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Nuno Espírito Santo - Sacked

He was bringing him for 30 minutes
He was willing to take a gamble

I agree with a lot of what you often say but disagree here.

By 'take a gamble' you mean, actually trying to win the game? We need to get to a position where we try to do that from minute 1, rather than when playing against a team who will finish in the bottom half, we aim to not concede and perhaps then take a chance late on. That cannot be right. The concern though is that this wasn't an abberation given its the tactics Nuno employed at Wolves

His tactics were wrong yesterday and he should have realised that and changed things much earlier.

I like the guy (who doesnt?) but he does need to evolve the team over coming months to be more attacking otherwise he won't last. I dont think Spurs fans long-term will accept a team who's primary objective is to not concede. I think he'll get this season unless we're lower than say 8th going into next year, and then hopefully more of the rebuild next summer but his tactics are a concern
 
I agree with a lot of what you often say but disagree here.

By 'take a gamble' you mean, actually trying to win the game? We need to get to a position where we try to do that from minute 1, rather than when playing against a team who will finish in the bottom half, we aim to not concede and perhaps then take a chance late on. That cannot be right. The concern though is that this wasn't an abberation given its the tactics Nuno employed at Wolves

His tactics were wrong yesterday and he should have realised that and changed things much earlier.

I like the guy (who doesnt?) but he does need to evolve the team over coming months to be more attacking otherwise he won't last. I dont think Spurs fans long-term will accept a team who's primary objective is to not concede. I think he'll get this season unless we're lower than say 8th going into next year, and then hopefully more of the rebuild next summer but his tactics are a concern
I really don’t like 4-3-3
But as a soon as I saw who we would have available on Friday and him getting MOTM, coupled with the early Saturday kick off after internationals I knew we would be awful. We always are. Was the same under Poch too if anyone wants to check (I did)
I said to my mate we will lose 1 nil
Our players cannot ever seem to switch on after internationals and the Saturday 12.30 kick off is always the worst game of the week
 
I think 9 out of 10 overstates what is otherwise a solid enough point. Yeah, we probably keep a clean sheet in that game with a decent frequency.

Dier, Rodon and Tanganga (up to the red card) defended well. Davies got the arm position wrong (or "wrong" enough to concede a penalty), otherwise was fine until that.

Did the Palace centre backs play well? Yeah, they did in a way, you could have had peak Alderweireld and Vertonghen playing for them and they couldn't have done better defensively. Not because the Palace lads are that good, but because they weren't tested.

Are Ward and Mitchell better than Reguilon and Emerson defensively? I'm not so sure, but in that game they were not tested at all really. Emerson and Reguilon were tested repeatedly.

You keep conceding possession in decent areas and keep asking your defenders to defend well again and again bad things will eventually happen.

Do that while not testing the opposition defenders much at all you're not going to get at least a draw 9 out of 10 times.

As we discuss pre-Palace with Bedford in the Royal thread, I also favour a more dynamic game plan where we try to retain some possession. As you say, if you play most of the game in your half, you are exposing yourself to more chances to concede. But a red and a pen is less than a 1 in 10 occurrences. Without one of them I think we draw that. And without either, maybe just maybe we pull a few more chances to score out the hat as the game enters the final quarter.

Yes we need to find ways to control games more, but 9 times out of 10 we'd take a point from that game at least. There is method to the boredom, but the balance isn't quite right, we need to be a little more proactive, and try to impose our game on the opposition.
 
I don't watxh international football, but the narrative of England players not passing to kane has been going on longer than the last three games.
Hes captain and with all the circumstances you mentioned above he can't say to Southgate to let him sit out against Andorra?
In a group England are walking.
I don't think we were as bad as the score makes it appear. As a spectacle it was awful, but not all games are silky football, up to moss getting involved that game could have went either way. In fact Tanganga stays on i think we win that.
I don’t see how you can come to the ‘could’ve gone either way’? We barely launched a single attack. 0.08 XG…. That must be amongst the lowest ever for any PL team (and surely certainly the lowest ever for a team playing against Palace?).
 
Ndombele doesn’t want to be here
You know the same way you described Kane earlier I think?
Gil is a kid who has been here for about 21 days and played his under 21 games this week (as a winger). I think he will become a more central creative player as you describe but showing up in the ECL is different to the prem
Kane doesn’t want to be here either (and it’s difficult to blame him) yet he is playing.
 
As we discuss pre-Palace with Bedford in the Royal thread, I also favour a more dynamic game plan where we try to retain some possession. As you say, if you play most of the game in your half, you are exposing yourself to more chances to concede. But a red and a pen is less than a 1 in 10 occurrences. Without one of them I think we draw that. And without either, maybe just maybe we pull a few more chances to score out the hat as the game enters the final quarter.

Yes we need to find ways to control games more, but 9 times out of 10 we'd take a point from that game at least. There is method to the boredom, but the balance isn't quite right, we need to be a little more proactive, and try to impose our game on the opposition.
And that takes time or possibly an accident… as in we stumble into the solution
 
And that takes time or possibly an accident… as in we stumble into the solution

A bit like how Mourinho took us top, and it covered over the reality...who didn't dream a little over the international break? But the reality is, we have new players and a new manager to bed in, we had an unstable pre-season, and we have had a terrible international break with players injured and quarantined. Skipp, Tanganga are just settling into the side. Gil, Royal, Romeo still need to (could include Ndombele into that too).

Feels like I've been saying it for about 5 years, but the midfield is the key. Can Skipp be more than a hard-working terrier? Given some time and the right aims, he can. But we need to rotate him a little. Can Ndombele be disciplined, stay fit, and do the simple things well, if so he could provide that x factor we need in midfield. Could Gil even play a deeper Modric or Eriksen-like role? I think he could. Nuno was big on partnerships, and we need to forge a midfield that can pass, jink, and work together to control games. We haven't had that for literally years now. Alli can be a part of that too, but the reality is, there is a lot of TBCs. We need to give Nuno some time and space to figure that out. Being top of the league actually impairs development as both Nuno and Mourinho had to stick to what we were doing, when ignoring the league table and focusing on development was the key. Now hopefully we can find all the right mixes and patterns - starting with the midfield ideally.
 
A bit like how Mourinho took us top, and it covered over the reality...who didn't dream a little over the international break? But the reality is, we have new players and a new manager to bed in, we had an unstable pre-season, and we have had a terrible international break with players injured and quarantined. Skipp, Tanganga are just settling into the side. Gil, Royal, Romeo still need to (could include Ndombele into that too).

Feels like I've been saying it for about 5 years, but the midfield is the key. Can Skipp be more than a hard-working terrier? Given some time and the right aims, he can. But we need to rotate him a little. Can Ndombele be disciplined, stay fit, and do the simple things well, if so he could provide that x factor we need in midfield. Could Gil even play a deeper Modric or Eriksen-like role? I think he could. Nuno was big on partnerships, and we need to forge a midfield that can pass, jink, and work together to control games. We haven't had that for literally years now. Alli can be a part of that too, but the reality is, there is a lot of TBCs. We need to give Nuno some time and space to figure that out. Being top of the league actually impairs development as both Nuno and Mourinho had to stick to what we were doing, when ignoring the league table and focusing on development was the key. Now hopefully we can find all the right mixes and patterns - starting with the midfield ideally.
We haven’t even had the new signings yet. I mean the tens that was top has no new players in it which says a lot
I’d prefer a 4-2-3-1 myself
Or even a 3-4-3
But the way the midfield played yesterday was way way too stiff
I couldn’t see palace scoring but I couldn’t see us doing anything at all attacking wise
 
In the first 4 games, according to Opta, we've faced 70 shots, more than any other team. We've also created the fewest chances.
Think about that for a moment. Most shots faced, fewest chances created.
Shots mean nothing
How many saves has Hugo had to make before yesterday. And I mean saves that actually at he had to make an effort
Yesterday was different of course
Hugo made NO saves of note vs watford. 1 vs Wolves
I actually can’t remember any vs city but sure there will be some
 
Shots mean nothing
How many saves has Hugo had to make before yesterday. And I mean saves that actually at he had to make an effort
Yesterday was different of course
Hugo made NO saves of note vs watford. 1 vs Wolves
I actually can’t remember any vs city but sure there will be some
I know most of shots have been pretty harmless, but overall, those two stats speak volumes about where the play has been, and who's had the upper hand. Also consider the opposition; City, Watford, Wolves and Crystal Palace.
 
I know most of shots have been pretty harmless, but overall, those two stats speak volumes about where the play has been, and who's had the upper hand. Also consider the opposition; City, Watford, Wolves and Crystal Palace.
They don’t
They just show that teams will spank harmless shots if you give them a chance
I mean we have scored goals like that
Abs consider the circumstances again
Win vs city… no Kane and massive pressure because of that. Deserved win
Wolves again no striker - early goal and their keeper made better saves than Hugo (other than Traores)
Watford - lucky goal but their keeper made the most saves of any keeper at this point of the season in that game. Hugo made none that I remember
Yesterday was poor but the squad was decimated
We had 3 youth team players in the bench and most of the squad had one session before the game. I’ll treat that as an isolated game. And I’ll add again we always struggled post internationals even under Poch
 
They don’t
They just show that teams will spank harmless shots if you give them a chance
I mean we have scored goals like that
Abs consider the circumstances again
Win vs city… no Kane and massive pressure because of that. Deserved win
Wolves again no striker - early goal and their keeper made better saves than Hugo (other than Traores)
Watford - lucky goal but their keeper made the most saves of any keeper at this point of the season in that game. Hugo made none that I remember
Yesterday was poor but the squad was decimated
We had 3 youth team players in the bench and most of the squad had one session before the game. I’ll treat that as an isolated game. And I’ll add again we always struggled post internationals even under Poch
Your optimism is somewhat admirable, but You need a reality check, mate.
 
Your optimism is somewhat admirable, but You need a reality check, mate.
Nah I’m talking reality
But do course we could be even worse next weekend
Then I’ll frame the conversation around that performance too
I mean I am talking actual facts are i
City had a better xG than us but it was from chances that didn’t even hit the target
The other games we have had better xgs even though others had more shots
Yesterday the XG was spot
They had an xG of 2.89 although weirdly over half of that was for Connor Gallagher and I only remember the Hugo save which was very saveable and one I’d expect any keeper to save
What the stats show so that despite teams taking shots we rarely concede a good chance so far under Nuno. That wasn’t the case under Jose.
 
In the first 4 games, according to Opta, we've faced 70 shots, more than any other team. We've also created the fewest chances.
Think about that for a moment. Most shots faced, fewest chances created.

ouch! We can say that its the quality of our midfield, but Wolves had players like Moutinho in midfield and Nuno still set them up to defend
 
ouch! We can say that its the quality of our midfield, but Wolves had players like Moutinho in midfield and Nuno still set them up to defend
They only had one striker and not many CMs IIRC in Neves, Mourinho and Dendonker
they did have a lot of CBS
 
1 CF
Lots of CBs

What does that tell you about tactics?
It tells me he deals with the hand he has TBH
He didn’t buy the players there
He doenst here
As I’ve said before … I watched his Valencia team. They were the best attacking side in the league
 
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