Sheffield United vs Tottenham Hotspur | Sunday 17th Jan, KO: 14:00

[Matt1882]

So Kane says it is not Mourinho that tells them to defend deep towards the end of games but the players. This is not the first time we have gone through a run of conceding late goals and will not be the last. Normally fans fear it happening as we all do but despite there being no fans in the ground the players are still paralysed by fear. Part of it is the other teams knowing the recent history put more pressure on. In the team some players like Kane have no fear they will get dropped and can take more chances but many do not have that comfort and Mourinho does not help by installing that fear by castigating mistakes and dropping players who make mistakes.
How do we get out of this? Well it really is up to Mourinho to install confidence to continue to go forward and not be ultra cautious in team selection by picking all 3 holding midfielders. Only time will solve the problem but for the next few weeks the last 10 mins of matches will be a nightmare for us supporters.

Thing is,
When a team is winning 1-0 with 5 minutes left, the attacker will run the ball into the corner as an age old recognised safety tactic. Hold the ball up. waste some seconds, maybe win a corner and kill some time.
Pundits all get a hard on and call it "game management" and credit the coach for drilling it into them.
But when it goes wrong and you concede, in exactly the same scenario, it's no longer good game management, and it's all negativuty etc etc.

Football pundits, commentatirs and "journalists" are skewing the fans opinion of what is going on in front of their eyes.
Goals completely change peoples perception of a game.

You can be in almost complete control of a game but be desperately unlucky not to score a 2nd (or more goals) and one fliuke at the other end changes the context from;
Spurs were dominant and won at a canter, to
Spurs were negative and holding their lead cost them

MOTD is criminal. I stuck MOTD2 on last night from Sundays game and they showed SU having more chances than us in their main highlights. If you only watched that, it would appear to many that we were on the back foot.
We were not. We had total control.
In the discussion after, they talked about how good we were and showed clips not included in the highlights - what the hell!

 

[sammyspurs]

It is much harder to score goals than to defend. Sonny has the best conversion rate in Europe.

I don’t blame Dier at all for our conceding goals late. I blame it more on consistently poor dead ball defence and a mentality focused on “maintaining a lead” instead of putting our opponents away.

I don’t think you can use a blanket argument that it’s harder to score goals than defend.

Some situations are easier or more difficult both ways. It should be easier for Son to score one of 4 one on ones than it is for Dier to head out a ball that he’s too short to reach.

What’s difficult is to create while playing defensive football, but as I’ve been saying we have created enough clear cut chances to win these games.

West Ham was the fault of the defence. The attack put the game to bed and we had no right to throw that game in 8 minutes.

People lump this in with Fulham or Wolves though, when it’s not the same thing.
Wolves and Fulham goals should have been consolation goals.

We always try to put the opponent away.....missing those chances doesn’t equate to sitting back

 

[stevee]

I am curious as to how you determined that Dier misread the ball?

Because he read a book on football once.

 

[Matt1882]

I don’t think you can use a blanket argument that it’s harder to score goals than defend.

Some situations are easier or more difficult both ways. It should be easier for Son to score one of 4 one on ones than it is for Dier to head out a ball that he’s too short to reach.

What’s difficult is to create while playing defensive football, but as I’ve been saying we have created enough clear cut chances to win these games.

West Ham was the fault of the defence. The attack put the game to bed and we had no right to throw that game in 8 minutes.

People lump this in with Fulham or Wolves though, when it’s not the same thing.
Wolves and Fulham goals should have been consolation goals.

We always try to put the opponent away.....missing those chances doesn’t equate to sitting back

It's hard to score against a team that isn't trying to score against you.
As we have seen so so so many times.

I've actually supported the idea of giving poorer teams some encouragement to try and score against us so we can open them up.
Our solid displays against City were nothing compared to most bottom half teams camping in their own box against us season after season.

 

[Maureen]

It's hard to score against a team that isn't trying to score against you.
As we have seen so so so many times.

I've actually supported the idea of giving poorer teams some encouragement to try and score against us so we can open them up.
Our solid displays against City were nothing compared to most bottom half teams camping in their own box against us season after season.

Not sure I see the difference still the same style of play just we have better players for the counter. Did barcodes do the same to us a couple of years ago at Wembley?

 

[Matt1882]

Not sure I see the difference still the same style of play just we have better players for the counter. Did barcodes do the same to us a couple of years ago at Wembley?

It really isn't the same style at all.
Conceding posession isn't the same as not leaving your own half.
Watch the 1-1 draw with West Ham at Wembley again. They had every player in the box for the entire match. It was pitiful. When they had the ball, they just tried to hump it back into our half whilst all their players returned back to the 6-4-0 formation. No one was running to get the balls up field, they were busy getting back.
The only reason they scored was because they hit a belter from 35 yards out. Their agenda was 0-0
When we play, we have a plan to score. We want the win but if it doesn't come, don;t lose.

Witness the same game plan from pretty much every bottom half team for years. Most of which ended in draws or losses so their plan worked.
It got progressively worse when our players just tapped the ball about without ever causing them any harm.

 

[bus-conductor]

It's hard to score against a team that isn't trying to score against you.
As we have seen so so so many times.

I've actually supported the idea of giving poorer teams some encouragement to try and score against us so we can open them up.
Our solid displays against City were nothing compared to most bottom half teams camping in their own box against us season after season.

It really isn't the same style at all.
Conceding posession isn't the same as not leaving your own half.
Watch the 1-1 draw with West Ham at Wembley again. They had every player in the box for the entire match. It was pitiful. When they had the ball, they just tried to hump it back into our half whilst all their players returned back to the 6-4-0 formation. No one was running to get the balls up field, they were busy getting back.
The only reason they scored was because they hit a belter from 35 yards out. Their agenda was 0-0
When we play, we have a plan to score. We want the win but if it doesn't come, don;t lose.

Witness the same game plan from pretty much every bottom half team for years. Most of which ended in draws or losses so their plan worked.
It got progressively worse when our players just tapped the ball about without ever causing them any harm.

Against City, we had 4 shots in 90+ minutes, two of them on target, which we scored from. The ball was 42% in our third, 15% in their third.

Spurs v West Ham at Wembley (1-1) they had three shots, 1 on target and scored from it. The ball was 41% in their third, 16% in ours.

We spent marginally more of the game in ours and marginally less in theirs than West Ham did.

 

[Matt1882]

Against City, we had 4 shots in 90+ minutes, two of them on target, which we scored from. The ball was 42% in our third, 15% in their third.

Spurs v West Ham at Wembley (1-1) they had three shots, 1 on target and scored from it. The ball was 41% in their third, 16% in ours.

We spent marginally more of the game in ours and marginally less in theirs than West Ham did.

The ball was in our third when West Ham came to Wembley.
The West Ham team wasn't.