Omt - Tottenham vs Boro

[Finney Is Back]

I'm not digging them out specifically, i have said i would ditch them all.
Others have countered not kane and son, I'm saying them yes them as well.
I'm not questioning ability but mentally they aren't good enough. Any of them.
We can beat city, Liverpool, utd and even Chelsea in the league, but collapse against them in cup or league games at the end of the season.
Its also been pointed out that these teans are better than us and we shouldn't expect to beat them.
Well last year we went out the fa cup to Norwich and this year boro.
We got out played by mura and vitesse.
If they can raise their game against us, why can't we raise our game against the big teams?

If we replace Kane then the only way is down in terms of quality. In our current predicament we couldn't hope to get a player anywhere near as good as Kane. I suspect the very best that we could do would be somebody like Andrea Belotti who could end up being a total flop in England.

We collapse against teams at the end of the season because they have bigger, better squads than us and therefore are much fresher than us towards the end of the season. Teams don't win you titles, squads do and we have a weak squad where the drop off in certain positions is massive and in some positions there is absolutely no cover at all.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Yep we need to spend around £200m to £250m on about 6 or 7 players in the summer.

Depends though if we get the outside investment. If we dont get that and the enic status quo is maintained, then we will instead spend around £75m gross on 4 or 5 players and the much of the same will repeat next season with us mildly more competitive.

We don't actually need to spend that much due to so many very good players who are out of contract or have 1 year remaining. What we do need though is for the Chairman to allow Paratici to drastically increase the wage to turnover ratio and unfortunately I just do not see him doing that.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Any hope of a higher press was not an option when Conte chose basically not to rotate at all for this game and previous games.

Even defending deep, being fairly slow and lacking movement on the ball we clearly lacked energy. No way those players had it in them to press and chase higher more of the time.

Conte has shown no evidence of wanting us to play a high press anyway.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Conte has stated that he sees Bergwijn as an option there. Bergwijn could have started ahead of any of the front three (assuming he's fit and it's not an unreported illness/injury reason he didn't start).

Kane to me looked alright. He's the player in the front three with the lowest defensive workload I think. Son looked shattered as the game progressed. Don't quite know about Kulusevski. More of an off day than tired legs perhaps?

Could also have gone with a front two and added White to the midfield.

Either way, there were limited options other than Scarlett, but there were options.

Has he? I thought he said that he sees him as a forward? I took this to mean somebody who could play alongside Kane (i.e. Bergy to play Son's role) which I think we have seen him doing a few times.

Personally I would've started Bergwijn instead of Son last night but it is clear to me that the team (still) doesn't have a single alternative option to Kane.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Has he? I thought he said that he sees him as a forward? I took this to mean somebody who could play alongside Kane (i.e. Bergy to play Son's role) which I think we have seen him doing a few times.

Personally I would've started Bergwijn instead of Son last night but it is clear to me that the team (still) doesn't have a single alternative option to Kane.

I would have took son off for Bergwein
Son playing like last night is so so bad
Bergwein looked decent when he came on

 

[Finney Is Back]

I would have took son off for Bergwein
Son playing like last night is so so bad
Bergwein looked decent when he came on

Agreed on all three points. This happens to Son sometimes, it's like his control completely deserts him. He then tries to make up for it by trying even harder and that seems to make his control even worse. A rest would probably do him good.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Agreed on all three points. This happens to Son sometimes, it's like his control completely deserts him. He then tries to make up for it by trying even harder and that seems to make his control even worse. A rest would probably do him good.

He was disposed more than anyone and they just waited for him to get it then took it off him. He has had had a poor season despite his numbers

 

[Pirate55]

Both were onside

Funny, I thought both were offside. Not their player who scored but the one who originally went for the ball and distracted our defence. Clearly interfering with play imo.

 

[Pirate55]

Has he? I thought he said that he sees him as a forward? I took this to mean somebody who could play alongside Kane (i.e. Bergy to play Son's role) which I think we have seen him doing a few times.

Personally I would've started Bergwijn instead of Son last night but it is clear to me that the team (still) doesn't have a single alternative option to Kane.

Conte has said he sees Bergwyn as a replacement for Kane in the central forward role. I said he should have rested Kane and Son before the game and this was the ideal opportunity to see if Bergwyn could play that role. With Son and Kane on the bench at least we had options to improve our team if things weren't going our way.

 

[El Guepardo]

Funny, I thought both were offside. Not their player who scored but the one who originally went for the ball and distracted our defence. Clearly interfering with play imo.

He was definitely offside. All I could assume was that he was deemed not to be interfering with play, which isn’t properly defined. I thought it should be offside. Any player who may cause distraction is definitely interfering with play.

 

[glasgowspur]

If we replace Kane then the only way is down in terms of quality. In our current predicament we couldn't hope to get a player anywhere near as good as Kane. I suspect the very best that we could do would be somebody like Andrea Belotti who could end up being a total flop in England.

We collapse against teams at the end of the season because they have bigger, better squads than us and therefore are much fresher than us towards the end of the season. Teams don't win you titles, squads do and we have a weak squad where the drop off in certain positions is massive and in some positions there is absolutely no cover at all.

Be difficult to replace his technical abilities, near impossible probably, 100% agree.
But mentally not so much imho.
We don't just collapse against the bigger teams though, we collapse against anyone who shows some spirit. What's the excuse there?

 

[glasgowspur]

We were visibly tired. From what I saw there was a lot of effort, but the energy just wasn't there.

Perhaps Boro are fitter than us, used to the long slog of the Championship? Perhaps we have too many players too far off peak physical fitness?

Excuse or not we looked drained well before extra time.

We look mentally drained as soon as something goes against us.

 

[Gazza Dazzla]

He was definitely offside. All I could assume was that he was deemed not to be interfering with play, which isn’t properly defined. I thought it should be offside. Any player who may cause distraction is definitely interfering with play.

Yep agreed, it’s probably one of those where by the letter of the law it’s not off, but clearly it should be.

As we’ve seen so many times in recent seasons, the offside law, as it’s written, isn’t fit for purpose.

 

[Bedfordspurs]

Funny, I thought both were offside. Not their player who scored but the one who originally went for the ball and distracted our defence. Clearly interfering with play imo.

He was off
balogun
The other guy was onside

 

[Finney Is Back]

We don't actually need to spend that much due to so many very good players who are out of contract or have 1 year remaining. What we do need though is for the Chairman to allow Paratici to drastically increase the wage to turnover ratio and unfortunately I just do not see him doing that.

Just to emphasise this point here is a LONG list of players out of contract in 2022 or 2023.... I have marked in bold those that I think we could get and who would dramatically improve our squad.

Keepers
2022: Onana (think we've now missed out here with Inter agreeing a pre contract deal), Johnstone
2023: Oblak, Remiro, Pope

Centre Backs
2022: Rudiger, Ginter, Tarkowski, Romagnoli, Denayer, Mbemba, Zagadou, Luiz Felipe
2023: Skriniar, De Vrij, Araujo, Akanji, Ndicka, Martinez, Kehrer, Milenkovic, Schlotterbeck, Caleta-Car

Full/Wing backs
2022: Mazraoui, Perisic, Cuadrado
2023: Gaya, Guerreiro, Semedo, Mukiele, Bensebaini, Grimaldo, Celik, Tagliafico

Central midfielders
2022: Kessie, Brozovic, Kamara, Grillitsch, Tolisso, Modric
2023: Soler, Gavi, Gravenbirch, R Sanches, Schlager, Laimer, Kroos, Bissouma, Rabiot, Fred, Paredes, Dahoud, Caqueret

Attacking midfielders/wingers
2022: O Dembele, Lindgard, Eriksen, Bernardeschi, Isco, Pavon
2023: Gnarby, Tielemens, Ruiz, Zaha, Lemar, Asensio, Aouar, Guedes, Thuram, Tsygankov, Bamba

Forwards
2022: Dybala, Belotti, Lacazette, Origi, Muani, Brereton Diaz (though would command a tribuneral fee)
2023: Jesus, Zapata, Maupay, M Dembele, Embolo

For example:

Keeper: Oblak/Pope
Right Back: Mukiele/Mazraoui
Centre Back: Zagadou/Ginter
Centre back: Schlotterbeck
Centre mid: Brozovic
Attacking mid: Soler/Tielemens/Lemar/Guedes
Forward: Belotti/Dybala

Would probably cost around £120m in transfer fees and bring in 7 players who would all immediately be properly challenging for a first team place.

Note that I'm not saying that I see this happening. Getting players like these would take a big hike in our wage bill and our chairman seems to be concentrating on cutting that as opposed to increasing our wage to turnover ratio to something similar to other PL teams.

 

[Finney Is Back]

He was definitely offside. All I could assume was that he was deemed not to be interfering with play, which isn’t properly defined. I thought it should be offside. Any player who may cause distraction is definitely interfering with play.

He would only have been interfering with play if he had touched the ball, blocked the keepers view of a shot being made by another player or impeded one of our players from getting to the player taking the shot.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Be difficult to replace his technical abilities, near impossible probably, 100% agree.
But mentally not so much imho.
We don't just collapse against the bigger teams though, we collapse against anyone who shows some spirit. What's the excuse there?

If we replace Kane with a player of lower technical ability but higher 'mental ability' (whatever that is) then we'll simply create and score less goals and operate even lower down the table.... There are 10 other players in the team and 24 other players in the squad that we should look to replace before we get onto Kane.

Of course if we consider ourselves to be truly fudged in terms of our squad and desperately need funds for a complete rebuild and we accept that Kane is one of the only players we could sell who would generate significant funds then that is another argument but, nobody should kid themselves that we could sell Kane, buy a replacement and our team be better off in any way.

 

[Lilbaz]

Just to emphasise this point here is a LONG list of players out of contract in 2022 or 2023.... I have marked in bold those that I think we could get and who would dramatically improve our squad.

Keepers
2022: Onana (think we've now missed out here with Inter agreeing a pre contract deal), Johnstone
2023: Oblak, Remiro, Pope

Centre Backs
2022: The Boy Who Cried Racist, Ginter, Tarkowski, Romagnoli, Denayer, Mbemba, Zagadou, Luiz Felipe
2023: Skriniar, De Vrij, Araujo, Akanji, Ndicka, Martinez, Kehrer, Milenkovic, Schlotterbeck, Caleta-Car

Full/Wing backs
2022: Mazraoui, Perisic, Cuadrado
2023: Gaya, Guerreiro, Semedo, Mukiele, Bensebaini, Grimaldo, Celik, Tagliafico

Central midfielders
2022: Kessie, Brozovic, Kamara, Grillitsch, Tolisso, Modric
2023: Soler, Gavi, Gravenbirch, R Sanches, Schlager, Laimer, Kroos, Bissouma, Rabiot, Fred, Paredes, Dahoud, Caqueret

Attacking midfielders/wingers
2022: O Dembele, Lindgard, Eriksen, Bernardeschi, Isco, Pavon
2023: Gnarby, Tielemens, Ruiz, Zaha, Lemar, Asensio, Aouar, Guedes, Thuram, Tsygankov, Bamba

Forwards
2022: Dybala, Belotti, Lacazette, Origi, Muani, Brereton Diaz (though would command a tribuneral fee)
2023: Jesus, Zapata, Maupay, M Dembele, Embolo

For example:

Keeper: Oblak/Pope
Right Back: Mukiele/Mazraoui
Centre Back: Zagadou/Ginter
Centre back: Schlotterbeck
Centre mid: Brozovic
Attacking mid: Soler/Tielemens/Lemar/Guedes
Forward: Belotti/Dybala

Would probably cost around £120m in transfer fees and bring in 7 players who would all immediately be properly challenging for a first team place.

Been widely reported brozovic has agreed terms with inter for an extension till 2026. Although don't think it's been signed yet.

 

[elltrev]

He was disposed more than anyone and they just waited for him to get it then took it off him. He has had had a poor season despite his numbers

Agreed. I think the 3-4-3 doesn’t suit him unfortunately - he’s at his best in space, running behind the defence or running at the full-back. He’s just not as effective in those congested areas between the lines. (At least that’s what I think when I watch us, but as you say his goals and assists are pretty decent, so maybe I’m wrong).

 

[Finney Is Back]

Been widely reported brozovic has agreed terms with inter for an extension till 2026. Although don't think it's been signed yet.

If we put £250k a week on the table for him I reckon we could get him. He is the absolute perfect player for our midfield, a player in his absolute prime and knows Conte's system inside out.

Even at £300k a week he would still be an absolute bargain for us.