It helps when the EPL allow you to casually write off a 1.6BN debt to your sports-washing former owner.
You can just dust yourself down and go again.
Last edited:
-
The Fighting Cock is a forum for fans of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Here you can discuss Spurs latest matches, our squad, tactics and any transfer news surrounding the club. Registration gives you access to all our forums (including 'Off Topic' discussion) and removes most of the adverts (you can remove them all via an account upgrade). You're here now, you might as well...
Manager Antonio Conte
- Thread starter Fattynomates
- Start date
Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports
It helps when the EPL allow you to casually write off a 1.6BN debt to your sports-washing former owner.
You can just dust yourself down and go again.
another problem the sportswashers have infected the game with. FFP is meant to make clubs tread more carefully and stop this shit.
I interpret what Conte’s really thinking by seeing how high he leaps onto Ryan Mason during a game.
Except that's not what he's saying is it ?
It's more, we need to find up and coming younger players/future stars like Kulu and Bentancur, not signing a team of 30+ worldies with a £500k salary.
And he's certainly not saying we'll be signing a team of D'jeds.
Surely you don't think Kulusevski and Bentancur are 'plucky youngsters'??
Why does it need to be either / or?
Obviously nothing wrong with targeting young talent, but why can’t that be supplemented with one or two ‘world class’ talents?
No.
But I do not think our single strategy should be signing players under a certain age that demand mid to low salaries.
That ‘profile’ can make up a majority of our targets but the board should also be prepared to move for exceptional players if they become available.
If only on loan.
Which I mostly agree with, this bloke is still on loan I believe...
I agree with you but why would they?
They have a cash cow, ‘Us’
They have projects
NFL franchise
Big time boxing events and music shows in a great stadium
Providing the Football Club doesn’t struggle in the bottom half of the table and occasionally gets CL football they don’t give a fuck
I like that measure.
I think that the biggest issue for Conte right now is that he has no pressing system.
I'm not expecting him to go full Poch or Klopp at their most rampant. But there needs to be some form of press. Otherwise you just allow the opposition to waltz right up to the defenders and put too much pressure on them.
I don't think that the sort of aggressive press that Poch ran is doable, That's for a young team that have limitless gas tanks. But you can play a more tactical press, box the opposition in, herd them out on the wings, force them to play harder passes that we can hopefully intercept. Similar to what our defence does when it works and forces the opponent to take shots from bad scoring opportunities.
I think that if we set a way to press, even if it is just at a mid tempo, our defence and overall performance will look better.
I'm not expecting him to go full Poch or Klopp at their most rampant. But there needs to be some form of press. Otherwise you just allow the opposition to waltz right up to the defenders and put too much pressure on them.
I don't think that the sort of aggressive press that Poch ran is doable, That's for a young team that have limitless gas tanks. But you can play a more tactical press, box the opposition in, herd them out on the wings, force them to play harder passes that we can hopefully intercept. Similar to what our defence does when it works and forces the opponent to take shots from bad scoring opportunities.
I think that if we set a way to press, even if it is just at a mid tempo, our defence and overall performance will look better.
FFP is a joke
Not sure I fully agree. I don’t think the team is pressing the way he wants them to right now but they have been a lethal mid block team under him at times.
He looks worn down by some of these players though. This is a coach used to working with disciplined, elite athletes like Perisic.
I understand what you are saying. And I agree that my point was made bit provocatively. And it is not how it fully works.
Went back to check last season, and true - 3-0-5 run was there. And if we prolong it to 9 games (like our current run) then across this run we gathered 1 more win, so 4-0-5 which is 12 points from 9 games, meaning 1 less then we are on now.
But what makes me greatly worried is that in our current form, we are not talking about some freak results. There are very tangible issues throughout the team. We are leaking goals left and right, we don't play football in first 45 mins. We have gone behind in 6 games in a row. Quite honestly - in this space of time, we do play like a 7th-9th place team. And if something does not change dramatically, 7th place would be our utmost maximum with all of the "big 6" teams finishing very comfortably ahead of us + Newcastle as well.
I'm not sure we can press high for sustained periods while we have the likes of Dier, Davies and Lenglet to call on at the back. None of them are fast enough to push up to the middle of the pitch for extended lengths. One ball over the top from the oppo and it's squeaky bum time.
And Kane, Son...neither of them are proper pressers. I don't think Kulu is either. Peresic and Royal? Not quite Rose and Walker levels of speed and aggression.
We don't have that 2017 squad that Poch had; the one that could prevent teams from getting out of their own half.
Our fundamental problem is our defence.
We have a world class defender who's brain has been focused elsewhere or has been injured.
We have a 2mph donkey who Cinderella'd into a magnificent steed last season only to revert back to being a 2mph donkey since he had his call up.
We have the remaining member of the Welsh mafia who is a loyal servant but not first team material.
We have a French mercenary who I actually quite like but, given his current situation, is unlikely to be really commited to the club.
We have Sanchez, a player who looks like someone's just stolen his cow and left him with a carton of powdered milk. A perpetually perplexed sprinter with fuck all brain.
And Tanganga, the Peter Pan of the Spurs defence, forever a kid in my mind and on the pitch.
Christ do we need to upgrade our defence.
We're bloated in the sense we can't add to the squad without getting some out of it.
The subs you think should be used are actually cack and should be nowhere near elite football.
More than any tactical issue we are simply lacking intensity. The players have shown with the comebacks that they can play with guts so why aren’t they doing it from the first whistle?
This has been an issue for a long time, it started way back towards the end of the Poch era. Even our legendary Ajax semi-final was very similar to what we are seeing now.
Conte, Deki and Doherty said after the game that they had focused on starting well in their pre-match preparation but they couldn’t deliver it. At the end of the day it’s down to the players on the grass to change it.
This has been an issue for a long time, it started way back towards the end of the Poch era. Even our legendary Ajax semi-final was very similar to what we are seeing now.
Conte, Deki and Doherty said after the game that they had focused on starting well in their pre-match preparation but they couldn’t deliver it. At the end of the day it’s down to the players on the grass to change it.
The one thing Levy has done right IMO is that contracts are performance based.
I think all players in all leagues should have the same conditions. That should motivate them to either try to be good enough to get on the pitch, or leave if they can't.
I'm no training guru, but perhaps the weekly fitness cycles need to be tweaked so that they peak on match-day.......... Are they peaking too early? ....Too late?
Psychologically are we arriving cold and only being 'woken up' by the intensity of the oppo game-play itself?
Solutions need to be found.
Well our fitness coach did die shortly before this strange run began, maybe that does have something to do with it.
If we are not ready to play when the referee blows the first whistle then something has to be wrong with our preparation.