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Player Xavi Simons

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View: https://x.com/WhoScored/status/2025893398893236257
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Matt1882 said:
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Worse than Dragusin: Tudor must instantly drop Spurs flop who lost the ball 24x today | Spurs

Igor Tudor’s introduction to the Premier League as the manager of Tottenham Hotspur was nothing short … Worse than Dragusin: Tudor must instantly drop Spurs flop who lost the ball 24x todayRead more
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Gave the ball away 24 times yesterday. More than anyone else.
Really not what we need when we're struggling so badly to form any sort of cohesive attack.
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The amount of times he broke through and had space infirnt of him and he had absolutely zero options was infuriating. He's going to give the ball away in those pockets of space, surrounded for 4 red shirts with no out ball. We never looked to break with bodies.

I wonder whether trying him at the base of the midfield, in a 4-3-3, in possession, and have the runners beyond him might help give us more balance. Because when gets the ball now, it's just into the void. And especially when Romero isn't playing, we have no out ball. He's the only one in the team that has the ability to pass the ball in tight spaces. Wharton isn't a great defender, and doesn't really need to be, so try him in that role and see if we can be less static in the middle of the park.
 
Simons will only thrive if the foundation is already there, meaning the team is playing at least of a mid table atandard.

He isnt a Gareth Bale that can individually make magic on his own.

Shit squad building has stifled him. Hes definitely talented, but he is playing with some useless teammates.
 
Football Chap said:

View: https://x.com/WhoScored/status/2025893398893236257
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This isn't an impassioned defence of the kid, I think he has flaws and he wouldn't have been my first choice sign, he lacks physicality and was dropped in at the deep end, into a struggling team, piss weak squad, new league, new country, most physical PL there's been for some years.

The two players who lost the ball most (7 and 5 times) were Simons and Spence who were also 2 or the 3 players who saw the most of the ball and probably the only two who tried to dribble with it. And that was against Arse.

There were definitely times he turned or ran into trouble, but also to be fair, some of those times he was short of options and people showing for the ball. But that is a weakness in his game, he's not got the robustness or pace to hold off/break free from opponents at times.

I also don't think he's as creatively elite (certainly yet).

But, he is our most creative player (XA 0.25) which isn't bad given all the flaws and aforementioned obstacles. He doesn't hide in games. He's making himself available when we are struggling, trying to get on the ball and make things happen. And the one area I've been surprised by is his off ball work rate and tenacity.

With just about every single other creative player out, none of our other midfielders can pass the ball, and the fact that he works really hard for the team, makes him pretty much undroppable right now.
 
bus-conductor said:
This isn't an impassioned defence of the kid, I think he has flaws and he wouldn't have been my first choice sign, he lacks physicality and was dropped in at the deep end, into a struggling team, piss weak squad, new league, new country, most physical PL there's been for some years.
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I get all that but we're in a desperate position and need our key players (on paper) to step up now. He had 1 duel won from 16, 0 successful dribbles, not really good enough for our record signing and highest earner. Hopefully better against Fulham.
 
Xavi was never in Spurs plans. Before we signed him, we had made offers for Enzo Millot, Mbeumo, Seymenyo, Gibbs-White, Nico Paz, Eze, Darwin Nunez

Xavi was a panic buy.
 
Papafeels said:
The amount of times he broke through and had space infirnt of him and he had absolutely zero options was infuriating. He's going to give the ball away in those pockets of space, surrounded for 4 red shirts with no out ball. We never looked to break with bodies.

I wonder whether trying him at the base of the midfield, in a 4-3-3, in possession, and have the runners beyond him might help give us more balance. Because when gets the ball now, it's just into the void. And especially when Romero isn't playing, we have no out ball. He's the only one in the team that has the ability to pass the ball in tight spaces. Wharton isn't a great defender, and doesn't really need to be, so try him in that role and see if we can be less static in the middle of the park.
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When you play back 3- the wingbacks MUST be able to run foward as wingers- especially if you are playing double 10s ahead of them! Spence cutting inside on the left into traffic, and Gray on the wing is absolutely not good enough to make it work.
 
Matt1882 said:
newsnowspurs.com

Worse than Dragusin: Tudor must instantly drop Spurs flop who lost the ball 24x today | Spurs

Igor Tudor’s introduction to the Premier League as the manager of Tottenham Hotspur was nothing short … Worse than Dragusin: Tudor must instantly drop Spurs flop who lost the ball 24x todayRead more
newsnowspurs.com newsnowspurs.com

Gave the ball away 24 times yesterday. More than anyone else.
Really not what we need when we're struggling so badly to form any sort of cohesive attack.
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Honestly- I think we'd be better off playing Tel at LW right now. We could actually have a pretty menacing little front 3:

Tel - Dom - RKM

with Simons and Richy to spell them

I know, I know, but, fuck it- we need points however TF we can right now, no time to be picky and have featherweight players starting games who might simply get blown over.

Play fucking Tel who at least has a man's body and is absolutely desperate to be on the pitch for us. You want fighters, this man assembled his own clique to try and bully the club into selling him this winter. He's not going to cower like a b**ch when the moment is upon us.
 
bk_spur said:
When you play back 3- the wingbacks MUST be able to run foward as wingers- especially if you are playing double 10s ahead of them! Spence cutting inside on the left into traffic, and Gray on the wing is absolutely not good enough to make it work.
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Yep. Porro and Udogie will make a difference. But when his #10 next to him was absolutely useless Conor Gallagher, he had a pretty thankless task in finding players.

I cut him slack for that game because the set up and the midfielders just sat back. It was an impossible task.
 
Papafeels said:
Yep. Porro and Udogie will make a difference. But when his #10 next to him was absolutely useless Conor Gallagher, he had a pretty thankless task in finding players.

I cut him slack for that game because the set up and the midfielders just sat back. It was an impossible task.
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Yep. Gallagher at the RCAM is so, so bad. He could play CAM at Palace because most the of the time he was just defending for them anyways. And he was taking a lot of set pieces and shooting from deep and things like that- not wing-ish advanced CAM stuff. That was the one decision I was utterly baffled by. We even have other actual offensive options capable of playing there, too.
 
For how much he cost and the contract we gave him, he sure doesn’t look up to it!

The thing im most surprised with is just how bad technically he is! Has close to zero passing range and his weight of pass is Sunday league level. Not sure that can really be coached into him given the amount of senior football he has played
 
harry7 said:
Xavi was never in Spurs plans. Before we signed him, we had made offers for Enzo Millot, Mbeumo, Seymenyo, Gibbs-White, Nico Paz, Eze, Darwin Nunez

Xavi was a panic buy.
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Thing is he felt completely unobtainable until the final week of the window. All summer his camp were signalling via Romano that he wanted Chelsea and no-one else. There wasn't really any point in us bidding at all while Chelsea was an option. It was only once it became clear that Chelsea didn't have the money that he settled on us.

Maybe he still would've been further down our list (knowing Frank he would've definitely preferred PL-proven options like MGW, Eze, etc) but I wouldn't call him a panic buy. He was considered quite a big coup when we bought him.

Jury's still out on him imo. Some weeks he looks our best player and others he looks lightweight and out of his depth. Think there's a chance he develops into a genuinely top class CAM if we ever get a functioning team/manager as he's clearly very talented. But at this point I wouldn't be at all surprised if he ends up a flaky nearly-man that never truly adapts to the Prem.
 
Timberwolf said:
Thing is he felt completely unobtainable until the final week of the window. All summer his camp were signalling via Romano that he wanted Chelsea and no-one else. There wasn't really any point in us bidding at all while Chelsea was an option. It was only once it became clear that Chelsea didn't have the money that he settled on us.

Maybe he still would've been further down our list (knowing Frank he would've definitely preferred PL-proven options like MGW, Eze, etc) but I wouldn't call him a panic buy. He was considered quite a big coup when we bought him.

Jury's still out on him imo. Some weeks he looks our best player and others he looks lightweight and out of his depth. Think there's a chance he develops into a genuinely top class CAM if we ever get a functioning team/manager as he's clearly very talented. But at this point I wouldn't be at all surprised if he ends up a flaky nearly-man that never truly adapts to the Prem.
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I'd say the issue at the moment is that he is being crowded out, with other teams always closing him down very quickly with 2 or 3 players. They know he is Spurs only creative central option to provide service to strikers. So they force him to play sideways, or out to the wings.

Once Kudus, Madission, Kulu are fit, Spurs will have multiple creative options to provide service to the strikers; and teams won't be able to double down on them.
 
harry7 said:
I'd say the issue at the moment is that he is being crowded out, with other teams always closing him down very quickly with 2 or 3 players. They know he is Spurs only creative central option to provide service to strikers. So they force him to play sideways, or out to the wings.

Once Kudus, Madission, Kulu are fit, Spurs will have multiple creative options to provide service to the strikers; and teams won't be able to double down on them.
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Maddison and Kulu? What?

We will be relegated by the time they return, and tbh Kudus is crap - both him and Simons played in the same side for most of this season and Simons still offered nothing.

I do think he will look better with pacey, off the ball runners that can go in behind and stretch the game but we don’t have anyone to do that. Will also do better with a DM that can get him the ball quickly before defences get set, but again we don’t have one
 
harry7 said:
I'd say the issue at the moment is that he is being crowded out, with other teams always closing him down very quickly with 2 or 3 players. They know he is Spurs only creative central option to provide service to strikers. So they force him to play sideways, or out to the wings.

Once Kudus, Madission, Kulu are fit, Spurs will have multiple creative options to provide service to the strikers; and teams won't be able to double down on them.
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It's worse than that- we are playing a formation with an extra defender, and then on top of that, one of our wingbacks (Gray) is a Corluka style RB, and the other can't use their left-foot (Spence).

Essentially we are playing with three less attackers in a formation that demands wide wingbacks, if not a CB joining the attack...
 
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