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***OMT - Tottenham Hotspur v The Garibaldis (will Marinakis eat his own club with a cuppa?), Sat Sept 5th, City Ground, 3pm***

A point on the road is always a decent result, but I have to admit the performance didn't fill me with confidence.

Overall, it shows how much work there's left to do. We're not a poor team by any means, but everything we do is either too complicated, too slow or just a little bit off. We tend to overcomplicate things when we're building up play and when one of your attacking outlets (Tel) has a poor start to the season, it's painful to watch.

In attack, I'm not convinced De Zerbi really knows what kind of set-up he's looking for this season. Marmoush's first touch is excellent, but we're lacking presence in the box. Solanke solves that problem, but judging by previous season, I'm not sure his stamina and movement (or lack thereof) won't create other problems. Savio was obviously instructed to take on his man, but when he's got two markers on him, he should release the ball more quickly.

Let's just hope he finds a front 3 that works sonner rather than later. Still not impressed with Tel, but maybe that's just me.

The midfield is a different kind of problem. The quality is there, but based on the last two games, Betancur should be one of the first names on the team sheet. Given what we paid for them, Fernandes et Tonali will start a lot of games too. Where does that leave Gallacher and Bergvall? Not sure they'll get a lot of game time...

We got a clean sheet yesterday, which is good but the defence doesn't look that great either. Whenever Forest played faster, we were in trouble. Individually, I get the idea: Van Hecke's passing a great asset, Van de Ven's speed got us out of trouble on a couple of occasions, but I'm not sure they work that well together.

Hopefully, the more they play together, the better it will get, but from where I'm standing, there's still a long road ahead and I'm afraid some people's expectations are a bit too high. I hope I'm wrong, but I think this team has a ceiling and it's not as high as some people might think. It should be more than enough for a mid-table finish, but I think it would take a special set of circumstances for us to finish higher than 6-8, given the slow start we're likely to experience.
 
thfcsteff said:
He's still relatively young at 25. I'd expect him to be at his peak in two years. I also think it's pretty hard to evaluate him without seeing him play as part of a consistent defence. I saw a lot of Virgil Van Dyke before Liverpool paid the big money, and thought they were mad. Once he was playing in a side with a settled ethos and defence he was able to let his natural abilities shine and LFC could build to his strengths too. VdV has gone from chaos and injuries to one of the worst managers I can remember to RDZ. To your specific points, I cannot say I have noticed him being dribbled past in our box very much at all. Aerially? Yes. His height gives the impression he'd be better in the air than he is, albeit he is not as terrible as some say.




I think his managers are attracted to that speed personally, and therefore want him to play higher and use his speed as a recovery tool.



So ask yourself the question. IF you see it week in week out, and IF it is happening in your eyes week in week out, why would he
a) not be 'correcting' it
b) why would the coaches/manager not be 'correcting' it
c) why would he not be dropped?

I think at a certain point you have to consider the fact that (as an elite professional) he is continuously looking to improve and learn, and that his managers/coaches are working on all aspects of his game and physical health as well. Which would suggest that what you see as consistent errors are systemic errors/miscalculations on the team's behalf.

You chose to make no comment on my observations of that specific moment in the game FWIW.
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I imagine they are asking him to correct his movements. To be in the correct space positionally. It's not something I would expect to just click for him, if he's not got that natural awareness it will take time to grow.

Given who his coaches have been at Spurs up to this point it's probably not surprising that positionally he's a bit all over the place. Ange never seemed to focus on it or if he did he failed at implementing that that awareness and Frank played a box defense style that VDV couldn't handle.

RDZ is somewhere in between, he clearly likes the high line as well but not to a suicidal degree, but he also allows us to drop back and defend our box when neccesary. I think generally speaking the defense as a whole has looked fairly sturdy in the last 2 league games, but it's let itself down in specific moments. Which is a bit of a sucker punch to the face as it kind of throws away all of the good work done in the majority of the game just to let in too easy, or basic a chance.

Regarding your breakdown of that moment, I would need to watch it again tbh so I can't really agree or disagree with your breakdown as it stands and I'm not arguing to "win" so until I watch it back I can't really comment on your detailed analysis.
 
Bishop said:
I'd have to watch it again but Tonali was chasing the player back, if he hadn't done so then it would have just been a clear shot on goal as VDV and Robertson had totally mis-read the play. I'm not sure what your complaint or criticism of Tonali is in that sitauation? At least on initial viewing its to his credit that he spotted the danger when none of the defense did and played his part in trying (but failing to stop it).
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@thfcsteff where I mentioned Robertson.
 
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