Moussa Sissoko

[DTA]

If Poch really had faith in him he would have started more matches

And if he had no faith in him then he would be nowhere near the match day squads.

 

[DTA]

@harr1984 @DubaiSpur I actually think the comments about his confidence being poor when we signed him as being a poor excuse. We signed him afterhe had a very impressive Euro 2016 in which was able to earn himself a place in midfield ahead of Kante. I thought he impressed and this was the Sissoko I thought we were signing and I was very optimistic.

After such a good tournament it is a poor excuse to say he came to us low in confidence, he should have been buzzing. I think his confidence is low now but that is because he has not been able to hold down a regular place this season

And who would he have replaced if he was able to hold down a regular place?

 

[DTA]

I've never suggested he doesn't have a footballing brain. I don't think we'll ever be able to determine whether or not he does, because he clearly doesn't have footballing feet.

I have no issue with the things he tries to do, it's the execution of them that goes awry.

You are a stats guy. You repeatedly state why, (cant trust your eyes... affirmation bias etc etc) a lot of that i agree with... so show me the stats to back up your arguement please.

 

[Ade's folks are ok really]

I don't care if he's a wide-eyed 22 year old or a veteran pushing 35 joining us off the back of winning the CL and shagging Emily Ratajkowski at the open-top bus parade.

ok, hands up. Who else joined me in a quick copy-and-paste-into-a-Google-search-window?

Ohhhhh, it's her! Not disappointed

 

[scaramanga]

You are a stats guy. You repeatedly state why, (cant trust your eyes... affirmation bias etc etc) a lot of that i agree with... so show me the stats to back up your arguement please.

To my knowledge there are no recorded stats for tackling oneself, spazzing the ball off of one's shin, or playing passes that the recipient has to turn around and run 10 yards to collect.

If there are any that dispute my opinion then I will change it.

 

[NaijaSpurs]

And who would he have replaced if he was able to hold down a regular place?

Well that would have depended on how well he played. I bet you did not predict that Wanyama would become a beast in midfield or the year before that Dele would become a key player as well. Both players raised their game and were able to hold down positions. If Sissoko had done more Poch would have found a space for him

 

[DTA]

To my knowledge there are no recorded stats for tackling oneself, spazzing the ball off of one's shin, or playing passes that the recipient has to turn around and run 10 yards to collect.

If there are any that dispute my opinion then I will change it.

Yeah very funny... are you going to back your argument with stats then or just make silly jokes?

 

[scaramanga]

Yeah very funny... are you going to back your argument with stats then or just make silly jokes?

I'm quite serious, those are my complaints about what he does.

If there are any stats that either prove.or disprove that, I don't know of them.

 

[DTA]

Well that would have depended on how well he played. I bet you did not predict that Wanyama would become a beast in midfield or the year before that Dele would become a key player as well. Both players raised their game and were able to hold down positions. If Sissoko had done more Poch would have found a space for him

But Ali and Wanyama are two of the best in their positions in perhaps all of europe, is that who we are to compare all signings to???? If so i think thats a little unfair. So again the pount stands... who in the starting line up should he have replaced?

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

The bottom line is when he starts he takes up 1/10th of our outfield players.............when we are now at a point where we are so close to really arriving the margins become smaller (and vital) and quite frankly Sissoko is not good enough.

He was not good at Saudi Sportswashing Machine (except the odd excellent game but its consistency WE need to rely on), as @scaramanga says, i trust @Greg opinion on this.

He has shown nothing near the level of the rest of our starting 11, yes he looks bereft of confidence but technically he looks miles behind. He is poor, but even if he increases to good that still is not enough. The others are offering a high baseline standard and then are adding on their own personal qualities that vary from one player to the next.

There is no point saying 'he was solid' 'he worked hard', 'he didnt do anything wrong', 'he passed it to someone who scored', 'he didn't hide'.........these are not even qualities (if you can call them that) that reach the baseline standard.

Lets not linger here.....luckily he did cost a bit so we may get a fair chunk for him that could be better employed.

 

[Robspur12]

I'm not in the habit of listening to rabid, angry fans other than to laugh at them.

If you want an example look at @Greg on this forum. He's a balanced and knowledgeable poster who is able to make honest assessments of his own team and players. Ask him what he thinks of Sissoko.

I wouldn't take the argument of any fan over managers who see the player in training day on day out or employ professional scouts. Managers clearly saw something in this guy. For what ever reason it has not yet worked out for the Sissoko but it is hard to judge someone who plays a few minutes here and there. When he has played I.e. yesterday and against Palace, he did a job for us, an important job.

To be honest what ever the opinions of fans on the guy's ability the vitriol on the board is astonishing towards someone that doesn't moan, doesn't cause trouble like adebayor, comes into the team when his manager asks him to and doesn't slag the club off in the press. Which leads me to conclude there is an agenda against him from certain sections of the fan base.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

I wouldn't take the argument of any fan over managers who see the player in training day on day out or employ professional scouts. Managers clearly saw something in this guy. For what ever reason it has not yet worked out for the Sissoko but it is hard to judge someone who plays a few minutes here and there. When he has played I.e. yesterday and against Palace, he did a job for us, an important job.

To be honest what ever the opinions of fans on the guy's ability the vitriol on the board is astonishing towards someone that doesn't moan, doesn't cause trouble like adebayor, comes into the team when his manager asks him to and doesn't slag the club off in the press. Which leads me to conclude there is an agenda against him from certain sections of the fan base.

All of what you say he does (ie toe the line) everyone in the squad does, they have to, or Poch will show them the door.....so thats a moot point.

An agenda would imply an ulterior motive. What could that possibly be? We are just giving an opinion based on what we see when he is on the pitch. We can't back that up with stats (sorry @DTA ). i would say his transfer fee does sharpen the focus but in my case that would make up say 10% of why i think he is not very good and we could do better (in fact NEED to do better)

 

[Gutter Boy]

I wouldn't take the argument of any fan over managers who see the player in training day on day out or employ professional scouts. Managers clearly saw something in this guy. For what ever reason it has not yet worked out for the Sissoko but it is hard to judge someone who plays a few minutes here and there. When he has played I.e. yesterday and against Palace, he did a job for us, an important job.

To be honest what ever the opinions of fans on the guy's ability the vitriol on the board is astonishing towards someone that doesn't moan, doesn't cause trouble like adebayor, comes into the team when his manager asks him to and doesn't slag the club off in the press. Which leads me to conclude there is an agenda against him from certain sections of the fan base.

It was the gutlessness of his early performances (e.g Bayer L). No one minds a struggling trier (Soldado)

 

[DTA]

The bottom line is when he starts he takes up 1/10th of our outfield players.............when we are now at a point where we are so close to really arriving the margins become smaller (and vital) and quite frankly Sissoko is not good enough.

He was not good at Saudi Sportswashing Machine (except the odd excellent game but its consistency WE need to rely on), as @scaramanga says, i trust @Greg opinion on this.

He has shown nothing near the level of the rest of our starting 11, yes he looks bereft of confidence but technically he looks miles behind. He is poor, but even if he increases to good that still is not enough. The others are offering a high baseline standard and then are adding on their own personal qualities that vary from one player to the next.

There is no point saying 'he was solid' 'he worked hard', 'he didnt do anything wrong', 'he passed it to someone who scored', 'he didn't hide'.........these are not even qualities (if you can call them that) that reach the baseline standard.

Lets not linger here.....luckily he did cost a bit so we may get a fair chunk for him that could be better employed.

I dont think any one of us (those not on the 'he is brick' bandwagon) is arguing that he has done enough to ouste any of the first 11 (that would be a major achievement considering where we are as a team). What i think we are all saying is that, in the limited appearances that he has had, he has done ok.... had some nice moments, generally worked hard, has not been a liability..... certainly not to the extent of being deserving of the abuse he gets on here and at the matches sometimes.

And the fact that MOPO has him almost always in and around the squad says he would agree with that... and im inclined to take his opinion more seriously than most

 

[Mikey10]

Why was he appalling on the first half. What did he do wrong???

Mostly his touch, which saw him lose possession on a number of occasions. He also ran the ball out of play at least once. He was in an unfamiliar position last night, but even his basic positioning on the pitch looked wrong to me. Poch was clearly frustrated with him at one point - not something you often see. As I said, he did improve second half.

I'm sure some of it is about confidence, although he has seemed to have a habit of running up blind alleys, head down, from the moment he arrived and his control of the ball is always dodgy from what I've seen.

He was okay overall last night and maybe we'll retain him and he'll turn out great. I certainly hope so. If I was to bet on it, though, I'd say he's had his chance and will be gone.

 

[AdamB]

It was the gutlessness of his early performances (e.g Bayer L). No one minds a struggling trier (Soldado)

Personally, I'm judging him on the basis of his overall ability. He ball skills, whether passing, control, dribbling, shooting or crossing, seem very, very poor for someone close to the start 11 of a top 4 team. His main attributes are pace and size, however thats not enough for where we are now. He turns 28 this summer so won't be getting any better - hopefully we'll offload him as his weakness (listed above) can't be cured

 

[Lemonade Money]

No love for his part in Son's goal? Quality.

 

[Lemonade Money]

8 starts in the PL, 7 wins, 1 draw.

 

[DubaiSpur]

a) How long has he been out of confidence for? Saudi Sportswashing Machine fans will tell you he must have been lacking confidence for the last 3 years.

Dunno, but it's a possibility that he came in low on confidence anyway. Natural reaction - you arrive at a workplace on a totally different level to the one you left, you're going to have a difficult time initially trying in most cases, no matter how good or bad you were at your previous employer. And when you get shat on by your own fanbase about five seconds into your move, it gets harder still.

b) All of those players, without exception, showed the basic skills required to be a professional footballer. At times (apart from Eriksen IMO) they have all shown other traits that make them less than suited to our team, but they've always looked like professional footballers.

Again, I'm talking specific skills and drawbacks, not a vague notion of not being a pro footballer. Wanyama was labelled as someone who couldn't pass five yards without handing it to the opposition. Rose wasn't a good left-back, and would never be. Eriksen was either too weak, too scared, too disinterested or too dull to be in our team.

Turns out, they were none of those things. So football fans and pundits aren't exactly the brightest blokes worth trusting without reservations.

Being someone that pays little attention to either transfer rumours or bricky clubs from the North East, I knew absolutely nothing about Sissoko when he joined. My only basis for judgement was that both Levy and Poch thought he was worth paying money for, so my assumption was that he was at least a good footballer.

Nothing he's done since that point has supported that assumption. Apart from a pass or two per match (on a good day) he's not even looked competent. On a bad day (and there's been plenty of them) he genuinely looks like a fan has won a competition to play for the team. More often than not, he fails to control the ball, his passes rarely have anything even nearing the correct weight on them, and let's not even start on his shooting.

Watching him play is like watching my Mum try to play FIFA. She can never remember which the pass and shoot buttons are, and she doesn't get the concept of short or long presses, so just holds down the button until the player hoofs it.

Christ, this exaggeration is too much, mate. I've mentioned a number of times here that I really can't see what he's doing so horrendously wrong that the tortured world cries in anguish whenever he gets the ball. He definitely hasn't set the world alight in any way, but he hasn't been irredeemably awful either. A lot of times, I've seen him have a decent game (nothing spectacular, but overall, a reasonably solid game) and have then come here to find people slagging him off and calling it his worst one yet.

The sense of proportion is gone regarding Sissoko, and it's a damn shame, because he isn't responsible for his transfer fee.

 

[DubaiSpur]

And therein lies the rub, my criticism of him is not based on just last night, on the contrary it is based on the whole season.

Well, I disagree with your criticism anyway, but my point was more that he didn't do much wrong yesterday - hell, he played on despite being ill and put in an unremarkable shift.

This is his 4th season in this league, he has been tinkle poor

He has been playing for Saudi Sportswashing Machine. Saudi Sportswashing Machine themselves were diabolically awful for the entirety of his tenure there. If you put Eriksen into the Sunderland side, he'd look pretty goddamn bad (not saying Sissoko is comparable to Eriksen, of course, just pointing out an apt comparison).

If Poch really had faith in him he would have started more matches

Who would he have started him over? Nobody in our team really deserved to be dropped throughout the season - hell, we tried to get over a selection crisis by shoe-horning Son in at left-back in the FA Cup semi because he was in great form and we couldn't drop him. Our changes have mostly been due to injuries and fitness-related rotation. Sissoko plays in positions where the incumbents (Alli, Eriksen, Son, Dembele, Wanyama) have all been uniformly brilliant. Even if he did want to, there wasn't an opportunity for Poch to play him more than he already has.

But he's gotten more minutes than Wimmer, who has literally faded from existence for some reason - he has gotten more minutes than N'Koudou, and he got more minutes than N'Jie did last season. He's been selected by Poch quite a bit. Thus, he trusts him to some degree.

@harr1984 @DubaiSpur I actually think the comments about his confidence being poor when we signed him as being a poor excuse. We signed him afterhe had a very impressive Euro 2016 in which was able to earn himself a place in midfield ahead of Kante. I thought he impressed and this was the Sissoko I thought we were signing and I was very optimistic.

After such a good tournament it is a poor excuse to say he came to us low in confidence, he should have been buzzing. I think his confidence is low now but that is because he has not been able to hold down a regular place this season

See my reply to @scaramanga above - it's still difficult going from your bread-and-butter workplace filled with wasters, nobodies, chancers and shambling incompetents (which I think would be an apt description of Saudi Sportswashing Machine pre-Rafa) to a sleek, ultra-competitive, highly demanding environment and *not* feeling out of place. A feeling no doubt intensified by your own fans dumping crap all over you ten minutes into your Spurs career.