Tim Sherwood…gone \o/

[metalgear]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

It was a traditional 442 though. Eriksen was only on the left when he had to stick to sagna going forward. When we switched to 4231 we didnt look any better.
We didnt take our chances in a though away game.
Only thing I'm annoyed about is not having a proper go when they were down to ten men. We should have taken off a defender at that stage with nothing to lose.

Totally agree with your annoyance. My post was refuting a point earlier that was suggested sherwood had no other options due to injuries.

Quite frankly I thought Sherwood took a big gamble on beating Arsenal and it didn't pay off. But he's young so he's going to make mistakes like this. And hopefully learn from that.

Talking about learning... and adding to your last point, I too would have liked to see sherwood take some risks especially in a situation like yesterday, but I think at the back of his mind he wanted to avoid a whitewash, knowing how trigger happy Levy is.

 

[stinkfoot]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Ade's in the second half was for me; any true connection and it's in (there again, he made the chance with great control)…Soldado in the first half was, for me, a clear clear opp. 16 yards out with time and no-one near…

Perhaps I'm a critic…oh, wait...:lol:

That 'shot across goal just wide of the post' malarky is getting a bit old now isn't it...eventually he'll put one of those in!

 

[Cochise]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Am I the only one who thought that the switch to one up top had us playing better football through midfield? We still didn't support the striker, but the improvement in our passing was noticeable, Bentaleb suddenly popped up more often and Walker and Rose both started appearing further up the pitch. As of late with the 442, we have been primarily working on the counter with only the strikers, wingers and one midfield involved in the attack. The change to 451 saw Chadli dropping into midield and threading passes out to the left wing for Rose to get on the end of, which he did quite often.

 

[glorygloryeze]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Not looking good for the rest of the season and especially for the bigger games in the chase for top 4 (never mind the EL - and we have NO excuse for not going full pelt in that now).

- going 4-4-2 against Arsenal. Away. And against a team who are always strong in midfield - never mind when they have a numerical advantage. In fact when was the last team to win there playing two CMs against their well-drilled and fluid 3?
- Some talk about fatigue, too soon after OT etc etc. Bull****! If so fatigued why not set up defensive and go 4-5-1 then?? It's not like in the league where we have to go for it and make up points in the chase for top 4
- This is away to the Emirates when we KNOW what we're up against. Wenger's ways and tactics are not exactly secret. Even Cardiff lasted 88 mins before buckling. Jeez. Imagine when we have to go to Stamford Bridge, Anfield, Saudi Sportswashing Machine?? Are we going to be that naive??

I think this shows that despite our win at OT, the best we can hope for is 6th. It's probably best we all get used to that reality now.

 

[thfcsteff]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Raphael Honigstein ‏@honigstein
Sherwood was bordering on the delusional in the press conference. "We was not not outnumbered in midfield, we wasn't."

Raphael Honigstein ‏@honigstein
When pushed again, Sherwood then changed tack: "Okay, but we outnumbered them on the flanks." #strange

It's a silly cheap shot. If Honigstein wanted to be clever, he should be specific and at least say the MIDDLE of the park/centre of midfield. Even then, we did attempt to play three in there second-half...

 

[thfcsteff]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

That 'shot across goal just wide of the post' malarky is getting a bit old now isn't it...eventually he'll put one of those in!

He has to. He really does. I support him as a player, indeed, his vision is superb and his touches lovely, but he also needs to put his chances away. Here's hoping he can...

 

[DubaiSpur]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Not looking good for the rest of the season and especially for the bigger games in the chase for top 4 (never mind the EL - and we have NO excuse for not going full pelt in that now).

- going 4-4-2 against Arsenal. Away. And against a team who are always strong in midfield - never mind when they have a numerical advantage. In fact when was the last team to win there playing two CMs against their well-drilled and fluid 3?
- Some talk about fatigue, too soon after OT etc etc. Bull****! If so fatigued why not set up defensive and go 4-5-1 then?? It's not like in the league where we have to go for it and make up points in the chase for top 4
- This is away to the Emirates when we KNOW what we're up against. Wenger's ways and tactics are not exactly secret. Even Cardiff lasted 88 mins before buckling. Jeez. Imagine when we have to go to Stamford Bridge, Anfield, Saudi Sportswashing Machine?? Are we going to be that naive??

I think this shows that despite our win at OT, the best we can hope for is 6th. It's probably best we all get used to that reality now.

We played a 4-5-1 at their place early in the season and lost 1-0, and despite what AVB's many fans will tell you (and I remain one of them)...we didn't threaten them much, if at all. Territorial advantages and superior possession stats do not a threatening performance make.

This time, we tried a 4-4-2, and lost 2-0, with much of the same ineffectiveness this time brought about by tiredness and injures.

I would suggest that at this period in time they are simply a better team than us, and (Tim's baffling reluctance to throw on Obika and Kane when playing against ten men aside) I'd suggest that there is little Tim could have done to prevent this. We could lose playing 4-4-2 and 'having a go', or we could lose playing 4-5-1 and utilising the same techniques of sterile possession and mind-numbing repetition we've already seen fail against what is a very good Arsenal side. We went with the former because I suspect a)Tim wants to make his own mark on the side, i.e differentiate himself from the previous manager, and b) because it wouldn't help anybody, management, players or the board, for Tim to first set the team up with two strikers and then revert to a five man midfield just five games in. Makes him look uncertain, indecisive and rather afraid of the opposition, which by extension reflects badly on the board that appointed him and also confuses the players even more than the last guy did.

No, Tim didn't do much wrong here, imo.

 

[Raziel]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

LOL

whatever man, i read your post i see myself post harry sacking and when we appointed this pretty little boy on a couple of years experience managing world class players in the a turgid league and getting some kind of recognition from it.

do i blame you people for what you are doing??!!!

AB-SO-LU-TE-LY!!!

its not my fault you cant back the manager and but want rather some kind of foreign flavour of the month dude

do you and i'll do me.

Tim sherwood at the helm? Tim sherwood has my support...as if i am going to get on his case for losing to the league leaders at their ground with all their stability and system and continuity and top class technical players fizzing about the place...1 loss in like 6 games and that loss is given a factor of -10000000 and the wins only get +.0001

No thanks , am not with you on this

edit:- oh and that attitude is the picture definition of hypocrisy

(see you guys in a week)

You are misreading me a bit this week AS

- I don't think it's fair than TS will get this scrutiny (see the media already) and questioning of selection (with probably 11 injuries) from losing 2-0 away to current league leaders.
- I personally will not use it as a stick to beat him with, or moan about

However (and my point was)

- This is the risk Levy took by appointing anyone with limited/no experience
- Has nothing to do with their ability to do the job, it's the amount of time (in light of them being an unknown quantity) that fans/media will give them.

My view that Sherwood won't last is simply because the media/fans will ride every bad result, and we will have a few

I honestly don't think its a coincidence that Harry lasted the longest of any manager under Levy, Harry for all his faults knew how to manage his media buddies and as a result the press was kindest to us in that era. The fact that Spurs appointed this "unknown" high risk option is a story, and stories are only media worthy when it's a disaster, and they will make it one.

So, no issue personally with TS, just think someone with experience would have been given a lot more slack, hence likely a better chance of success.

 

[Spurs@HKMaOnShan]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

We played a 4-5-1 at their place early in the season and lost 1-0, and despite what AVB's many fans will tell you (and I remain one of them)...we didn't threaten them much, if at all. Territorial advantages and superior possession stats do not a threatening performance make.

This time, we tried a 4-4-2, and lost 2-0, with much of the same ineffectiveness this time brought about by tiredness and injures.

I would suggest that at this period in time they are simply a better team than us, and (Tim's baffling reluctance to throw on Obika and Kane when playing against ten men aside) I'd suggest that there is little Tim could have done to prevent this. We could lose playing 4-4-2 and 'having a go', or we could lose playing 4-5-1 and utilising the same techniques of sterile possession and mind-numbing repetition we've already seen fail against what is a very good Arsenal side. We went with the former because I suspect a)Tim wants to make his own mark on the side, i.e differentiate himself from the previous manager, and b) because it wouldn't help anybody, management, players or the board, for Tim to first set the team up with two strikers and then revert to a five man midfield just five games in. Makes him look uncertain, indecisive and rather afraid of the opposition, which by extension reflects badly on the board that appointed him and also confuses the players even more than the last guy did.

No, Tim didn't do much wrong here, imo.

To be honest I think the entire strategy was all wrong. We 1) load of injury 2) playing away 3) against a top team should have played a more reserved side. We should have played for a draw and beat them in a replay at home.

 

[glorygloryeze]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

We played a 4-5-1 at their place early in the season and lost 1-0, and despite what AVB's many fans will tell you (and I remain one of them)...we didn't threaten them much, if at all. Territorial advantages and superior possession stats do not a threatening performance make.

This time, we tried a 4-4-2, and lost 2-0, with much of the same ineffectiveness this time brought about by tiredness and injures.

I would suggest that at this period in time they are simply a better team than us, and (Tim's baffling reluctance to throw on Obika and Kane when playing against ten men aside) I'd suggest that there is little Tim could have done to prevent this. We could lose playing 4-4-2 and 'having a go', or we could lose playing 4-5-1 and utilising the same techniques of sterile possession and mind-numbing repetition we've already seen fail against what is a very good Arsenal side. We went with the former because I suspect a)Tim wants to make his own mark on the side, i.e differentiate himself from the previous manager, and b) because it wouldn't help anybody, management, players or the board, for Tim to first set the team up with two strikers and then revert to a five man midfield just five games in. Makes him look uncertain, indecisive and rather afraid of the opposition, which by extension reflects badly on the board that appointed him and also confuses the players even more than the last guy did.

No, Tim didn't do much wrong here, imo.

So do you think we will finish higher than 6th?

 

[africanspurs]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Don't agree. I see why you feel people have been hypocritical over Harry / AVB but I feel like it myself today, people that would have ****ged this performance no end had AVB been in charge have pretty much given it a shrug of the shoulders this time around. I even understand the reasons why, and I do like Sherwood, but I am curious why people are accepting of the performance today and calling it good, and calling similar ones under AVB turgid, boring etc.

no one is calling it good today, are they? maybe they are and i am missing it but i accept that it was a bad day at the office ..... the idea that the one game sort of takes away everything else and proves people right is wrong for me

it would be interesting to get the results over wenger's tenure when we have gone to their ground and come away even playing well let alone a result

 

[Ginolius]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

We played a 4-5-1 at their place early in the season and lost 1-0, and despite what AVB's many fans will tell you (and I remain one of them)...we didn't threaten them much, if at all. Territorial advantages and superior possession stats do not a threatening performance make.

This time, we tried a 4-4-2, and lost 2-0, with much of the same ineffectiveness this time brought about by tiredness and injures.

I would suggest that at this period in time they are simply a better team than us, and (Tim's baffling reluctance to throw on Obika and Kane when playing against ten men aside) I'd suggest that there is little Tim could have done to prevent this. We could lose playing 4-4-2 and 'having a go', or we could lose playing 4-5-1 and utilising the same techniques of sterile possession and mind-numbing repetition we've already seen fail against what is a very good Arsenal side. We went with the former because I suspect a)Tim wants to make his own mark on the side, i.e differentiate himself from the previous manager, and b) because it wouldn't help anybody, management, players or the board, for Tim to first set the team up with two strikers and then revert to a five man midfield just five games in. Makes him look uncertain, indecisive and rather afraid of the opposition, which by extension reflects badly on the board that appointed him and also confuses the players even more than the last guy did.

No, Tim didn't do much wrong here, imo.

You're probably right, but with Ade hitting form, i would have liked to see what would have happened if we had started Capoue for Soldado and played him in a holding role in a 451 with Ade up front. Having someone sit back and break up their fluid passing game then using Ade to launch a fast counter would have been the simplest way to threaten imo - we were never going to out play that Arsenal team at their place, especially while they held the numerical advantage. Having a proper DM would have allowed the fullbacks, Dembele and Bentaleb to press more effectively too as we gave them far too much space.

 

[africanspurs]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

good posts both from Dubai (aside from the fact that i think that we did actually play well at scum early on in the season) and Ginolious

 

[tynesidespur]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I've often thought in the past that a 4-5-1/4-3-3 was the best way to go against them lot but in all honesty our best performance in recent years against them was the 2-1 win at home in 09/10. Granted it was at home but we played like an away side on the counter. Two compact banks of four - let them have the ball in front of us, deny space in behind, two strikers working hard and pressing hard to prevent out balls (Defoe/Pav) and hit them hard and strong on the break, punishing their mistakes. They had loads of the ball but looked toothless and we were well worth the win.

If you match up against them, to some extent you have to be better than them at their own game, which frankly, we're not.

Also we've tried a few formations against them in recent years. When we came back to win 3-2 we were playing Lennon wide and VDV off Crouch in a 4-4-1-1/4-5-1 in the 1st half and were out of it at 0-2, 2nd half VDV went wide and Defoe came on. We ran out winners, yet the following season Harry started off like that and we were basically murdered but lucky to be level at WHL so we took VDV off and ended up winning. It depends on the day, the mental attitude of the players, fatigue/injuries and most importantly, taking your chances when they come along. If Eriksen takes that big, big chance at the start then I suspect its a very different game.

He's also bang on that we didn't look after the ball well enough. We did it teriffically against Stoke, but the signs of wastefulness were there at OT. Fortunately we put together a few quality moves and managed to take our chances. Yesterday we were even more wasteful in possession. Some credit has to go to there lot. We got into some promising positions in behind their midfield but their defence was well-drilled, compact and organised. We tried the right passes but for whatever reason they were blocked or over/under-weighted - especially 2nd half when Mertesacker came on (can't believe I'm saying that because he has looked a clumsy oaf for much of his time in England). We had isolated Vermaelen and had him on the ropes in the 1st half. Pretty sure the HT "injury" was tactical from Wenger because he was a red waiting to happen.

Looking forward to Palace now.

 

[Nigeyman]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I've often thought in the past that a 4-5-1/4-3-3 was the best way to go against them lot but in all honesty our best performance in recent years against them was the 2-1 win at home in 09/10. Granted it was at home but we played like an away side on the counter. Two compact banks of four - let them have the ball in front of us, deny space in behind, two strikers working hard and pressing hard to prevent out balls (Defoe/Pav) and hit them hard and strong on the break, punishing their mistakes. They had loads of the ball but looked toothless and we were well worth the win.

If you match up against them, to some extent you have to be better than them at their own game, which frankly, we're not.

Also we've tried a few formations against them in recent years. When we came back to win 3-2 we were playing Lennon wide and VDV off Crouch in a 4-4-1-1/4-5-1 in the 1st half and were out of it at 0-2, 2nd half VDV went wide and Defoe came on. We ran out winners, yet the following season Harry started off like that and we were basically murdered but lucky to be level at WHL so we took VDV off and ended up winning. It depends on the day, the mental attitude of the players, fatigue/injuries and most importantly, taking your chances when they come along. If Eriksen takes that big, big chance at the start then I suspect its a very different game.

He's also bang on that we didn't look after the ball well enough. We did it teriffically against Stoke, but the signs of wastefulness were there at OT. Fortunately we put together a few quality moves and managed to take our chances. Yesterday we were even more wasteful in possession. Some credit has to go to there lot. We got into some promising positions in behind their midfield but their defence was well-drilled, compact and organised. We tried the right passes but for whatever reason they were blocked or over/under-weighted - especially 2nd half when Mertesacker came on (can't believe I'm saying that because he has looked a clumsy oaf for much of his time in England). We had isolated Vermaelen and had him on the ropes in the 1st half. Pretty sure the HT "injury" was tactical from Wenger because he was a red waiting to happen.

Looking forward to Palace now.

Really good post.

The Palace game is the first time that Tim will have a bit of time to formulate a plan and work on things in training. This is the standard difficult match where our fans turn up expecting a win and moan & groan at loose passes. It also happens that we struggle in this type of game where the opponents will sit deep with two banks of four,as has been proved this season except perhaps the Norwich & Stoke peformances.

Lets see how we peform 3pm Saturday with Tim having had a week to work on a gameplan, and hopefully he will have more of our squad to choose from.

 

[chancer]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

We played a 4-5-1 at their place early in the season and lost 1-0, and despite what AVB's many fans will tell you (and I remain one of them)...we didn't threaten them much, if at all. Territorial advantages and superior possession stats do not a threatening performance make.

This time, we tried a 4-4-2, and lost 2-0, with much of the same ineffectiveness this time brought about by tiredness and injures.

Yeah, agreed.

In fact, I think we were more outplayed in the league game than we were yesterday.

 

[elltrev]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

Am I the only one who thought that the switch to one up top had us playing better football through midfield? We still didn't support the striker, but the improvement in our passing was noticeable, Bentaleb suddenly popped up more often and Walker and Rose both started appearing further up the pitch. As of late with the 442, we have been primarily working on the counter with only the strikers, wingers and one midfield involved in the attack. The change to 451 saw Chadli dropping into midield and threading passes out to the left wing for Rose to get on the end of, which he did quite often.

I think that had more to do with Arsenal dropping deeper and getting men behind the ball once they'd got their second. Before that they were pressing higher up the pitch and making it much more difficult for us to keep the ball.

 

[punk_is_back`]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I thought the problem was not winning the ball well enough yesterday, a consequence of only having 2 in the middle. Even if Arsenal's players are better than ours we could at least have tried to match them, rather than conceding possession. It was a stupid uncalculated risk to take as we know how good they are at keeping possession, we could have at least tried to make things a bit easier for ourselves by playing 3 in the middle and not playing a debutante in a two.

 

[Millsy_Yiddo]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

It was clearly 442 to me. It's ok to imagine that it should've been 451... but in reality it was 442.

Fact is we were outnumbered in the middle and had no supply for 90 minutes, and tis didn't try anything excepted going wide.

What else could he do given the injuries? Plenty! Think Bolton stoke and the likes. what about sitting back inviting deep with 2 banks of four and counter attacking with speed....

Sherwood may have decided to stick to 442 for good reasons, but you can't say he didn't have options tactically.

I'm not imagining nor saying that it was 451. When in possession of the ball, we were 442 with Lennon holding the width and Eriksen ghosting in late to support Ade and Soldado. What I'm saying is, when we weren't in possession of the ball, TS wanted one of our forwards to drop in and make it 451. We didn't do that well and therefore we were outnumbered in CM.

People need to get this daft notion out of their heads that the formation the team set out in at kick of is the formation you play for the ENTIRE game. Formations are fluid. 442 with two defensive midfielders and two hug the line wingers becomes 424 going forward and 442 defensively. The example I gave above is 442 going forward, 451 defensively, 443 is almost always 433 going forward, 451 whilst defending. It all depends on how the manager sets the team up to play. But there is no such thing as 4231 will always beat 442 because of this and that, because it totally depends on how both teams are set up to play by their managers.

I thought we counter attacked well. No we didn't set up to park the bus and hit them on the counter but when we did win possession back, we got it forward directly and quickly and put together some nice moves but final ball/decisions and finishing let us down.

 

[Jordinho]

Re: Tim Sherwood - Head Coach

I thought the problem was not winning the ball well enough yesterday, a consequence of only having 2 in the middle. Even if Arsenal's players are better than ours we could at least have tried to match them, rather than conceding possession. It was a stupid uncalculated risk to take as we know how good they are at keeping possession, we could have at least tried to make things a bit easier for ourselves by playing 3 in the middle and not playing a debutante in a two.

They look more fluid as their players know when and where to move, but it was really those two mistakes at the back that was the difference.

	Arsenal	Tottenham
Goals	2	0
Shots	14	13
On target	5	3
Off target	7	8
Blocked	2	2
Possession	46%	54%
Pass success	81%	85%
Aerial success	53%	47%
Offsides	6	1
Dribbles	8	13
Tackles	25	16
Fouls	7	10
Corners	6	8
Throw ins	15	25