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Manager Antonio Conte

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34% win record in the CL for a top coach is seriously pathetic, this was my fear going into the CL with him - not sure if his tactics are too reactive or that he gears his teams up to play better in the league but it's worrying.
 
34% win record in the CL for a top coach is seriously pathetic, this was my fear going into the CL with him - not sure if his tactics are too reactive or that he gears his teams up to play better in the league but it's worrying.
Conte's plan;

Sit back, sit back, sit, back, oh bollocks we're a goal down, start attacking.

That's it in a nut shell.
It's no surprise that in the CL this gets exposed more.
 
34% win record in the CL for a top coach is seriously pathetic, this was my fear going into the CL with him - not sure if his tactics are too reactive or that he gears his teams up to play better in the league but it's worrying.
If we get knocked out of this group then given we have an experienced manager on £15m a year i think its very fair to question whether he's the man to take us forward. We have a lot of limited players but they should be comfortably qualifying.
 
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34% win record in the CL for a top coach is seriously pathetic, this was my fear going into the CL with him - not sure if his tactics are too reactive or that he gears his teams up to play better in the league but it's worrying.

His teams struggle to play 2 games a week. I can’t remember where that bit of info came from, but Conte’s teams always do better when they’ve had a week in between to prepare
 
We both had a shot on goal regardless.
We moved the ball from one end of the pitch to the other in the same amount of time.

Of course you can compare but to say our move was "less" than their's is just silly.
Especially as we scored and they didn't.

See my reply to GOAT GOAT

There are numerous examples of us opening up teams this season.

How many times have Chelsea played a move like that ?

We've scored more than them.

So, stevee stevee I assume you watched the game.
Got any comments about our players ability on the ball, movement of the ball? Switftly created chances?
Want to provide anything that would be even remotely close to that Chelsea clip?

Or are you willing to admit, that to see something like it, we have to go back to last season. And admitting that watching our 8 defenders, 2 finishers only + Harry Kane stringing passes together is painful watch?

I'll leave a "fun" fact here as well - with past 4 games (out of which 3 were at home; against Everton, Newcastle and Sporting respectively) and 360 minutes - we have scored 1 goal from open play.
 
His teams struggle to play 2 games a week. I can’t remember where that bit of info came from, but Conte’s teams always do better when they’ve had a week in between to prepare

Why do Antonio Conte’s Spurs struggle so much when there is a tight turnaround between matches?​

Charlie Eccleshare

In the lead-up to the Everton game on Monday, there was a good feeling at Hotspur Way — a sense that Tottenham were ready and primed to pick up the three points.

It wasn’t just that Spurs’ recent win-loss sequence suggested a victory, or that Frank Lampard’s side had the worst away record in the Premier League — part of the conviction was down to Antonio Conte having almost a full week with his players to prepare for the game.

Spurs staff are aware, as Conte himself certainly is, that when Tottenham have more than a few days between matches, the result is almost always positive. In Conte’s Premier League matches at Tottenham, their record when having a gap of five or more days since their last game is now played six, won five (including Manchester City and Leicester City away), drawn one (that very creditable point against Liverpool in December), at a rate of 2.7 points per game.

When the gap is shorter, as it has been in Conte’s 10 other Premier League games for Spurs, that points-per-game tally goes down to 1.4.


Conte brought up this disparity unprompted on Monday night after a fresh-looking Tottenham battered Everton (who had, incidentally, had two days less rest). “I have seen with my staff that when we have more days, more time to prepare for the game, to play against us is difficult for everybody,” he said. “The problem when we have to prepare to play in two or three days is not simple. Don’t forget that with this team I didn’t start the season. I haven’t had the possibility to have one month to work with the team in pre-season and try to work and instil my idea of football.”

A few questions arise from the stark difference between Spurs’ performance when well-rested compared to when they are not.

Including: is this disparity unique to Conte and this Tottenham team? What does he do that’s so effective in preparing for the games? And what does this pattern mean for the rest of this season and beyond?


Starting with the uniqueness to Conte, don’t all managers bemoan a lack of time on the training ground and benefit from more time with their players?

It was certainly a frequent complaint of Jose Mourinho in his early weeks at Spurs. “I want to work,” he said in December 2019 as, almost a month into the job, he reflected on still not having had a free midweek. “I’m going to have time to work, which until now I don’t have. I complain every day with my staff, the frustration of: ‘I want to do a certain kind of training’. I just can’t do it. I love pre-season to work. I don’t have (that).”

Mourinho’s complaints were undermined a touch when, after he finally had a week to work with his players, Spurs lost 2-0 at home to Frank Lampard’s Chelsea.

On that question of uniqueness to Conte, it is interesting though to look at how Spurs’ rivals are affected by tight turnarounds. Looking at the rest of the Premier League’s top seven since Conte took over, it’s by no means universal that more rest equals better results.

PPG in Premier League since November 3
Taking account of Premier League results only, Manchester United and West Ham have actually picked up more points from games where they’ve had a shorter rather than longer rest period (2.0 and 1.6 compared to 1.3 and 1.3 respectively). It’s a similar story at Liverpool with 1.8 for the former and 2.6 for the latter.

Woolwich have performed better with more rest, but the difference is less stark than Spurs. In this period since Conte’s arrival, Mikel Arteta’s side have picked up 2.3 points per game with four full days of training compared to 1.9 with fewer than that.

Manchester City have picked up the same 2.7 points per game regardless of whether they’ve had a game five days or more previously or if there’s a shorter turnaround.

Chelsea are the most comparable team to Spurs in this regard with 2.6 for the former and 1.4 for the latter.

For all these clubs, we’re only talking about a small sample of games — just under half a season’s worth — so they by no means prove that Conte is most reliant on free midweeks, but they do serve as a reminder that it’s not a universal truth that teams’ results dramatically change based on more rest.

FiveThirtyEight’s statistical model, which projects scores for thousands of games based on factors like team strength and venue, provides empirical evidence of this. Since 2019, FiveThirtyEight have shown that teams in 40 leagues around the world, taking in almost 14,000 games, have done only slightly better than their projected goal difference when playing on five to seven days’ rest and slightly worse on four or fewer.

With Conte though, greater preparation time has made a big difference in the past. As has been well-documented, the title-winning Chelsea team of 2016-17 benefited hugely from not being in Europe that season, which was true also of his first Serie A-winning Juventus team of 2011-12. In Conte’s second season at Stamford Bridge, by contrast, Chelsea finished fifth, and while there were many other factors, their results after Champions League matches were poor. On the seven occasions a Premier League match followed a European one, Chelsea’s record was won two, lost three, drew two.

Conte’s struggles in Europe relative to his domestic success have sometimes been put down to prioritising the former for fear of burning out his already pushed-to-the-limit players by fighting on too many fronts. In the 2013-14 season, for instance, there was a sense that, spooked by Roma winning the first 10 matches of the Serie A season, Conte’s Juve took their foot off the gas in the Champions League to focus on retaining the scudetto. Juventus duly exited their group and went on to win the title with a record 102 points. They did also reach the Europa League semi-finals that season, however, suggesting Conte is capable of juggling domestic and European commitments. He did something similar when missing out on Serie A by a point and reaching the Europa League final in his first season at Inter two years ago.

Often, though, Conte is best when faced with just the one target, which is why some have speculated he didn’t seem too disappointed with Spurs’ limp FA Cup exit to Middlesbrough last week.

What then is it about the proper preparation time that seems, certainly from Conte’s perspective, to be making such a difference to the fortunes of his Spurs team?

The first thing to say is that without a pre-season, Conte feels that his notoriously physically demanding and information-heavy training sessions are even more important to get across how he wants Tottenham to play. And so constricting preparation time for matches is even more damaging.

To understand how different pre-game preparation looks for the Spurs players when it’s a tighter turnaround, compare and contrast the lead-up to the Middlesbrough (a 1-0 defeat) and Everton (a 5-0 win) matches.

Son Heung-min and his Spurs team-mates looked fresh against Everton on Monday evening (Photo: Getty)
Prior to last Tuesday’s Middlesbrough game, Spurs had played three days earlier on the Saturday at Leeds. This meant Sunday was a rest day, and then all the physical work had to be crammed in on the Monday. Training tends to start with gruelling fitness work followed by going through patterns of play and tactical ideas, and this is not easy to do in a day. This is true for all head coaches, but Conte’s work is built on being especially intricate and methodical with his instructions, and he’s trying to do that without the foundation of a pre-season. Plus he prides himself on how hard he works his players physically, but that has to be tempered so close to matchday, when it’s natural to be wary of pushing the group too hard.

Video analysis is also pivotal to all of this, and in the lead-up to the Middlesbrough game there was only time for a couple of sessions with the players — one the day before the game, and another on the matchday itself after flying up to Teesside in the morning. The sessions had to be longer, lasting about an hour, to pack in all the information.

With a longer lead time — for instance, in the five full days of preparation for Everton — those sessions can be shorter (more like 20 to 30 minutes) and spread over a few days, which is better for everyone (especially the players who are trying to take on a lot of new information). Likewise, there’s far more scope in the physical sessions to really hammer home the key messages ahead of the game and make the patterns of play feel more automatic (the runs in behind made by the wing-backs for instance). The first few days can also be spent at a greater intensity knowing that the first day of physical training isn’t only a day out from matchday. Hence those good vibrations during Tottenham training in the lead-up to the Everton game.

When in the two-game-a-week grind, it’s hard to do much physical work beyond recovering from the previous match. With a bit more time, coaches and players can start to see real gains.

“When I have time, more days to prepare the game, then you can plan a problem and arrive in the right moment physically, tactically, mentally to play an important game,” Conte said on Monday, and the evidence against Everton supported his point.

He also explained that, as well as the absence of a pre-season, the fact that he’s been in situ for such a short time compared to most of his rivals adds to the importance of having proper time on the training pitch. “When you stay for a long time with one team then the players know your philosophy,” he said. “Now we are going day by day to improve working, but on Saturday at the same time we have to play a game for three points.”

The good news for Conte and Spurs is that they only have two more midweek fixtures to play — Brighton next Wednesday and then the rearranged north London derby. That will mean the majority of their games between now and the end of the season will come after decent rest and preparation time.

Next season though, Spurs will almost certainly be in Europe and playing twice a week, having to manage all the associated challenges that brings. Conte’s expectation is that by then, having had a proper pre-season, his players will be more up to speed with his methods and so extended preparation for every game won’t be quite as necessary. He should also have a stronger squad to cope with the greater demands.

For now, though, the focus switches to Saturday’s trip to Manchester United, a game that falls in between the full-week and few-days windows. It’ll be almost five days since the Everton win by the time Spurs line up at Old Trafford, which Conte will hope will be sufficient to ensure his players are ready “physically, tactically, mentally”.

It’ll be the first time Spurs have had had decent rest for consecutive games since Conte took over. And it would be an opportune time to record consecutive wins for the first time since December.

 
Sorry, I’m now Conte out. I didn’t even call for Nuno out, even when it was obvious he was out of his depth. We’re going nowhere with this manager.

Thanks for identifying yourself as yet another obnoxious so called fan who needs blocking.

Bye.

P.S Here's your shoes

ronald mcdonald nyc GIF by ADWEEK
 
His lack of respect and stuborness over Spence and Gil in particular is really poor management. If we end up selling them its a joke. Whats the point in buying young players if he just throws a moody because they're not some grizzled 29 yr old multiple trophy winner.
Well yea... Spence and Gil...
But I think what says the most is you even forgot Sarr.
Just recently turned 20, has 4000 minutes of playing time for Ligue 1 club.
Shortlisted for most talented young players in the world.

Has got 0 (!) minutes for Spurs, even in situations where we have nothing to lose and when if feels physically painful to watch how Bentancur kicks the ball forward like he would be throwing shit against the barn door.

Literally - everyone should go back and watch our passing yesterday.... large chunk of the time we are long-ball team. Hoofing it upfield and crossing fingers that someone would just happen to be in this spot where the ball lands.
 
Well yea... Spence and Gil...
But I think what says the most is you even forgot Sarr.
Just recently turned 20, has 4000 minutes of playing time for Ligue 1 club.
Shortlisted for most talented young players in the world.

Has got 0 (!) minutes for Spurs, even in situations where we have nothing to lose and when if feels physically painful to watch how Bentancur kicks the ball forward like he would be throwing shit against the barn door.

Literally - everyone should go back and watch our passing yesterday.... large chunk of the time we are long-ball team. Hoofing it upfield and crossing fingers that someone would just happen to be in this spot where the ball lands.

It's far more explicable with Sarr though considering the 4 players that are ahead of him in the pecking order and the fact they're mostly competing for 2 slots.

This should have been foreseen and a loan found for him instead.

Spence - Not seeing what he wants yet.
Gil - Just don't think he sees a 'Conte player' in him.

The whole Conte is anti-youth thing is a myth though.

Kulu & Emerson both get plenty of minutes and he's not shy of playing Skipp either..... Then there's Bastoni; who was not only brought through by Conte, but most ofthe fan base want to see us spend 60m quid on him!
 
So, stevee stevee I assume you watched the game.
Got any comments about our players ability on the ball, movement of the ball? Switftly created chances?
Want to provide anything that would be even remotely close to that Chelsea clip?

Or are you willing to admit, that to see something like it, we have to go back to last season. And admitting that watching our 8 defenders, 2 finishers only + Harry Kane stringing passes together is painful watch?

I'll leave a "fun" fact here as well - with past 4 games (out of which 3 were at home; against Everton, Newcastle and Sporting respectively) and 360 minutes - we have scored 1 goal from open play.
Show me another clip of Chelsea playing a move like that this season.

I did watch the game, did you miss all the top quality chances we created ?

Here's some fun facts from last night;
18 shots
59% possession
And 84% pass completion.

Here's some more ;
3rd highest scorers in the league. (More than Chavs)
5th highest completed passes.
5th highest shots on goal (more than Chavs)

But yeah, we don't create chances.



Fun fact from the Chavs clip that you are creaming yourself over ;

They didn't score either
 
Well yea... Spence and Gil...
But I think what says the most is you even forgot Sarr.
Just recently turned 20, has 4000 minutes of playing time for Ligue 1 club.
Shortlisted for most talented young players in the world.

Has got 0 (!) minutes for Spurs, even in situations where we have nothing to lose and when if feels physically painful to watch how Bentancur kicks the ball forward like he would be throwing shit against the barn door.

Literally - everyone should go back and watch our passing yesterday.... large chunk of the time we are long-ball team. Hoofing it upfield and crossing fingers that someone would just happen to be in this spot where the ball lands.
Sad thing is, that probably overall we have a better team/squad than them, yet the freedom of expression seems to have been coached out see Son as exhibit A, shadow of the player he was.
 
Show me another clip of Chelsea playing a move like that this season.

I did watch the game, did you miss all the top quality chances we created ?

Here's some fun facts from last night;
18 shots
59% possession
And 84% pass completion.

Here's some more ;
3rd highest scorers in the league. (More than Chavs)
5th highest completed passes.
5th highest shots on goal (more than Chavs)

But yeah, we don't create chances.



Fun fact from the Chavs clip that you are creaming yourself over ;

They didn't score either
Everyone arguing isn't changing the fact that we are shit to watch.
I'm not interested too much into stats, they could make me look a good player.
What I see a lot of the time, is a team that likes to knock the ball long into channels.
Whilst sometimes that can be useful, it can, make us fucking predictable and boring.
Now if I wanted to watch that type of football, I would probably buy a season ticket at either Stoke or Wimbledon, but I don't follow route one FC.
When a club like ours as a stadium like we have, with top prices, surely it's right to expect better, especially as the team we played against was able to switch things up.
 
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Show me another clip of Chelsea playing a move like that this season.

I did watch the game, did you miss all the top quality chances we created ?

Here's some fun facts from last night;
18 shots
59% possession
And 84% pass completion.

Here's some more ;
3rd highest scorers in the league. (More than Chavs)
5th highest completed passes.
5th highest shots on goal (more than Chavs)

But yeah, we don't create chances.



Fun fact from the Chavs clip that you are creaming yourself over ;

They didn't score either

👏
 
Show me another clip of Chelsea playing a move like that this season.

I did watch the game, did you miss all the top quality chances we created ?

Here's some fun facts from last night;
18 shots
59% possession
And 84% pass completion.

Here's some more ;
3rd highest scorers in the league. (More than Chavs)
5th highest completed passes.
5th highest shots on goal (more than Chavs)

But yeah, we don't create chances.



Fun fact from the Chavs clip that you are creaming yourself over ;

They didn't score either

Well this actually comes without any irony or sarcasm - I am honestly happy that you enjoy what you are seeing and how we played last night. Tastes are different and preferences as well. So there is something for everyone.

But when you ask "did I miss all top quality chances" then - yea... I did. Cause pretty much all the chances came from crosses (and somehow landed on Diers head). I don't recall any good shooting positions created from the middle of the pitch with accurate and cleaver passing. I felt that we absolutely lacked players who could sprint or dribble past Sporting players. And I felt that in attack no player knew where other is, cause passes (even if categorized "accurate") were like meter behind, in front or on the side of player receiving it.

And it all ended with us not getting a win. We are on a run of 2 defeats and 1 draw. These are not results I am satisfied with. I feel that we badly lack on-the-ball ability.
It is all nice to point out how many goals we have scored over season. It is nice remembering the two games where we scored 6 and 4 goals, it pushes up averages for long time more. Ignoring the fact that we have scored 1 goal in 360 minutes from open play.
 
Everyone arguing isn't changing the fact that we are shit to watch.
I'm not interested too much into stats, they could put make me look a good player.
What I see a lot of the time, is a team that likes to knock the ball long into channels.
Whilst sometimes that can be useful, it can, make us fucking predictable and boring.
Now if I wanted to watch that type of football, I would probably buy a season ticket at either Stoke or Wimbledon, but I don't follow route one FC.
When a club like ours as a stadium like we have, with top prices, surely it's right to expect better, especially as the team we played against was able to switch things up.
I agree pretty much


The point is though, that every team will have a move like that in their games.
But let's be honest, they are few and far between for every team, so for anyone to take one clip to beat up our team is not only unfair but also disingenuous.

We have players that can, and do, play good football at times with scintillating moves.
They just need the shackles removed.
 
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