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Match West Ham United VS Tottenham Hotspur - Wednesday 31th August, London Stadium 19:45

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ShutUpPatrik said:
Some of this has to be pride. Like, he is so confident in his system that he doesn't want to make changes unless he ABSOLUTELY has to.
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His system works. We are undefeated and have taken 8 points from 4 fixtures that we got 0 points from last season. Hugo is having almost nothing to do in most of the matches.

Conte will always put the solidity of the team ahead of any other consideration. If making a change compromises the solidity of the team then he will not do it unless there is no other choice. That is why when games are tight he does not turn to players that he trusts less than his starting players.

What we need to work on now is improving our play with the ball without compromising the solidity of the team. As Conte has said many times, the team needs to play with personality. When the opponent just lets us have the ball (I believe we had like 70%+ in the first half) we have to do more than we did last night. At the very least push up and play in the opposing half.

We seem to have much more intensity when we are defending than when attacking, this is something Conte has to fix. If they are willing to bust a gut to make blocks and recovery runs then surely they should be just as willing to take the ball up the pitch and score?
 
kolyid said:
Your last sentence is exactly it. The football isn’t bad. You and your fellow Spurs “fans” are miserable because you guys are just miserable people. Go support City or something.
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Where did I say I was miserable? Read my fucking post if you're going to neg and reply. If you don't feel there's a negative feeling over the club at the moment you aren't reading anyone else's fucking post either.

I wrote a whole paragraph about how much good there is in this club. Wind your fucking neck in.
 
Bill Madrid said:
I really don't understand why people are moaning about the overturned penalty.

The rules are crystal clear, if the ball comes off your body onto your arm it isn't a penalty. It took a while to determine that was what had happened but once it was clear, the decision had to be reversed.

Unlucky for us but them's the breaks. Had it been the other way round every last one of us would have been screaming that it hit our defender's face first.
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I think whats boiling peoples piss is that they feel if it was against us they wouldnt have spent 5 min looking for the angle to prove it wasnt a peno.
Its supposed to be clear and obvious mistake. 5 min isnt clear and obvious. Plus the hand was so high and outstretched it wasnt really natural.
Probably bias on my part but hey thats what happens
 
ShutUpPatrik said:
Some of this has to be pride. Like, he is so confident in his system that he doesn't want to make changes unless he ABSOLUTELY has to.
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I don't really know, he's no different from any of the top managers, all (Poch, Pep, Klopp, Tuchel etc ) are wedded to their system and I think this is for the most part why their teams are successful, everyone buys in, everyone knows their function (and knows their teammate's functions), they recruit the required profile for that system etc. (Yes, some may be more tactically flexible than others like Tuchel but even with him you kind of know how his team are expected to play).

He has broadly only ever had 2 systems 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 and throughout his career, his teams in either have been just great, including Spurs since he joined.

My take is one of frustration from last night, West ham are shit and had scored 1 goal playing really turgid stuff, they collected their first points just 3 days ago, we should be batting them aside. And we should be gaining a little bit of progression to how we are playing (by that I mean improving).

I stress, Conte is brilliant but I'm having a few doubts about our flexibility a blue-print exists on how to stop us, it's been deployed a number of times by some average teams and has worked for some of them. Last night was a decline from our previous games, in that West Ham got behind us and were able to take chances in our box (in the first half I wasn't worried one bit as it looked much like our other games, oppo had the ball but were reduced to long-range efforts from outside the box), the 2nd half was shite and we were a tad fortunate (although across the 90 a draw was the fair result).

I assume he's thinking it will click soon, that maybe continue playing this way the patterns will return, Son's form will return with mins etc. But I stress I feel this way because last night we let a shite team at the bottom of the table play against us and the longer the game went on the worse we were and the better they were. None of it felt right especially as we scored first, this is when you would expect us to have the game loaded in our favour where we are designed to counterattack sides who now have to commit more forward to get back into a game.

I think we are a hard team to beat but equally an easy team to stop/nullify, so mid and lower-placed teams can get something from us if they look for a point.
 
Bill Madrid said:
I really don't understand why people are moaning about the overturned penalty.

The rules are crystal clear, if the ball comes off your body onto your arm it isn't a penalty. It took a while to determine that was what had happened but once it was clear, the decision had to be reversed.

Unlucky for us but them's the breaks. Had it been the other way round every last one of us would have been screaming that it hit our defender's face first.
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It's even more baffling when you consider the butterfly effect, had we got the pen and scored it, then the game beyond that point pans out in a different way anyhow and maybe we don't score the OG later on, it's not as though not having the penalty robbed us of a 2 goal lead...

Maybe we get the pen, Kane misses 2 in a row, WH are even more galvanised by the miss and we don't take the lead at all?

I'd rather gripe and moan about our players absolutely shitting the bed in the second half than about the officials correctly overturning a decision.
 
Guido 🇺🇦 said:
I don't really know, he's no different from any of the top managers, all (Poch, Pep, Klopp, Tuchel etc ) are wedded to their system and I think this is for the most part why their teams are successful, everyone buys in, everyone knows their function (and knows their teammate's functions), they recruit the required profile for that system etc. (Yes, some may be more tactically flexible than others like Tuchel but even with him you kind of know how his team are expected to play).

He has broadly only ever had 2 systems 3-5-2 or 3-4-3 and throughout his career, his teams in either have been just great, including Spurs since he joined.

My take is one of frustration from last night, West ham are shit and had scored 1 goal playing really turgid stuff, they collected their first points just 3 days ago, we should be batting them aside. And we should be gaining a little bit of progression to how we are playing (by that I mean improving).

I stress, Conte is brilliant but I'm having a few doubts about our flexibility a blue-print exists on how to stop us, it's been deployed a number of times by some average teams and has worked for some of them. Last night was a decline from our previous games, in that West Ham got behind us and were able to take chances in our box (in the first half I wasn't worried one bit as it looked much like our other games, oppo had the ball but were reduced to long-range efforts from outside the box), the 2nd half was shite and we were a tad fortunate (although across the 90 a draw was the fair result).

I assume he's thinking it will click soon, that maybe continue playing this way the patterns will return, Son's form will return with mins etc. But I stress I feel this way because last night we let a shite team at the bottom of the table play against us and the longer the game went on the worse we were and the better they were. None of it felt right especially as we scored first, this is when you would expect us to have the game loaded in our favour where we are designed to counterattack sides who now have to commit more forward to get back into a game.

I think we are a hard team to beat but equally an easy team to stop/nullify, so mid and lower-placed teams can get something from us if they look for a point.
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Bit of a cliche but there's no easy games in this league (apart from Bournemouth) and we had no divine right to batting them away in a match they were always going to turn up in, like they always do.

I get that we didn't play well but I don't get the entitlement that we should just be swatting teams, the gap between the top 6 and the rest is closer than ever, they had a £60m bench player that they just bought on.

That's why I was a bit confused with people saying that we should be smashing them and walking over them, this league is tough and they'll be plenty more days like this for us and for other teams.
 
Shadydan said:
Bit of a cliche but there's no easy games in this league (apart from Bournemouth) and we had no divine right to batting them away in a match they were always going to turn up in, like they always do.

I get that we didn't play well but I don't get the entitlement that we should just be swatting teams, the gap between the top 6 and the rest is closer than ever, they had a £60m bench player that they just bought on.

That's why I was a bit confused with people saying that we should be smashing them and walking over them, this league is tough and they'll be plenty more days like this for us and for other teams.
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I'm sorry but that wasn't a performance of 3rd best team in the league, not even close. It was fucking poor. There were no positives to take from it.

I've not enjoyed watching us this season at all, but that's fine as it's aesthetics, it's not a reflection of how in control we've been (e.g i think we were in control for large portions of the Chav game for instance, on account that they really didn't trouble us at the back despite having a lot of the ball, same too against Forrest).

It's not an entitlement, it's an expectation of us being a very good side, playing a shit side (they had scored just 1 goal so far!). I expected us to play much, much better than we did but rather than improving we got worse. I do want to see progression in our football as it's not been great to watch so far, I certainly do not want to witness a decline in our performance and this was.

We honestly should be batting this lot aside and I'm still waiting for us to deliver a "performance" this term.

BTW the gap between the top 6 and the others has never been bigger. (I do get that the quality of those outside the top 6 is good and has improved, I think they will compete well in most other European Leagues for instance) but the gap year on year still however gets bigger, the trophies are accumulated every year by the top 6 and have been for decades now and it's only getting more concentrated).
 
I think the context is important here.

Ordinarily yes, West Ham away is a difficult fixture. However, they’ve had a terrible start to the season and we’re there for the taking (evidenced in the 1st half). The fact that we played okay in the first half, were comfortable at 1-0 and then let it slip (& could’ve lost) is worrying. Our rivals would’ve put WH away easily from the position we were in.

Added to that the growing anxiety that we look disjointed /under done and there is a slight cause for concern.

I’m not panicking and shitting the bed yet though. Hoping we show signs of improvement on Saturday
 
Shadydan said:
Bit of a cliche but there's no easy games in this league (apart from Bournemouth) and we had no divine right to batting them away in a match they were always going to turn up in, like they always do.

I get that we didn't play well but I don't get the entitlement that we should just be swatting teams, the gap between the top 6 and the rest is closer than ever, they had a £60m bench player that they just bought on.

That's why I was a bit confused with people saying that we should be smashing them and walking over them, this league is tough and they'll be plenty more days like this for us and for other teams.
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I agree we have no right to beat anybody before a ball is kicked but when you are given as much time and space as we were yesterday we should be expecting much more than what we showed.

I think our players enjoy playing counter-attack maybe a bit too much, the goal we scored last night was a superb and a perfect example of Conte-ball but when the opponent lets us have the ball and sits off we really seem to struggle. Conte like his team to “suffer” when defending and no doubt they get an adrenaline boost from that but when the opponent is afraid of us and lets us have the ball we don’t seem as aggressive. This has to improve. I don’t feel like opponents are “suffering“ when we have the ball.
 
Guido 🇺🇦 said:
I'm sorry but that wasn't a performance of 3rd best team in the league, not even close. It was fucking poor. There were no positives to take from it.

I've not enjoyed watching us this season at all, but that's fine as it's aesthetics, it's not a reflection of how in control we've been (e.g i think we were in control for large portions of the Chav game for instance, on account that they really didn't trouble us at the back despite having a lot of the ball, same too against Forrest).

It's not an entitlement, it's an expectation of us being a very good side, playing a shit side (they had scored just 1 goal so far!). I expected us to play much, much better than we did but rather than improving we got worse. I do want to see progression in our football as it's not been great to watch so far, I certainly do not want to witness a decline in our performance and this was.

We honestly should be batting this lot aside and I'm still waiting for us to deliver a "performance" this term.

BTW the gap between the top 6 and the others has never been bigger. (I do get that the quality of those outside the top 6 is good and has improved, I think they will compete well in most other European Leagues for instance) but the gap year on year still however gets bigger, the trophies are accumulated every year by the top 6 and have been for decades now and it's only getting more concentrated).
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If you rate us the 3rd best team in the league then that's on you.

Yes I get all this but this doesn't really answer my question about West Ham and I already said that we played poor, I don't get the entitlement that we should be simply swatting teams aside that easy, I'm not sure it works like that.

For me like I already said our performance level wasn't great but West Ham played pretty well particularly in the 2nd half, at least they'd consider it a good point.

Gonna have to disagree with you about the gap in quality, it's clear that the teams below are and have massively improved, never before have we seen this much money spent by the teams outside the top 6 before.

Anyway regarding our performance, I'm a bit concerned, not overly though because our manager is elite and he'll know how to fix it, we will click at some point.
 
StripiestPilot said:
I agree we have no right to beat anybody before a ball is kicked but when you are given as much time and space as we were yesterday we should be expecting much more than what we showed.

I think our players enjoy playing counter-attack maybe a bit too much, the goal we scored last night was a superb and a perfect example of Conte-ball but when the opponent lets us have the ball and sits off we really seem to struggle. Conte like his team to “suffer” when defending and no doubt they get an adrenaline boost from that but when the opponent is afraid of us and lets us have the ball we don’t seem as aggressive. This has to improve. I don’t feel like opponents are “suffering“ when we have the ball.
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I don't disagree with this, like I said we were poor.
 
Go on son said:
I think whats boiling peoples piss is that they feel if it was against us they wouldnt have spent 5 min looking for the angle to prove it wasnt a peno.
Its supposed to be clear and obvious mistake. 5 min isnt clear and obvious. Plus the hand was so high and outstretched it wasnt really natural.
Probably bias on my part but hey thats what happens
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Doesn't help that the community and pundits muddied the water as usual by having differing beliefs about the letter of the law.

Last night they led me to think that there's an element of ref discretion about the nature of the arm (after the head) being considered this year...... (Might be BS though.... Have the rules been tweaked again this season. )

In which case 100% pen.


Someone also made a very good point last night¹ about what if the arm in that scenario prevented an own goal due to changing the flight of the ball? ........Surely a righteous rulebook ought to address that?



Last point; it looked like Creswells arm sent the ball onto their #8s arm....... Can VAR look at that?

Funny; the replays denied us that view.
 
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I can't hate on Sanchez, he's a squad player who comes in and does a job when we have injuries - we won't have world beaters on the bench. But Dier and Davies are first choice and they could be improved on - both have done well under Conte but neither are gonna improve much and they're not Toby and Jan and never will be.

Emerson does his best but his limitations are clear, Doherty can't defend and Spence isn't ready.

That's 3 of our first choice back 5 who are not really of the required standard for a team who wanna win league titles. As a keeper I think Hugo is good enough but not when it comes to his distribution which is generally poor.

Yves has taken a bit of stick but as a first start I'm absolutely gonna cut him some slack as his touch and composure are good, he's very mobile and he'll be a big player for us once he settles in.
PEH works very hard but he's limited physically, with his touch and composure and also his distribution. Another one to upgrade on as he should be a squad player and not a guaranteed starter.

Of the front 3, Son has been pony this season, to be fair he looked a bit more at it yesterday defensively but he's not hit his stride at all.

Conte is clearly a top manager and he's done pretty remarkable things with a pretty average group it must be said. Once you take out the front 3, Yves, Romero and Peresic we are 4/5 players away from competing with the best teams and it showed last night - we struggle at times to play out from the back and we're massively reliant on Kane who really is a standout player.

Conte was absolutely right when he said we're 2 transfer windows away from challenging and I just hope he sticks around to see it through.
 
StripiestPilot said:
His system works. We are undefeated and have taken 8 points from 4 fixtures that we got 0 points from last season. Hugo is having almost nothing to do in most of the matches.

Conte will always put the solidity of the team ahead of any other consideration. If making a change compromises the solidity of the team then he will not do it unless there is no other choice. That is why when games are tight he does not turn to players that he trusts less than his starting players.

What we need to work on now is improving our play with the ball without compromising the solidity of the team. As Conte has said many times, the team needs to play with personality. When the opponent just lets us have the ball (I believe we had like 70%+ in the first half) we have to do more than we did last night. At the very least push up and play in the opposing half.

We seem to have much more intensity when we are defending than when attacking, this is something Conte has to fix. If they are willing to bust a gut to make blocks and recovery runs then surely they should be just as willing to take the ball up the pitch and score?
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I’m not sure I really buy this thing about getting points from games we lost last season; there are too many variables at play. Same as if we lose a match we won last season, it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve got worse. The measure of where we are is surely the performance; and, as yet, there is scant evidence that we are progressing (either in individual ability or teamwork) apart from Perisic providing a bigger threat down the left and Richy being able to come in and make a difference (hope he gets a start on Saturday to see what he can do for a whole game).
Totally agree with what needs to improve, it’s just a concern that it hasn’t been addressed when it’s been evident for so long.
 
The Mercurial No.10 said:
So we get completely fucked because the biggest game in our history came a bit too fucking early.

Great.
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Spursy.

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