***OMT Tottenham Hotspur v Brighton, White Hart Lane, Sat April 18th, 5.30pm***

[BrentwoodSpur]

Does anyone see any redemption for Biss under RDZ? Thought he played well on Saturday and now I’m wondering if RDZ can get a tune out of him. Or is it too late?

 

[superspurs]

Does anyone see any redemption for Biss under RDZ? Thought he played well on Saturday and now I’m wondering if RDZ can get a tune out of him. Or is it too late?

If we go with him and Bentancur from now on I feel like that gives us a better chance, but it does feel too late now.

I wonder if Biss was hung out to dry by Frank, early example setting - missing that Super Cup game for lateness and then you hear some reports now about lateness under Frank after the disastrous early November games and not much being done about that...

 

[Glenda's Legs]

Does anyone see any redemption for Biss under RDZ? Thought he played well on Saturday and now I’m wondering if RDZ can get a tune out of him. Or is it too late?

Well we know RDZ believes in redemption and second chances so I assume he’ll judge Biss based on what he sees himself rather than what’s happened in the past.

 

[P.D.]

Does anyone see any redemption for Biss under RDZ? Thought he played well on Saturday and now I’m wondering if RDZ can get a tune out of him. Or is it too late?

Hope so but Biss always seems wildly inconsistent, he was great at the weekend but then he can be terrible for the next few games.

 

[DeanoAustin]

Wolves is an actual must win, it's been said in previous games but if we don't win that then the game really is up.

If we do win that and get the monkey off our back, with the gradual improvements we are seeing under RDZ I would say we have a fighting chance of beating Villa. That match is right inbetween their Europa League semi final derby against Forest, I'm feeling oddly positive about that one (if we beat Wolves). Do the business there (of course it's easier said than done) and the outlook begins to look very different and we would be building some momentum. Let's see, the battle for the final relegation spot usually goes down to the wire so as bad as the situation looks there's likely some swings to happen yet....

Every game recently has been tagged as a “must win” when in reality none of them were. Saturday is no different really. Admittedly, we lose and West Ham and/or Forest pick up points and it looks extremely grim, especially if West Ham pick up something tonight.

But even at that, it’d leave us with 12 points to play for and if we were to go down on 43 points or even 40, we’d be very unlucky.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to understate the importance of Wolves. If we’re to hit 40 points +, this is one you’d say where we’ve a good chance of picking up 3 points (relatively speaking). However, regardless of what happens on Saturday, until it’s mathematically impossible, it’s still possible.

 

[harr1984]

Well we know RDZ believes in redemption and second chances so I assume he’ll judge Biss based on what he sees himself rather than what’s happened in the past.

Definitely, but are there many examples of managers who don't look at including a player based on discipline issues with a previous manager? I'd say most managers would give him a clean slate.

Bissouma no doubt will perform well between now and the end of the season but he is the exact type of player that has meant we are where we are - talented, but turns it on when he feels like it and doesn't maintain any consistency. He is one of our better players on the ball so we should use him for now, but his mentality is not what is required for where we want to go/be......

 

[harr1984]

Every game recently has been tagged as a “must win” when in reality none of them were. Saturday is no different really. Admittedly, we lose and West Ham and/or Forest pick up points and it looks extremely grim, especially if West Ham pick up something tonight.

But even at that, it’d leave us with 12 points to play for and if we were to go down on 43 points or even 40, we’d be very unlucky.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to understate the importance of Wolves. If we’re to hit 40 points +, this is one you’d say where we’ve a good chance of picking up 3 points (relatively speaking). However, regardless of what happens on Saturday, until it’s mathematically impossible, it’s still possible.

I agree regarding a lot of games being tagged must win lately that were not, and yes until it's mathematically impossible its not totally over.

But Wolves for me is must win. We only have five games left all season, we can't keep going on about the next game - we need to get the monkey off our back of not winning a game all year. And if we can't beat a Wolves team who are dead and buried at the bottom of the league and then goodness knows what the state of our players mentally will be. For me it is absolutely a must win to give the fans and players belief, and yes I know even if we don't win it's still mathematically possible but it's a must win if we realistically want to stay up IMO.....

 

[FatBloke]

I agree regarding a lot of games being tagged must win lately that were not, and yes until it's mathematically impossible its not totally over.

But Wolves for me is must win. We only have five games left all season, we can't keep going on about the next game - we need to get the monkey off our back of not winning a game all year. And if we can't beat a Wolves team who are dead and buried at the bottom of the league and then goodness knows what the state of our players mentally will be. For me it is absolutely a must win to give the fans and players belief, and yes I know even if we don't win it's still mathematically possible but it's a must win if we realistically want to stay up IMO.....

Seriously mate, are you even a Spurs fan if you have to make statements like that?

OF COURSE we could fail to beat (or even lose to) the dire Wolves. That's just in our DNA. Mate

 

[monkeybarry]

Does anyone see any redemption for Biss under RDZ? Thought he played well on Saturday and now I’m wondering if RDZ can get a tune out of him. Or is it too late?

His contract is up, so I don't think he's worth the risk and renewing

 

[SteveAWOL]

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[Yiddo.1882]

Realistically I think we have to beat Wolves, then the timing of potentially the next two matches could really be a huge advantage, Villa is sandwiched in between their semi, then if Leeds can beat Chelsea in the FA cup this weekend we play them five days before the final.

 

[Baleforce]

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I think they just saw the state the Brighton defence were in and thought, "fudge, they are in the perfect defensive shape, just like we were taught by Ange, no point continuing this attack, its impossible for a team to concede in that situation"

 

[thfcsteff]

Let's not forget we came in to this season off the back of a horrific injury crisis the season prior, which then continued in to this season - getting over that and working around it might not be straightforward.

Agreed.
Add to that the total and utter chaos of the boardroom and you really do have the mother of all clusters.
When this horrendous season is over (and wherever we are) I think a holistic view is vital. Despite not liking him, I still feel a lot of sympathy for Frank, who signed up for an ill-defined and poorly supported project which was undermined within two months of joining by the chairman shuffle. Not ideal!

 

[thfcsteff]

That is true, and of course, one of the major complaints about Ange in Celtic (and at us) was that he ran the players too hard, causing injuries untill they managed to cope (or left).

I'm not looking for a "new angle to snipe at Frank" or anyone else here, I'm just observing the visible results.

I think there has been a lot of fear and uncertainty around training/strength training. I think it's a further issue of the managerial change TBH. Perhaps we'd done the 'hard labour' part of a squad adapting to Angeball, and maybe the fruit was to come. Frank came in with his own ideas on everything including training; as is his right in all fairness, I am absolutely not blaming him for being him and for wanting to implement what he wanted to. Just pointing out that it possibly could not have happened at a worse time. Which all leads to the decision makers...

 

[thfcsteff]

Hope so but Biss always seems wildly inconsistent, he was great at the weekend but then he can be terrible for the next few games.

He locked in for the Europa run. I think he'll lock in for this one.

 

[Muttley]

I think there has been a lot of fear and uncertainty around training/strength training. I think it's a further issue of the managerial change TBH. Perhaps we'd done the 'hard labour' part of a squad adapting to Angeball, and maybe the fruit was to come. Frank came in with his own ideas on everything including training; as is his right in all fairness, I am absolutely not blaming him for being him and for wanting to implement what he wanted to. Just pointing out that it possibly could not have happened at a worse time. Which all leads to the decision makers...

I'm not a medical guy, but I could never see how we were going to achieve squad peak fitness and durability with the approach we have taken. Pushing players to the brink and then letting them break and rebuild isn't surely how a human body gets stronger and fitter. That is, especially with soft tissue injuries. It's also natural that when you can't train, you can't get stronger and fitter.

It would be interesting to see how the fittest and strongest squads approach this one. I don't reckon it's about breaking them and then going again at all. I do think it is about rotating on 16-18 players and when you lose 2 or 3 you have to trust your squad players at the least talented end of your squad to avoid squad fatigue. I also think that individual plans being adopted into the squad training regimes would be more prominent than at Spurs.

We also read so much nowadays about players constantly being in the red-zone and facing burnout. Domestic and international commitments over multi-years takes it's toll. It's a massive workload.

I do think we over-rotated though. We perhaps got too paranoid about the injury list that we didn't have the match day intensity required under Frank. My guess is Tudor brought us back in the right direction with more intense training and RDZ will continue that. We will look more competitive and that will be down to both player fitness and buy-in to the manager's methodologies.

 

[thfcsteff]

I'm not a medical guy, but I could never see how we were going to achieve squad peak fitness and durability with the approach we have taken. Pushing players to the brink and then letting them break and rebuild isn't surely how a human body gets stronger and fitter. That is, especially with soft tissue injuries. It's also natural that when you can't train, you can't get stronger and fitter.

It would be interesting to see how the fittest and strongest squads approach this one. I don't reckon it's about breaking them and then going again at all. I do think it is about rotating on 16-18 players and when you lose 2 or 3 you have to trust your squad players at the least talented end of your squad to avoid squad fatigue. I also think that individual plans being adopted into the squad training regimes would be more prominent than at Spurs.

We also read so much nowadays about players constantly being in the red-zone and facing burnout. Domestic and international commitments over multi-years takes it's toll. It's a massive workload.

I do think we over-rotated though. We perhaps got too paranoid about the injury list that we didn't have the match day intensity required under Frank. My guess is Tudor brought us back in the right direction with more intense training and RDZ will continue that. We will look more competitive and that will be down to both player fitness and buy-in to the manager's methodologies.

I think the key part of the whole mess is that over-playing of players in football generally. There is no doubt that the 2022 World Cup (along with covid) put silly demands on players. Add extra 'tours' to try and make back money lost, etc...and I suppose that would be the factor that meant even if 'usually' two seasons of Ange equalled peak conditioning, it simply wasn't ever going to be possible. He himself had talked about doing some things differently that second-half of season two, however maybe it was too late?

I think one of the issues with Frank's caution was the style. Different styles exact different tolls in the body (I believe anyway) and yes, the sudden turnaround cannot have helped conditioning.

Obviously if I knew the 'right' answer I'd demand to be called Doctor and be demanding employment in N17