Yeah I don’t doubt he had a poor game, as there was a good few commenting on it. But he does at least make some positive contributions going forward - he is our joint second top scorer along with Son and Bentancur and has 4 assists, twice as many as Son or Bentancur. Of course that’s not the whole picture, but his contributions going forward are important…..
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** OMT - Tottenham Hotspur v Brentford **
- Thread starter NLS
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Bedfordspurs
Martin Peters
He doesn’t work well with Bissouma IMO, but does with Bentacur
You need pairings if we are gonna play a 2 man CM. Maybe conte should work on bissouma and Skipp as as a pair and bentacur and Hojberg as his other one
Lemonade Money
Steffen Freund
Skipp would be the first name on the team sheet for me, he makes any defence look better, and will also give licence to any of those three to move forward.
Skipps reading of the game and knowing where the danger is is much better than PEHs. It's obvious that our defence needs better protection and Skipp would give that.
Bedfordspurs
Martin Peters
Haven’t send enough to agree to be honest
But we will have bentacur back vs Villa so expect a move back to his first choice
DeanoAustin
Christian Ziege
Sonny looks to have a physical or mental problem to me. And I don’t mean an injury, maybe he just isn’t what he was.
Twice yesterday he got in positions to run at their defence, one of them was effectively a 1 v 1. That’s where I expect a burst of pace from Sonny and it never came. He ended up playing a pass when peak Sonny powers past the defender and scores. I love the guy but I’m a bit worried about him at this point.
Trouble is when you play in a 2 it's not enough to just contribute an assist or a goal every 3 or 4 games, you need to be performing for 90 minutes. In a 3 you could probably get away with it but our midfield performances over the whole game, along with defence is why we're always fighting an uphil battle come the 2nd half more often than not.
Lemonade Money
Steffen Freund
Both his shots yesterday lacked his usual power, let alone accuracy.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you. But my point is Hojberg is one of those that produces, goals and assists from a DM/CM that he has this season are good numbers and they are also consistently crucial goals aswell. We have Kane and Kulu who score and assist , beyond that? Our wingbacks? Perisic has got a few assists from set pieces, and no goals. The other wing backs have given us nothing really. Don’t have a CB who scores regularly. Thankfully Bentancur has began chipping in too. So until players start stepping up with better output Hojberg isn’t going to get dropped.
For what it’s worth I think we look better with the three in the middle, and it is such an easy thing to do with Son so ridiculously out of form. But for some reason Conte only uses that formation on special occasions….
Bedfordspurs
Martin Peters
A good on form son takes few touches
A poor form son takes too many
A poor form son takes too many
SpurMeUp
Jimmy Cantrell
A few runs. A few shots, didn't quite light up for him, but he was there carried the ball well at times.
SpurMeUp
Jimmy Cantrell
If we thought a break would allay the issues we have, yesterday was a wake-up call. Unsurprisingly really, the issues we had pre-break we still have post-break! Who'd have thought it!?
Our backline is weak. We lack top quality along the backline. Lenglet is promising. More impressive going forward, but still seems worth keeping. I am sure we are trying to bring in a CB as a matter of urgency. I thought Doherty actually did well. Nothing spectacular, but he plays as a wing-back. He's comfortable in the box attacking, and comfortable defending. He's not amazing. But he supports other players well, and he can finish himself.
So we need Romero back ASAP. He just adds some quality where we are light. Then we need some stability in the backline and midfield. Dier isn't bad, but he needs a secure unit around him otherwise he can look lost. Tanganga needs a loan or is just a backup. I rate his attitude and commitment but he needs games to develop. Sanchez needs selling.
Our backline is weak. We lack top quality along the backline. Lenglet is promising. More impressive going forward, but still seems worth keeping. I am sure we are trying to bring in a CB as a matter of urgency. I thought Doherty actually did well. Nothing spectacular, but he plays as a wing-back. He's comfortable in the box attacking, and comfortable defending. He's not amazing. But he supports other players well, and he can finish himself.
So we need Romero back ASAP. He just adds some quality where we are light. Then we need some stability in the backline and midfield. Dier isn't bad, but he needs a secure unit around him otherwise he can look lost. Tanganga needs a loan or is just a backup. I rate his attitude and commitment but he needs games to develop. Sanchez needs selling.
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SpurMeUp
Jimmy Cantrell
Conte would do well to prepare the team to play some possession football at certain times. This is a key issue and part of the reason why we keep shipping goals imo.
More or less all teams now watch us, and see that you can put us under pressure early in the game and win cheap possession in our half. So of course all sides do it. You can't do it for 90 mins. But for half an hour, get in the faces of our backline and midfield and more often than not, you'll get the ball back. Our backline are not skillful or confident enough to effectively play around the press, and the midfield needs the CBs and WBs to move up with them to play around a press. But we're lacking quality and assurance in this area especially without Romero.
Then ontop of that Conte asks the team to play instant attacking breaks. Always go for the pass to release a counter. And yes we should, but only if there is at least a 50-50 chance of making the pass. At the moment, we go for the pass always, but under pressure from from sides closing us down, the pass is often never on. So Conte needs to prepare the team to recycle the ball sometimes - especially at the start of games when we need to get our touch and we are being pressed hard and marked tightly. This might stop us from concerning so many goals where our break is undermined and we hand over the ball to the opposition in our half.
More or less all teams now watch us, and see that you can put us under pressure early in the game and win cheap possession in our half. So of course all sides do it. You can't do it for 90 mins. But for half an hour, get in the faces of our backline and midfield and more often than not, you'll get the ball back. Our backline are not skillful or confident enough to effectively play around the press, and the midfield needs the CBs and WBs to move up with them to play around a press. But we're lacking quality and assurance in this area especially without Romero.
Then ontop of that Conte asks the team to play instant attacking breaks. Always go for the pass to release a counter. And yes we should, but only if there is at least a 50-50 chance of making the pass. At the moment, we go for the pass always, but under pressure from from sides closing us down, the pass is often never on. So Conte needs to prepare the team to recycle the ball sometimes - especially at the start of games when we need to get our touch and we are being pressed hard and marked tightly. This might stop us from concerning so many goals where our break is undermined and we hand over the ball to the opposition in our half.
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Bedfordspurs
Martin Peters
We had more possession than them all game
Issue is retaining it in the right areas
Son lost it loads it seemed to me
Kane had a poor first half with the ball and a great second
The midfield went sideways first half way too much too
Second half it did change and was positive with the ball.
Tanganga was awful with the ball and to have Sanchez come on and do much better shows how poor he was
Bissouma had a shocker of a first half with and without the ball
SpurMeUp
Jimmy Cantrell
But is there a pattern? First half teams know to press us and we crumble. The issue isn't that we can't keep possession, it is we try to break while being pressed and heavily marked, and give up the ball in dangerous areas. Often leading to the opposition taking the lead. 9 games in a row we've conceded first. Something is going on there.
The pattern I see is us needlessly trying to break when a pass is not on. If we can be a bit more nuanced, play the ball around especially in the beginning of games, and not always force a break that is not there - due to marking of the runner or trying to make a pass that is not available - then we'd concede less.
Bedfordspurs
Martin Peters
They didn’t score their first goal because they pressed. They hit a cross that took a deflection off a defender. Keeper made a decent creation save big the midfielder was allowed to run in unmarked. Poor goal and ok play from them but very very avoidable. They didn’t press us, more smother the CM with the 3 they had vs our 2. Bentacur can handle that but bissouma can’t currently which I find odd as that was one of his strengths before joining us.
Their second was a poorly defended set piece which came from a sliced clearance that was completely roostered up with no pressure
Teams don’t press us as much as run at us when they have the ball and go at us.
SpurMeUp
Jimmy Cantrell
If we are set at the back, we are hard to score against normally. The pattern is time and again, we try to break and just hand the ball back to teams who track our runer and close down the pass. We are predictable. And when we lose the ball it puts pressure on the backline - so mistakes like Diers are more likely. We are tested more and exposed more, because we don't hold the ball when we need to. The team need to be intelligent and know when to go for the fast break and when to keep possession. Rather than always go for the fast break and hand over possession. In the CL you can't give good teams the ball so readily.
Bedfordspurs
Martin Peters
There was no pressure on Dier at all
It was shocking technique