Serge Aurier

[thfcsteff]

Interesting and as i expected.

As I said before; many people's opinions on Aurier were formed prior to this season and it is hard for people to change their first impressions, that is just a human trait. It happened with Sissoko as well, who went from terrible to OK. Yet it took lots of us time to realise and admit that, with some stubborn types never being able to do so.

Aurier is now a far better player for us than he was in his first season. I think some of the people on here who slate him actually fail to understand the system that Mourinho is playing and what the coach is asking the player to do. The fact that Mourinho has made him his clear first choice on the right backs this up somewhat.

As I will continue to respond, regardless of that, the facts are he is not a reliable defende r and costs us a nearly full-time covering midfielder too often. Saturday offered a new angle as Tanganga effortlessly covered for him (!!!) without a midfielder needing to. Again, for all the good work he did (and he had one of his better games) he switched off/threw a strop at the throw-in (wrong decision though it was). More focus there and the goal probably doesn’t happen.

 

[DeanoAustin]

As I will continue to respond, regardless of that, the facts are he is not a reliable defende r and costs us a nearly full-time covering midfielder too often. Saturday offered a new angle as Tanganga effortlessly covered for him (!!!) without a midfielder needing to. Again, for all the good work he did (and he had one of his better games) he switched off/threw a strop at the throw-in (wrong decision though it was). More focus there and the goal probably doesn’t happen.

Thought he did very well on Saturday but he had less defensive responsibility because Jose effectively played two right backs. But you're right, he switched off and we conceded. He did the same at Old Trafford. He did the same (twice) for Chelsea's first goal. He makes big mistakes in big games because he has talent and no brain. And that's always likely to be exposed against better teams.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

I thought he was excellent vs pool
But I would never play him RB in a 4 as he gets caught out waaaaay too often
But if we are happy to play a 3 at the back and have a genuine decent right sided CB he can offer us something

 

[DeanoAustin]

Ok, here are some facts, which in part I've shamelessly stolen from @thfcsi on twitter.

Most of the criticism Aurier is faced with is for being reckless and lacking concentration, with some calling him a "walking red card" or "penalty waiting to happen". I think it's time someone took a look at the validity of those claims.

Since joining Tottenham in the summer of 2017, Aurier has only missed three games due to suspension, two in the Premier League and one in the Champions League.
The Champions League suspension was after a yellow card in the first leg of our Round of 16 match against Juventus. For the record, it only takes 3 yellow cards to get a suspension in the UCL, meaning he'd only picked up three card total in the first 7 games of the competition.

Both of his Premier League suspensions were indirect red cards, or after picking up two yellow cards in a single match. The first of these came less than a month into his Spurs career in a derby against West Ham.
The second didn't come until this season, in a game against Southampton in September, and was also a highly unfair sending off, for a blatant dive by the Southampton player. This was only the second time he'd ever been shown a red card in a match while playing for us, neither of which were direct. Despite this he's had this reputation of recklessness for years.

As for yellow cards, Aurier picked up just a single yellow card since his indirect red card in september. This one also came against Southampton, who happen to have the second best record in the league over the last five games, level with Watford on 13 points from 15 available. There's no doubt Aurier is a player that makes quite a few fouls, but still the total amount is way overstated. This season, counting only players who have played 500 minutes or more in the PL, Aurier is 7th for total fouls per 90. Lower the threshold to 350 minutes and he's 9th.

Using the parameters above, no Spurs player attempts nor completes as many tackles per 90 than Aurier, coming in at 4,4 and 3,3 respectively, with a success rate at a little over 77%. In fact, he's 10th in the Premier League as a whole for successful tackles/90. More of the same for interceptions... He finishes above anyone else in the Spurs squad, and 22nd in the league as a whole, with most players ahead of him being ball-winning midfielders, Kanté and Ndidi among them.

I'm tired of writing "per 90" after every stat, so unless I say otherwise just assume I'm talking about per 90 stats and minimum 500 minutes played.

Now let's take a look at his offensive output, shall we? Aurier averages 1,7 successfull dribbles, beaten only by three attackers plus Ndombele. League-wise, he's 5th for all defenders.
For key passes, he's again only beaten by attackers and Ndombele, coming in at 1,2. Lastly, his 3 league assists in total are second only to Sonny in our squad.

I hope at least some Aurier skeptics might have had their head turned at least a little bit. All match stats used are from WhoScored, and injury/suspension data from Transfermarkt.

Won't dispute the above as they are stats. But stats don't tell the whole story.

The Southampton game, he got a ridiculous booking for a brainless tackle and was then caught out of position for the second one (still not sure it was a dive, maybe it was). Maybe unfortunate but he certainly contributed to his own downfall.
The Man U game, he gets caught out of position and Sissoko gives away the penalty.
The Chelsea game, he needlessly gives away a corner and doesn't close them down when they take it short.
The Liverpool game, he switches off after they get a throw incorrectly given to them.
The Norwich game, he scores (an admittedly unfortunate) OG.
The Liverpool game, he gives away a penalty. Mane bought it but Aurier was more than willing to sell it to him.

They're just the ones off the top of my head this season.

Even the Burnley game, he was throwing in stupid tackles when we were 3-0 up.

He is not good enough for us because he keeps making mistakes in big games and he doesn't have the discipline to work them out of his game. If we keep him, he'll keep costing us goals at crucial moments.

 

[glasgowspur]

Aurier is a good player, just not good enough for us and where we want to be.
Unfortunately he's not alone in the squad.
This is a squad we would have been delighted with 6 years ago, but our hopes and aspirations have moved on.
Time for some of the players to do similar.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

This is 'Karius syndrome'

Yes 'he can do a job'
Yes 'this week he had a decent game'
Yes 'he might be the best option' (from whose available)
Yes 'we can play to his strengths'

BUT ultimately when it comes to that big moment when he f.ucks it for the whole club, for everything we worked towards......

We'll all stand there with our hindsight goggles on, and think .....

'Knew it, we all f.cking knew it'

 

[Finney Is Back]

As I will continue to respond, regardless of that, the facts are he is not a reliable defende r and costs us a nearly full-time covering midfielder too often. Saturday offered a new angle as Tanganga effortlessly covered for him (!!!) without a midfielder needing to. Again, for all the good work he did (and he had one of his better games) he switched off/threw a strop at the throw-in (wrong decision though it was). More focus there and the goal probably doesn’t happen.

I'm pretty sure that it was Harry Winks who switched off at that throw in? Aurier was out wide with Mane and Robertson (the player he was clearly detailed to specifically pick up).

 

[Finney Is Back]

What?

I see the good stuff. And you know what it doesn't matter if people don't remember the good stuff because ultimately the bad stuff is what will cost us. Period.

At the weekend he had a single bad moment (and personally I think it is very debatable as to whether it was even a bad moment) on the throw in, where Aurier won a tackle and should've got a throw in for it and threw a little strop at the bad decision. The throw in then went to a player that Harry Winks went to sleep on, then broke to a position that Dele Ali was covering only for Dele to bottle out of putting his head in there (had he done this the goal wouldn't have been scored, additionally had that been Eriksen who did this I can only imagine the raging on here) after that Tanganga got beaten (admittedly by a great piece of skill).

So when both Winks and Dele are far more responsible for the goal, people who have a prior formed negative opinion of Aurier (such as yourself) will still find a way to blame him for the goal.

Of course with 5 mins remaining, Aurier also created a golden chance for Lo Celso with by far the best ball of the whole game that either team played, I would argue that moment that should've been a goal for us was worth WAY more than any failings he might've had for Liverpool's goal. Of course those that dislike Aurier will be adamant that the action for Liverpool's goal far outweighed the ball for what should've been our equaliser, to those I would like to ask what Dele and Winks did in the game that made up for their very large part in Liverpool's goal.

 

[Finney Is Back]

I dont think its biases at all.

I think, objectively, he is all over the place.

Put it this way, watching him play, there is never any confidence in him doing even the basics right. Because its 50/50 between him making a clean tackle or stupid foul, or between a decent cross and one that hits row z...

Of course no player is 400% consistent and reliable. But they do operate within a certain margin, the upper/lower range is reasonable.

Aurier? Its literally rock bottom or absolute heights and little in between.

Again, I think this is based on natural personal bias as opposed to be backed up by actual hard data. If we move away from the perception and go to the actual data we can see the following in terms of the number of fouls committed compared to the number of tackles attempted (in order of our worst to best players)

Kane - 96%
Davies - 83%
Sissoko - 73%
Dier - 61%
Lamela - 57%
Rose - 50%
Sanchez - 36%
Son - 35%
Toby - 33%
Ndombele - 32%
Aurier, Eriksen and Winks - 26%
Tanganga and Foyth - 25%
Lo Celso - 21%
Moura - 20%
Sessegnon - 17%
Dele - 15%
Vertonghen - 6%

Now if we ignore fouls and just look at how often our players win their tackle compared to being dribbled past then we see the following (this time in order to best to worst):

1. Foyth - wins 90% of his tackles.
2. Sessegnon - wins 83%
3. Toby - wins 80%
4. Vertonghen - wins 77%
5. Aurier - wins 74%
6. Ndombele - wins 68%
7. Davies - wins 67%
8. Sanchez - wins 64%
9. Rose - wins 63%
10. Lamela - wins 62%
11. Dele - wins (58%)
12. Dier - wins 56%
13. Winks - wins 56%
14. Kane - wins 55%
15. Moura - wins 52%
16. Sissoko - wins 50%
17. Tanganga - wins 50%
18 to 20. Only Lo Celso (47%), Eriksen (47%) and Son (35%) are dribbled past on more occasions than not

Both of those tables above show that Aurier is actually one of the better tacklers in our team. The complete opposite to your statement.

If we move onto Aurier's crossing, I agree that it can be hit and miss, but that is just the nature of crossing and I don't think any more so than other members of our team. For example if we look at the stats.... Aurier has joint most crosses per 90 minutes for Spurs as Danny Rose but is way ahead of Danny Rose statistically for both key passes and assists (suggesting Aurier's quality is a lot better than Danny Rose's). Ben Davies, KWP, Foyth and Sessegnon all have a lower number of crosses per 90 than Aurier but are also way lower for key passes and assists (again suggesting that the quality of their output is overall lower than Aurier's). In fact if you look at key passes per 90 minutes it is only Son, Eriksen, Dele and Lamela in the whole squad who have a better number per 90 than Aurier. For assists he is second (joint with Dele) behind only Son. So he is contributing well both defensively and offensively.

 

[nayimfromthehalfwayline]

And again, its not natural bias at all. As I already stated, Ive actually been really supportive of him in his time here.

I also think the data really doesnt prove what you think it does.

Makes tackles, intercepts, doesnt get sent off much = good defender? Really?

Where are the stats for the needless fouls he commits in dangerous positions? Conspicuous by their absence...

And, again - the point on crosses once again misses the point. He is completely unreliable. And thats not an expectation of perfection every time, its an observation that whether he will hit the right sort of area or shank it miles away is a coin toss.

I think a lot of the criticism of him on here is OTT, Ill agree with you there.

Problem with him is, even when he is doing well - hes a rickett waiting to happen. And very often it happens.

He is not a player you can rely upon to do the right thing at the right time, hes one you watch in trepidation of him roostering up something simple, making a rash challenge somewhere dangerous, or not making the cross required late in a game that will give us the winner (itll go over Kanes head and out for a throw just as you need the right ball...).

There is a reason people are uneasy with him in the team, and IMO its nothing to do with bias and everything to do with his inconsistency.

As I said, most players are reliably within a certain range of performance, with Aurier thats not a narrow band - its the full spectrum of sublime to ridiculous - and its almost always the case he'll swing between them within moments in game.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

And again, its not natural bias at all. As I already stated, Ive actually been really supportive of him in his time here.

I also think the data really doesnt prove what you think it does.

Makes tackles, intercepts, doesnt get sent off much = good defender? Really?

Where are the stats for the needless fouls he commits in dangerous positions? Conspicuous by their absence...

And, again - the point on crosses once again misses the point. He is completely unreliable. And thats not an expectation of perfection every time, its an observation that whether he will hit the right sort of area or shank it miles away is a coin toss.

I think a lot of the criticism of him on here is OTT, Ill agree with you there.

Problem with him is, even when he is doing well - hes a rickett waiting to happen. And very often it happens.

He is not a player you can rely upon to do the right thing at the right time, hes one you watch in trepidation of him roostering up something simple, making a rash challenge somewhere dangerous, or not making the cross required late in a game that will give us the winner (itll go over Kanes head and out for a throw just as you need the right ball...).

There is a reason people are uneasy with him in the team, and IMO its nothing to do with bias and everything to do with his inconsistency.

As I said, most players are reliably within a certain range of performance, with Aurier thats not a narrow band - its the full spectrum of sublime to ridiculous - and its almost always the case he'll swing between them within moments in game.

Problem is his best performances come as a wing back with a reasonable free reigns. I thought he was excellent va pool and the only mistake was a header he jumped for and missed, but when he did miss challenges he didn’t get back with any urgency, which is why he can’t play RB as he has no cover there unless we play Sissoko to mop up, which leaves CM exposed

 

[elltrev]

Again, I think this is based on natural personal bias as opposed to be backed up by actual hard data. If we move away from the perception and go to the actual data we can see the following in terms of the number of fouls committed compared to the number of tackles attempted (in order of our worst to best players)

Kane - 96%
Davies - 83%
Sissoko - 73%
Dier - 61%
Lamela - 57%
Rose - 50%
Sanchez - 36%
Son - 35%
Toby - 33%
Ndombele - 32%
Aurier, Eriksen and Winks - 26%
Tanganga and Foyth - 25%
Lo Celso - 21%
Moura - 20%
Sessegnon - 17%
Dele - 15%
Vertonghen - 6%

Now if we ignore fouls and just look at how often our players win their tackle compared to being dribbled past then we see the following (this time in order to best to worst):

1. Foyth - wins 90% of his tackles.
2. Sessegnon - wins 83%
3. Toby - wins 80%
4. Vertonghen - wins 77%
5. Aurier - wins 74%
6. Ndombele - wins 68%
7. Davies - wins 67%
8. Sanchez - wins 64%
9. Rose - wins 63%
10. Lamela - wins 62%
11. Dele - wins (58%)
12. Dier - wins 56%
13. Winks - wins 56%
14. Kane - wins 55%
15. Moura - wins 52%
16. Sissoko - wins 50%
17. Tanganga - wins 50%
18 to 20. Only Lo Celso (47%), Eriksen (47%) and Son (35%) are dribbled past on more occasions than not

Both of those tables above show that Aurier is actually one of the better tacklers in our team. The complete opposite to your statement.

If we move onto Aurier's crossing, I agree that it can be hit and miss, but that is just the nature of crossing and I don't think any more so than other members of our team. For example if we look at the stats.... Aurier has joint most crosses per 90 minutes for Spurs as Danny Rose but is way ahead of Danny Rose statistically for both key passes and assists (suggesting Aurier's quality is a lot better than Danny Rose's). Ben Davies, KWP, Foyth and Sessegnon all have a lower number of crosses per 90 than Aurier but are also way lower for key passes and assists (again suggesting that the quality of their output is overall lower than Aurier's). In fact if you look at key passes per 90 minutes it is only Son, Eriksen, Dele and Lamela in the whole squad who have a better number per 90 than Aurier. For assists he is second (joint with Dele) behind only Son. So he is contributing well both defensively and offensively.

Genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on the video clip I posted on the last page?

 

[Finney Is Back]

[

And again, its not natural bias at all. As I already stated, Ive actually been really supportive of him in his time here.

I also think the data really doesnt prove what you think it does.

Makes tackles, intercepts, doesnt get sent off much = good defender? Really?

Where are the stats for the needless fouls he commits in dangerous positions? Conspicuous by their absence...

And, again - the point on crosses once again misses the point. He is completely unreliable. And thats not an expectation of perfection every time, its an observation that whether he will hit the right sort of area or shank it miles away is a coin toss.

I think a lot of the criticism of him on here is OTT, Ill agree with you there.

Problem with him is, even when he is doing well - hes a rickett waiting to happen. And very often it happens.

He is not a player you can rely upon to do the right thing at the right time, hes one you watch in trepidation of him roostering up something simple, making a rash challenge somewhere dangerous, or not making the cross required late in a game that will give us the winner (itll go over Kanes head and out for a throw just as you need the right ball...).

There is a reason people are uneasy with him in the team, and IMO its nothing to do with bias and everything to do with his inconsistency.

As I said, most players are reliably within a certain range of performance, with Aurier thats not a narrow band - its the full spectrum of sublime to ridiculous - and its almost always the case he'll swing between them within moments in game.

My stats above did actually show fouls committed. It's probably only fair to show these as a percentage of tackles attempted (as surely you have to concede that players who have more tackles to make are likely to commit more fouls). As you can see from the stats Aurier is equally as likely to commit a foul when tackling as Harry Winks and Christian Eriksen are but far less likely to make a foul when tackling (and specifically picking defensive players here): Davies, Sissoko, Dier and Rose.

Re: Crosses. I actually went back and looked at accurate to inaccurate cross percentage. Aurier is right at the mid-point of the squad here with stats directly equivalent to Eriksen and Ndombele. The weakest third of players in our squad statistically for inaccurate crosses are (in order of worst first): Sanchez, Dier, Dele, Sessegnon, Sissoko, KWP, Lamela). The strongest third of players in our squad for accurate crossing are (in order of best first): Alderweireld, Davies, Moura, Son, Rose, Kane, Lo Celso. So, again, you single him out as being a terrible crosser and yet there are a large number of players in the team/squad who are statistically significantly worse than he is at crossing.

Interestingly enough when looking at all of these stats this season they do seem to show both Dier and Sissoko in a very poor light. I still maintain that if we put a proper, quality defensive midfielder in our team then we would instantly be better by a significant margin.

 

[Kandi1977]

I'm pretty sure that it was Harry Winks who switched off at that throw in? Aurier was out wide with Mane and Robertson (the player he was clearly detailed to specifically pick up).

Correct, and another good example of just piling up crap and throwing it at one player, even if it isn't correct, just to fuel the agenda.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Genuinely interested to hear your thoughts on the video clip I posted on the last page?

I'll try to watch it later on when I'm back from the Boro game. I did state in another thread though that I thought Man Utd was Aurier's worst match of the season (probably along with the Chelsea game). He was far from alone in either game though, where I think we were collectively bad. Interestingly enough in both of those games Aurier had to do a lot more defending than attacking. I don't deny that Aurier's defensive game is weaker than his offensive game, but as an all round player I think he generally does a reasonable job. Do I think we can do better? Absolutely. Do I think he is the biggest problem in our team? Hell no.... he is a better right sided player by orders of magnitude than any of the players who have played the deep midfield role for us this season.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Problem is his best performances come as a wing back with a reasonable free reigns. I thought he was excellent va pool and the only mistake was a header he jumped for and missed, but when he did miss challenges he didn’t get back with any urgency, which is why he can’t play RB as he has no cover there unless we play Sissoko to mop up, which leaves CM exposed

He was clearly being told to defend Robertson. If Robertson didn't join the attack then I'm pretty convinced that he was told to stay wide and position himself up the pitch a little ready for our breaks.

We shouldn't need to use one of our central midfielders to mop up out wide if we are organised properly. Sissoko covering out there is a symptom of a problem in our defensive shape. As Aurier attacks our remaining defenders should shift across to the right a little to help cover the space. The deeper central midfielders shouldn't pull out wide but should instead stay central, but stay rasonably deep to cover an opposing central midfield runner or cover the centre half who has pulled out wider in case he gets dribbled past by the attacker.

 

[Kandi1977]

And again, its not natural bias at all. As I already stated, Ive actually been really supportive of him in his time here.

I also think the data really doesnt prove what you think it does.

Makes tackles, intercepts, doesnt get sent off much = good defender? Really?

Where are the stats for the needless fouls he commits in dangerous positions? Conspicuous by their absence...

And, again - the point on crosses once again misses the point. He is completely unreliable. And thats not an expectation of perfection every time, its an observation that whether he will hit the right sort of area or shank it miles away is a coin toss.

I think a lot of the criticism of him on here is OTT, Ill agree with you there.

Problem with him is, even when he is doing well - hes a rickett waiting to happen. And very often it happens.

He is not a player you can rely upon to do the right thing at the right time, hes one you watch in trepidation of him roostering up something simple, making a rash challenge somewhere dangerous, or not making the cross required late in a game that will give us the winner (itll go over Kanes head and out for a throw just as you need the right ball...).

There is a reason people are uneasy with him in the team, and IMO its nothing to do with bias and everything to do with his inconsistency.

As I said, most players are reliably within a certain range of performance, with Aurier thats not a narrow band - its the full spectrum of sublime to ridiculous - and its almost always the case he'll swing between them within moments in game.

And again, as you keep saying, I bet my ass that the numbers for Aurier will not be worse than for other players in the team. Bring those numbers, please, because as of now they're only based on your (negative) perception of Aurier, without having anything to back it up with.

 

[nayimfromthehalfwayline]

My stats above did actually show fouls committed. It's probably only fair to show these as a percentage of tackles attempted (as surely you have to concede that players who have more tackles to make are likely to commit more fouls). As you can see from the stats Aurier is equally as likely to commit a foul when tackling as Harry Winks and Christian Eriksen are but far less likely to make a foul when tackling (and specifically picking defensive players here): Davies, Sissoko, Dier and Rose.

Re: Crosses. I actually went back and looked at accurate to inaccurate cross percentage. Aurier is right at the mid-point of the squad here with stats directly equivalent to Eriksen and Ndombele. The weakest third of players in our squad statistically for inaccurate crosses are (in order of worst first): Sanchez, Dier, Dele, Sessegnon, Sissoko, KWP, Lamela). The strongest third of players in our squad for accurate crossing are (in order of best first): Alderweireld, Davies, Moura, Son, Rose, Kane, Lo Celso. So, again, you single him out as being a terrible crosser and yet there are a large number of players in the team/squad who are statistically significantly worse than he is at crossing.

Interestingly enough when looking at all of these stats this season they do seem to show both Dier and Sissoko in a very poor light. I still maintain that if we put a proper, quality defensive midfielder in our team then we would instantly be better by a significant margin.

Either I am incapable of putting the point across in terms you will understand, or you are simply refusing to see it.

Either way, Ive said all I intend to on it, so take it or leave it really.

And again, as you keep saying, I bet my ass that the numbers for Aurier will not be worse than for other players in the team. Bring those numbers, please, because as of now they're only based on your (negative) perception of Aurier, without having anything to back it up with.

You forgot to throw in a "pathetic agenda" as well, letting your act slip a bit there.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Either I am incapable of putting the point across in terms you will understand, or you are simply refusing to see it.

Either way, Ive said all I intend to on it, so take it or leave it really.




You forgot to throw in a "pathetic agenda" as well, letting your act slip a bit there.

The bolded one.

Aurier does commit fouls. Others in the team commit proportionally more however. Also several of those players are defensive players so we're not talking about 'tactical fouls' like (e.g) Kane might commit.

Edit... It is also actually only a total of 1 foul per game that Aurier commits, If you are stewing about that then I would suggest that it definitely confirms your bias.

 

[Kandi1977]

Either I am incapable of putting the point across in terms you will understand, or you are simply refusing to see it.

Either way, Ive said all I intend to on it, so take it or leave it really.




You forgot to throw in a "pathetic agenda" as well, letting your act slip a bit there.

Maybe I'll do that if you throw in some facts.