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I liked Erik Lamela before it was cool

Cochise said:
So far the entire team look absolutely lost. Lets not single out one when there are many who haven't performed.
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To be fair, no one is - is in quite a "good" company.

Personally I think Poch needs to start picking a team to win, irrespective of reputation or fee.
Simple and effective.

That means dropping one or two Chadli/ lamela/eriksen. And make them play their way back in.

Townsend on LM with simple instructions - drive at FB, get some passes and crosses in
Kane AM - so what you've been doing.
RM - one of the above. Probably Chadli due to goal threat.might just get on Townsend cross when Soldado misses it.

Effective football that is harder to defend against than Lamela or Chadli who play everything in front of the oppo defence - so easy to defend against.
Get players running and moving, it creates space and destroys defensive positioning (we should know all about that!)
 
Armchair Expert said:
Stats. Hmmm. Like the stat a regular starting attacker is yet to score in the league despite it being November in his second season?

The 30 million thing goes two ways - (maybe) he would get less criticism if he didn't have the price tag - but he certainly wouldn't be receiving so much playing time and high praise for meager contributions if he hadn't. Like I say if he was an academy player based so far on what he's shown in a Spurs shirt he'd be out on loan to Bristol City, not getting lots of opportunities in the first team.

And also its not because he isn't the bestest player in the world that he's attracting criticism, its because his performances have been underwhelming, he takes too many touches, and spends at least 85% of every game he plays on the periphery of the match.
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At the start of the season 'this is actually his first season as he spent 90% of his time injured last year', 'It might take him a while to get up and running as he's not played much football in the premier league', 'I don't expect much from him this season as it's basically his first season'.

November comes and because he hasn't scored 30 goals yet (even though as someone already pointed out he has as many assists in nine games this season, as Aaron Lennon has in the last two seasons) he's all of a sudden in the middle of his second season and should be totally used to the league by now.

I agree with you that he takes too many touches and needs to stamp his authority on games, but based on the fact the team is playing very badly and everyone said at the start of the season this was supposedly his 'first' season, he's not too far off where I'd expect him to be. I'd be happier if he was scoring every week and assisting and working hard and tackling back, but the team as a whole have been awful. He's still trying hard every game and succeeding to do 3 out of those four things.

He is nowhere near the worst of our worries.
 
Mumorn said:
how was he?
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I only watched the last 30 minutes, but he didn't do anything wrong in that period. Even had a very good run on the ball wiggling away from a couple of Croatians. Defensively he wasn't troubled as Argentina were in possession most of the time. Croatia had pretty much a b-team out.

Lamela made a couple of good runs on the ball after coming on with 15-20 minutes to go, and played one good through pass. Played on the left.
 
King of Norway said:
I only watched the last 30 minutes, but he didn't do anything wrong in that period. Even had a very good run on the ball wiggling away from a couple of Croatians. Defensively he wasn't troubled as Argentina were in possession most of the time. Croatia had pretty much a b-team out.

Lamela made a couple of good runs on the ball after coming on with 15-20 minutes to go, and played one good through pass. Played on the left.
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I really like Fazio, more than most on here. Glad to see he had a good game, although like you said probably largely untroubled.
 
Mumorn said:
I really like Fazio, more than most on here. Glad to see he had a good game, although like you said probably largely untroubled.
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Lamela I can understand buying, but he he needs to start impacting games more and play a clever game.

You really like Fazio? Based on the two sending offs, constant errors and a real lack of pace? Other than the price tag, I don't see why we signed him for very fundamental reasons. When you look at who he is behind in the national team pecking order, it doesn't fill me with much confidence eiher
 
monkeybarry said:
To be fair, no one is - is in quite a "good" company.

Personally I think Poch needs to start picking a team to win, irrespective of reputation or fee.
Simple and effective.

That means dropping one or two Chadli/ lamela/eriksen. And make them play their way back in.

Townsend on LM with simple instructions - drive at FB, get some passes and crosses in
Kane AM - so what you've been doing.
RM - one of the above. Probably Chadli due to goal threat.might just get on Townsend cross when Soldado misses it.

Effective football that is harder to defend against than Lamela or Chadli who play everything in front of the oppo defence - so easy to defend against.
Get players running and moving, it creates space and destroys defensive positioning (we should know all about that!)
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I'm sorry, what? Moving Chadli from the position where he's gotten 6 goals in 10 in the Premier League, or dropping altogether him when he's scored or assisted half the goals (! 6 goals, 1 assist, out of 14 goals!) we've scored in the league so far this season? All this to accommodate a player that's totaled 7 goals and assists so far his 59 total first team games in all competitions in his career. All this because Townsend put in a couple of good crosses in the EL? (Remember, last season Chadli put in some lovely crosses from the left in the EL) This is the simple and effective way to start picking a team to win? I really don't get it...

For me one of our most pressing concerns right now is... our pressing. Lamela seems much more adept at pressing than Townsend and should be much closer to starting than Townsend imo.
 
braineclipse said:
I'm sorry, what? Moving Chadli from the position where he's gotten 6 goals in 10 in the Premier League, or dropping altogether him when he's scored or assisted half the goals (! 6 goals, 1 assist, out of 14 goals!) we've scored in the league so far this season? All this to accommodate a player that's totaled 7 goals and assists so far his 59 total first team games in all competitions in his career. All this because Townsend put in a couple of good crosses in the EL? (Remember, last season Chadli put in some lovely crosses from the left in the EL) This is the simple and effective way to start picking a team to win? I really don't get it...

For me one of our most pressing concerns right now is... our pressing. Lamela seems much more adept at pressing than Townsend and should be much closer to starting than Townsend imo.
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If you're concerned with our pressing then surely you would be all for dropping Chadli? He doesn't play any part at all in our defensive game.

IMO Chadli is a good player to talk about when discussing our problems at the moment. He is scoring most of our goals from his midfield position but not performing any defensive role whatsoever. In terms of the sort of gameplan that (I think) Pochettino wants from Spurs Chadli should be dropped, but if he drops him then where do our goals come from? A difficult one I think. Perhaps for now ensuring we work harder off the ball and are more defensively solid would be the right option?
 
Finney Is Back said:
If you're concerned with our pressing then surely you would be all for dropping Chadli? He doesn't play any part at all in our defensive game.

IMO Chadli is a good player to talk about when discussing our problems at the moment. He is scoring most of our goals from his midfield position but not performing any defensive role whatsoever. In terms of the sort of gameplan that (I think) Pochettino wants from Spurs Chadli should be dropped, but if he drops him then where do our goals come from? A difficult one I think. Perhaps for now ensuring we work harder off the ball and are more defensively solid would be the right option?
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Yes. He has been doing well from an attacking perspective but leaves Rose to fend for himself far too often. I've been arguing for Chadli to go central off the striker, or even playing as the striker in some cases. It solves some of the problems he causes defensively and to be honest he seems to me to have a strikers instinct and spends his time up there antway.
 
Rorschach said:
Yes. He has been doing well from an attacking perspective but leaves Rose to fend for himself far too often. I've been arguing for Chadli to go central off the striker, or even playing as the striker in some cases. It solves some of the problems he causes defensively and to be honest he seems to me to have a strikers instinct and spends his time up there antway.
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But Rose is a defender and is supposed to defend first. When rose is back there shoulder to shoulder with the defender he is pretty good, and stands his ground. His crosses are poor and shots are worse, so he adds nothing to the attack except to free up the midfielders to attack. Surely it's not too big of an ask to get him to think safety first ?
 
I think it's just too crowded up there at the moment for lamela . Once the full backs and dms are pushing up both he and lamela can't get enough time to be creative, or have all their options shut out by a lack of movement into space behind the defence.
 
metalgear said:
I think it's just too crowded up there at the moment for lamela . Once the full backs and dms are pushing up both he and lamela can't get enough time to be creative, or have all their options shut out by a lack of movement into space behind the defence.
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Exactly this. To many forward with no room to move. I keep reading about eriksen and chadli not covering, well where is mason? When we lose the ball he should be first to react yet he is seldom anywhere to be seen. Apart from Kane I can't see any of our home grown or players post AVB who stay in position! Everyone charges forward at, even kaboul!



Sitting on my porcelain throne using Fapatalk
 
metalgear said:
But Rose is a defender and is supposed to defend first. When rose is back there shoulder to shoulder with the defender he is pretty good, and stands his ground. His crosses are poor and shots are worse, so he adds nothing to the attack except to free up the midfielders to attack. Surely it's not too big of an ask to get him to think safety first ?
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One on one he's not too bad. He seems to have curbed the rasher side of his game too which helps in these situations. The problem is the two on one situations that he's left to deal with far too often. City exploited this rather ruthlessly when we played them. When we played Liverpool Bentaleb covered left all match (check his heatmap) and Liverpool ended up waltzing around Capoue nearly at will. Against Villa Rose was a little more circumspect but they used the space in front of him to hit diagonals at Benteke over and over. To me this is a flaw in the way we play from a defensive setup. Attacking wise it is helping of course and Chadli's goal return is a testament to that.

IMO I would play Chadli as striker or off the striker and push Eriksen left and Lamela right. Both Eriksen and Lamela need to start wide, very wide, to keep our shape better. The full backs can attack inside them up the channel just as easily as overlapping outside. Capoue and Mason is a bad combo IMO. And as good as Mason is he cannot dominate the middle with Capoue as his partner and the three AM's thinking they are attackers and nothing else. I would drop Capoue and/or Mason for Dembele and/or Stambouli. The Dem+Stam partnership looked very solid in the minutes they have had together albeit against lesser opposition. Of course they do lack the 'killer ball' but with three 'killer ball' players in front of them we should be able to use our higher possession to better effect (should!!).
 
My point was actually none of the above.

It is about defending by being an attacking threat.
Lamela and Eriksen play everything in front of the opposition - easy to defend against with organization.

Townsend (who I'm no fan of - he's a 2nd rate Andy Sinton) can run at a full back and put in a decent cross from the left, turns the defence, making defending harder and more chance of Ade/Sold getting on the end of it,or Kane from AM or Chadli attacking the back post (something he does from either wing).

So my view is more of an effective, back to basics line up that will get the opposition defence stretched.

Yes Chadli has done well from LM, but but RM reduces his impact less than putting Townsend at RM (where he is ineffective).
And both Eriksen and Lamela are not affecting games enough at present to be much of a threat.
 
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