*** Tottenham Hotspur Vs Forest *** OMT

[tommysvr]

Everything in that plays its part. Until we as a club and fanbase are comfortable in our own skin as a club and our own identity I can't see us changing anytime soon

FWIW I agree, but what is our identity? What is Tottenham Hotspur? For about 6 years, it was the club who'd do just about anything to win a trophy, and not really much beyond that. Managerial appointments, up until Ange, speak to that. Ange was the rebuild, culture-change appointment. We sold our record goalscorer and 3 months after that 6-1 disgrace away to Saudi Sportswashing Machine looked to change that narrative.

Then we finally got that trophy and within 5 mins it's decided we're better than that and actually nah the league form was more important. So we do what we've always done and replaced the manager with one so very different from the last. No continuity, no clear vision of what we want to build. Just a "that last nine months was rough, let’s hope we don’t feel like that again next season. Let’s get the safest possible manager in."

And we end up here. Not great, not horrible. It was the reason I didn't want Frank. The most unambitious appointment I could think of on the back of winning a European trophy. A guy who'd never even managed in Europe, managing Premier League and Champions League with a squad who want to kick on. Raise the floor but lower the ceiling. And do it with pretty uninspiring football, which all but guarantees the next manager will be another swing back in the other direction. And we'll do it all over again.

 

[braineclipse]

I’m not sure we’ve had a strategy on the football side of the club under ENIC.

We struck lucky with Poch. Other than that, it’s been a series of short-term decisions, none of which have really worked out. The mismanagement of the footballing side of the club has been a scandal. We’ve been allowed to go from the Pochettino team to what we have now. Instead of building on success we continued to try our own bizarre way of trying to move further forward.

Sacking Frank now, as some (not necessarily you) seem to want means giving him a significant payoff; it probably means getting rid of/paying off a big chunk of his coaching team; as well as potentially scrapping some of the January targets he will have been involved with identifying; and ripping up yet another blueprint, this time before it’s had any chance to really bed in. It also lets this largely mentally weak squad, of largely average ability, off the hook.

Given how we operate, none of that would surprise me in the least.

I think we have me had a good strategy in place at times, at other times we've tried to put one in place, but it's not lasted or not worked. We were early on getting in DoF types. We've had a clear strategy of youth development at times at least and have in recent years gotten back to that (and the amount of young talent and potential in the squad is one of the clearest positives at the moment).

Right now we have two directors of football, we got Vinai in, if between the three of them they're not able to have a strategy in place beyond whatever the current manager wants that's problem number one that needs to be fixed.

The head coach/manager shouldn't be the one with the blueprint imo. The nature of things is that very few of them will be around long term.

The January targets should imo exclusively be players that there's a broad agreement on between Frank, Lange and Paratici as being right for the here and now and for the longer term.

 

[braineclipse]

FWIW I agree, but what is our identity? What is Tottenham Hotspur? For about 6 years, it was the club who'd do just about anything to win a trophy, and not really much beyond that. Managerial appointments, up until Ange, speak to that. Ange was the rebuild, culture-change appointment. We sold our record goalscorer and 3 months after that 6-1 disgrace away to Saudi Sportswashing Machine looked to change that narrative.

Then we finally got that trophy and within 5 mins it's decided we're better than that and actually nah the league form was more important. So we do what we've always done and replaced the manager with one so very different from the last. No continuity, no clear vision of what we want to build. Just a "that last nine months was rough, let’s hope we don’t feel like that again next season. Let’s get the safest possible manager in."

And we end up here. Not great, not horrible. It was the reason I didn't want Frank. The most unambitious appointment I could think of on the back of winning a European trophy. A guy who'd never even managed in Europe, managing Premier League and Champions League with a squad who want to kick on. Raise the floor but lower the ceiling. And do it with pretty uninspiring football, which all but guarantees the next manager will be another swing back in the other direction. And we'll do it all over again.

Fully agreed.

Imo we need an identity and we need a long term plan to work towards. And there needs to be agreement on that from the coaches and managers and all the way up.

Frank imo has said a lot of things that at lest gave me the impression that he was aligned with the "culture change". Not playing with risk would be the biggest risk. Attacking football and goals. Long term thinking with player development having a significant focus (that's all from memory, so my impression, apologies if I'm misrepresenting him).

Imo there have been some stuttering signs of that on the pitch, in some games, in some phases of games. But overall very little. But as to the points made by others perhaps almost half a season is too little time to show that, I don't know.

 

[Junior19]

So what are you suggesting? Which formation would sort us out?

The formation that allows us transition out of own half without exposing our lack of press resistance. If that is 5-2-3, 3-5-2, 1-9-0 or any other arbitrary bunch of numbers are irrelevant.
The roles the players are given within the formation is what matters, the intent, philosophy and the application. I know I'm exaggerating quite a bit here, but my point is that the formation numbers such as 4-3-3, a 4-1-2-1-2 or other are just constructions we've made to make it for us to understand this intent, philosophy and so on. A Klopp 4-3-3 and a Cruyff/Michels 4-3-3 can be drawn up to be identical. They are not.

Hence, it is quite possible that the solution to a particular problem is the same formation number as before, but change how it is executed.

You ahve to build on something consistent. Constantly changing isn't going to solve a problem which is most likely a lack of stability. We need to build off a defensive foundation and be patient.

No fundamental disagreement there.
What I'm looking for is problem solving, not sweeping "baby out with the bathwather"-changes.

But a very important part of defensive foundation and stability is to get a way _out_ of defence, and to transition into attack. This is where I'd expect to see that troubleshooting happen.

Like I said, if there are signs that we are moving towards something, I'd be ready and eager to support and defend any manager to the hilt. I don't demand much, but I do demand that we're given privy to what that "something" is. And right now I'm struggling to see that, and I'm struggling to see signs that the players are given privy to that also.

 

[SpurMeUp]

The formation that allows us transition out of own half without exposing our lack of press resistance. If that is 5-2-3, 3-5-2, 1-9-0 or any other arbitrary bunch of numbers are irrelevant.
The roles the players are given within the formation is what matters, the intent, philosophy and the application. I know I'm exaggerating quite a bit here, but my point is that the formation numbers such as 4-3-3, a 4-1-2-1-2 or other are just constructions we've made to make it for us to understand this intent, philosophy and so on. A Klopp 4-3-3 and a Cruyff/Michels 4-3-3 can be drawn up to be identical. They are not.

Hence, it is quite possible that the solution to a particular problem is the same formation number as before, but change how it is executed.

Almost like the formation is secondary to getting the team to gel, confident etc?

No fundamental disagreement there.
What I'm looking for is problem solving, not sweeping "baby out with the bathwather"-changes.

But a very important part of defensive foundation and stability is to get a way _out_ of defence, and to transition into attack. This is where I'd expect to see that troubleshooting happen.

Frank likes breaking fast. But we aren't very good at it yet. We might need an extra pass before then trying to hit people on the break.

Like I said, if there are signs that we are moving towards something, I'd be ready and eager to support and defend any manager to the hilt. I don't demand much, but I do demand that we're given privy to what that "something" is. And right now I'm struggling to see that, and I'm struggling to see signs that the players are given privy to that also.

I think you just have to look at how the manger works, becuase most of that "something" is behind the scenes and takes time. Whilst some managers can galvanise with inspired speaches (Ange) or basic effective instructions (Rednapp) they are one-off interventions, and the real value comes in how the club is structured and setup to analyse and improve (Franks way of working).

Small things, like Frank having players in for double sessions - there is a lot to work on. And the way the side deconstruct the play, give some hints as to what is going on. Then when we were not using the midfield and only going wide, I could personally see that he'd been working on our passing game through the middle - which has improved. The final third play is the issue though and with none of the forwards from last season playing and two settling from abroad, I think we do need some patience.

Plenty of videos on YoutUbe on how Frank works. You can appraise it for yourself.

 

[Junior19]

Almost like the formation is secondary to getting the team to gel, confident etc?

I'm not the one harping on about formations, mate.

Frank likes breaking fast. But we aren't very good at it yet. We might need an extra pass before then trying to hit people on the break.

Yes, and, you can try to change where you break from. As thfcsteff pointed out, if you attempt to move your line 10-15 meters forward, you can benefit from playing more to the strenght of your central defenders, give yourself more passing outlets out of the back four, and still break fast.

In a oversimplified analyze one can say that we've gone from one extreme of compression with Ange, where everything should be compressed into the opponents half, to another extreme, where we're allowing just about all the compression to happen on ours.

I think you just have to look at how the manger works, becuase most of that "something" is behind the scenes and takes time. Whilst some managers can galvanise with inspired speaches (Ange) or basic effective instructions (Rednapp) they are one-off interventions, and the real value comes in how the club is structured and setup to analyse and improve (Franks way of working).

Small things, like Frank having players in for double sessions - there is a lot to work on. And the way the side deconstruct the play, give some hints as to what is going on. Then when we were not using the midfield and only going wide, I could personally see that he'd been working on our passing game through the middle - which has improved. The final third play is the issue though and with none of the forwards from last season playing and two settling from abroad, I think we do need some patience.

Plenty of videos on YoutUbe on how Frank works. You can appraise it for yourself.

I most certainly hope there is a lot going on. And there's no conflict between working steadfast on improving the play, but allow certain short-term workarounds to be implemented in the meantime.

Let's summarise what we know:
We struggle to get out from our own defensive zone.
We struggle to establish a dominant passing play through the midfield, partly because we're not certain we want a dominant passing game.
Our main outlet so far has thus been our right side.
Our front men has been isolated, and we're struggling to create high-quality chances. Our xG is ridiculus.
We apparently "dislike" shots from distance. This may be something we're imagining, but it just seems like it.

Certain workarounds that could give us a little more time and space to work on our main issues:
Push our line higher, to get Romero more on the ball in better positions more often, with the midfield in better positions in front of him. If this means a more traditional back four, no fuzz-no-faff fullbacks, so be it for the time being.
Remove any restrictions on distance shooting, if there are any. Encourage shots from outside the box if the chance is there.

This is of course oversimplified, armchair stuff, and I'm certain that the staff have the knowledge and skills required to do their own assessments on this on a much better data set than we've got, and have confidence in being able to get it done, but it would be nice if they managed to get that confidence across to us.

 

[parj]

Here's the thing.

In ALL the 'we must have patience' discussions, the bit which is NOT ever considered is WHAT we're having patience FOR.

If a supporter wants a stronger, better version of non-possession, counter-attacking, wing-driven football (aka Brentord+) then power to them and their desires; he would most certainly deserve patience.

If a supporter wants us to play a more possesion-based game which involves passing and moving in the 'need a passing 8' model, then they should be aware that the SIGNS are Thomas Frank does not want to play that style.

If a supporter thinks the return of Deki will make a large difference to the season, I think it is worth looking at what evidence there is this will happen.

It is about so much more than simply 'doing the right thing' or 'whether we're winning or losing'. Nothing is ever that direct obviously, but I do think it is worth considering the above before arriving at conclusions about the manager's status.

Bang on mate. I didn't support Tottenham because we were winning things. We played a way I loved to watch. I can never be a fan of counter attack. It's also not our way - nobody seems to make it work.

 

[braineclipse]

Almost like the formation is secondary to getting the team to gel, confident etc?


Frank likes breaking fast. But we aren't very good at it yet. We might need an extra pass before then trying to hit people on the break.

I think you just have to look at how the manger works, becuase most of that "something" is behind the scenes and takes time. Whilst some managers can galvanise with inspired speaches (Ange) or basic effective instructions (Rednapp) they are one-off interventions, and the real value comes in how the club is structured and setup to analyse and improve (Franks way of working).

Small things, like Frank having players in for double sessions - there is a lot to work on. And the way the side deconstruct the play, give some hints as to what is going on. Then when we were not using the midfield and only going wide, I could personally see that he'd been working on our passing game through the middle - which has improved. The final third play is the issue though and with none of the forwards from last season playing and two settling from abroad, I think we do need some patience.

Plenty of videos on YoutUbe on how Frank works. You can appraise it for yourself.

I didn't watch this specific game, glad to hear there were signs of our passing game through midfield improving. I think there have been signs of that in some other games, though still limited.

To me ball progression from the back and through the middle third has been a much bigger problem for us than our play in the attacking third this season. There have been several games where we for significant phases haven't gotten out of a high press. A somewhat harsh analysis would be that this has been fairly consistent, and we've only gotten out (with regularity) when teams don't press super high and aggressively.

If we don't progress the ball well to the final third then final third play will suffer as a result of that. If we primarily progress the ball wide and through individual brilliance wide the opposition will be well set up to the defend when we do get it forward.

I think you're being a bit harsh on Ange and Redknapp as working with one off interventions rather than more structured.

If he's able to significantly improve our possession game, how we break fast and how we deal with a high press I'll be very happy with that. I can gladly accept that this will take time. But it has also been his choice by the looks of things to prioritise set pieces and defensive solidity first. Which I believe was the same thing he did at Brentford. How long should we be expected to wait before we can also be a good team in possession?

 

[Kane]

Then we finally got that trophy and within 5 mins it's decided we're better than that and actually nah the league form was more important.

Like it or not, I would think for most clubs it actually is. Thus, said club felt the need to make a change, and they did.
As did Forest recently. (Since we're in the Forest match thread and all).