*** OMT Tottenham Hotspur v AFC Bournemouth ***

braineclipse said:

Iraoloa really is an excellent manager for Bournemouth. I'm not sure that translates as well to two games a week, clubs in Europe and all that. Maybe he can tweak it enough to make it work, but I'm kinda glad we're not the club to take the gamble on that. (May be proven wrong on this for sure).


Yeah, probably. They did it quite a bit last season though. Them going ahead probably made a bit of a difference and made them play a bit better and us a bit worse making it an even more inspired performance overall.

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I agree, excellent manager for Bournemouth, not imho a manager for Tottenham Hotspur.

glasgowspur said:

I agree, excellent manager for Bournemouth, not imho a manager for Tottenham Hotspur.

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Super impressive how despite them losing several key defenders from last season they were so well drilled and cohesive.

I think that's in part three benefit of having a very settled way of playing. Drill that, get good at that.

I definitely don't mind Frank's flexibility. But it may take more time to get sufficiently good at several different approaches than one. And even more so to get good at the tweaks within each approach than if you're working on one approach and the various tweaks of that one approach.

I think both are good and valid ways of going about things, both with benefits and drawbacks.

braineclipse said:

Super impressive how despite them losing several key defenders from last season they were so well drilled and cohesive.

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Perhaps (and I haven't really thought this through) Iraola just told his back 4 to just be a back 4, don't worry about carrying it forwards or interplay or whatnot, just be a back 4 and every time it comes near Johnson or Richie, smash through the back of them like an Angry Argentinian journeyman centre back.

Bishop said:

Johnson and Richarlison were especially terrible. I do think their inability to either control or hold the ball really hampered us. It just made it super easy for Bournemouth to triple up on Kudus. Simons makes a difference but I don't think despite how good he is that he changes everything when the problem players would likely still be on the pitch even with Simons present.

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Johnson was anonymous. If we're not going to put the ball over the top or quickly progress down the opposite wing and get a ball across then there is no point in playing him.

The reason why it looked like they were 'trebling up' on Kudus is because on the rare occasion he got the better of Bournemouth's left back he then held onto the ball instead of passing it. As an aside I thought Bournemouth's left back was superb, just as good as Kerkez (they seem to have great recruitment). On the flip side of that their left back strolled forward several times to overload Porro and Kudus didn't track him. Porro wasn't good enough to handle Semenyo anyway (another really good player) but I don't think anyone could've really handled him and Bournemouth's left back and Porro was forced to do due to Kudus' lack of helping out.

We all know that Richi is poor at holding the ball up. He's not fast enough to get there much ahead of the defender, not strong enough to properly hold them off and doesn't have good enough touch to control and lay off the ball when under serious pressure. The balls he was receiving though were difficult ones to retain possession with in that they were 30 to 40 yard balls and he tended to have no Spurs players around him to help pick up the second ball.

I thought we needed to do a few things we didn't do at the weekend to nullify Bournemouth's well orchastrated press and at least make them think twice..

1. We needed a midfielder to actually try to receive the ball and carry it - this would've opened space up but none of our midfield 3 were brave enough to do this (or perhaps just don't have the skillset)

2. Bournemouth could press us with impunity as we didn't mix things up. I think we needed to go over the top early a few times and look to get Johnson in behind with his pace, had we done this then Bournemouth would've been forced to have a bigger gap between their lines giving us more space to play in instead of being able to condense the game so much in our half, or even third of the pitch.

3. We failed to get anyone close to Richarlison so that when he lost it, we never picked up the second ball. Sarr, Johnson and Kudus should all have tried to get closer to Richarlison when Vicario was playing those central passes to him.

thfcsteff said:

I think that's too harsh. He is here to create and was trying to. He wasnt helped by the movement either ahead or around him, and it wasn't until Bergvall started moving into half-space and (as you observed elsewhere) Tel looked to connect things by finding the pockets of space and moving that we started to look like our Frank-selves. Yes, there were moments when Kudus did not play a decent ort even simple ball, but he also did this several times. I would agree with the criticism of his first-half lack of tracking.

I think the biggest issue we had all game was not winning second balls or duals. I was really surprised by that TBH.
We were bullied/allowed ourselves to be, and we also felt too sorry for ourselves with regards to decisions we were not getting. It was a shame to see Richy not able to turn his frustrations around in that regard.

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I think that is making excuses. I get that he is good to watch and, in a game where the rest of our attacking unit failed to make a positive impact, seeing one of our players beat his opponent instantly makes them seem our best player. However, on numerous occasions he had a player in a better position and could've given the ball and then received a return pass in a better position himself only to dribble the ball anyway and typically eventually lose it.

IMO having Bergval on the pitch instead of Sarr helped because Bergval actually received the ball and tried to make a positive action and then move the ball forwards. That opened up space for others. Though I think Bergval was also helped here by the fact he was fresh and up against a Bournemouth team who had pressed like crazy for an hour or so before he came on. Had Bergval started and Sarr replaced him as sub it may have still been similar.

braineclipse said:

I agree there were some situations where he should have released it earlier.

I think he worked reasonably well defensively. But it's tough for wingers when it becomes direct counter attack after direct counter attack against us and we can't really get forward well ourselves. He looked rather heavy legged towards the end and I think put everything physically he could into the game (and that's was quite a lot).

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I'm not talking about late on in the game when Kudus wasn't helping to defend against his direct opponent. It happened numerous times in the first half. Bournemouth were creating an overload with the left back and (I think it was) Scott joining Semenyo, and Kudus was leaving Porro and Palhinha to deal with all three of them. It was the complete opposite of how Kudus helped Porro against City (even helping him defend against the winger, let alone the full back joining in).

Silly McSilly Face said:

It highlighted AGAIN what I have been banging on about for ages. Porro is a massive weak spot in our team. As if you have a game where he is being consistently got at, it is game over. He isn't a defender. As a wing-back or winger = yes, ok, i can get on board with him being in the team. As a full back? Not good enough for the Premier League. Not by a loooooooong way. A good defender can defend against someone bigger and faster than they are. It requires positioning, timing and a bit of nouse. Porro has none of that. He is a liability against an aggressive high pressure team like that. He should only play full back against a low block.

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He's not a weak spot in our team. He struggled to deal with Semenyo's physicality at the weekend but the main issue was that he constantly had two player due to Kudus not tracking their left back. I can remember when Danny Rose used to play behind Nacer Chadli and a lot of fans dug out Rose saying he was rubbish etc. Back then I pointed out that he is actually a good player it just that there isn't really a player in the land who can cope having to defend on their own against two players (as always happened with Rose because Chadli was the laziest player I've ever seen when it came to defending against his direct opponent).

Spence came across and dealt better with Semenyo's physicality (sitting at the game in the first half I said after about 20 minutes that we should either sub Porro for Udogie or, if we feel making such an early sub is disrespectful to Porro, then swap our fullbacks over). However, by the time Udogie came on Bournemouth's (excellent) fullback was no longer really joining the attacks as they started to fatigue a bit and concentrate on playing a more counter attacking style .

braineclipse said:

Yeah, sorry, wasn't clear enough. I was very much agreeing with you. Just with the addition that to do that you have to also be really good at pressing.

This is not new. Stoke did the same for 20-25 minutes back in the day and we always struggled. Bournemouth just do it better for longer. And the key to doing this in a game against us is (with some tweaks) what they do in most games against good teams.

You can't be pressed if you just hoof it worward (they do more than that, but just as an example).

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Absolutely.... and I think quite telling how often Bournemouth got the ball forward very quickly. I think Iraola had seen how many of our good moments come from us pressing City as they played the ball out from the keeper so he took that away from us. Because they did go long early that then pushed us back a little and that then allowed Bournemouth to play out from the back without being pressed. Unfortunately we didn't do the same thing and disrupt their press by being cleverer in this regard.

Finney Is Back said:

I think that is making excuses. I get that he is good to watch and, in a game where the rest of our attacking unit failed to make a positive impact, seeing one of our players beat his opponent instantly makes them seem our best player. However, on numerous occasions he had a player in a better position and could've given the ball and then received a return pass in a better position himself only to dribble the ball anyway and typically eventually lose it.

IMO having Bergval on the pitch instead of Sarr helped because Bergval actually received the ball and tried to make a positive action and then move the ball forwards. That opened up space for others. Though I think Bergval was also helped here by the fact he was fresh and up against a Bournemouth team who had pressed like crazy for an hour or so before he came on. Had Bergval started and Sarr replaced him as sub it may have still been similar.

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I agree on the Bergvall point, absolutely.

Finney Is Back said:

I'm not talking about late on in the game when Kudus wasn't helping to defend against his direct opponent. It happened numerous times in the first half. Bournemouth were creating an overload with the left back and (I think it was) Scott joining Semenyo, and Kudus was leaving Porro and Palhinha to deal with all three of them. It was the complete opposite of how Kudus helped Porro against City (even helping him defend against the winger, let alone the full back joining in).

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...that overload is partially caused by us not having a left-footed LB on the pitch. We'll have to disagree on the pin-pointing of Kudus here. I'll have to re-watch the fitst-half to see if it is as egregious as you've suggested. I think a key problem was that Bournemouth targettted that lack of balance/knew that they could focus attentions on our right-hand side and get more joy offensively and defensively there. The other bigger issue than Kudus for me, was that we simply did not win enough loose second-balls. That Bournemouth press was effective enough to either leave us constantly outnumbered or they were simply stronger in their task. I was very surprised to see us lose so many of those types of situation. I think the way the ref went about his business had an effect too, and there's no doubt Richy started sulking a bit when he wasn't getting anything and instead got adjudged to have given a few fouls away. As mentioned above, I agree with Bergvall, he was able to find the spaces which were there to be taken in the midde, and I thought Tel's movement was intelligent in that regard too.

I hope Simons plays as a Maddison, and despite the fact I am not his biggest fan, I think Odobert should get a few starts on the left. I love Spence but again, Udogie would give us balance. I think it is Spence's shirt to lose right now, and he has done nothing wrong at all and plenty right, so it is a tough one but we must play someone on the left with a left! Finally, I would've liked to have seen Brennan off the bench in this game; it might well have seen us get back. (undeservedly) into it. Learning curve for Frank for sure...

thfcsteff said:

...that overload is partially caused by us not having a left-footed LB on the pitch. We'll have to disagree on the pin-pointing of Kudus here. I'll have to re-watch the fitst-half to see if it is as egregious as you've suggested. I think a key problem was that Bournemouth targettted that lack of balance/knew that they could focus attentions on our right-hand side and get more joy offensively and defensively there. The other bigger issue than Kudus for me, was that we simply did not win enough loose second-balls. That Bournemouth press was effective enough to either leave us constantly outnumbered or they were simply stronger in their task. I was very surprised to see us lose so many of those types of situation. I think the way the ref went about his business had an effect too, and there's no doubt Richy started sulking a bit when he wasn't getting anything and instead got adjudged to have given a few fouls away. As mentioned above, I agree with Bergvall, he was able to find the spaces which were there to be taken in the midde, and I thought Tel's movement was intelligent in that regard too.

I hope Simons plays as a Maddison, and despite the fact I am not his biggest fan, I think Odobert should get a few starts on the left. I love Spence but again, Udogie would give us balance. I think it is Spence's shirt to lose right now, and he has done nothing wrong at all and plenty right, so it is a tough one but we must play someone on the left with a left! Finally, I would've liked to have seen Brennan off the bench in this game; it might well have seen us get back. (undeservedly) into it. Learning curve for Frank for sure...

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Think Spence should play right back and Udogie left.