He does, when pressed. If the opposition stand off, the goalkeeper and defenders will wait.
-
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...
Transfers Summer 2026 Transfer Thread
- Thread starter The Fighting Cock
- Start date
Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports
It does, but look at our defensive stats under De Zerbi. We had the fewest shots against in the league, around 17 in 7 games if I remember correctly. It’s a simple concept: if every player presses, works hard to win the ball back, and we defend from the front, we expose the defence far less.
That’s if we have a Son to his left and a Salah to his right.Not many of those around now.
Isn’t Greenwood more of a wide player?
He’s not a centre forward
The irony is you’re arguing against something De Zerbi clearly values. If progressive passing was just a nonsense stat, why has he consistently targeted players who can do it?
The whole point of his system is to bait teams into pressing because it’s easier to play through and beat an aggressive press than a side sat in a compact low block. Progressive passing is one of the tools that helps exploit the spaces created.
Ball retention, press resistance and progressive passing aren’t mutually exclusive either. The best players do all three. So calling the profile discussion horseshit seems odd when De Zerbi’s own tactics suggest he clearly sees value in it.
*Apologies if I got the wrong end of the stick and misunderstood your post if you were against the defenders waiting to be pressed.
Last edited:
Has he got over those injuries?
Failure to sell players at the right time has held us back for a decade, you need to know when to let go.
This club is not signing a known rapist. Give your head a wobble.
We aren’t getting a big upgrade upfront though. There aren’t a stock of 1 in 2 strikers, that can press from the front and hold the ball up.
What we will look to do is increase our quality overall which means Richy (coming into his last year) will likely leave and we will replace him with someone who even if they don’t score more than 1 in 3 are able to deliver the football we need
For some reason he thinks that progressive passers are purely sitting midfielders who stay in one position, if anyone watches players like Wharton and in particular that performance in the final, he was literally everywhere on the pitch playing the ball forward and breaking lines, not just picking the ball up in front of the defence.
Might as well get Bryan Gil backWhy do you think Savinho isn't playing more regularly, there's a big clue that tells you everything about his ability and where he is right now.
The thing is with him he was getting rave reviews when he played for Girona because he did well in Spain, but he's been brutally exposed in the Premier League and even playing for a team like City who are always on the front foot he can't get going.
I'd only bring him in if we were paying £25m max and on the condition we'd bring someone else in as well (Summerville) the only upside is that he has a unique profile and can hug the touchline, means that we can play with inverted full backs, someone like Djed would thrive playing with him because he'd create a load of space.
I agree. He played in the bad version of Angeball and was made to run around like a headless chicken every game, then under our worst manager maybe ever in Frank. A handful of Ange games aside, he's never played as part of a coherent attacking team and even when Ange's system worked we barely created anything for him.
He's obviously been a disappointment but In all comps his scoring rate hasn't actually been that bad - one every 206 minutes, so a goal every 2.3 games. It's basically the same as Richarlison, who some people want to keep purely for his goals, and he's miles better in build up than Rich.
I'm not overjoyed to keep him, in an ideal world we'd replace both strikers, but I can at least envision a world where Solanke is effective in De Zerbi's system, a bit like how was with under Iraola. Plus the striker market is a nightmare so we could well end up with someone worse if we try and sign 2 new strikers in the same window.
Still more than golden boy officer DiblingRichard Arlison legit wanted him to replace Harry Kane all Summer, I'm glad you remember
Since then he's sighed for 3 differrent clubs and gone onto score 14 in 58 matches
For the record, I wanted Solanke to replace Kane as a pressing striker.
Didn’t go that much better tbf
I agree, you don't replace him unless it is with something better - which is hard for us right now. I think we need to look first for the upgrades on the left and right.
I can't see Tel, Odobert or even Kudus coming up with the kind of goal threat we need. That's why just on football grounds someone like Greenwood is in the conversation. He's a proven 1-in-2 goalscorer in Ligue 1 coming off either the left or the right and he has done that working with De Zerbi, people are going to add 2+2 ...
Mentioning Greenwood is doing nothing other than trolling. No-one would sign on to that move, it’s PR suicide in the UK (and rightly so).
Agree but look who we played in those 7 games. Against better teams it doesn't matter how hard the team presses and works hard, better quality forwards will expose our defenders
I have been around the Greenwood loop a couple of times already in this forum, so I know that feelings are strong. I'm not saying it will happen, just that football-wise that is what we need to find. I think Kroupi would be the obvious place to start.
No club in England is touching Greenwood.
We aren't really after him
Mix up in communications
We are actually interested in deadwood