90291Spur
Paul Walsh
One more thing: while there are many happy-clappers here there are also MANY miserable, pessimistic, glass-half-empty-and-cracked and full of sour milk sods on here too.
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Pre Season 2017
- Thread starter Glenda's Legs
- Start date
ricky2tricky4city
Tom Huddlestone
Well we had problems against Liverpool and Emirates Marketing Project last season and finished 2nd.
I just think we still have a problem with teams that press us.....and those two certainly do. A tactical 're-think may be necessary for the odd game.
(iirc I think Bournemouth did us with a press for a large part of the game at their place)?.
Agreed. If I was an opposing manager, I'd play 4-5-1 against us and press as much as poss. It's the tactics we play least well against
alekaras
The ITK of IDK
Seri. But would cost €40 million. Was watching Monaco v PSG yesterday. Tielemans looked great.
milo
Jack L. Jones
Who would he replace in the first 11?
milo
Jack L. Jones
I remember when we were shot and we would get carried away with winning in pre-season or a youth team player's form and it would never carry over once the league started.
It is obvious that Poch doesn't put much weight on these games and sees the main benefit of pre-season as conditioning for the season ahead. It also must be clear to us now that he designs our training regime for the players to hit their peak after Christmas.
I expect us to start slowly again and no doubt we'll have the autumn wobbles from some fans like we've seen the last few years. As long as we are in with the pack, I would be confident in us hitting form at the right time and finishing well again.
milo
Jack L. Jones
I don't think pre-season games matter, so I don't really care who is selected.
Eriksen and Alli out performed Mahrez and Son last season, what you are suggesting would make us weaker but I would be happy with that as a second/rotation choice if the players were happy with that and Mahrez worked for the team.
Danishfurniturelover
the prettiest spice girl
We would have to wait for the result of Nice versus Ajax first.
Bedfordspurs
Arthur Rowe
Was listening to paul Robinson talk on radio the other day about training at West Brom under pulls. They had to run up mountains in Austria and reach a certain time or do it again
Then they would play local sides and lose... cos try were knackered
He said he was at his fittest under Pulis because of that and it helped his game no end
Some teams are having to focus on shape and systems this summer but we don't. We just need to get out fitness to the desired level and take it from there
AjaxDeSuperYids
Drama queen
We need to be careful where big money transfers are concerned as the last two have been catostrophic - signing an utter brick player for 30m and selling a world class player to a direct rival.
Those calling for 4-5 players, that's not going to happen. It is obvious that we are trusting in our superb academy as their are wonderful prospects their that have potential of doing a 'kane'.
CCV, KWP, Winks and Onomah are filling out the squad this season whether some people like it or not. We should have faith in them. We shouldn't need to call on them for the likes of City and co.
What we do need badly, as I warned towards the end of last season, is more luck on the injury front. We better hope to hell the injured get fit soon and stay fit.
One signing I would endorse would be mahrez, especially if it means we can dump the worst signing in the history of this club on leicester in the process. Also seasegnon but that will have to wait a year it seems.
With regards the pastings we took away to city and Liverpool last season, my view is we need to be prepared to park the bus more. Going toe to toe with a direct rival away rarely serves us well and we get routinely carved open. So play deep and hit them on the counter attack.
Those calling for 4-5 players, that's not going to happen. It is obvious that we are trusting in our superb academy as their are wonderful prospects their that have potential of doing a 'kane'.
CCV, KWP, Winks and Onomah are filling out the squad this season whether some people like it or not. We should have faith in them. We shouldn't need to call on them for the likes of City and co.
What we do need badly, as I warned towards the end of last season, is more luck on the injury front. We better hope to hell the injured get fit soon and stay fit.
One signing I would endorse would be mahrez, especially if it means we can dump the worst signing in the history of this club on leicester in the process. Also seasegnon but that will have to wait a year it seems.
With regards the pastings we took away to city and Liverpool last season, my view is we need to be prepared to park the bus more. Going toe to toe with a direct rival away rarely serves us well and we get routinely carved open. So play deep and hit them on the counter attack.
Cochise
Steve Carr
Eriksen and Alli did out perform those two last season, although last night in a 433/4312 they did not look to be the most effective solution to breaking City down. Having two wide forwards in the side could work against City in the future, as I think they will be easier beat if we (or anyone else) decides to sit deep and negate their pace in behind, whilst looking to hit on the counter by getting in to the spaces their full backs leave.
Sure, but as you said - Poch inexplicably played Son at wing-back, which effectively gave them a goal. If he'd played Davies, our first-teamers would almost certainly been beating their backups when Costa and Hazard came on.
In any case, that one game is obviously a very small sample size - I think we can probably agree that Hazard / Pedro / Willian werent significantly (at all?) better than Alli / Eriksen / Son last season; likewise with Costa / Batshuayi and Kane / Janssen.
Anyway, that's just me nitpicking on a bugbear of mine (people using that Chelsea game to argue Chelsea's squad was stronger), which is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. More generally I agree we need 2-3 depth / competition signings if we don't want to fall backwards against our rivals (unless we're very lucky with injuries).
It's really not that simple. You don't flick a switch and suddenly you can press. It's something that is worked on for hours, days, weeks, months on the training pitch. If you try it and are sh*t, you will get picked apart. Poch, Klopp and Pep spend a ridiculous amount of time drilling their sides.
I feel we just need to be a bit more pragmatic against these sides. Park the bus when we have to. Even for periods of a game.
Rorschach
Sonny Walters
They bring balance to the force.
The conceding I'm actually not worried about, that is a combination of players (like CCV) that either will not play, or not play alongside another junior player in real matches, and yes we will have a better combination of Dier/Dembele/Wanyama. People also have to remember that Son/Rose and to some extent Lamela will hopefully be back early enough in season.
To the @DubaiSpur's point, our first 11 is good enough, but part of our tactic is our fitness and ability to grind teams down, City actually did press us for large extents during the entire 90 mins and were able to maintain it due to number of subs. That won't happen as easily in regular game, but a quality fresh 3 players does negate our fitness/machine style play.
I look at the preseason games with the following
- PSG pressed us early, we grew into game and eventually strolled it
- Roma game was subject to some creative officiating that basically determined the result of game (two penalty decisions, foul on final play)
- City outplayed us, pressed us high, played a mix of pressing, fall back, counter with pace that we struggled with (fact that both haves they had fresh legs did allow it)
I think we will be reasonably consistent again, hard to score against, not really a team anyone wants to play, with goal options from multiple places.
City/Cheat$ki and United have spent so heavily the top 3 seems biased towards them, but as always, at least one will struggle. I think we have a good chance at top 4, and our fans should realize a 3rd season in a row in the top 4 does represent good consistency and progress for us. I do hope Poch puts some priority on a cup this year (any)
milo
Jack L. Jones
Pre-season games don't matter.
Spur of the moment
Frederic Kanoute
The pressure from all quarters for Poch to win silverware this season will surely be at its most intense but at the same time he will still need to use the domestic cups as his main platform for blooding his youngsters.
Meaning unfortunately our chances of winning something via that route must remain every bit as susceptible to chance as ever.
Gutter Boy
Tim Sherwood
Wow - are people really taking the results from pre-season seriously? Or even bothering watching these ambles through for the sponsors? They are fitness exercises and nothing more.
Besides, over the past 20 years of so we've had a very strong correlation:
- Impressive in pre-season = poor season
- Poor pre-season = great season
Besides, over the past 20 years of so we've had a very strong correlation:
- Impressive in pre-season = poor season
- Poor pre-season = great season
Mr_B
Niko Kranjcar
I was in nashville over the weekend and was blown away by the US support for this team, we took over all of the pubs on Broadway (the main strip leading to the stadium), Emirates Marketing Project were outnumbered at least 2 to1, there were tottenham supporters groups from all over Murica, the queues for merchandise were 10 deep, its clear why the club comes here every other year.
Shame we put on such an abysmal performance.
Shame we put on such an abysmal performance.