Absolutely nothing to do with either of them not being good enough defensively. Instead it's completely to do with the fact our style has risk. If the press is broken our back 4 is called upon, sometimes it fails but no system is perfect though that aspect will continue to improve with time.
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i dont wont to disagree with you since we are sushi fans
however the problem is, we have alot CM,s and none of them dous what mason do,
his passes are going forword with a onetouch and land also there, you can add a CM who gonna do a better job, but as far as i know you need to pay a min. fee of 30M to get the right player.
lets see how far we can go with mason instand rushing in for some 30m player ( dont forget its his first season in the 1st team and he dropped 3 CM to the bench)
When Scott Parker started out, much like Mason, he was also more of an attacking player.
Funny how things turn out, aye
Funny how things turn out, aye
Mason actually has the fourth most tackles per game in the league (for a centre mid). Behind Matic, Leiva and Jedinak.
Sorry, but we're actually pretty rubbish in midfield at preventing shots. That's why we've only been winning 2-1 or so. We can't stop the bleeding without a third midfielder because Mason and Bentaleb aren't good enough on their own.
Exactly. If someone doesn't rate a young Parker I question their allegiances heavily. He gave everything and he was one of the best DMs in the league at one point. These JCLs probably only remember him under AVB playing injured/old and doing a role he was not built for.
Scott Parker was amazing that first season we signed him. Just a shame we didn't sign him earlier as he wasted his best years playing for a very average West Ham team...
Didn't say we needed to spend 30 million for one, just that Mason, for all his forward drive, was too easy to get past, and that was hurting us.i dont wont to disagree with you since we are sushi fans
however the problem is, we have alot CM,s and none of them dous what mason do,
his passes are going forword with a onetouch and land also there, you can add a CM who gonna do a better job, but as far as i know you need to pay a min. fee of 30M to get the right player.
lets see how far we can go with mason instand rushing in for some 30m player ( dont forget its his first season in the 1st team and he dropped 3 CM to the bench)
I'm not denying we leak chances, what I am saying is the fact we're conceding them cannot be used to justify saying 'Mason and Bentaleb aren't good enough'. We play incredibly high intensity pressing football, of course our two central midfielders are overrun at times and it makes plenty of sense that adding even more steel in Dembele makes us concede fewer chances.
Yup, but there's more to his duties than tackles.
The point is that Pochettino's system nominally only uses two central midfielders to do that. Our lack of sufficient defensive prowess means we need a third.
Looked at another way, we give up the second most fast attacks in the league behind only QPR, the most from throughballs, and the 7th most shots from the best locations. In contrast, other pressing teams in the league, like Soton, are much better at that than we are. We leak like a sieve, not because of the system, but because of the personnel. When we abandoned the two man midfield of Mason and Bentaleb for a 3 man version with Dembele at a forward destroyer, those numbers dramatically improved.
Ergo, Mason and Bentaleb on their own aren't good enough defensively.
That doesn't mean they won't get better. But right now, they are not good enough to be a 2 man pairing in midfield. And the other pairing experimented with have been actually worse.
the same doubts what you have about mason i had about lamela i watched the Woolwich game again and focused on lamela. after the full game again without emotions ( since i knew we beat the scum) i saw how much he did, maybe it helps you aswell to see what mason dous.
http://www.footballorgin.com/2015/02/premier-league-2014-2015-tottenham.html
PS: im a cunt and i dont know what mason did so i need to watch it again aswell :walkercry:
I agree with that. The way we play is bound to concede chances. However it seems like a lot of goals are coming from the wings, not from the center of the field. I can recall a few goals where Walker or Rose got beaten pretty badly and the cross into the box beat us. Ozils and the two vs. Sheffield definitely fell into that category.
Bentaleb and Mason have been our best midfield paring without a doubt. I don't care what the cherrypicked stats say, we look much better with those two than anything else we've tried this season.
Dembele hasn't been brought in because they were not good enough together (Bentaleb was away at ACON when Dembele was first played at #10) but because he played two very good games against Sheffield United and West Bromwich while Chadli was away. It's as simple as that.
Dembele hasn't been brought in because they were not good enough together (Bentaleb was away at ACON when Dembele was first played at #10) but because he played two very good games against Sheffield United and West Bromwich while Chadli was away. It's as simple as that.
I saw what Mason does, my point is that what he does has a negative side. If you attempt a tackle and succeed, great, the ball is won. If you fail, your ass is on the pitch and your opponent is 10 yards past you with one less defender between them and the goal.
Stambouli is the most prolific tackler on the team, with 5.3 per 90 in successful tackles. Ryan's second most with 4.1. Ryan is also the second most dribbled past player on the team (those missed tackles) with 1.5 per 90. Paulinho is the worst at a full 2 missed tackles per match on average (some nights he misses even more).
This is the issue we face though as a team. When it works, it works great. When it doesn't, we get fucked. And we don't get it right often enough in midfield, hence the lousy defensive numbers and large number of chances conceded.
He was brought in to provide a third midfielder because two alone weren't doing well enough. It stinks, but it's true. We dramatically improved with a 3 man midfield, because our 2 man midfields weren't good enough.
We lead the league in giving up throughballs though, which aren't come from the wings, but down the centre.
We also play with a really high line. It's bound to happen when you play up that high.
It's a risk, yes. We do this disproportionately more than other good teams playing with a high line. That's the point.
A high line has this risk. We're having this risk realized much more than it should. A 3 man midfield has reduced that dramatically, which would infer that the 2 man midfield didn't work for us.
We also have a new manager with a drastically new system and we've seen recent significant improvement which makes sense because we've had about a half season to implement his philosophy. Mason and Bentaleb could also just be improving due to learning the system and the fact that they don't yet have 50 league appearances between them. Mason, Bentaleb, and our team are not entities locked in time. It seems extremely unlikely they won't continue to improve.
They might, but the numbers weren't. We were pretty consistently not great, until we switched to Dembele as the 10.
Not saying they won't get better eventually, but right now, our best team means a 3 man midfield with Dembele. Just Mason and Bentaleb isn't good enough.