Match Tottenham v West Ham

[sammyspurs]

I think he's limited as a professional footballer, I think he's below the standard of players we need as a club and I think that he's effective defensively.
Taken as a complete player he has too many flaws to make him worth keeping at the club.
That analysis in your language most probably would be articulated as "he's shit."

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That analysis is the one you have just now used because you got well and truley stumped because you think sissoko is shit, have said it in 100 different ways, and then I threw it back in your face when you accused me of being the one that calsl footballers shit.

If Im German, who are you Comical Alli?

 

[SouthCoastSpur]

Generally last night despite our dominance it was a pretty shit game to watch. When 1 team just sit there and doesn't even try to make a game of it it makes it very difficult. Looked a lot like we had run out of ideas at times and were trying to pass our way through a very crowded penalty area.

 

[SouthCoastSpur]

Probably says something about the game when I was impressed with Eriksen's chasing back and tackling!

 

[mouse]

I am being critical so for some that will always translate into either being a troll or an Woolwich supporter. This failing was blatantly obvious to most. I stated 20 minutes before our goals that we should be varying it up, that we should be shooting from distance, that the likes of Son, Kane and Erkisen have the ability to score with this approach. This isn’t rocket science.

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We did way too much tippy tally bullshit around the box in central areas looking for passes that just weren't there, Lamela would just have done even more of that. In games like this you to get shots off and quality crosses in. We didn't do enough of that, and neither are things Lamela excels at.

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Shooting from range into a packed box is a very low percentage option. Nearly always blocked by the first man. As is putting crosses in to a lone striker, being marked by about 6 players.

You are relying on mistakes or deflections.

The whole aim of passing the ball about, switching play from wing to wing, playing one twos - is to force oposition players out of position and to lose runners, and some of our best chances came when this happened.

What we failed to do last night, as we have a lot of the time at home against teams that refuse to leave their half, was move the ball quick enough. We need to have the confidence to move the ball quicker without fear of losing possession. Predict runs and movement before they happen, and have the assurance to not need a second touch. When we did catch them on the break the times they did push up we didnt get the ball forward anywhere near quick enough. Son, as our quickest player, had a very average game until his goal.

I also agree that there was probably no need to start two holding midfielders in this fixture. Although in Poch's defense in our previous meetings when they were under Bilic their game plan was to press the shit out of us and stop us from playing the ball with their physicality. So perhaps he was preparing for that and wanted a little bit of muscle in the middle. Still if Poch has seen anything of Moyes's West Ham this year he should have known that they would be more pragmatic than that.

Moyes has got a very average West Ham team with alot of injuries organised and disciplined and before last night they had already beaten Chelsea, drawn with Woolwich and very nearly got a result against City.

 

[ArcspacE]

Poch is the chosen one , he walks on water , even makes the odd mistake but we are run as a business not a passion.
Levy is the dark one .

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Lord Sidious or Snoke?

 

[Mick Cooper]

That analysis is the one you have just now used because you got well and truley stumped because you think sissoko is shit, have said it in 100 different ways, and then I threw it back in your face when you accused me of being the one that calsl footballers shit.

If Im German, who are you Comical Alli?

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It's like you regress into a child.
It's the line I've always taken with him. I'd like him gone and a better player in to replace him. It's called an opinion Sammy.
Do try to behave like an adult.

 

[Crockett]

Shooting from range into a packed box is a very low percentage option. Nearly always blocked by the first man. As is putting crosses in to a lone striker, being marked by about 6 players.

You are relying on mistakes or deflections.

The whole aim of passing the ball about, switching play from wing to wing, playing one twos - is to force oposition players out of position and to lose runners, and some of our best chances came when this happened.

What we failed to do last night, as we have a lot of the time at home against teams that refuse to leave their half, was move the ball quick enough. We need to have the confidence to move the ball quicker without fear of losing possession. Predict runs and movement before they happen, and have the assurance to not need a second touch. When we did catch them on the break the times they did push up we didnt get the ball forward anywhere near quick enough. Son, as our quickest player, had a very average game until his goal.

I also agree that there was probably no need to start two holding midfielders in this fixture. Although in Poch's defense in our previous meetings when they were under Bilic their game plan was to press the shit out of us and stop us from playing the ball with their physicality. So perhaps he was preparing for that and wanted a little bit of muscle in the middle. Still if Poch has seen anything of Moyes's West Ham this year he should have known that they would be more pragmatic than that.

Moyes has got a very average West Ham team with alot of injuries organised and disciplined and before last night they had already beaten Chelsea, drawn with Woolwich and very nearly got a result against City.

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Putting a bank of 4 in front of a bank of 5 in your own 18 yard box is not really "getting organized". You could get a coach from junior football to do that. You could get a random person out of the crowd to do it to be honest.

 

[SouthCoastSpur]

Shooting from range into a packed box is a very low percentage option. Nearly always blocked by the first man. As is putting crosses in to a lone striker, being marked by about 6 players.

You are relying on mistakes or deflections.

The whole aim of passing the ball about, switching play from wing to wing, playing one twos - is to force oposition players out of position and to lose runners, and some of our best chances came when this happened.

What we failed to do last night, as we have a lot of the time at home against teams that refuse to leave their half, was move the ball quick enough. We need to have the confidence to move the ball quicker without fear of losing possession. Predict runs and movement before they happen, and have the assurance to not need a second touch. When we did catch them on the break the times they did push up we didnt get the ball forward anywhere near quick enough. Son, as our quickest player, had a very average game until his goal.

I also agree that there was probably no need to start two holding midfielders in this fixture. Although in Poch's defense in our previous meetings when they were under Bilic their game plan was to press the shit out of us and stop us from playing the ball with their physicality. So perhaps he was preparing for that and wanted a little bit of muscle in the middle. Still if Poch has seen anything of Moyes's West Ham this year he should have known that they would be more pragmatic than that.

Moyes has got a very average West Ham team with alot of injuries organised and disciplined and before last night they had already beaten Chelsea, drawn with Woolwich and very nearly got a result against City.

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Good post. We did need to move the ball quicker and with a bit more confidence last night. The only times we had any space was on the very odd time they attacked and we could counter but we seemed to lack something and didn't get enough people forward quickly enough before they had everyone back behind the ball again.

Agree with your assessment of why Poch might have set up like that with 2 DM's but seemed completely unnecessary with next to no attacking threat against them. At this point though your DM's need to be able to add a bit more to the game than just defend and this is where I though we were lacking.

That picture does sum a lot of the game up well, whenever we got in and around the box, our players were just crowded out. At which point you start relying on a bit of luck/deflection to open up some space or as said some quick incisive passing which we just couldn't quite seem to do to our best last night.

 

[SpursRomania]

They had Zabaleta at right back last night, who’d just played 2 days ago and is at the later stage of his career. Someone with pace would have got in behind him last night, something we didn’t do.

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Listen mate I keep hearing this, first of all Son's got pace and secondly, where could he get behind Zabaleta when West Ham's defensive line was around their box? In my opinion Son was doing exactly what we needed, took the ball and tried to get past Zabaleta by dribbling, but after he skinned Zabaleta a few times, he was often double teamed (Obiang I think it was who helped Zabaleta) and no one helped him. Son might be a good dribbler, but he's not superman to get past two/three opposition players. He needed more support as I said, if players were switching more down Son's side and tried to drag the other West Ham players around and put Son one on one with Zabaleta, I'm sure this would've been more efficient.
I also noticed we rely a lot on Eriksen to launch long balls to switch sides, the other players decided to pass it short to a near team-mate rather than trying a high risk pass to the other flank. We need more than that.

 

[Crockett]

Listen mate I keep hearing this, first of all Son's got pace and secondly, where could he get behind Zabaleta when West Ham's defensive line was around their box? He was doing exactly what we needed, took the ball and tried to get past Zabaleta by dribbling, but he was often double teamed and no one helped him. He might be a good dribbler, but he's not superman to get past two/three opposition players. He needed more support as I said, if players were switching more down Son's side and tried to drag other players around and put Son one on one with Zabaleta, I'm sure this would've been more efficient.
I also noticed we rely a lot on Eriksen to launch long balls to switch sides, the other players decided to pass it short to a near team-mate rather than trying a high risk pass to the other flank. We need more than that.

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That diagonal ball to switch play is one of the things we miss without Toby.

 

[Nutter-Naylor]

anyone know the attendance last night?

 

[SpursRomania]

That diagonal ball to switch play is one of the things we miss without Toby.

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I'll keep saying it mate, we need a creative CM to spray more risky passes around, relying on Eriksen all the time is not a good idea, especially if he's man-marked or has a bad game.

anyone know the attendance last night?

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50k.

 

[Nutter-Naylor]

I'll keep saying it mate, we need a creative CM to spray more risky passes around, relying on Eriksen all the time is not a good idea, especially if he's man-marked or has a bad game.


50k.

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Cheers.

 

[mouse]

Putting a bank of 4 in front of a bank of 5 in your own 18 yard box is not really "getting organized". You could get a coach from junior football to do that. You could get a random person out of the crowd to do it to be honest.

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I think a defensive coach would probably disagree with you. Especially playing a back three, with a novice 18yr old centre back. Its not as if they are just stood still in the box in two rows. Plus It's no easy thing staying that focused for a whole match.

It's definitely an easier tactic than being organised at the back AND still offering an attacking threat. But thats why these old boys keep getting jobs down the bottom of the table.

 

[Gatsby]

I'll keep saying it mate, we need a creative CM to spray more risky passes around, relying on Eriksen all the time is not a good idea, especially if he's man-marked or has a bad game.


50k.

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Winks has got the diagonal pass in him, he’s shown that. Disappointed not to see him last night. We could have players Eriksen deeper last night and started Lamela, but we didn’t know West Ham would sit that deep.

I wouldn’t want to bring someone in who’s going to disrupt Winks’ development, but at the same time we need a centre mid who can do both defensive and attacking jobs.

 

[Crockett]

I think a defensive coach would probably disagree with you. Especially playing a back three, with a novice 18yr old centre back. Its not as if they are just stood still in the box in two rows. Plus It's no easy thing staying that focused for a whole match.

It's definitely an easier tactic than being organised at the back AND still offering an attacking threat. But thats why these old boys keep getting jobs down the bottom of the table.

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How often did they have a "back 3" over the 90 minutes?
Zabaleta and Masuaku never crossed the half way line, Noble and Kouyate hardly touched the ball, they just blocked passing lanes, and his shot was probably the only time Obiang touched the ball in our half of the field.

 

[SpiderSpurs]

.
I’ve not noticed a single person agree with a thing you’ve posted on this topic. You’d think that’d tell you something.

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Perhaps you should look again

 

[Boltonspur]

I say this grudgingly, but West Ham had a game plan & stuck to it. Call it boring (it was), unambitious (it was) but it nearly paid off.
Two great goals, but otherwise a very frustrating evening. We really do need to find a way to crack these “park the bus” outfits because these are games that we ought to be winning.

 

[tbonepremier]

Neither does Dier, Dembele or Jan.
Oh yeah it's not their job

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Yes, they do, and it is. We have defenders with ball skills for a reason. Jan has often ran with the ball through the opponent's midfield or played clever, incisive forward balls, creating opportunities.

Dembele's abilities to dribble through the opponent's midfield often creates defensive havoc and imbalance. We are a lot more dangerous offensively with him in the team than with any other CM in his place.

Dier often tries, and sometimes succeeds, with long balls in behind the opponent's defence, and he often plays good crosses out to the wingbacks.

Sissoko does non of the above. He does though have the ability to run forward on the ball, but as there is rarely space to run into in our games, and his end product is shit, we very rarely can take advantage of his ability.

 

[jimmyriggle]

People scapegoating Sissoko all over the place. For me, he did exactly what you would expect from him. people are using that one dreadful pass wide to aurier who he had expected to be further wide, as a way to sum up his whole game. I'm not his biggest fan and he is an extremely limited footballer when you are trying to chase a game. He does his best work when we play the better sides as he offer defensive stability and the chance to counter at pace.

I hate to say it, but the fault is with Poch. He should have seen at half time that Sissoko+Dier was not necessary and brought either lamela or winks on who can move the ball into more dangerous positions. Perhaps he thought they've come out with a different plan 2nd half. But after 55 mins it was crystal clear what was going on.

All in all though, on another day we score a couple of those chances. The save from eriksen's deflected shot was top drawer and has got very little attention. Again a few marginal penalty shouts not going our way. There was one in particular on kane where the guy was hugging him but he opted to stay on his feet instead of going to ground.