Substitutions

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Blanchflower

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Why do ours so often seem to weaken our team or at least have very little positive impact on matches?

To me it seems like the options we have just aren't suited to coming off the bench and can't effectively get themselves into games. Son and Chadli in particular, but Mason, Clinton, Townsend and Carroll also seem to suffer.
 
Why do ours so often seem to weaken our team or at least have very little positive impact on matches?

To me it seems like the options we have just aren't suited to coming off the bench and can't effectively get themselves into games. Son and Chadli in particular, but Mason, Clinton, Townsend and Carroll also seem to suffer.

For me our game is based on high energy and we flag towards the end of games.

It's why the likes of Bentaleb, Mason and Niji seem more suited to be subs because they can press well. Niji is injured but I am really surprised at the lack of recent involvement of Mason and Bentaleb, particularly Bentaleb as he is the only player besides Dembele with an out and out physical game.

Son works hard but is a bit headless chicken on the press, Chadli is too immobile in my view to add the required energy. For subs we need players who can press well so we don't fall back towards the end of games.

Good topic by the way.
 
So many different ways to look at this:
1. Your assumption is not true - Son came on and scored against Watford, Ali came on against Leicester and scored, Onomah was superb against Anderlecht at the Lane and Dembele came on and got the winner. Mason was excellent when he came on against West Ham. Carroll came on and scored against Norwich. Carroll also came on as sub recently, can't remember who against, and he gave us control back to a game that was tipping in favour of the oppo. So I's say that at least a third of our games our subs have positively effected/changed the game.
2. Availability - Clinton has had a positive effect with every appearance from the bench and unlucky not to score. But as he is now injured and the option to bring him on is no longer there.
3. Expectations - Are you expecting a sub to have a positive effect on the game 100% of the time, if so why and what other teams do you know does it to that effect? If you are then surely the team we are playing also brings on subs trying to change the game too.
4. Opposition - Are we desperately pushing for a goal because we are behind or are we leading and need to control the game.
5. Injury - Sometimes the decisions on who to bring on are made for you due to an injury to a player.
6. Blooding youth and new players in - We have the likes of Winks, Onomah, Clinton, Son, Carroll and soon to add to that Pritchard who are being given minutes with the future in mind, by that I mean next year and beyond.

I assume you've posted this because our subs yesterday were poor and didn't effect the game in our favour but aside of yesterday I can only think of the Stoke game where our subs effected the result negatively, mind you in that game it was a double whammy as it was their subs that created and got both their goals.

Not sure what point I am trying to make other than I am disagreeing with your point that our subs "so often weaken our team". Yesterday and Stoke aside what other games can you refer to to back up we are weakened.

I will concede however that when Dembele comes off we loose control of midfield. (BTW Carroll has been an excellent sub when he comes on (he is not a 90min player yet that is for sure).
 
We do need impact players who when subbed on can deliver the goods: They have to recognise that that's is their role and deal with it! Motivation would be a key thing, having someone working with the bench/individuals during the game, keeping them focused.
 
Guido 🇺🇦 Guido 🇺🇦 there have been loads of games where the oppositions subs doing well and ours not getting into the game have cost us points - off the top of my head; yesterday, Newcastle home, Stoke home, Woolwich away.
Hardly "so often" and less than the number of games than we have had our subs score from the bench or contribute to a positive result.
We are building a young aggressive squad, perhaps we should have stuck with Paulinho and Adebayor to bring off the bench??
 
I get what Blanchflower Blanchflower is trying to say, forget results for a second, in terms of performance we have flagged a lot towards the end of games which is understandable considering how hard we work but sometimes it feels like subs almost have a negative impact in terms of affecting our play. Particularly our pressing suffers a great deal and that seems to make us vulnerable.

Not sure what the solution is but the use of subs is a valid debate.
 
Why do ours so often seem to weaken our team or at least have very little positive impact on matches?

To me it seems like the options we have just aren't suited to coming off the bench and can't effectively get themselves into games. Son and Chadli in particular, but Mason, Clinton, Townsend and Carroll also seem to suffer.
Because our subs are mostly shit
 
I get what Blanchflower Blanchflower is trying to say, forget results for a second, in terms of performance we have flagged a lot towards the end of games which is understandable considering how hard we work but sometimes it feels like subs almost have a negative impact in terms of affecting our play. Particularly our pressing suffers a great deal and that seems to make us vulnerable.

Not sure what the solution is but the use of subs is a valid debate.

With the subs, all Poch is asking is that they put in a 10-15 min shift that the starters were doing for 75-80 mins and they didn't yesterday. With Dembele, Clinton and Mason missing and Dele getting a knock sadly the 3 behind who came on were not a great combo and meant we could not create much

When Andros goes will possibly give us a chance to get another player in who gives proper impetuous too, with our system everyone knows what to do and you can carry Chadli or Son but not both at once especially if both struggling to rediscover form
 
Hardly "so often" and less than the number of games than we have had our subs score from the bench or contribute to a positive result.
We are building a young aggressive squad, perhaps we should have stuck with Paulinho and Adebayor to bring off the bench??

We were winning more points late in games last season - I don't think we had better players on the bench/in the squad....

and I'm talking more about the impact of our oppositions subs vs ours in the examples given.
 
We were winning more points late in games last season - I don't think we had better players on the bench/in the squad....
But in those games we were hardly in the game, often we were chasing the result, so the mentality was to through people on, and act like the desperate team by lumping it into the box to scrape a result. This year we tend to be the team leading and the oppo is having to throw every thing at us. Completely different set of circumstances.
 
I am a huge fan of Poch, but...

He doesn't use the squad well, and he, imo, makes wrong tactical choices when he subs. Both are important reasons why our subs have little or No positive influensa, and why we become weaker post sub.

We line up with close to the same eleven every game. Even in the cups, we have mostly used our first team. This, mixed with some injuries to our rotation players, means they don't get the match readiness we need.

It's hard to make an impact when you get 3 minutes of first team football a week, like Onomah, 8 minutes like Chadli, or even 20 minutes like Son.

The latter struggles with his first touch, his combination play, his decision making and his defensive teamwork. All those factors will most likely improve with more game time, but are hard to improve in training or on the bench.

If Poch wants more impact from the bench, he needs to rotate more, to keep more players more involved.

Tactically I find Pochettino's choices to be strange at times. People are talking about us as potential title candidates. I do not agree. Part of the reason for this is that our nine draws aren't coincidental.

Previous champions have had a tendency to, in games where they are not in front in the last ten-fifteen minutes, completely take control over the game, dominate their opponents, and get the goal or goals they need.

What we seem to do is lose control towards the end, which imo is often because of the subs, and maybe partly due to players getting tried. It was said a couple of games ago that we would be league leaders if games only lasted one half.

By taking off Eriksen and putting on Son, we lose control. The latter moves more offensively, he is not as good at holding on to the ball, he is not as good at defending, neither positionally nor as a ball winner. The same goes for most of the subs we've used - partly, as mentioned, because of the lack of match readiness, partly because of skillset, mentality and how long they've been with us.

If Poch had brought on a Mason, a Bentaleb, we could've established more dominance and had more of a chance to win and less of a chance to lose.

We were very lucky not to lose against a ten man Watford after poor subs, and could've easily lost against Everton in the last fifteen as well.
 
Another factor I think is that our subs are often a more experienced player off for a less experienced player - at exactly the point in the game where composure is needed, leaves us looking ragged in possession.

I don't know if there is such a player available cheaply, but an experienced central midfielder to bring on late on to calm everyone down would be a welcome addition to the squad.
 
Because we don't have many 'impact' players on the bench. Most our subs are steady players that will do well maintaining the teams performance but actually improving it? Hmmm Yeh not enough impact players (NJie is one but he's injured and needs time adjusting, pritchard has the potential to be one, Townsend sometimes and that's probably it.
 
Another factor I think is that our subs are often a more experienced player off for a less experienced player - at exactly the point in the game where composure is needed, leaves us looking ragged in possession.

I don't know if there is such a player available cheaply, but an experienced central midfielder to bring on late on to calm everyone down would be a welcome addition to the squad.

Partly although Lamela when he first came while he had it hard was already great at pressing, Niji looks like he can press really well. Our game under Poch is based on pressing, Chadli is poor at pressing and Son while working hard isn't great either. We had both on and our press almost disappeared at the end.

As I said in my previous post it's the subs we use, Niji, Bentaleb and Mason press well and fight hard, they would be better subs in many cases to use in my view at least if we want to regain control of the match.
 
Another factor I think is that our subs are often a more experienced player off for a less experienced player - at exactly the point in the game where composure is needed, leaves us looking ragged in possession.

I don't know if there is such a player available cheaply, but an experienced central midfielder to bring on late on to calm everyone down would be a welcome addition to the squad.
I do agree with you here mate. But for now I am totally sold on our youth policy and like the idea of our new signings and youth building their minutes and therefore their experience by coming on. If we were loosing to last minute winners ever week then I'd say the opposite. But for me the real issue is we need to take our chances when we are on top, being 3 or 4 goals up is where we should have been in so many of our games this season as opposed to being level or being 1 up when we make subs in the last 20 or so.
 
Soooo many variables to factor its very often near impossible to have a clear understanding of whether a sub has impacted the result of the game one way or another.
Especially when the sub is made to help us chase a game rather than to sure things up (which is what i guess the OP is getting at).

The manager could make the right sub with regard to tactics and the player has a stinker (manager made a bad sub).
A player can come on, be completely ineffectual but get a flukey goal and win the game (manager made a good sub).

IMO our bench at the moment is made up predominantly of players who are either out of form or lack experience. Chadli, Bentaleb, and Son to a degree all seem like players who need a run in the team to be at there best. Chadli certainly fits that mold, not really sure whats up with Bentaleb but hes been pretty poor / desperate to impress when he's come on. I think that makes it very difficult for the manager to make an "impact sub" with what he's got to play with. I'm certainly not confident that there was anyone on the bench yesterday that could have won us the game.
 
They def weakened us yesterday but as others say we don't have 'impact' subs like N'Jie available we only have steady hard workers and that limits us. I didn't want to see Bentaleb anywhere near that game yesterday second half tbh and Mason is still having injury concerns so Poch had no other real choices.
Pretty disappointed with Son's contribution yesterday and I'm ALWAYS disappointed in Chadlis, that guy needs to go imho-hes another Mirallas and has absolutely no place in that squad.
 
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