Wouldn't it be an interesting experiment to just not have a manager at this moment!
@thfcsteff provided numbers from Squawk showing the numbers back it up 100%.
Those numbers are from Ange's entire range not last season. They actually show the drop off from his first season to his second.
Fernadez's numbers show no difference in through balls though. I don't whose numbers are more accurate, but watching it I don't see any difference. We weren't exactly spamming though balls under Ange, we played the same get it to the wide players have them cross it in football largely, to the lack of effectiveness.
We went from him feeling like he had no other legitimate options to us having to use the other options for 3 months anyway. A very much both probable and predictable outcome. Short term and rather poor management for me.
There's no confusion to be cleared up, there is a huge difference in this season and last season with a horrible drop off in through balls this season.
I get that, but realistically would you pick what you consider as a poor option just to do so. Sometimes that works out for the worse. We had that very situation this week when Vicario who many have called to be dropped was so for the weaker backup option and we saw what happened there. The source of the problem is not him not resting Kudus, the source is us not having the depth and breadth of squad where he felt able to rotate Kudus. Until we address these kind of poor squad build issues we will always be plagued with these problems.
Thfcsteff the person you first quoted and Fernandez both showed 11 as the number of attempted through balls these season, so there is some confusion with the numbers or different sources are counting differently...There's no confusion to be cleared up, there is a huge difference in this season and last season with a horrible drop off in through balls this season.
Most Through Balls Tottenham Hotspur 24-25 Season | StatMuse
Tottenham Hotspur completed their most through balls in the Premier League in 2024-25, with 18 through balls.www.statmuse.com
Spurs Through Balls 25/26 | StatMuse
Tottenham Hotspur have completed 5 through balls in the Premier League this season.
Would be interesting to do this. So many of our players seem think they are better than they are … let’s see what they did if they were in charge.
Xavi Simons for starters. The players that are there are capable of putting in a couple over a season but they aren't even trying.
I don't know how much of Simons you watched before he joined us ( I had and rated him as a player) but there are a few obvious reasons if you know his game well. He mainly plays ahead of the midfield, hes a player who receives the ball deeper in the opposition half, rather than someone who builds from deeper. It means he relies on good quality early passes into him to be most effective, this is an area we absolutely struggle with because we aren't able to play those type of passes. Then, add that he himself is linky, pass and move type. He ideally needs players on the same wavelength as himself to function at his best, we saw it a few times when himself, Odobert and Muani were on the pitch but we rarely saw this enough (a criticism of Frank that is accurate). Then you have to be fair and say Simons has actually attempted load of through balls. we've seen it with our own eyes hes just been incredibly inaccurate and wasteful with them, so its not even a lacking of trying on his part. He has played them, hes just annoyingly played those passes very poorly, is that Frank or Tudor's fault? No, that lies at the feet of the player who is mibricking them.
Ange also played it mostly with width, albeit with he entire pushed up and compressing the space, leaving no space for inside passes. We then either played it out wide for Johnson to aimlessly cross the ball to no one or ended up passing back to the keeper.
