Antwerp v Spurs (Thursday 29th October @ 17.55)

[bk_spur]

Been one day and only now I can bring myself to visit the forum as it was such a frustrating to watch. It seems that whenever we have either Winks, Dele or Sanchez play then we will either lose or draw. What is it with these three players? I know there were other terrible players in that match as well but please do not make the excuse of being rotating or not rotating enough. These 'fringe" players need to grab the match by the neck and kill it. Can someone please tell me what was in Dele's mind when at 11:55 he was presented with a wonderful chested down ball by Vini and on his left he has Bale all by himself but decided to make the pass to Vini knowing full well he has 2 defenders on him? I still can't fucking understand why? Does he not trust Bale finishing or passing difficult passes will give you more brownie points with Mourinho? We all would never know if Bale can score from that but it would be interesting turn of event if he did then we would be 1 up by then.
Again, I am not picking Dele out but he and Berj will need to improve greatly since Mourinho I think is losing patience with them.

This was the first game in a long time I didn't peek at the score and waited to watch at home. I watched the whole thing with the gf- gee thanks, spursy.

Main problem I can see is that Winks, GLC and Dele is a much worse midfield than PEH, Sissoko and Ndombele. Hint hint it's not GLC's fault.

Other problem was an unfamiliar CB pairing that resulted in an awful OG.

Other other problem was starting three rusty or unfamiliar attackers, and expecting them to click immediately and make goals with a creativity-deficient and out of form midfield.

 

[Gatsby]

If you take Kane out of the equation we would be about 13 goals down on the 16 we’ve scored (PL) - but would still be conceding (in fact we’d have conceded at least a couple more without Kane’s defending).

Very dangerous to get bedazzled by our goals scored, or score line punditry, when so many of those goals involve one, very above average player who's in the productive form of his life. Even Son, being assisted almost entirely by Kane is outscoring his own X/G by over 100%.

The rest of what we are doing as a team in front of their penalty box in both directions is fucking meh. It's reminiscent of two years ago under Poch when we were making our best ever start to a PL season, but playing utter crap football, which could not sustain results, especially when Kane went awol.

If we keep Kane fit and on this form and Son keeps outscoring the quality of chances we might just bumble our way to a CL place because many of our rivals are being badly managed by novices, but we're fundamentally a one player team and if he gets fucked this shit will not sustain results, just like it didn't when we lost him last season.

In Pochettino's "good" phase for example (15-17), even when we lost Kane, the endemic football ethos saw our performances levels remain consistent and results maintained. There is no endemic or innovative football ethos with what we are doing now, it's largely reliant on risk aversion gilded by individual brilliance of one (and occasionally 2) player.

What a pathetic argument.

Take Messi out of Barca and they wouldn’t be the team they are, take Aguero out of City and they wouldn’t have won the league. It’s irrelevant.

 

[Airfixx]

I have MORE than a sneaky suspicion that PEH played 45 minutes and we didn't fair better. I have MORE than a sneaky suspicion that Ndombele would have made a positive difference. I have MORE than a sneaky suspicion that Sissoko would have added absolutely fuck all in terms of fairing better because he doesn't do anything better than GLC or Winks offensively or defensively.

Bar Vinicius and Bale that team contained all players who have constantly been playing first team football for us over the last few months.

There was very little risk in that team if it was well coached and tactically sound.

Fair do's for Mourinho for saying it's on him post match, it was. But I have MORE than a sneaky suspicion he was saying it's on him for picking players, not the real reason it's on him and that was we aren't very well coached or tactically great.

Even under peak Poch when we played a full blown B-team (see individual form, fitness and blatant 2nd stringers) we often played like strangers and struggled against lower league oppo in the domestic cups.... Often being forced to numerous thoroughly unwelcome replays, last gasp results and exits to the likes of a shit Palace, losing from 2-0 up vs West Ham or worse (latterly) failing to lay a glove on Colchester (!!!)... Does that mean we were simply badly coached and tactically weak then too(***)?

...These scenario's aren't exclusive to us either! (Strip away the proverbial 'romance of the cups' and you'll find much of the so-called giant killing comes with a personnel caveat.)

[***The above is a rhetorical question really at this point, but I'd rather I wasn't dragged around the houses(*) just to unearth the already well-worn notion that you simply don't like Jose as manager *especially when it entails the thoroughly skewed-by-personal-bias stuff about our midfield.) ]

 

[bus-conductor]

Even under peak Poch when we played a full blown B-team (see individual form, fitness and blatant 2nd stringers) we often played like strangers and struggled against lower league oppo in the domestic cups.... Often being forced to numerous thoroughly unwelcome replays, last gasp results and exits to the likes of a shit Palace, losing from 2-0 up vs West Ham or worse (latterly) failing to lay a glove on Colchester (!!!)... Does that mean we were simply badly coached and tactically weak then too(***)?

...These scenario's aren't exclusive to us either! (Strip away the proverbial 'romance of the cups' and you'll find much of the so-called giant killing comes with a personnel caveat.)

[***The above is a rhetorical question really at this point, but I'd rather I wasn't dragged around the houses(*) just to unearth the already well-worn notion that you simply don't like Jose as manager *especially when it entails the thoroughly skewed-by-personal-bias stuff about our midfield.) ]

My point is, that no matter how many times I say it you keep ignoring, is that very much was not a full blown B team.

 

[Airfixx]

Spoiler

test

My point is, that no matter how many times I say it you keep ignoring, is that very much was not a full blown B team.

I'm not ignoring that aspect of what you're saying, I just disagree....

9 changes from the team we fielded in the EPL last week..... Starting XI missing all of our best performers of the season thus far (including our entire MF and our biggest attacking threats by far)....

I sense you think I'm defending the result/performance in some way; I'm not... Individually, collectively and managerially it was flawed; but think back the question I responded to to initially.... I identified where the risks lay... Amongst them there were risks that didn't pay off. Seems to me that if anything is being ignored it's you ignoring these factors and gunning exclusively for Jose (even thought we've seen similar scenarios with other managers over and over when rotating heavily).

It's the risk you take, when you sacrifice continuity and momentum vs rest and assigning minutes to those deemed 'in need' in games that represent a proverbial 'cup final' for the oppo..... What's more when bringing on the big guns to save the day; if the oppo are already 'in the groove', then sometimes it will prove too little too late.

 

[Airfixx]

Let's go back to my original question, which was why was that line up so "risky"?

Bar Vinicius (and Bale but he's hardly what you'd call a B team player is he) every single one of those players are players who have played loads of first team football over the last weeks and months and with proper coaching should have been playing together as a group in training for the last few days.

That back 5 would be many people's first choice certainly 4 of them.

That CM2 is no more "risky" than Hojbjerg and Sissoko as a combo (who were atrocious last two PL games). They lack height, but are at least as tenacious more mobile and better technically.

Most people would prefer to see Bergwijn than Moura for example (personally I don't rate either). Son wasn't out there and though he's clearly not as likely to produce goods, many people still rate Alli very highly (not me).

Kane's absence should have at least been partially mitigated by having our RM uber star out there, no?

So I'm not saying that was the strongest team we could put out, it definitely wasn't, I'm saying I don't think it was risky. What were we risking? that we would only score a couple of goals instead of 4 ? That our performance wouldn't be quite as slick as with out best 11? That's not "risky" IMO, it's just minor trade offs.

IMO, that team wasn't our best obviously, but was good enough, personnel wise, to not be "risky".

What were we risking? Win vs Loss.

Seemingly Jose's favoured starting XI so far this season:

Hugo
Serge / Toby / Dier / Reg (* Though evidently not 100% trusted yet - See Burnley.)
Sissoko / PEH / Ndombele
Lucas (Lamela?) / Kane / Son

.....Those who played highlighted.

Theory:
Individually, on paper, if all were fit and in form; I'd agree those that started ought to have been enough...

Reality:
Davies had a rick..... Winks & Dav struggled... Gio looked ok, but trying to work his way back to fitness.... Dele passenger.... Frontline had no cohesion.... Bale & Stevie - individually - looked off....

Bale: Naughty Blakey, you know he's not up to speed yet. Like I said numerous times "form, fitness and rotation".




Let's call it a day, yeh.

 

[sudoku]

Antwerp are unbeaten at home since August 2019.

 

[bonaspur23]

Just watched the highlights... we were pathetic! Davies shocking on 2 occasions.