Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
Interesting that two young 'club signings' ran the show, whilst Conte's top target Perisic continues to look like a milk float in a world of sports cars
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Antonio Conte - officially NOT the coach of THFC
- Thread starter Daisuk
- Start date
Think you’re trying a bit too hard with that comment.
thfcsteff
Terry Dyson
We have discussed Conte’s ‘emotionalism’ as well. I think his current refusal to take a few weeks to properly recuperate is a hugely damning indictment of him (sadly).
thfcsteff
Terry Dyson
Yup! Aaaaaaaagreed! Great pass. Sarr wrapped a great ball through in the first-half.
90291Spur
Paul Walsh
You and the chaps do a bang up job for sure. It was fascinating to hear the opinions of an Italian football guy (& Inter fan) who is super knowledgable about Conte.
metalgear
Nayim
IMO we are yet to recoup the value of the high salaries that we are paying both perisic and conte.
Won't miss either if they leave and we get younger with more contemporary approach to modern football
tommysvr
Simon Davies
Big decision coming up for West Ham at home. A team struggling big time, but who (as everyone knows) always get up for Spurs.
Perisic very likely can't play 3 games in a week (and even if he could he should be dropped) so who does he play at LWB? Son? Danjuma? Royal? Davies? Lenglet? Lots of extremely brick options. Or, he could surprise us all and change the formation to actually suit the players we have and go:
Forster
Royal Romero (take your pick from least brick LCB) Davies
Skipp PEH Sarr
Kulusevski Kane Richarlison (please for the love of GHod let it be anyone other than Son for once)
Perisic very likely can't play 3 games in a week (and even if he could he should be dropped) so who does he play at LWB? Son? Danjuma? Royal? Davies? Lenglet? Lots of extremely brick options. Or, he could surprise us all and change the formation to actually suit the players we have and go:
Forster
Royal Romero (take your pick from least brick LCB) Davies
Skipp PEH Sarr
Kulusevski Kane Richarlison (please for the love of GHod let it be anyone other than Son for once)
metalgear
Nayim
also with half a season gone, its clear that we are playing much slower than latter half of last season when we had that exhilarating run to top 4 places. kane's throughballs to son was what i remember most abou it.
this season seems totally different. let the opposition have the ball, sit back and defend, and when in position, try to get the whole team into the opponents half before attacking the goal. perisic stands out for me - its as if we centre our entire play around him and yes he's had vital contributions, but i feel that overall we are worse off.
quite sure conte can turn it around if he wants to. we've got quality depth in richy and danjuma too. but i fear conte is too committed with perisic to change.
this season seems totally different. let the opposition have the ball, sit back and defend, and when in position, try to get the whole team into the opponents half before attacking the goal. perisic stands out for me - its as if we centre our entire play around him and yes he's had vital contributions, but i feel that overall we are worse off.
quite sure conte can turn it around if he wants to. we've got quality depth in richy and danjuma too. but i fear conte is too committed with perisic to change.
braineclipse
Willie Hall
I'm reluctant to speculate about the mental state of others. In this instance I will, to some degree, but just to be clear all speculation. And in part because others are.
We all have our less than perfect patterns of behaviour we fall into at times. In periods of increased stress and emotional pressure even more so. If Conte is falling into maladaptive patterns at this time it only makes him human, it's most definitely not a damning indictment of him. Frankly I find that viewpoint way too harsh and simplistic.
I may be reading you wrong, the way I read that sentence matches poorly with what I've read and heard from you in the past. I really tried to find a different reading of that sentence, but struggle to find one. I suspect that we agree rather strongly, but this sentence I really struggle with. Apologies if the issue is with my comprehension or interpretation of what you wrote.
I think there are reasons to suspect that Conte isn't in the best place mentally and emotionally at the moment. I also think that may be effecting his work.
If so there's a question of if he can get back to his old self and when. If so I think it would partly explain the contract situation and I think it's fair for both Conte and the club to take a bit of time, evaluate and reevaluate as the season progresses.
If true the club has to keep options open. They can't stick with Conte over time through loyalty, understanding, empathy or hope. But at the same time I think it's fair to give it a bit of time. He's not even fully recovered physically at this moment, but will hopefully soon be.
braineclipse
Willie Hall
Another thing he said in that interview iirc was that while Conte will always ask for (or even demand) ready made solutions that fit the system he actually did well when forced to find other solutions.
May be some resistance there, may take a bit of time, but he has that in his locker.
At CB I'm not sure those solutions excist in the squad. At CM and attacking areas (Skipp, Sarr, perhaps Danjuma and even Richarlison) we may have some of those solutions.
Diamond Lights
Didier Zokora
i keep seeing that "if Conte has the players he will compete". But i still can't wrap my head around this.
1) no Top 8 teams play with 2 CMs in the modern PL game (i might be mistaken but does any team play it apart from us)?
2) yesterday watching, several times we won the ball in the middle and instead of breaking forward, pass went backwards. I think this is a purposeful instruction - Sarr won the ball, passed it backwards instead of moving forwards, a few seconds later we lost the ball and Romero had to hack down and get booked. Go rewind and watch you will see what i mean. I think this is also why Bissouma has struggled, at Brighton last season he would have attacked from that moment as more box to box type activity, now he has to pass backwards and sit. He rarely moves into the final 3rd.
3) Despite looking poor yesterday across the board pretty much, our squad strength clearly lies in attack (Kane, Son, Kulu, Richarlisn, Danjuma) - seems like time and time again we are wasting the players we do have and should be focused on to play a type of defensive football which we cannot rely on. Yet how much did we actually trouble their goalkeeper? Last night we only looked like scoring through set pieces, rarely in open play did we trouble them.
4) lack of rotation is so infuriating. Our first sub was on the 70th minute despite Kulu and Son both being worthy of being hooked at HT. Danjuma was in the CL Team of the Season last year. Surely him and Richy deserved more time than the final 20?
I just don't see the positives. I appreciate Conte has done wonders in Italy and won a league in PL, but i have to ask, has football already moved on from him at least in the PL? His unwillingness to adapt to the obvious is troubling.
1) no Top 8 teams play with 2 CMs in the modern PL game (i might be mistaken but does any team play it apart from us)?
2) yesterday watching, several times we won the ball in the middle and instead of breaking forward, pass went backwards. I think this is a purposeful instruction - Sarr won the ball, passed it backwards instead of moving forwards, a few seconds later we lost the ball and Romero had to hack down and get booked. Go rewind and watch you will see what i mean. I think this is also why Bissouma has struggled, at Brighton last season he would have attacked from that moment as more box to box type activity, now he has to pass backwards and sit. He rarely moves into the final 3rd.
3) Despite looking poor yesterday across the board pretty much, our squad strength clearly lies in attack (Kane, Son, Kulu, Richarlisn, Danjuma) - seems like time and time again we are wasting the players we do have and should be focused on to play a type of defensive football which we cannot rely on. Yet how much did we actually trouble their goalkeeper? Last night we only looked like scoring through set pieces, rarely in open play did we trouble them.
4) lack of rotation is so infuriating. Our first sub was on the 70th minute despite Kulu and Son both being worthy of being hooked at HT. Danjuma was in the CL Team of the Season last year. Surely him and Richy deserved more time than the final 20?
I just don't see the positives. I appreciate Conte has done wonders in Italy and won a league in PL, but i have to ask, has football already moved on from him at least in the PL? His unwillingness to adapt to the obvious is troubling.
braineclipse
Willie Hall
1) This is true. But I think that was also true when we were really good last season. And when Conte has been successful in the past. Very few teams play a 3-4-3 these days, but I don't think it's an outdated formation.
2) When we've been good we've been direct. Very direct at times. We often try to be now as well, but often fail to execute those moves. We go back to go forward when we can't find the direct move. Bissouma was mostly a keep it safe and easy passer at Brighton.
3) I think we're really struggling with the execution. Has Conteball and his patterns been "found out" to a degree that we can't execute it. Is it a form and confidence issue. Is it an issue with too many players either not being good enough or not well enough suited to the style of play. My guess would be a combination of those.
4) I can get trying to see if Kulusevski can regain his form, he hasn't been struggling that long. Sticking with Son and sticking with Son until so late in games I don't understand.
I don't think football has moved on. I think he will be successful again, here or elsewhere. If it's to be here we probably need to start seeing real improvements at some point in the coming months.
Diamond Lights
Didier Zokora
sorry another point:
5) Who was our best player vs Arsenal? Sarr. Who was our two best players last night, Sarr and Skipp. Who performed well when given the chance? Gil. Don't get me wrong, these are fringe players sure, but my point is young players have stepped into this season and performed well when given the opportunity. Consistently going with the same players, consistently saying "we need established names", sure for the most part, but is it really the be all/end all to go with some youth too?
Did we really need Porro with Spence never given the opportunity? Maybe, obviously not writing him off but the point is, Conte mindset of only needing 28+ year olds is a fallacy and been shown time and time again this season. So stubborn.
Edit: Yes i am aware Porro isn't 28. My point is, Spence was never given the opportunity and may have saved us £40M we could have just added to a decent offer for a top CB
5) Who was our best player vs Arsenal? Sarr. Who was our two best players last night, Sarr and Skipp. Who performed well when given the chance? Gil. Don't get me wrong, these are fringe players sure, but my point is young players have stepped into this season and performed well when given the opportunity. Consistently going with the same players, consistently saying "we need established names", sure for the most part, but is it really the be all/end all to go with some youth too?
Did we really need Porro with Spence never given the opportunity? Maybe, obviously not writing him off but the point is, Conte mindset of only needing 28+ year olds is a fallacy and been shown time and time again this season. So stubborn.
Edit: Yes i am aware Porro isn't 28. My point is, Spence was never given the opportunity and may have saved us £40M we could have just added to a decent offer for a top CB
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braineclipse
Willie Hall
I definitely agree with this.
I do think there are both upsides and downsides to the way Conte operates with this. He definitely trusts younger players less than most other managers imo. The downsides are clear to see and at the moment we're not experiencing the upsides.
I think for any one of those examples of younger players being given little game time an argument can be made in support of Conte's decision and acknowledging that he and the coaches will have much more knowledge about the players involved.
But on the whole the downsides of this approach are only really worth it if the upsides are greater than we've seen this season.
Nothing that can be done this season with Gil and Spence. Conte has mostly been forced to trust Skipp and Sarr and will have to do so again. Not sure we have anyone else that would be ready to step up. So right now not much of an issue, but going forward I hope we see a slight change to the approach.
Bedfordspurs
Arthur Rowe
So your saying we have talent but the manager doesn’t use them… because he has his trusted warriors
I fully agree
it’s why he needs to go if we’re gonna carve up the spend on players for now and players for the future
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Diamond Lights
Didier Zokora
I don't think our squad is great, i think there's several areas of improvement but we're playing poor football relying on people not making individual errors when we dont have the players to support it. We do have great attacking players so surely you play to your strengths and not your weaknesses.
Seriously everyone go back and watch the 20 seconds leading to Romero booking, you will see what i mean.
Seriously everyone go back and watch the 20 seconds leading to Romero booking, you will see what i mean.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
And then watch how a top coach can get even average players playing good football
Grays_1890
Colin Calderwood
It was interesting that Conte should almost shock in his interview when talking about SKippy and Sarr, shocked we had the talent and now, in his own words, sees a brighter future. Shame they have been there all year and not really been used or you would have known earlier. Its been my biggest gripe with him and his interview just compounds that for me.
Glenda's Legs
Les Ferdinand
Wow. Is that really what he inferred? That’s quite shocking really. Well, maybe Sarr being a new addition to the squad and Skipp being out injured for so long might be some mitigation. But you’d expect the coach to know better what they can bring to the team. But then if he’s too unsure/stubborn to give them a chance I suppose it’s not so surprising.
DubaiSpur
Ian Walker
I adore Poch, but that was 2:00 minutes of passing it around the back under zero pressure from a very poor side - not the best example to choose.
Guarantee you we could do that now too, but teams are much fitter and press much higher these days.
Yep. His inability to see outside his 'core 11' (or rather, his stubbornness) is his biggest flaw as a coach.