Back to School
The one thing Ive always maintained is that it's not spirit or bollocks that this team lacks. And we saw that again tonight, and with a bit of composure and nous to go with those bollocks we might just have scraped something out of this game.
I remain very perplexed by Poch's abject refusal to ever start with a 433. Even if he thought Barca were going to go with their more familiar 442, that 442 still would have effectively had Coutinho and Rakatic with Vidala and Busqettes, as well as Messi frequently dropping back there. How the fuck Poch thought a CM2 of Wanyama and the still very green Winks would cope with being outnumbered considerably, and by such quality players is baffling. Messi is always going to be Messi, the best hope is to tactically castrate him, by cutting off his supply line, and I honestly can't remember a Barca game against top calibre opposition lately where he's had so much of the game as he did tonight.
The only tactical explanation for playing a 4231 against this, would be if we were going to press like nutters from the front, but although there was some energy early on (and then in the last 20), it was rarely cohesive enough in that first half to prevent them playing out, and after about 20 minutes it got less and less coordinated, and one or two players would go, and another couple wouldn't, meaning they were able to knock the ball into midfield too easily and Messi was like a pig in shit.
If you put the structure (4231) together with the application (pressing that just wasn't vigorous or cohesive enough) and combine this with a bunch of forwards who give the ball away more than any other in the PL, and this was always likely to be a another one of those games that we've seen quite a few times now against teams like this (hard cohesive pressing, quick transitioning - Liverpool, ManC eg) where we find ourselves on the chase - often a gallant chase - but ultimately just a bit fucking naive.
I think there will be plenty of us that will suck the positives out of that game, those being that Poch has instilled spirit and bollocks, we don't go down without a fight, ever, and we have some good, well coached intentions that stand us in good stead, always, and in probably 95% of the games we play the good stuff he brings is - coaching, tactics, mentality - gets us where we want to go, and I think at times there was a better intensity about us, without the ball, tonight than in recent games, but I think it's only fair to point out that in quite a lot if these types of games, Poch's naivety can sometimes bite us on the arse too. We've ended up with 38% of the ball, but not because we were pragmatic, sat deep, stayed compact and stopped Barca playing through channels and lanes, but because we tried to do the opposite against a team who invented it and did it so much better than we did. They out worked us and outplayed us. Their press stopped us playing out or developing any rhythm, but our press was half arsed by comparison, and where they flooded midfield with 3-5 footballers, we had 2.
There was this little spell when they started to shell at 3-1 up when we got ourselves miraculously back in the game and had a tail wind, they couldn't pile forward with so little time, but even this phase was littered with our foibles. Sisssoko blasts a marvellous chance out of the stadium, Moura seem to whack it at a defender when it was easier to hit it goal wards, and then our clown of a keeper rubs salt into the already gaping wound he'd inflicted by playing a really stupid and unnecessary pass (something that's been his trademark for a long time), they press, Sissoko coughs it up too easily and it's game over.
We can lament another tough draw, and lack of some very key personnel, but we've been here before, with our best players too. People think I'm hard on Poch, but let me be clear, I think he's the best coach Ive seen in my lifetime at Spurs, but he's got to take some responsibility for repeating the same mistakes time and again. How many times, even in the shit games, do we not start games right at it. How many times against top quality, proactive teams does he try to apply the same basic tactical application with the same outcome (Juve away, Liverpool, ManC, Barca). And how many times does he see what's happening in a game and fail or take too long to react.
We desperately needed to change our structure quickly. Normally Eriksen (and Alli) would have just dropped back into midfield, but tonight he wasn't there, so what we got was Kane dropping into midfield, coughing up the ball often and then when he had held it up, he wasn't in forward areas to support the break. Poch needed to do something radical, he needed to get either Skipp (my choice) or (god forbid) even Dier or Sissoko on, sacrifice Son, who was having another fucking bumble fest and go 433, with Moura and Lamela also dropping in to be a 451 without the ball. And he needed to do this quickly, or at the very least by half time. As it was, as ever, he failed to react at all, and we were lucky not to 4/5 down before we eventually got one back. Then he eventually swaps out a flagging Wanyama for the human ballast that is Dier.
We got schooled by a master.
Individual
Lloris - Those that know me know Ive never been as smitten with him as many are. He's royally fucked us again tonight. The error for the first goal is as fucking piss poor as you'll ever see. The error for the 4th is just routine fucking Lloris that we've seen repeatedly almost from day one. I like that we are a team that is coached to play out, that's fine, but a stupid pass is a stupid pass no matter what your tactics are, and passing that ball to Trippier when we are under the press is just asking for trouble.
Trippier - Did some good things in forward areas, OK defensively generally but all our defenders were exposed by Barca's football at times.
Alderweireld/Sanchez - OK for the most part, considering how exposed they were by our tactics and Barca's football at times.
Davies - See above. Meh going forward.
Wanyama - Not ideal to have your second start in a long time against Europe's second most voracious pressing, footballing side, and in a CM2 against 4/5 most of the time it was a tough night. OK under the circumstances and at least some more miles on the recovery clock.
Winks - Overall, I think he was probably our best player on the night. For sure, he struggled early on to influence the game and stem their clever and more numerous midfield, but as the game wore on he really got into it, saw more ball than any one on our team (69 touches, 56 passes 95%) and showed some grit and a little bit of much needed alacrity as the game wore on.
Lamela - Probably the best of our forward bunch. You always get work off the ball with Lamela, which is a minimum requirement for me, but he shows up, never hides and doesn't bumble quite as much as Son and Moura, and he's set one up and scored again.
Moura - He's a lively fucker for sure, just wish there was a bit more composure at the end of it. Too often his first touch let him down, he tried to do too much or turn into trouble or take on one too many instead of just controlling it, looking after it and passing it to someone.
Son - The boy can be dynamite on a good day, but those days are interspersed between quite a few days where he fucks around and pisses the ball away too cheaply when we just need a bit more care and attention and composure and quality. Flimsey again.
Kane - There were real glimpses of the Kane of Christmas past tonight. Worked hard, scored a great goal, but please stop pretending to be a fucking trequartista and dribbling in your own half.
The one thing Ive always maintained is that it's not spirit or bollocks that this team lacks. And we saw that again tonight, and with a bit of composure and nous to go with those bollocks we might just have scraped something out of this game.
I remain very perplexed by Poch's abject refusal to ever start with a 433. Even if he thought Barca were going to go with their more familiar 442, that 442 still would have effectively had Coutinho and Rakatic with Vidala and Busqettes, as well as Messi frequently dropping back there. How the fuck Poch thought a CM2 of Wanyama and the still very green Winks would cope with being outnumbered considerably, and by such quality players is baffling. Messi is always going to be Messi, the best hope is to tactically castrate him, by cutting off his supply line, and I honestly can't remember a Barca game against top calibre opposition lately where he's had so much of the game as he did tonight.
The only tactical explanation for playing a 4231 against this, would be if we were going to press like nutters from the front, but although there was some energy early on (and then in the last 20), it was rarely cohesive enough in that first half to prevent them playing out, and after about 20 minutes it got less and less coordinated, and one or two players would go, and another couple wouldn't, meaning they were able to knock the ball into midfield too easily and Messi was like a pig in shit.
If you put the structure (4231) together with the application (pressing that just wasn't vigorous or cohesive enough) and combine this with a bunch of forwards who give the ball away more than any other in the PL, and this was always likely to be a another one of those games that we've seen quite a few times now against teams like this (hard cohesive pressing, quick transitioning - Liverpool, ManC eg) where we find ourselves on the chase - often a gallant chase - but ultimately just a bit fucking naive.
I think there will be plenty of us that will suck the positives out of that game, those being that Poch has instilled spirit and bollocks, we don't go down without a fight, ever, and we have some good, well coached intentions that stand us in good stead, always, and in probably 95% of the games we play the good stuff he brings is - coaching, tactics, mentality - gets us where we want to go, and I think at times there was a better intensity about us, without the ball, tonight than in recent games, but I think it's only fair to point out that in quite a lot if these types of games, Poch's naivety can sometimes bite us on the arse too. We've ended up with 38% of the ball, but not because we were pragmatic, sat deep, stayed compact and stopped Barca playing through channels and lanes, but because we tried to do the opposite against a team who invented it and did it so much better than we did. They out worked us and outplayed us. Their press stopped us playing out or developing any rhythm, but our press was half arsed by comparison, and where they flooded midfield with 3-5 footballers, we had 2.
There was this little spell when they started to shell at 3-1 up when we got ourselves miraculously back in the game and had a tail wind, they couldn't pile forward with so little time, but even this phase was littered with our foibles. Sisssoko blasts a marvellous chance out of the stadium, Moura seem to whack it at a defender when it was easier to hit it goal wards, and then our clown of a keeper rubs salt into the already gaping wound he'd inflicted by playing a really stupid and unnecessary pass (something that's been his trademark for a long time), they press, Sissoko coughs it up too easily and it's game over.
We can lament another tough draw, and lack of some very key personnel, but we've been here before, with our best players too. People think I'm hard on Poch, but let me be clear, I think he's the best coach Ive seen in my lifetime at Spurs, but he's got to take some responsibility for repeating the same mistakes time and again. How many times, even in the shit games, do we not start games right at it. How many times against top quality, proactive teams does he try to apply the same basic tactical application with the same outcome (Juve away, Liverpool, ManC, Barca). And how many times does he see what's happening in a game and fail or take too long to react.
We desperately needed to change our structure quickly. Normally Eriksen (and Alli) would have just dropped back into midfield, but tonight he wasn't there, so what we got was Kane dropping into midfield, coughing up the ball often and then when he had held it up, he wasn't in forward areas to support the break. Poch needed to do something radical, he needed to get either Skipp (my choice) or (god forbid) even Dier or Sissoko on, sacrifice Son, who was having another fucking bumble fest and go 433, with Moura and Lamela also dropping in to be a 451 without the ball. And he needed to do this quickly, or at the very least by half time. As it was, as ever, he failed to react at all, and we were lucky not to 4/5 down before we eventually got one back. Then he eventually swaps out a flagging Wanyama for the human ballast that is Dier.
We got schooled by a master.
Individual
Lloris - Those that know me know Ive never been as smitten with him as many are. He's royally fucked us again tonight. The error for the first goal is as fucking piss poor as you'll ever see. The error for the 4th is just routine fucking Lloris that we've seen repeatedly almost from day one. I like that we are a team that is coached to play out, that's fine, but a stupid pass is a stupid pass no matter what your tactics are, and passing that ball to Trippier when we are under the press is just asking for trouble.
Trippier - Did some good things in forward areas, OK defensively generally but all our defenders were exposed by Barca's football at times.
Alderweireld/Sanchez - OK for the most part, considering how exposed they were by our tactics and Barca's football at times.
Davies - See above. Meh going forward.
Wanyama - Not ideal to have your second start in a long time against Europe's second most voracious pressing, footballing side, and in a CM2 against 4/5 most of the time it was a tough night. OK under the circumstances and at least some more miles on the recovery clock.
Winks - Overall, I think he was probably our best player on the night. For sure, he struggled early on to influence the game and stem their clever and more numerous midfield, but as the game wore on he really got into it, saw more ball than any one on our team (69 touches, 56 passes 95%) and showed some grit and a little bit of much needed alacrity as the game wore on.
Lamela - Probably the best of our forward bunch. You always get work off the ball with Lamela, which is a minimum requirement for me, but he shows up, never hides and doesn't bumble quite as much as Son and Moura, and he's set one up and scored again.
Moura - He's a lively fucker for sure, just wish there was a bit more composure at the end of it. Too often his first touch let him down, he tried to do too much or turn into trouble or take on one too many instead of just controlling it, looking after it and passing it to someone.
Son - The boy can be dynamite on a good day, but those days are interspersed between quite a few days where he fucks around and pisses the ball away too cheaply when we just need a bit more care and attention and composure and quality. Flimsey again.
Kane - There were real glimpses of the Kane of Christmas past tonight. Worked hard, scored a great goal, but please stop pretending to be a fucking trequartista and dribbling in your own half.
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