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*** OMT Tottenham v Crystal Palace ***

I wouldn’t go as far as the first half but for the first half hour they hadn’t done anything, Lloris had his first touch, from a back pass, 15 mins in.
 
DeanoAustin said:
fudging Winks is such a disappointment for me. Really thought hed be a great player for us and the type of midfielder very few other clubs have. I don’t criticise him much because I want him to do well every game and he’s useless when he plays.

He had one opportunity first half today to release Reguilon with a 20 yard ball. It needed a good pass but not a particularly difficult one. He missed Reguilon by about 5 yards and landed it on the centre backs head. So, so disappointing.
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I know the one you mean, and that’s essentially his forte isn’t it?
 
DeanoAustin said:
fudging Winks is such a disappointment for me. Really thought hed be a great player for us and the type of midfielder very few other clubs have. I don’t criticise him much because I want him to do well every game and he’s useless when he plays.

He had one opportunity first half today to release Reguilon with a 20 yard ball. It needed a good pass but not a particularly difficult one. He missed Reguilon by about 5 yards and landed it on the centre backs head. So, so disappointing.
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Agreed. But, I guess to be fair to him, the role that he is good for never suited our game plan under Poch, Mourinho or Nuno.

Fact is, Winks is an excellent recycler of the ball. He takes it off one center-back and passes it to another.

He's not a good tackler, a good screen for the defense, a particularly good forward passer or a press-resistant midfielder...he takes the ball from one center back. He passes the ball back to the other. Simples. To me, to you.

Back when Winks was in his formative years, everyone tried to copy Barcelona's high-possession style, and key to it was what was perceived to be Xavi's game - constant ball recycling, to keep the tempo high and wear the opponents out.

I suspect Winks was brought up to play that way. More generally, Winks was a part of the McDermott approach to our academy recruitment in the late 2000s and 2010s - we wouldn't get the best kids in London, so McDermott looked for technical players overlooked by other clubs on account of their relative physical frailty. It produced some gems like Kane, but also a large number of physically slight central midfielders with names straight out of D.ickensian novels - Tom Carroll, Ryan Mason, and Harry Winks.

The problem is, Poch's style emphasised aggression and physical dominance. Winks doesn't have the latter, and his physique made him a bit limited at the former, although he tried. Mourinho wanted the midfield to screen the defense. Winks couldn't do that. Nuno wanted Winks (today) to play the Dele role. Winks couldn't do that, either.

And, more broadly, the role he is probably best suited for, recycling the ball, isn't really useful in modern football next to having a press-resistant player who can advance it. Even Guardiola moved away from it.

And so, we have Harry Winks. A player out of time, stuck in a world he can't quite adapt to.

Shame, but them's the breaks. Even with his limitations, he's managed a crap ton of games for us, which is a minor miracle. Just a shame he's been mostly crap in most of them.
 
DeanoAustin said:
For our manager to come out and say we controlled the first half is an embarrassment. He’d better lose that delusion/flimflam very quickly.
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I think he said we had control "defensively", which I suppose given that they didn't make any of their 11ish (?) attempts count might have some basis, although despite the good efforts from Rodon and Tanganga, I don't think the word 'control' came to the mind of anyone watching. I got the impression he was just trying to find something positive to say.
I was more concerned when he said that the intent was to attack more in the second half - but how were we going to achieve that when nothing seemed to have changed in the first 15 mins before Tanganga went off? Moura did manage to get a shot in, but we didn't really look any different to the first half.
I thought he looked quite shell-shocked in the interview.

Edit : It was in the BT Sport interview that he mentioned "defensively". But it seems that in the press interview after he just said that we were "in control".
Edit 2 : Apparently he was about to bring on Gil before the red card. I don't recall seeing that on TV but might have missed it.
 
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Shell shocked against Palace....
Paratici must be scrambling now to line up December transfers (and possibly Nuno's replacement) before the recruitment / team quality issue becomes his problem.
Glenda's Legs said:
I think he said we had control "defensively", which I suppose given that they didn't make any of their 11ish (?) attempts count might have some basis, although despite the good efforts from Rodon and Tanganga, I don't think the word 'control' came to the mind of anyone watching. I got the impression he was just trying to find something positive to say.
I was more concerned when he said that the intent was to attack more in the second half - but how were we going to achieve that when nothing seemed to have changed in the first 15 mins before Tanganga went off? Moura did manage to get a shot in, but we didn't really look any different to the first half.
I thought he looked quite shell-shocked in the interview.
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Glenda's Legs said:
I think he said we had control "defensively", which I suppose given that they didn't make any of their 11ish (?) attempts count might have some basis, although despite the good efforts from Rodon and Tanganga, I don't think the word 'control' came to the mind of anyone watching. I got the impression he was just trying to find something positive to say.
I was more concerned when he said that the intent was to attack more in the second half - but how were we going to achieve that when nothing seemed to have changed in the first 15 mins before Tanganga went off? Moura did manage to get a shot in, but we didn't really look any different to the first half.
I thought he looked quite shell-shocked in the interview.

Edit : It was in the BT Sport interview that he mentioned "defensively". But it seems that in the press interview after he just said that we were "in control".
Edit 2 : Apparently he was about to bring on Gil before the red card. I don't recall seeing that on TV but might have missed it.
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I thought the first half was even and never felt we were threatened. The red changed everything.
 
DubaiSpur said:
Agreed. But, I guess to be fair to him, the role that he is good for never suited our game plan under Poch, Mourinho or Nuno.

Fact is, Winks is an excellent recycler of the ball. He takes it off one center-back and passes it to another.

He's not a good tackler, a good screen for the defense, a particularly good forward passer or a press-resistant midfielder...he takes the ball from one center back. He passes the ball back to the other. Simples. To me, to you.

Back when Winks was in his formative years, everyone tried to copy Barcelona's high-possession style, and key to it was what was perceived to be Xavi's game - constant ball recycling, to keep the tempo high and wear the opponents out.

I suspect Winks was brought up to play that way. More generally, Winks was a part of the McDermott approach to our academy recruitment in the late 2000s and 2010s - we wouldn't get the best kids in London, so McDermott looked for technical players overlooked by other clubs on account of their relative physical frailty. It produced some gems like Kane, but also a large number of physically slight central midfielders with names straight out of D.ickensian novels - Tom Carroll, Ryan Mason, and Harry Winks.

The problem is, Poch's style emphasised aggression and physical dominance. Winks doesn't have the latter, and his physique made him a bit limited at the former, although he tried. Mourinho wanted the midfield to screen the defense. Winks couldn't do that. Nuno wanted Winks (today) to play the Dele role. Winks couldn't do that, either.

And, more broadly, the role he is probably best suited for, recycling the ball, isn't really useful in modern football next to having a press-resistant player who can advance it. Even Guardiola moved away from it.

And so, we have Harry Winks. A player out of time, stuck in a world he can't quite adapt to.

Shame, but them's the breaks. Even with his limitations, he's managed a crap ton of games for us, which is a minor miracle. Just a shame he's been mostly crap in most of them.
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The mistake is though thinking that Xavi was just a recycler. Sure he could do that and did that a lot but he was a playmaker, he moved the opposition and his teammates around the pitch methodically until the opportunity to play the killer was there. Which either he did or any other number of high quality passers Barcelona possessed could.

Winks is nothing like Xavi. He's not press resistant, he has no vision, he has brick execution, he has no concept of pulling strings or setting tempo. He is a very basic player, pass left, then pass right. Meh!
 
Kandi1977 said:
That's quite a statement! Palace was entirely running the show, even 11 vs 11. We offered absolutely NOTHING! xG of 0.08 says it all!
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We were setup to let them play in front of us, Hugo had a quiet game until the hour mark and he didn’t make a save of note that I recall.

Our xG is always low.
 
DeanoAustin said:
fudging Winks is such a disappointment for me. Really thought hed be a great player for us and the type of midfielder very few other clubs have. I don’t criticise him much because I want him to do well every game and he’s useless when he plays.

He had one opportunity first half today to release Reguilon with a 20 yard ball. It needed a good pass but not a particularly difficult one. He missed Reguilon by about 5 yards and landed it on the centre backs head. So, so disappointing.
Click to expand...

Watching Winks I feels he knows he's in a bad patch (or know's he's lost it completely), and doesn't even attempt many obvious passes as he doesn't trust his ability. It would be generous to say he was Championship level today.
 
parklane1 said:
Glad someone else saw it like that as well.
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You and him only in the whole world I reckon…. We were completely abject. That was up there with the pathetic performance under Jose against Brighton. We were second best in the first half and then somehow got even worse second half (perhaps when Palace realised exactly how bad we were and that they didn't really need to worry about keeping too many men back seeing as we had zero attacking intent).

I’m not sure how many others on here had the pleasure(?) of being there for the game today but IMO Nuno won’t last long if he keeps on setting us up with such pathetic attacking intent.
 
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Finney Is Back said:
You and him only in the whole world I reckon. We were completely abject. That was up there with the pathetic performance under Jose against Brighton. We were second best in the first half and then somehow got even worse second half (perhaps when Palace realised exactly how bad we were).
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Exactly , players missing or not that was a pathetic performance from minute 1.
 
Baleforce said:
We were setup to let them play in front of us, Hugo had a quiet game until the hour mark and he didn’t make a save of note that I recall.

Our xG is always low.
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You forget the chance saved on the line by Lloris in the first half. I didn't even watch the whole match and I saw that one. Maybe you missed the others.

Our XG is low because we don't create much and don't score many either. 3 goals across 4 matches. It's really not going to be enough.
 
Finney Is Back said:
You and him only in the whole world I reckon…. We were completely abject. That was up there with the pathetic performance under Jose against Brighton. We were second best in the first half and then somehow got even worse second half (perhaps when Palace realised exactly how bad we were).

I’m not sure how many others on here had the pleasure(?) of being there for the game today but IMO Nuno won’t last long if he keeps on setting us up with such pathetic attacking intent.
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I like Nuno and he is the man I wanted when we sacked Poch as I felt he suited our club but he's been far too defensive minded and picks pretty awful midfields. If he continues he will turn us against him just like Jose did.
 
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