Once walker comes back to full match fitness and yedlin arrives, our right back problems will also go away and we can have a consistent back 4 for the rest of the season - Davies, vertonghen, Fazio, walker.
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Fazio is incredible in the air, no doubt.. but there are times when he gets beaten by the most simple of through balls on the ground. I'm also deathly afraid when I see him defending 1v1. Like him, but I'm not entirely sure he's the longterm solution at CB for us.
They can mate.Imagine how good the results would be if those two could actually defend well!
We'll see what a team that can take their chances has to say about that.
I don't know what all of those games are, but Swansea and Man U were both creating chance after chance after chance based on Fazio's lack of pace and Vertonghen's strained attempts to account for that space.
There's no question of Fazio's aerial dominance, but I have a hard time believing Tottenham can have a top class defense with him in it. It just creates a chain reaction of problems. And then you add in Kyle Walker's defensive frailties and Nabil Bentaleb's fairly middling performances as cover, and it's just too many chances at our fortunately world class keeper.
I was at the Swansea game. Verts was no better, no worse than Faz. He was not 'straining' to account for Faz's mistakes at all.
Walker has been very good defensively the past 18 months, much improved. You seem like one of those fans that hates on him for past mistakes. The lad has been a staple in this team, and it showed how important he is as we missed him massively the past 9/10 months, our whole defence was imbalanced.
How much has he even played in the last 18 months?
I'm a huge Walker fan, FWIW. He totally changes your team with his abilities going forward, and I agree he has gotten too much crap based on being a blunder-prone young guy years ago. But fullbacks who are always on the attack present tradeoffs, just inherently. You can't be in two places at once. Frankenstein-sized center backs present tradeoffs too. It adds up.
Agree he's been injured a good while, but I feel he still gets stick for poor form 3 years ago. The lad is one of the best right backs in the league, we're lucky to have him - spoilt even. Lets hope Yedlin can push him on even further.
What do you mean 'present tradeoffs'? Not heard that term before...
Correct.
This is the guy that lead his team to the Europa League last season, yet we question his pace, agility, tackling, etc etc
The bloke came up against some of the best strikers in Europe (via domestic and European football) and seemed to handle it perfectly well. How we can criticise him is beyond me...
Remember when Meerkater came to Woolwich how everybody said he was too slow, laughed and said he was a liability.
Mangala was also no doubt a good defender in Portugal, has played at u21 level for France and has had 5 caps in a season for French national team. He has struggled starting in the EPL, as did Demichelis.
You have to remember, it's a different game here. He's getting used to the styles of teams, the pace and the different kind of physicality - it's more dirty off the ball in Spain.
From what I have seen he started nervously, but has improved. For a handful of league starts, I think it's about 11, I'd say he's adjusted quickly to the EPL. Much better than either of the 3 I mentioned above did.
Obviously there are some things that need improvement, but I am sure it will come.
He distributes the ball well and has a range of passing - the pass to Lamela who then put Chadli through for the first v Leicester was great - he dominates aerially and he positions himself well. He's also not afraid to take a shot.
Mangala was also no doubt a good defender in Portugal, has played at u21 level for France and has had 5 caps in a season for French national team. He has struggled starting in the EPL, as did Demichelis.
You have to remember, it's a different game here. He's getting used to the styles of teams, the pace and the different kind of physicality - it's more dirty off the ball in Spain.
From what I have seen he started nervously, but has improved. For a handful of league starts, I think it's about 11, I'd say he's adjusted quickly to the EPL. Much better than either of the 3 I mentioned above did.
Obviously there are some things that need improvement, but I am sure it will come.
He distributes the ball well and has a range of passing - the pass to Lamela who then put Chadli through for the first v Leicester was great - he dominates aerially and he positions himself well. He's also not afraid to take a shot.
What do you mean 'present tradeoffs'? Not heard that term before...
A right back who is going to run up the flanks whenever he gets the chance is sacrificing protecting at the back in those instances. You can't have both, a human being cannot be in two places at once.
Similarly, a big, tall, strong center back is not going to be as swift in chasing people down and closing down space as a smaller, quicker one who might struggle in the air.
If you have Roberto Carlos or Ledley King in those positions, superb, world-class, all-around talents, then you shrink those tradeoffs, but they never truly go away.
My feeling with Spurs currently is that if you want Walker to be free to contribute to the attack (which we do, he's a huge difference maker doing that), and have Fazio to dominate the aerial game (which is a nice thing to have as well), and you also want to be the kind of defense that can credibly challenge for the CL spots, something has to be different in the equation. It doesn't add up currently. Lloris absolves many many sins, but I still think you need either an elite defensive left-back (could Davies be that guy? Too early to tell, IMO) or an elite holding midfielder (I'm dubious that Bentaleb is that guy) to protect the space left by the pieces that we have in place. There's just too much room back there right now.
You are correct. We have seen many people running at our CB's because Nabil has been quite poor lately. Let's face it he has less presence than Mason and cannot tackle as well. Mason's stats offensively & defensively are good. We need Nabil to step up with more presence defensively, get more tackles in and do a bit more offensively. He has great positional sense, and therefore intercepts a lot but I feel he is only playing there because of his discipline and work rate. He's not cut out for that role. I don't think MP trusts Capoue or Paulinho, has a bit of trust in Dembele and Stambouli has not adjusted to the pace yet.
However, he will improve.
We wil see if anyone steps up and does any better when he goes to Africa.
(...) Jan Vertonghen and Federico Fazio are developing an understanding in central defence and Christian Eriksen is thriving in his favoured No10 role behind the in-form Harry Kane.
Fazio will be charged with nullifying Chelsea’s Diego Costa and the head-to-head will stir memories of their previous meeting, in Spain last season. Costa, then at Atlético Madrid, got into a tangle with Fazio, who was at Sevilla, and he dug his finger into the defender’s cheek. Fazio responded by balling up his fist and punching Costa in the side. Costa did not play in the Stamford Bridge game because he was suspended.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/dec/31/mauricio-pochettino-tottenham-jose-mourinho-chelsea
Fazio will be charged with nullifying Chelsea’s Diego Costa and the head-to-head will stir memories of their previous meeting, in Spain last season. Costa, then at Atlético Madrid, got into a tangle with Fazio, who was at Sevilla, and he dug his finger into the defender’s cheek. Fazio responded by balling up his fist and punching Costa in the side. Costa did not play in the Stamford Bridge game because he was suspended.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/dec/31/mauricio-pochettino-tottenham-jose-mourinho-chelsea
A brain fart away from a near perfect performance today. Not easy for me to say as I have mentioned once or twice his failings on here but I thought he was really solid today. Right up until that give away for their second. However, huge improvement and I hope he carries it on.
Love the way he shoved Frazier Campbell to the floor yesterday after he shoved Hugo BOSS!