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*** OMT: Tottenham Hotspur vs Crystal Palace ***

thfcsteff said:
Fine margins. Despite a poor second-half, the remit would've been no silly free-kicks. I think Hugo should've done better there TBH. I felt that we ceded too much possession via Tanguy second half; he seemed a bit "off" to me. Not sure there was any plan to sit so deep, Palace are simply a strong home side with lots of potential firepower.

It is too easy to pile in today. Truth is (as Billy said) we are where we are style-wise and Milo mentioned that getting through these sorts of games without injuries might be worth more long-term. I personally can live with it.
Come on Fulham.
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Even your optimism can’t go far enough to see Fulham getting anything from The Dippers.
 
milo said:
We're not trying to retain the ball. The instructions are to let them have it, commit men forward, soak it up and try and get something on the break. It didn't work today. Palace are a decent side and were well worth the point.
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Well that’s a problem for me and we didn’t do that first half. Against the better teams, I can see why that would work but against Palace?

I’m also not convinced that was the tactic. Jose said in his post match interview that we didn’t keep the ball well enough. Also, when we deliberately did it in the last 3 weeks, we were brilliantly organised at the back and controlled things to an extent. Today we didn’t. We looked a bit ragged second half.
 
I thought we handed them all the initiative in the second half. There are games where we can legitimately sit back on a lead and try to hold out but I don’t think today was one of those. We were creating plenty and I believe we would have scored again. When we chased a second goal after conceding we were all over them again. Yes, their keeper played a blunder but he didn’t have to do anything for almost half the game. That’s 2 points needlessly dropped, just like vs Saudi Sportswashing Machine and West Ham. It’s certainly harsh to talk like that considering our splendid position but these are the margins that win titles.
 
Bishop said:
We are defensively very solid and the chances of scoring against us seem low but of course when there is only one goal in it they only need to ball to go in once to ruin the good work.

The City and Arsenal he's obviously worked better because we did get the second goals. There's even an element of the two goal gap sapping the opposition confidence which today was never the case.

We were just a bit too passive, it's a bit concerning because there are more teams in the league of today's standard than there are teams like City.
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dod you see passive city yesterday?
 
thfcsteff said:
Fine margins. Despite a poor second-half, the remit would've been no silly free-kicks. I think Hugo should've done better there TBH. I felt that we ceded too much possession via Tanguy second half; he seemed a bit "off" to me. Not sure there was any plan to sit so deep, Palace are simply a strong home side with lots of potential firepower.

It is too easy to pile in today. Truth is (as Billy said) we are where we are style-wise and Milo mentioned that getting through these sorts of games without injuries might be worth more long-term. I personally can live with it.
Come on Fulham.
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Unfortunately we gave away too many silly free kicks.
 
Pirate55 said:
For me, playing Bergwyn always leaves us light up front. It puts too much reliance on Kane and Son.
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He's being asked to play deeper. He's strong defensively and is technically good. It's to allow Ndombele to get further forward but not leave us exposed at the back. Mourinho has used Moura and Lamela in a very similar way.
 
Bedfordspurs said:
You would assume pool to take the lead vs us and I still believe that we play better attacking wise when that happens
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I agree because there is a passivity when we take a lead whereas before a lead or when we've gone behind we have fire in us. Think about the United game in particular we equalised and gained the lead within 7 minutes of going behind.

Even today once they equalised we came out of our shell and attacked and created a couple of opportunities which on another day may have gone in. The shame is that we let the passivity take hold and only reacted when it was too late.
 
Daisuk said:
Yeah, this was our issue most of the second half. Palace had a chance, the TV showed the replay, cut back to the game, and Palace were back in possession. Not sure how the hell we did it.
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Sissoko is a fundamental problem for a team trying to play possession football, there's no way around that. He just is.
 
90291Spur said:
To me Berg is there to hustle and press when we don’t have the ball. And to a much lesser extent, provide an attacking threat. Jose loves that kind of player. And he does an important job.
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It's jekyl and hyde really as i can appreciate his work off the ball but on it he really isn't offering much at all atm
 
DeanoAustin said:
Well that’s a problem for me and we didn’t do that first half. Against the better teams, I can see why that would work but against Palace?

I’m also not convinced that was the tactic. Jose said in his post match interview that we didn’t keep the ball well enough. Also, when we deliberately did it in the last 3 weeks, we were brilliantly organised at the back and controlled things to an extent. Today we didn’t. We looked a bit ragged second half.
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Palace are a well organised team with some good players. Their keeper also had his game of the season (which helps).

This is Diego Torres' description of Mourinho's philosophy:

1. The game is won by the team who commit fewer errors.

2. Football favours whoever provokes more errors in the opposition.

3. Away from home, instead of trying to be superior to the opposition, it’s better to encourage their mistakes.

4. Whoever has the ball is more likely to make a mistake.

5. Whoever renounces possession reduces the possibility of making a mistake.

6. Whoever has the ball has fear.

7. Whoever does not have it is thereby stronger.
 
Bishop said:
I agree because there is a passivity when we take a lead whereas before a lead or when we've gone behind we have fire in us. Think about the United game in particular we equalised and gained the lead within 7 minutes of going behind.

Even today once they equalised we came out of our shell and attacked and created a couple of opportunities which on another day may have gone in. The shame is that we let the passivity take hold and only reacted when it was too late.
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That’s my logic
I honestly think we can play both ways of football and we saw that today
Every possession based first half
Less so second (although we still had more possession)
But score against us and we do appear to come alive more
And I do think of the timing is right (as in Jose can’t kill the momentum for defending) we can do what we did to United

the one thing I’ll add is that palace are much better side than people want to give them credit for. And at home attacking their own fans they do always play better
We haven’t ever battered them there that I can remember
 
I think any trophy these season would be great (plus top four is looking likely). The league will be very difficult to win. Liverpool are a brilliant team who won't drop many points. It's hard but I don't think it makes sense to have the expectation that we will every game and should win the league. Lot of innate entitlement in football fans in general.
 
milo said:
He's being asked to play deeper. He's strong defensively and is technically good. It's to allow Ndombele to get further forward but not leave us exposed at the back. Mourinho has used Moura and Lamela in a very similar way.
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If he really wants someone more defensive, he should play Lo Celso. He works as hard as Bergwyn defensively AND offers more going forward.
 
billyiddo said:
Regardless of where we are in the league there was plenty to criticise in that 2nd half performance.

But as i said in previous posts if you're happy to see us set up to protect slender leads against poor opposition rather than to take the game to them then you run the risk of dropping points in this way when the players don't perform so it has to be taken on the chin.
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Jose is ultimately a pragmatist so I am surprised he set up the way he did away to Palace. Fully expect him to play this way against Liverpool. Can only think that he is still concerned that when we open up we concede. So he would rather not lose than win.
 
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