Moussa Sissoko

  • 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...

    Get involved!

Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports

Stand by the fact that he isn't good enough and an upgrade is a priority

However he was pretty good tonight and definitely looks better against the likes of city than he does against teams like west brom
When tasked with simply tracking runs, I am not too worried about him so City and Pool are good games where we know we will struggle with posession. But yeah, against the lesser sides where we have it, he is not needed.
 
Started 7 of our nine PL matches. Played 90 mins in nearly all of them. We are top of the league.
I'll keep it warm for you. ;-)
Hope you’ve got a powerful microwave. Think you might need it.

Honestly not expecting him to hit the comparative heights of yesterday for more than a few games this season.
 
And this is perhaps the problem. You keep trying to judge him by standards which other people don't think are as important as you do. In a nutshell, your argument seems to be that he is a waste of a shirt because he doesn't do anything that you measure quality by.

I don't know why you are so resistant to updating your measurements, especially when everyone and their mother is praising how good he was yesterday. It seems your impression is that he didn't screw up very much, so he was "okay, I guess", while most of the forum (and punditry, and journalists) seem to think he was brilliant.



Exactly my point. Your naked eye isn't picking up what he does, and you've gone looking for statistical evidence that he does nothing to verify what your eyes are telling you.

If you truly can't see, even with your naked eye, how much he was an absolute roadblock to City's transitions, passing, and even wing-play, then I don't know if anyone can explain it to you. That's not me inviting a cunt off, just saying that I truly don't get how you don't get it yet.



:mourcheeks:
Chock full of homoerotic and statistical weirdness. Alot of that on the fighting cock podcasts...🤔 Maybe its the nane. Its cool each to their own.
He is Sissoko not my favourite player hell Mourinho is not my favourite coach but they are winning games with each other for Spurs as a Spurs fan....this makes me happy
 
And this is perhaps the problem. You keep trying to judge him by standards which other people don't think are as important as you do. In a nutshell, your argument seems to be that he is a waste of a shirt because he doesn't do anything that you measure quality by.

I don't know why you are so resistant to updating your measurements, especially when everyone and their mother is praising how good he was yesterday. It seems your impression is that he didn't screw up very much, so he was "okay, I guess", while most of the forum (and punditry, and journalists) seem to think he was brilliant.



Exactly my point. Your naked eye isn't picking up what he does, and you've gone looking for statistical evidence that he does nothing to verify what your eyes are telling you.

If you truly can't see, even with your naked eye, how much he was an absolute roadblock to City's transitions, passing, and even wing-play, then I don't know if anyone can explain it to you. That's not me inviting a cunt off, just saying that I truly don't get how you don't get it yet.



:mourcheeks:

No, your naked eye isn't picking up what he does or doesn't do.

I'm backing up what my naked eye picked up with actual facts and events (or lack of).
 
I've been sucked into the credibility vacuum of people claiming he was Immense, brilliant, MOTM...

Can always count on you for a smooth-ass retort.... But nah.

You dug your OWN hole....

Your "functionally adequate'" post was a sad sight; having to downplay other players (and now - above - playing down yesterday in general) just to double-double-double-down on your anti-Sissoko stance. Much like your 2 year campaign of false "...but everyone else thinks he's world-class"-isms......

The guy above nailed it (much like others have previously).... You simply can't see past the notion that he's not what you think footballers should be.... You can't comprehend that, despite this, he can have a good game (and has done on plenty of occasions).
 
No, your naked eye isn't picking up what he does or doesn't do.

Yes, it is. It's just that my eye is looking for (and picking up quite nicely) different things than yours is. That's why when I find stats to back myself up, they are aimed at revealing to you what he actually DOES do, and why it's more important than what you think he doesn't do.

That's why I point out, with stats, that he loses the ball less than practically anyone in the squad. He completes his passes at a higher rate than nearly anyone else in the squad. He is dribbled past less than anyone else in the squad, and he performs more blocks, tackles and interceptions than half the back line do, behind PEH and the other half (and Kane, but let's not compare him to God). He does this by closing down spaces, patrolling zones, directing the backline with his pointing, and generally be wherever he needs to be to prevent the opposition from being where THEY want to be. These things are obvious and verifiable when you know to actually look for them. You just apparently don't want to listen, because your idea of football doesn't include that. You might not think these things are important, but I do, and judging by the world of football analysis, I'm far from alone.

Is your position truly that everyone else just doesn't understand football, but you do?

I'm backing up what my naked eye picked up with actual facts and events (or lack of).

No, you're backing up what you think is the reason to criticize him, and refusing to listen to anyone point out that he's really good at much more important things for his role in the team.

My naked eye is working just fine. I just keep trying to assist yours, because it seems to me that yours is a little faulty in this matter.
 
Last edited:
It was a great team performance and maybe I was too busy watching the clock in the corner of the screen or following the ball but I cannot recall seeing much of Sissoko although it was not always clear who cleared the ball. Kane, Son, Dier, Regulion, Aurier figured much more. He did not do any poor passes or miscontrol of the ball as is often the case. He had a good game but I could not put it any higher than that.
 
Sissoko had a great first half. He made several vital recovery runs that may have prevented goals. His booking was dumb. I didn’t get to see the second half so I can’t comment on it.

He’s a good defensive mid that fits against possession teams but we need another option against teams like west brom.
 
I admit, he was much better in the 2nd half.

But I stand by my words - his first half was weak. Literally he was too slow to react to VAR'ed goal of City (and not in the situation itself that was VAR'ed!). And once before he put ball on the plate for City players where it could have bited us when he should have just cleared it.

Happy to get a victory, but he still was weakest link in the team (together with Bergwijn)..
 
Sissoko had a great first half. He made several vital recovery runs that may have prevented goals. His booking was dumb. I didn’t get to see the second half so I can’t comment on it.

He’s a good defensive mid that fits against possession teams but we need another option against teams like west brom.
Agreed. He's back to his best form of a couple of years ago when he pulled us through when Kane and Son were off sick.

I wish people would call it as it is. Sissoko was good yesterday.

We now have a settled midfield of Hojbjerg, Sissoko and Ndombele along with (at last) a settled defence (rather than the revolving door of the last couple of seasons). The Alderweireld injury will test that stability and I hope Sanchez/Rodon/Tanganga can step in/up.
 
No it's not. It's continually being insulted for explaining (and backing those explanations up) why I don't rate the player or giving exactly the right amount of credit that's due, not exaggerating the credit that's due out of rational proportion because of some fanboy agenda.

Here's an example. Yesterday, nobody who stared saw less of the ball than Sissoko, nobody who started received the ball less than Sissoko, in fact Lo Celso who was on the pitch a third of the time Sissoko was, received it the same - 13 times - but it was what he did without the ball you will wail, no, not really.

Sissoko tackles = 1

Pressures of opponents:

Hojbjerg 31
Aurier 29
Ndombele 25
Son 24
Kane 18
Reguilon 17
Bergwijn 15
Dier 12
Lo Celso 6 (25 min)
Moura 5 (17)
Sissoko 12 (90)

Successful presses:

Hojbjerg 11
Aurier 7
Ndombele 7
Reguilon 6
Son 3
Kane 3
Bergwijn 3
Dier 3
Alderweireld 2
Lo Celso 2 (25m)
Sissoko 1 (90)

Sissoko - number of times a player tried to dribble past was tackled = 0


These stats back up what I have said previously interns of what I saw. I didn't see "immense" I didn't see a "great" performance. I saw an incredibly perfunctory, functional, OK performance in which he did a really basic remit, shuttling between the RB and CB mostly, in what was a very basic functional tactical collective performance in which we parked a bus and scored with our only two shots on target, outscoring our X/G by 1.4, whilst they still managed an x/g of 1.6. And the one time they did get the ball in the net, guess who was marking the scorer ?

If you guys want to suck each off about what was a perfunctory bus park (and lest be honest here, we're not the first to do this to City lately) and add a Sissoko reach around into it, knock yourselves out. I didn't see that, collectively or individually.
Pulling him up on pressses.
When his total role in the team is to sit in front of the back 4 and give them protection, something he does well.

:harrylol:
 
Moussa Sissoko, based on our 25 man squad is all but a guaranteed starter.
There is no one in that 25 man squad that, based on the way we play, should start a game ahead of him.

And despite people saying he only needs to start against teams that will dominate the ball, he's still one of the best dribblers in our squad who can advance play up the pitch quickly and effectively.
He may just make a 3 yard pass at the end of it and then run back, but we go from defence to attack because of that ability to run with the ball and brush players off.
 
Sissoko had a great first half. He made several vital recovery runs that may have prevented goals. His booking was dumb. I didn’t get to see the second half so I can’t comment on it.

He’s a good defensive mid that fits against possession teams but we need another option against teams like west brom.
I hope it’s nothing serious and they get well soon
 
When our player breaks through, you know City is safe if the defender following is Walker.
If M Rashford breaks through our line, who you wish to track him? Dier? Toby? Aurier? Or even Kane? I prefer Sissoko.
 
Pulling him up on pressses.
When his total role in the team is to sit in front of the back 4 and give them protection, something he does well.

:harrylol:

Hojbjerg's job was also to protect the back 4, which he did with much better aplomb (ie not allowing his guy to score) but he also managed to pressure the opponent three times more than Sissoko (which helped prevent the ball getting as far as the back 4 sometimes), win the ball in tackles 6 times more than Sissoko, receive it and pass it twice as much as Sissoko, to relieve some of the constant pressure and help try to counter - which was also vital part of the plan - you know, if we were to actually win it - and which we barely did because Sissoko didn't do any of those things, as it happens we got very lucky with scoring with our only two shots on target, both of which benefitted from keeper errors, that also went through his legs.

It really shouldn't need the metrics to confirm what was really easy to see to anyone who isn't just an agenda driven fanboy. I'm not even big fan of Hojbjerg, but you had a direct comparison playing a mirror role adjacent to Sissoko on Saturday, doing it much, much better.

We could have had Tanganga out there doing what Sissoko did Saturday. Shuffle around a 5m square of pitch, between and around Toby and Aurier, pressing no one, tackling no one, barley receiving the ball, barely passing it.

And if it wasn't for VAR existing, he'd have cost us a goal and all of this fanboy result punditry about wonderful performances would have pissed itself away as well.
 
Back
Top Bottom