Woolich give their youngsters a go. We don't it is that simple.
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Manager Thomas Frank
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I mean... he literally has to believe this or he may as well resign and that's not going to happen.
We have to remember that from his POV he's trying to do exactly what he was hired for - with limited talent at his disposal.
Is this true? Apart from Saka who is their "kane" who else regularly gets a game. Even Lewis-Skanky struggles to get on the pitch.
Although their team is a lot stronger than ours of course.
“I'll turn that around. If you are successful the Tottenham fans will be behind you. The fans will be behind us. Some booed last night but I'm pretty sure most are behind us.”
It is only a matter of time until Frank has all the Spurs supporters behind him.
They will be chasing the cunt to Seven Sisters.
For what it's worth, as a covert dig, I wasn't on here last season and wasn't in that camp.
But you're having your cake and eating it there, if not being hyprocritical:
e.g. "turns out you defend better when you have defenders - I'm fucking stunned" = yes, not having a decent defence means your defensive isn't as good.
In this case, regardless, few people (and I suspect none of those who were giving the argument you cite) are saying "it makes sense that we're not as good in attack because of all the attacking players out injured". Why?
Let's even lay it out in parts:
- Top Scorers last season were Johnson (11), Solanke (9), Maddison (9), Son (7), Kulusevski (7), Richarlison (4)
- Of those, Johnson has basically gone, Solanke is injured, Maddison is injured, Son has gone, Kulusevski is injured.
Keep Richi and Brennan and you've still got to find 32 goals (9+9+7+7) out of the rest of the team.
In this current squad, where are those coming from?
- Tel last season scored 2 in 13 under the more attacking tactics. He has 2 in 12 this season, so is at the very minimum performing the same and is no where near filling the gap. He's only ever scored 7 (and no more) once in his career so far
- Richarlison is our only hope at CF right now. Under the 'super attacking' tactics last season he only managed 4 league goals in 15 appearances. He has 7 in 19 this season, so is outperforming all other seasons and yet is only offering 3 more than he did in the numbers above (still 29 goals to find)
- Odobert scored 1 in 16 last season. He's not scored yet in 17.
- Johnson scored 11 in 33 last season. So far, he's had 2 in 16 and is clearly not suited to it this season
That's exactly the problem we're having.
Frank can say what he likes.
It's been mentioned that an impact is being seen at the gates and probably beyond.
Ultimately owners want to make money and anything that hinders or jeopardises that will be frowned on.
Again, it's seeing enough to make the words have substance as opposed to vacuous offerings with no basis.
I'm deaf to what Frank says and already irritated by his antics.
It is hard to argue that Ange did not contribute to the injuries with his style of play. Spurs were highest in sprints with and without the ball and the human body couldn't handle what he thought these players should be doing.
Frank has problems and I don't think getting those players back will solve them all. However, Kulusevski and Solanke bodies broke down under Ange and then Maddison was an ACL in preseason. Don't think its a fair comparison when 2 of the injuries were not related to Frank and one was an ACL, which are freak incidents.
I think we should just have a group watch party for these sorts of matches in our match thread instead of having to watch the terrible games that are happening in the present.
Frank is just full of empty words.
I get why he is saying what he is saying, he needs to be positive. He might even deep down believe he can do it, but all the evidence we are seeing show he isn't and he won't.
Just like under Ange, injured defenders was not a valid excuse for us playing so naive and open and conceding so many goals, Frank it's the opposite, and having injured attackers isn't an excuse for what we are seeing, because it is a tactical, mentality and structural problem, not a matter of personnel.
You could put Messi, Bale and Mbappe into this team and we would still look clueless in attack.
So I am not buying what Frank is trying to sell to us fans.
The facts are we are 16th in the table in terms of shots on target, shots, xG and many other metrics. That isn't a personnel issue, because we have a better squad than many other sides, it is purely Frank's football.
It is January ffs. The stats tell the story. It's a more than large enough sample size of games now.
I get why he is saying what he is saying, he needs to be positive. He might even deep down believe he can do it, but all the evidence we are seeing show he isn't and he won't.
Just like under Ange, injured defenders was not a valid excuse for us playing so naive and open and conceding so many goals, Frank it's the opposite, and having injured attackers isn't an excuse for what we are seeing, because it is a tactical, mentality and structural problem, not a matter of personnel.
You could put Messi, Bale and Mbappe into this team and we would still look clueless in attack.
So I am not buying what Frank is trying to sell to us fans.
The facts are we are 16th in the table in terms of shots on target, shots, xG and many other metrics. That isn't a personnel issue, because we have a better squad than many other sides, it is purely Frank's football.
It is January ffs. The stats tell the story. It's a more than large enough sample size of games now.
Why’s this bloke such a dickhead. He really believes he’s still a Brentford where his utterances are golden. Answer the fucking question stop playing up this like it’s a mystery illness.
View: https://x.com/chriscowlin/status/2007088597498040398?s=46
View: https://x.com/chriscowlin/status/2007088597498040398?s=46
View: https://x.com/TheSpursExpress/status/2007099742832980386
Fair play on this, at least he's opening up a bit
Seems to be blaming the players, again, for errors. Im not 100% sure on that
But
He mentions patterns, structure - stuff Ive been screaming for - which at least is recognised.
Question is then, is what he's telling them shit - or are they just not doing it? Either way, even if its on the players, its up to him to sort out...
Not a fan of the first point he makes about losing the ball 25 times with unforced errors and saying we could fix half of them with concentration.
The players are just not good enough to avoid these errors, but I guess he can't say that either. There is no amount of concentration that is going to help Richarlison consistently control a ball, Kudus pick his head up and pass the ball while dribbling, or a midfield of Gray/Bentancur/Palhinha create any useful attacking sequences.
Getting them to play in a shape where they are compact and close to each other helps with passing issues
Getting them moving up the field as a team helps retain possession
Pumping it long to isolated players is a surefire way to have the ball constantly coming back at you, and being in a state of near permanent defending
Even with absolutely limited players, a manager can be doing better, IMHO
And despite this squad being far from optimal - they are all capable of the basics of football. If they are 25 spontaneous and unforced errors in a game there is something very wrong with how the team is being set up and run
Some of the "easy" passing has been absolute shit!!
But, IMO, when we are trying to progress the ball, the ball carrier is usually very isolated with a lack of options.
Not a member these days, can anyone see hwo many seats are still for sale for Sunday? Expecting due to the fact we are playing shite and its just after Christmas there will be loads still left...
Quite a lot there and my concentration levels aren’t really up to scratch today.
Wasn’t a dig at you, as I know you weren’t here. Pretty sure I welcomed you back when you did come back, so no gripe there.
I would suggest that an attack of RKM, Richie and Kudus is much better than a defence of Kinsky, Gray and Davies. It just is.
If there were a number to quantify the injuries Ange had to deal with (maybe, as @bonaspur says, of his own making) compared to Frank’s and the depth and quality that they were left with, Ange had it worse. Not even close.
Possibly, but the more compact you are, the less space is available, so it's typically harder to possess. Staying compact is more of a defensive philosophy and being spread out is the attacking philosophy because extra space means better dribbling opportunities and passing angles.
Yeah, there are very few clever patterns of play, some of that is coaching and some of that is the lack of creativity and ability in the squad.
You don't necessarily need coached attacking patterns to be successful, see Mourinho who basically just let extremely attacking players create on their own, but the level of players we have is not good enough for this.
The team could certainly be coached and playing better, but at some point we have to stick with a manager. Frank hasn't given too much evidence it should be him, but we've been going backwards for a decade and it's going to be really hard to get back to where we were as a club.
Because he doesn't know himself. Solanke has had a half dozen setbacks already and has played less than 60 minutes in the last 7 months.
There are legit things to get upset at Frank for.
Not sure why he has never given 4-4-2 a go, considering how little interest he has in utilizing the midfield area and how dire the options are there anyway. Might as well have another striker up front that we can punt it to.
That's also his preferred shape out of possession; yet using 3 central midfielders at all times leads to absurd situations like these where Gray is the highest man up the pitch:
Happens with Bergvall too.
That's also his preferred shape out of possession; yet using 3 central midfielders at all times leads to absurd situations like these where Gray is the highest man up the pitch:
Happens with Bergvall too.