson and Werner on the team but since there's no immediate fix available we might as well try something different to fully utilize their strenghts.

So, all things considered, I'm imagining something like this:

Vicario
Romero- Dragusin- VdV
Porro-----------MC--------MC---------Udogie
X----------Son
Solanke​

This current 4 at the back, with wingers offering zero creativity, midfielders leaving 2 CBs totally exposed, everybody mindlessly pushing forward, Solanke often being left alone inside the box stuff is not working.
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Drop the 343 bollocks because you know for a fact that would see Son stranded out on the left flank offering f' all and Johnson most likely hugging the right ghosting through games.

Go 352 with Maddison central attacking, Solanke and one of Son or Johnson playing through the middle but without the burden of being a lone striker. Ask nothing of BJ/Son other than find space and finish, that's all they're good for so we should find a system that exploits this. Even Werner could fulfil this role to some degree.

Anything that demands guile/creativity on a consistent basis from these guys is doomed to fail.
 
Herclueless said:
Drop the 343 bollocks because you know for a fact that would see Son stranded out on the left flank offering f' all and Johnson most likely hugging the right ghosting through games.

Go 352 with Maddison central attacking, Solanke and one of Son or Johnson playing through the middle but without the burden of being a lone striker. Ask nothing of BJ/Son other than find space and finish, that's all they're good for so we should find a system that exploits this. Even Werner could fulfil this role to some degree.

Anything that demands guile/creativity on a consistent basis from these guys is doomed to fail.
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Son offers fuck all as a 90 minute player anyway. He needs to be an impact sub. 30 minutes at the end of every game.
 
Herclueless said:
Drop the 343 bollocks because you know for a fact that would see Son stranded out on the left flank offering f' all and Johnson most likely hugging the right ghosting through games.

Go 352 with Maddison central attacking, Solanke and one of Son or Johnson playing through the middle but without the burden of being a lone striker. Ask nothing of BJ/Son other than find space and finish, that's all they're good for so we should find a system that exploits this. Even Werner could fulfil this role to some degree.

Anything that demands guile/creativity on a consistent basis from these guys is doomed to fail.
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Fine by me. If you think a 3-4-2-1 that I described would in practice evolve into 2 players hugging the line, and that nothing would change fundamentally from current 4-3-3 / 4-2-3-1 we're playing, then go straight 3-5-2.

As long as it's not 2 at the back disguised as 4 (with Romero and VdV totally exposed), 2 wingers offering nothing nonsense we're currently playing then I have no complaints.
 
Matt1882 said:
Sacking him while we're in 3 cups makes more sense than not sacking him. Results are getting worse and worse with more frequency.
We won't win any of them with him here.
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We are not winning any of them with him here or with someone else in charge.......there is no winning culture at the club, there hasn't been for decades. The current crop of players definitely don't have the cojones to win a trophy
 
Aphex said:
The issue for me when people talk about rebuilds and compare to Arteta and Klopp is that, their system and tactics were never as diabolical as Ange's is.

In fact Klopp looked the real deal from the very start, and Arteta always prioritised defensive solidity and balance in his approach.

Ange's tactical system is completely clueless, so anyone who thinks just giving him time and new players will lead to success is honestly deluded.

And I question just what the club thinks they are doing by persevering with this approach? Do they honestly think Ange is the man who has worked out the PL by just going all out attack? We've already seen in the past 18 months it doesn't work and will never work.

So Ange is a dead man walking, it will never work, his approach is fundamentally flawed and naïve and he is too stubborn to change.

More worrying for me is not Ange, I already know he's failed. My issue is if the club haven't worked this out yet and still think he's the man to take us to glory. Because if they do, it means they are fucking inept and we have a bunch of clowns running the club including Lange and Munn.

That is more concerning for me, because Ange will be gone soon, but we will be stuck with these football operators who clearly have no idea what they are doing.

I can't believe anybody in a professional caapcity at Spurs can have watched us under Ange over the last 40 games and think his approach will work.

I pray that they have already made up their mind but are just leaving him in place whilst they either get through this busy period or line up a replacement.
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I'm at the point now where I don't even really think there is a system or tactics.

I've no idea what people think is going to click with this? There are no basics/fundamentals to be built on, he's just putting all his eggs in his "attacking football" basket, but the problem is his attacking plan is an absolute turd as well.

Let's focus our play on using fast, guileless wingers to spam percentageball crosses into an outnumbered striker, giving them all no space to work in because we've compressed all of the space on the pitch with our ridiculous defensive line.

How tf can the manager not see that his tactics are counter productive to what he wants to achieve??? If you want to use quick braindead wingers then they need space to work in and exploit, don't constrict that by shunting your entire defence into the oppo half!

We're making ourselves so easy to score against, and often it's not even traded off for attacking threat, we were so embarrassingly open against Bournemouth but what threat did we pose ourselves? How many games are we saying that our keeper played a blinder, with no clean sheets to show for it?

The "tactics" aren't working, and they are never going to work consistently.
 
FightingIllini said:
Everybody giving up when we are the current bookmaker's favorite in the Europa League is nuts to me.

And it's not like the old Europa League, we aren't about to have other rich juggernauts parachute in as CL 3rd place group finishers.

This is it. We're the best team in this competition. Let's go fucking win it.
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We’ve lost or been outplayed by Premier teams that are not as good as us so don’t bank your hopes too high on the Europa.
 
Herclueless said:
I'm at the point now where I don't even really think there is a system or tactics.

I've no idea what people think is going to click with this? There are no basics/fundamentals to be built on, he's just putting all his eggs in his "attacking football" basket, but the problem is his attacking plan is an absolute turd as well.

Let's focus our play on using fast, guileless wingers to spam percentageball crosses into an outnumbered striker, giving them all no space to work in because we've compressed all of the space on the pitch with our ridiculous defensive line.

How tf can the manager not see that his tactics are counter productive to what he wants to achieve??? If you want to use quick braindead wingers then they need space to work in and exploit, don't constrict that by shunting your entire defence into the oppo half!

We're making ourselves so easy to score against, and often it's not even traded off for attacking threat, we were so embarrassingly open against Bournemouth but what threat did we pose ourselves? How many games are we saying that our keeper played a blinder, with no clean sheets to show for it?

The "tactics" aren't working, and they are never going to work consistently.
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We've actually built an OK team for Conte-ball but a lot of the signings don't seem to suit what Ange wants. I have my criticisms of him but the problems obviously run a lot deeper: owners, leadership (on the football side), strategy and investment seem to me to be the key issues at stake.
 
Herclueless said:
Drop the 343 bollocks because you know for a fact that would see Son stranded out on the left flank offering f' all and Johnson most likely hugging the right ghosting through games.

Go 352 with Maddison central attacking, Solanke and one of Son or Johnson playing through the middle but without the burden of being a lone striker. Ask nothing of BJ/Son other than find space and finish, that's all they're good for so we should find a system that exploits this. Even Werner could fulfil this role to some degree.

Anything that demands guile/creativity on a consistent basis from these guys is doomed to fail.
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I was with you right up until Werner
 
Brian Fantana said:

View: https://x.com/paddypower/status/1866481606904496501?s=46
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Not FUNNY

giphy.gif
 
So to summarise, we are wildly inconsistent and might pull off a big win in the cup somewhere along the way but lack the consistency to win it.

I’ve seen this story before. The only reason we have a chance in the Europa is because we can’t get drawn away to a Championship club
 
Matt1882 said:
Sacking him while we're in 3 cups makes more sense than not sacking him. Results are getting worse and worse with more frequency.
We won't win any of them with him here.
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it really is strange that people actually think we can win a cup this year without sacking him lol. its insanity to think it. its not even blind faith because you have a years worth of evidence that kills this idea, and things are getting worse! sheer madness, if i wasnt a spurs fan id find it fucking hilarious.
 
I'm trying to stay positive and hoping that when all our players are fit and well, we can get going and things will be OK.
But the longer the season goes on, I fear that I'm clutching at straws and Ange or his team are not the answer.
I thought it was a bit strange that he came to us without any backing staff, never known such a thing.
Not that I know much about tactics, but even I can see that the players seem to be incapable of playing Ange's system successfully. I'm also concerned that he doesn't seem to actually run the training sessions, but leaves it to the coaches. Either they're incompetent or they can see what is wrong, but Ange won't listen to them. Who knows?
I don't know if a new guy would make much difference, hasn't worked in the past (apart from Poch).
 
HampshireSpur said:
This is what we are now - a meme. The ultimate banter club. Spursy.

A few days ago on here I wrote I disliked Poste: I'm not sure on that actually, I might see him more as a figure of fun.

As for Levy...
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Normally these annoy me but not this one because it’s true. I don’t think it’s even really taking the piss out of us. Comes across as just feeling sorry for us more than anything…..actually that might be worse!
 
Mrs Perryman said:
I'm trying to stay positive and hoping that when all our players are fit and well, we can get going and things will be OK.
But the longer the season goes on, I fear that I'm clutching at straws and Ange or his team are not the answer.
I thought it was a bit strange that he came to us without any backing staff, never known such a thing.
Not that I know much about tactics, but even I can see that the players seem to be incapable of playing Ange's system successfully. I'm also concerned that he doesn't seem to actually run the training sessions, but leaves it to the coaches. Either they're incompetent or they can see what is wrong, but Ange won't listen to them. Who knows?
I don't know if a new guy would make much difference, hasn't worked in the past (apart from Poch).
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You're a lot kinder than me, Mrs P. Sadly, imho, at this point in time he's going nowhere, except the door that says 'EXIT'.

...and as others have said, he can take ENIC with him.
 
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