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Manager Antonio Conte

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StripiestPilot said:
The players deserve more heat than Conte. He’s said he wants them to play with personality on the ball but they are still too eager to play safety first passes.

No doubt Conte plays defence-first football like all Italian managers but he wants us to be aggressive with the ball. I don’t believe he is happy with some of the timid football that we are playing. I’m his vision of the game we either sit deep and defend stoutly or we move the ball quickly with killer intent.

The kind of zombie possession play we did for the first hour today is not his type of football. Not when the game is only 1-0 and the opponent is as shit as West Ham. He’s spoken a lot recently about how he want us to “kill” the opponent and the players aren’t doing it. You kill them with goals, there is no other way.
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Oh come on...

Players did exactly what Conte wanted from them. Manager was happy with how we played, and it has very factual evidence - he made ONE substitution in this game. He did not change the way we played in any way.
Normal person can't expect killer passes when you pick just 2 or 3 players able to make them. That would be madness - if you play workhorses, you get horse work. Not arts.

This result was 100% on the fact that Moyes made Conte his little bitch yesterday.

Though it was helped with us starting with 10 men and 4 center-backs.
 
sudoku said:
The loss draw tonight was 100% down to the players and one player in particular.
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Who picked this player, can you elaborate on this maybe?

P.S to be clear - I hope no one in their right mind would want Conte out or anything even close to it.
His track record in 2022 has been brilliant and we are still doing quite the start to the season.
But yesterday we lost (yes, fucking 1-1 against shit team like Wet Spam IS a loss) due to the manager, he is 100% responsible.
Cant expect us to have attacking intent when our RW position is filled with a centerback and LW never even went on the pitch.
 
StripiestPilot said:
Royal is our physically strongest RWB, he’s fully fit and knows what Conte wants. Doherty is coming off a big injury and Spence has never played a PL game before.

Royal is a big issue but not the biggest issue. Our biggest issue is the lack of urgency and drive from Dier and whoever is in midfield ahead of him. That triangle of players is far too eager to play safety first and slow the game down. They have to stop being so afraid to play football because we’ve seen that when we move the ball quickly we look dangerous. Even with some limited players on the pitch.
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Royal is an issue when we play Sanchez, we have nothing down the right when we build up, you can get away with Royal when you have Romero because he's better on the ball and he can play out far better than anyone else.
 
candrews said:
Reading some of the comments of people who are keen to jump on Conte's back make me want to delete my account and ban this site's URL. We can be such an embarrassing fan base unfortunately.
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Can you explain, why cannot it be pointed out that he fucked up massively yesterday?
Cause he did.

I think it is quite logical that we can be pissed if Conte fucks up. And we can be dissapointed with Son being absolute shit.
Conte is still world class manager who has been massive success for us. He has his clear idea, and I 100% support him today and tomorrow. But despite that I can say that game management and picking squad was absolute fuckup.
Same for Son - brilliant player, absolute world class. Done so much for the Spurs and absolutely love him. Though yesterday his performance was absolute shit. The way this long pass bounced off him.. gosh.
He will come good again, no question. But right now team needs results and Riche deserves to start at least 1 game at Son expense.
 
Starks said:
To put in perspective, if we beat Fulham at the weekend, we'd have only bettered our start to this season 3 times in our entire history.

- 1962/1963 (15 pts from first 6)
- 1960/1961 (18 pts from first 6)
- 1949/1950 (15 pts from first 6)

I imagine some members of the forum weren't even alive during those seasons, let alone old enough to truly remember them.
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That's the big if right there though, last nights "performance" has knocked me right back into my assume the worst mindset regarding Spurs, we're like the antithesis of "mentality monsters".

Fucking fair weather fairies sums us up more accurately, and if prime Antonio Conte can't beat that shit out of us then I'm concerned that nobody ever will.

We should win against Fulham at home, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to see us labour to break them down and fall victim to an 80+ minute sucker punch and lose 1-0.
 
Marcus Agrippa said:
Conte is not blameless. He works with the players every day. It’s crystal clear Lloris, Sanchez and Royal are scarily below average on the ball.

Bissouma was desperate to go forward. He received on the half turn every time. But he knows he can’t trust or connect with Sanchez and Royal on the right hand side so the ball is constantly going backwards on Spurs right. Compare that to the progression on the left.

I’m not suggesting hoof it long, but it puzzles me why we persist with Royal.
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I think Royal is a solid defender and not bad on the ball per se. But he is way short as an attacking presence in this system (probably any system that relies on fullbacks or wingers for width). Combine that with Sanchez, who really struggles to play against a press and it is a disaster area. I get not wanting to change stuff around away at West Ham at 1-1 but we do need to give Spence a go.
 
Gym&Chill said:
People have to remember this is still pretty much the same squad that was absolutely useless under Nuno and Mourinho.

-Dier and Sanchez just arent quality defenders. Dier has always been a poor player but for some reason we still persist with him

-holjberg and bentancur are CDMs. They dont have the ability to pass the ball forward and press forward. Which is why there is such a disconnect between midfield and the front 3

-we lack a creative midfielder who can create channels and make things happen.. we lack pace severely and need a proper winger. Kane keeps dropping deep when he should be a number 9
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I was actually a little excited when it looked like Hoj might have to come off last night, as I wanted to see a Skipp/Bissouma combo in action, instead we pissed about with time wasting will he/won't he stay on and then some more pissing about with his boots with a smug grin on his face, gave up all momentum and then totally fucked ourselves.

Possibly somewhat irrationally, I am now fucking livid with Hojbjerg and want to see what the side looks like without him for a few games.
 
A Tuba said:
I think Royal is a solid defender and not bad on the ball per se. But he is way short as an attacking presence in this system (probably any system that relies on fullbacks or wingers for width). Combine that with Sanchez, who really struggles to play against a press and it is a disaster area. I get not wanting to change stuff around away at West Ham at 1-1 but we do need to give Spence a go.
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Conte is never going to put on a player like Spence in a situation like last night. When the team is suffering in a tough away game he will always prioritise being solid/stable rather than taking a risk that could cost us the game. That is his personality, as he said many times last season “if you can’t win then don’t lose”.

In the last 10 minutes there was a close up on TV of him talking to Dier on the touch line and he very clearly told him “we don’t lose”.

Herclueless said:
I was actually a little excited when it looked like Hoj might have to come off last night, as I wanted to see a Skipp/Bissouma combo in action, instead we pissed about with time wasting will he/won't he stay on and then some more pissing about with his boots with a smug grin on his face, gave up all momentum and then totally fucked ourselves.

Possibly somewhat irrationally, I am now fucking livid with Hojbjerg and want to see what the side looks like without him for a few games.
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Skipp was not ready to play, Conte basically admitted afterwards that he put him on the bench just so he could get a taste of the atmosphere and be with the team. He was not ready to come on and play a significant part.
 
ShutUpPatrik said:
I have no problem with Conte's football. We have seen that when it clicks it is bloody fantastic. He does however need to up our intensity overall. We cannot afford to coast in any game this season. Every game is a cup final.

And if the players cannot respond to that then he has to make substitutions. No one should be allowed to coast on merit.

Maybe we could try a change in formation and dropping Kane down to the 10. Because I think that expecting Kane to lead the press and the front line is just asking for a lackluster press these days. He's aged out of aggressive pressing.
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I think Son and Kane's defensive output (and Son's play with ball to feet) is a much bigger limitation to playing style than we like to acknowledge.
 
StripiestPilot said:
Conte is never going to put on a player like Spence in a situation like last night. When the team is suffering in a tough away game he will always prioritise being solid/stable rather than taking a risk that could cost us the game. That is his personality, as he said many times last season “if you can’t win then don’t lose”.

In the last 10 minutes there was a close up on TV of him talking to Dier on the touch line and he very clearly told him “we don’t lose”.
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I think that's probably the right approach and other choices (no half-fit Skipp sub, no change to the wingbacks) fit that. But we do need to look at options at RWB and LCB with two games a week.

We also need to buy at least another attacker at the Kulu/Richarlison level...
 
Herclueless said:
That's the big if right there though, last nights "performance" has knocked me right back into my assume the worst mindset regarding Spurs, we're like the antithesis of "mentality monsters".

Fucking fair weather fairies sums us up more accurately, and if prime Antonio Conte can't beat that shit out of us then I'm concerned that nobody ever will.

We should win against Fulham at home, but it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to see us labour to break them down and fall victim to an 80+ minute sucker punch and lose 1-0.
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Why?

We lost to West Ham last year. In fact we lost to 5 of our opening 6 opponents last season. Yet here we are. 3rd and unbeaten.

And your pessimistic about a game against Fulham!? No wonder no one takes Tottenham seriously when our own fans can't
 
Starks said:
Why?

We lost to West Ham last year. In fact we lost to 5 of our opening 6 opponents last season. Yet here we are. 3rd and unbeaten.

And your pessimistic about a game against Fulham!? No wonder no one takes Tottenham seriously when our own fans can't
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Bettering last years result in this fixture doesn't mean much, last year we were managed by Nuno, they were doing a lot better at that point and we were in much worse shape, and there is ultimately not much point in celebrating being however many points up on last years equivalents, because there will likely be plenty of games that we won last year that we will not this year.

But the main take away from last night for me was that from a very good position at half time, we just caved and handed the ascendancy to West Ham, it was pathetic to see us time wasting from the moment the second half kicked off, and once they equalised we didn't look to have anything in response.

Whether that be down to fatigue, mentality, whatever, it is not promising. And losing home games to inferior opposition is something that we are all too familiar with over recent years, see the Southampton/Wolves double header last season, under Conte himself.

I was beginning to believe we might have shrugged that habit off, last night has made me more cautious in expecting anything from this squad.
 
A Tuba said:
I think Son and Kane's defensive output (and Son's play with ball to feet) is a much bigger limitation to playing style than we like to acknowledge.
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Agreed. The press has to start at the front. And if two out of three strikers (Dejan at least tries) don't press, it isn't going to work. That means that one of Pierre or Bentancur have to push up as well to try and make up for the lack of Kane or Son pressing, which leaves the other midfielder exposed and so on.

Stuff like this can be solved by either rotating the formation (dropping Harry down a bit), or switching to a less man oriented pressing system. But that's for Antonio to solve, not me.
 
God the overreaction to a draw against West Ham (who consider us their game of the season, cup final etc) when we are unbeaten in the league and nowhere near our best yet is fucking embarrassing.

A lot of these fans accuse our players of bottling it and yet they don't have the introspection to see they are doing the exact thing they accuse them of.

Have some fucking faith in Conte, this man got us CL football last season after years of misery and he has us sitting in third unbeaten and with a much tougher schedule than any of the teams above us have had.

We are 5 games into the season, 5...
 
GlastonSpur said:
Hate his football and I said this before we appointed him.

Will end in tears as we will keep signing old men like Perisic.

Football is about enjoyment and I don’t enjoy watching us under Conte at all.
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Perisic has been our best signing & has levelled up our left side compared to Sessegnon or Reguilon. More old men please, if it means we get actual upgrades & players who don't need 50 games to 'settle in' to the system.
 
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