Bit difficult considering Harry was on the bench at that point. Get a clue.
-
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...
Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports
Found it. 40% possession vs Palace before the red card.
Unless by 10 men you mean Winks being the useless cunt. Then yes we played the whole match with 10 men or less.
Tanguy is such a ridiculously good footballer. It’s a joke how good he is. Most talented player in our squad by a long way. He did 100x more than any other player yesterday except maybe PEH
We do have control when he's on the ball, it's just when he's not on the ball the control isn't there. He's not nor has ever been a "dominant" midfielder so I'm not expecting this from him, but the team (probably Nuno) need to know that with him on the ball we can control the midfield, this because more effective if the team trust this and position (make runs, come short, create angles) for him. Everything becomes easier.
From what I've seen he's more effective deeper, but I must stress, this shouldn't be a Pirlo deep, fine for him to come short and take the ball off the CB's from time to time, but the ideal solution would be to have CB's that are better passers and carriers, means team is higher up the pitch with him still a deeper midfield role within this structure, but one of his quick verticle or reverse line-braking passes then becomes a pass into final third as opposed to a pass into the middle of the pitch.
He just has a sense of tempo that puts players off, defenders never quite seem prepared for his next move.
He’s just gotta be able to give 90 good minutes of effort every week. Nobody wants a CM you have to sub off on the hour.
Yeah agree
I have to say I would still like to see him get a few games in our front 3….. I’m not convinced he has that 360 vision, engine and concentration needed to be a top CM’er, where-as if he was free’d up a bit he could run riot. That said, Could be a disaster but with the ECL we should be trying different things
Him as an 8 in a midfield 3 where Skipp and PEH are the other two seems like an ideal setup for him.
Yeah maybe, certainly better than in a pair but I just have a feeling he might be better drifting into the pitch from a narrow wide position rather than starting centrally
Yeah, change him to a position he's never played before. I'm sure that will get a tune out of him. The fact you're even coming off with rubbish like this speaks volumes.
He was signed to do a job in midfield he will not or can not do.
I think that’s what it would be, right? Skipp’s been the central player. That has opened up PEH to be more of the seek-and-destroy player that’s his best role, and what Dele has provided could be expanded upon with Ndombele’s talents, provided he’s fit and reliable.
See this is what I think and I'm aiming my criticism not at his obsessives (lest they get all butt hurt and fragile) but Nuno.
I long for the day when Nuno can do a load of Jenny Sach jokes to Tanguy face, but its not that day. If we could start prime Dembele Modric and Eriksen id enjoy making the bloke rot( if only to upset Levy over the fee) we can't we are starting a center midfield of Skipp Winks PEH. So whatever his condition he starts.
I mean my god Pochettino started one-legged Kane in a ECKL final, and NES is scared to start N'dombele away at Palace!FFS that level of cowardice gets you fired.
I am honestly not sure what the issue specifically is, or more to the point what's the difference from say our performance vs City to subsequent games that seem to be progressively getting worse.
Obviously, I think the City game plan would have been more definitive, buy that I mean I think even my Mum would have expected us to be prepared for us not to have the ball, so maybe it's as simple as the games vs Palace and Wolves (and others) the game plan on the training pitch was to have possession of the ball??? and it didn't materialise, is it as simple as that???
I prefer my teams to play possession football but I've no problem at all in watching my team play like we did every game the way we played against City. Once we'd got through the first 10-15mins we, by and large, controlled that game. Our shape was fantastic, we stayed narrow (front 3 and midfield) and both FB's won most of their duels out wide and we were very aggressive in our mid-block which unsettled City causing them poor build up themselves and was the spring-board for our counter-attacks, which were structured (in a diamond) with players off the ball running and drawing defenders away and arriving late for a follow-up or pullback. I liked this.
To bring this around to Chelsea for a second because we play them next and because we played them in pre-season and to your point about our 8's playing wide, this was the issue when we played Chavs in pre-season, they bypassed our 8's so easily (they were isolated too which meant they were at minimum against a 2v1 duel, sometimes this overload was a 3vs1). When they then played City they were super narrow and I was over the fucking moon!! I thought that perhaps Nuno deliberately asked them to play wide vs Chavs as it was a preseason game and Pep would no doubt would have had his scouts watching, so he didn't expect us to then be so narrow???
But I agree with you 100% if they are getting drawn out wide then there are a ton of spaces behind if the oppo bypasses them (and because they were out too wide they were dealing with the overloads against them) I haven't noticed this as a specific like I did vs Chelsea at the time but that's probably down to me being unaware, maybe it's not as obvious as it was in the pre-season game, the thing is I can't bring myself to rewatch the Wolves and Palace games to see if I've missed this.
Last edited:
As good as Dele has or hasn't been, TN isn't replicating what he has been providing.
Question who did the ball go back to and what did he do with it? Because herein lies a lot of our problems. Even Tripper would fashion a chance from that position
It's something I will be looking out for, but I think our CM3 is struggling to cover the width of the pitch, and it doesn't help that none of them have pace. Probably making us very vulnerable to quick switches of play, too.I am honestly not sure what the issue specifically is, or more to the point what's the difference from say our performance vs City to subsequent games that seem to be progressively getting worse.
Obviously, I think the City game plan would have been more definitive, buy that I mean I think even my Mum would have expected us to be prepared for us not to have the ball, so maybe it's as simple as the games vs Palace and Wolves (and others) the game plan on the training pitch was to have possession of the ball??? and it didn't materialise, is it as simple as that???
I prefer my teams to play possession football but I've no problem at all in watching my team play like we did every game the way we played against City. Once we'd got through the first 10-15mins we, by and large, controlled that game. Our shape was fantastic, we stayed narrow (front 3 and midfield) and both FB's won most of their duels out wide and we were very aggressive in our mid-block which unsettled City causing them poor build up themselves and was the spring-board for our counter-attacks, which were structured (in a diamond) with players off the ball running and drawing defenders away and arriving late for a follow-up or pullback. I liked this.
To bring this around to Chelsea for a second because we play them next and because we played them in pre-season and to your point about our 8's playing wide, this was the issue when we played Chavs in pre-season, they bypassed our 8's so easily (they were isolated too which meant they were at minimum against a 2v1 duel, sometimes this overload was a 3vs1). When they then played City they were super narrow and I was over the fucking moon!! I thought that perhaps Nuno deliberately asked them to play wide vs Chavs as it was a preseason game and Pep would no doubt would have had his scouts watching, so he didn't expect us to then be so narrow???
But I agree with you 100% if they are getting drawn out wide then there are a ton of spaces behind if the oppo bypasses them, I haven't noticed this as a specific like I did vs Chelsea at the time but that's probably down to me being unaware, maybe it's not as obvious as it was in the pre-season game, the thing is I can't bring myself to rewatch the Wolves and Palace games to see if I've missed this.
If it's happening (like it did in the Chav pre-season game) then 100% it will be the route and cause of the issue. If playing against a 4-3-3 it's what oppo managers will try and target (draw the midfielders out wide, then load the wings with overloads in order to get behind).
We were also textbook vs City not just in staying narrow without the ball but on the ball we created our own spaces in the oppo defence by one of the front three dropping into midfield than either progressing the ball by carrying it (Lucas) or passing it (Bergwijn) typically doing this very, very well. Another thing that is regressing (has this been stopped by oppo, or are the players not carrying it out, or is it because we've got the ball more???).
I'll also make sure to focus on this over the coming games.
Or is it because you have a fairly immobile Kane vs mobile Son, Lucas and Berg? Quite noticeable the movement at the front has been off since Kane has been back. Having said that, he looked a bit sprightlier last night, so you never know…
Been sounding the alarm about this for a while - Kane brings a different dynamic to the attack and not always for the best.
Possibly. Nothing jumps out at me as blindingly obvious or I've just not noticed it (other than deep ball progression, lack of it which is why I will bang on the Ndombele drum as even with his worts it's absolutely imperative we need him to progress the ball from midfield, we literally don't have a single midfielder who's shown capable of doing this), most probably a collective of several issues combined.
Kane dropping deep suits a 4-3-3 but he needs runners in behind him, when this happens it's us progressing the ball (same when Bergwijn comes short and links, same as Lucas coming short and turning and dribbling/carrying the ball). The ONLY issue I have with Kane is his pressing and intensity, it's non-existent and means others have to do all this work for him, blow themselves out and we can become flaccid (if we sold him for megabucks it's what I would have consoled myself with, despite not wanting him sold).
None of this really helps with the number of injuries we are having to deal with, from hugely promising defensive performances it should be a great platform to build off. Expectations should then be focusing on the midfield, attacking patterns of play, but feel we've now zero platform, confidence gone, shape gone.