But how do Southhampton make it work? Do they have a better squad than us?
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But how do Southhampton make it work? Do they have a better squad than us?
So you won’t criticise a manager when he gets stuff wrong? Understood......
Come come now BC, we all know that a team containing the likes of Hojbjerg, Lo Celso, NDombele, Bergwijn, Son, Kane don't have the wherewithal to "play through the 1/3rds". Our only possible option is for Dier to kick it as hard as he can from our own 18 yard line (hoping this time it goes roughly in the postcode area he is aiming for) and hope Sonny can take a wonder touch whilst running at full tilt into the oppo's box. I can't believe anyone thinks there's any alternative. Ever.
This is the reality of our squad. When he cane he explicitly said Sissoko is not a CM. Yet he plays him there every week.
Compare him to say Alonso at Madrid. Or say Modric. Silva. KDB. Massive difference in what they offer to a team.
We are very limited in what we offer going forward. Really need midfielders to score and assist more.
Its not substance over style if you are less productive - its just playing shit
You need very good attacking players to make a counter approach successful- if you limit yourself to a few chances every game your finishing has to be a/ top quality and b/ from a number of players.
Set pieces become important too. Our direct free kicks are awful.
But our RW and attacking central midfielders have offered hardly any goal threat.
imagine Stevie B scores at Liverpool. Or tanguy finds the corner of the net at palace. Different scenario today.
Has Sissoko had a shot on target all season. 1/3 of the way in........
Imagine playing like we did against Woolwich and losing?
3 points by any means
The problem with playing dull, "percentage containment football" as a style, is that its only really acceptable if we're getting the 3 points at the end of it.
People will put up with shite football (in terms of entertainment) if we win the games and pick up the 3 points.
Unfortunately we've been playing dull football the last 3 games and have come away with a solitary point - which is crap whichever way you look at it.
An attack of Kane, Son, Los Celso, Bale and Ndombele should be registering shots on target but I think we had 3 on target the whole of yesterday and only 1 on target when the dream Son, Kane, LOS Celso and Ndombele lineup was together in the first half.
Still seething about this last weeks worth of utter garbage.
The problem with playing dull, "percentage containment football" as a style, is that its only really acceptable if we're getting the 3 points at the end of it.
People will put up with shite football (in terms of entertainment) if we win the games and pick up the 3 points.
Unfortunately we've been playing dull football the last 3 games and have come away with a solitary point - which is crap whichever way you look at it.
An attack of Kane, Son, Los Celso, Bale and Ndombele should be registering shots on target but I think we had 3 on target the whole of yesterday and only 1 on target when the dream Son, Kane, LOS Celso and Ndombele lineup was together in the first half.
Still seething about this last weeks worth of utter garbage.
I preferred the high pressing game we played at Wembley when the young team had the legs.
Give JM a season to see if his tactics win us something. I don’t remember the Chelsea counter attack team with Drogba as the finisher giving away possession so easily like we have done recently, some fine tuning to do no doubt.
Give JM a season to see if his tactics win us something. I don’t remember the Chelsea counter attack team with Drogba as the finisher giving away possession so easily like we have done recently, some fine tuning to do no doubt.
We should really exclude the EL games as the opposition is sub-par at this stage. Even Rangers qualified!
On the rest....
I agree we were excellent against Utd, Newcastle and City.
We certainly weren’t against West Ham, watch the game again
We’ve also been poor against Everton, Burnley, WBA, Brighton, Palace and Leicester. Our league form has been at best patchy.
What is quite frustrating is that you are illustrating in your post above that it is possible to play well and with a balance between defence and attack. The reason many of us are frustrated is that those occasions have been too infrequent thus far this season.
Why an earth is this a binary choice between having "possession" and losing or dour and "winning".
What I would like is that if we are going to be pragmatic in games and phases of games we do it well. More aggressively, and with a view to getting out of our half and creating more chances of hurting teams more often than the one or two a game we often muster.
I would also like there to be some coaching and structure to games and phases when we need to take some initiative and be more proactive - ie when we are playing teams with their own bus park strategy and vastly inferior individuals.
Constant arch pragmatism - ie parking a very deep bus - is not the tactical methodology I'd choose for such a high percentage of games/phases that we are doing, but I would be OK with us doing it for certain games and certain phases if we did it better than we are, and what we do the rest of the time looks coherent. And both were done with some real aggression.
What we are getting a lot of the time is a pretty passive, often insipid deep block with minimal counters, or a kind of incoherent trepidatious bumbling when we have to try and have the ball for phases.
Even 20+ pr team can't explain away what you see on the pitch. Last match was one of those.Few months back someone here wrote about Mourinho having a PR team of 10+ people and being very concerned how the public and media always perceive him, it wouldn't surprise me if thishalothagod cunt is Jose bot
Make
It’s just incredibly frustrating to have seen these results coming during the victories over Burnley and WBA and not address the issues.
Let’s hope Jose can learn from what’s happened this week and come back stronger.
I couldn’t give 2 fucks about what fans of any other club think.
It’s just incredibly frustrating to have seen these results coming during the victories over Burnley and WBA and not address the issues.
Let’s hope Jose can learn from what’s happened this week and come back stronger.
3 points by any means at the moment, but by Christ it’s getting difficult to watch.
Keep saying to my old man that just let us win something this year by any means necessary, he hates watching us at the moment.
Keep saying to my old man that just let us win something this year by any means necessary, he hates watching us at the moment.
You are frothing at the mouth for nothing mate. I understand the point you are trying to make. You are saying something along the lines of we don’t dominate teams and so on.. They’re completely different games!
The low block counter is perfect for City because of their tactical setup and the quality of their players. Jose got it right.
It was obvious, however, from the WBA game that we have zero idea how to dominate a game. We beat WBA, Burnley and Brighton solely because of the superior quality of our players, not because of our tactics.
It was all too predictable that if we continued to play so poorly against sides outside the big 6, we would come unstuck.
I don’t understand why you think it’s so anti-Spurs to say he got it wrong against Palace and Leicester? You called for objectivity a few post back - I’m literally doing that by discussing where he performed well and where he has failed this season.
You seem to be unable to criticise Jose though, so perhaps you are lacking some objectivity?
I love Harry Kane - would let him have a go on my wife if he asked nicely. But when he plays shit I’ll call him out on it. Why would I not to the same on our manager?!
The cultism surrounding Jose is disturbing.
Well, I am asking for calm, and saying I have seen us do so this season, a few times, and believe we will see more of it as the team gets better at not shitting the bed in the back with schoolboy errors.
I don’t know what about that means I am a member of a cult. If you want me to cunt off a manager after a few losses, when he’s had us top of the league for weeks then you’ll wait a while because I won’t. If that means you will be at odds with me then so be it. I do not mind.
What's wrong with a bit of both.
I don't mind playing deep and counter in some games.
Then mixing it with more possession based play in other games.
I hate that managers these days have a 'philosophy'. Fucken hate that word. They have to play every game to that philosophy.
Why not show some tactical flexibility.
I don't mind playing deep and counter in some games.
Then mixing it with more possession based play in other games.
I hate that managers these days have a 'philosophy'. Fucken hate that word. They have to play every game to that philosophy.
Why not show some tactical flexibility.
This is what I favor as well. I don’t like being predictable. I think we have mixed it up a bit this season if we’re honest.
The last 6 games were right battles but we played proper stuff (including Europa) as well.
Most of us will prefer the swashbuckling style to a low block counter attacking style, but I feel we are a top CB, Skipp, a player like Modric/Sneider/prime Eriksen away from being able to keep possession and dominate teams.
So until then I don’t mind winning ugly until we get those players in.
Style and substance please, like under Poch in 2016/17.
I love this club with every fibre of my being and I admit that NOTHING is more important than the result but I am finding these performances ( Everton,Burnley,West Brom, Brighton,Leicester) extremely frustrating.
I am certain the likes of Harry and Sonny will buy into the Mourinho philosophy if we are pushing on at the very top of the table.Will they be so on board if we are sitting a distant sixth or seventh?
If we do begin to slide down the table many posters on here who have been happy to ignore the performance and focus solely on the result will quickly turn on Jose.
I am one of the lucky ones-this is my fiftieth year supporting this club and I have seen all sorts of teams/managers/chairmen and throughout it all my support and love for the club has been total and unwavering.Whatever our results or performances that will never change.
I love this club with every fibre of my being and I admit that NOTHING is more important than the result but I am finding these performances ( Everton,Burnley,West Brom, Brighton,Leicester) extremely frustrating.
I am certain the likes of Harry and Sonny will buy into the Mourinho philosophy if we are pushing on at the very top of the table.Will they be so on board if we are sitting a distant sixth or seventh?
If we do begin to slide down the table many posters on here who have been happy to ignore the performance and focus solely on the result will quickly turn on Jose.
I am one of the lucky ones-this is my fiftieth year supporting this club and I have seen all sorts of teams/managers/chairmen and throughout it all my support and love for the club has been total and unwavering.Whatever our results or performances that will never change.
False dichotomy.