OMT*******TOTTENHAM VS Ar5ena1***********

[thfcsteff]

Fair points from a different perspective. I too hope Lamela will come good and praise his workrate and pressing. I also want Townsend to succeed and recognize his latent talent. At present, Lamela deserves the nod over Townsend for the right hand side AM.

However, from the stats you quote, there is not much difference at the moment between Lamela and Townsend. Both are young and both have the potential to improve. What I find abhorrent is the Animal Farm like division on here that Lamela = good and Townsend = bad. Both deserve an equal chance and not a knee jerk reaction from some pre-disposed irrational prejudice.

Nothing to do with that mate. No-one has any agenda against Townsend. In fact, I said early-doors I did NOT think he was good enough, I held my hands up when he proved he had some great stuff under AVB and now, I am simply observing what I see. Interestingly, I speculated for a while that ever since he went over the hoardings at the Park Lane and did his shoulder, he has not been the same player. I think that injury had a major affect on him. But the truth of it is, under Poch, Townsend will be required to work very very hard. Here's hoping the lad continues to do his bit in helping us. His work in cup competitions has been helpful for sure.

 

[Pirate55]

Nothing to do with that mate. No-one has any agenda against Townsend. In fact, I said early-doors I did NOT think he was good enough, I held my hands up when he proved he had some great stuff under AVB and now, I am simply observing what I see. Interestingly, I speculated for a while that ever since he went over the hoardings at the Park Lane and did his shoulder, he has not been the same player. I think that injury had a major affect on him. But the truth of it is, under Poch, Townsend will be required to work very very hard. Here's hoping the lad continues to do his bit in helping us. His work in cup competitions has been helpful for sure.

That Animal Farm comment wasn't necessarily aimed at you, but I disagree that "no-one has an agenda against Townsend". Unfortunately, I think some do and make all comments about him through this warped perspective. I have found you one of the fairer posters on here mate - not that I always agree with you! - but think your comments are usually worth listening to ( comments about Lamela's role in our winning goal notwithstanding )

BTW I think it was you and I who first advocated Dembele in the more advanced role, where he is now excelling.

 

[Pirate55]

Was more talking about in the context of Lamela and Townsend. He's started Lamela 17 times and Townsend 4 times in the league so far.

To me that's fair.

I think that's fair too. I would love Lamela to come good for us. His workrate and pressing are excellent, I just worry about his speed of thought. At present, he just seems to ponder on the ball for just a split second too long and is either caught in possession or the better option disappears. I hope this aspect will improve in short order and he will start to contribute meaningfully to our offensive threat.

 

[milo]

I think that's fair too. I would love Lamela to come good for us. His workrate and pressing are excellent, I just worry about his speed of thought. At present, he just seems to ponder on the ball for just a split second too long and is either caught in possession or the better option disappears. I hope this aspect will improve in short order and he will start to contribute meaningfully to our offensive threat.

I haven't checked the stats but I do not remember him being dispossessed that many times on Saturday and his pass completion stats were amongst the best in the team.

 

[Pirate55]

I haven't checked the stats but I do not remember him being dispossessed that many times on Saturday and his pass completion stats were amongst the best in the team.

Maybe - but I suspect that if you look at the pass direction, you will find most were backwards or sideways. Were there any key passes (apart from the corner) in there? The only good thing I can recall offhand is the little slip pass he made to Dembele near the halfway line.

 

[milo]

Maybe - but I suspect that if you look at the pass direction, you will find most were backwards or sideways. Were there any key passes (apart from the corner) in there? The only good thing I can recall offhand is the little slip pass he made to Dembele near the halfway line.

I don't think that he is a safety first passer. I will have a look and post up the stats in a minute

 

[scaramanga]

Exactly. Some people tend to get nervous and/or irrational when watching Spurs, me included. You can't expect everyone to watch the game with zero nerves acting ice cool like huggy bear. I would advise anyone to not take anything in the match threads seriously.

But then where would all the point scoring come from?

 

[scaramanga]

"Dembele has to be subbed. We've got a slick passing game and he keeps slowing it down"

"Chadli for Dembele is the sub I'd make. The guy is slowing the game down so much ruining our tempo and allowing them to get organised"​

Dembele was a crucial part of our win - he didn't let Arsenal's defensive midfielder settle on the ball and dictate play at all, as a result every Arsenal pass was rushed and we won back possession quickly throughout the match. Additionally Dembele always wanted the ball, even when tightly marked and when it was passed to him he retained possession just about every time - this allowed us to play the game entirely in their half and much of the game in their third. This resulted in Arsenal being incredibly deep, the midfield congested so that they couldn't pass through it and it allowed our fullbacks to get forward.

Ive watched the match 3 times now and I still think Dembele slowed things down too much.

At the time I made those comments Arsenal were defending with 10 (often 11) men and hitting us on the break with 5 or 6 at a time. Our only chances of getting a goal were to counter their counter quickly or to get something from a set piece. It's good that we scored from the latter because Dembele was often restricting the former.

That's not to say he didn't do a lot of good stuff too, but I don't think he did much that Chadli can't do and he would come with the added advantage of keeping our moves slicker and faster.

Just because we played really well doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.

 

[milo]

Maybe - but I suspect that if you look at the pass direction, you will find most were backwards or sideways. Were there any key passes (apart from the corner) in there? The only good thing I can recall offhand is the little slip pass he made to Dembele near the halfway line.

I don't think that he is a safety first passer. I will have a look and post up the stats in a minute

Here you go.

 

[milo]

Here's Eriksen for a comparison

 

[milo]

I haven't been able to find games by game stats for this. I have found this though, it is three month out of date and Lamela comes out as the second most disposed player in the league at that time but what I think is interesting is the other players in the top ten, many of which we would take in a heartbeat.

 

[Finney Is Back]

Ive watched the match 3 times now and I still think Dembele slowed things down too much.

At the time I made those comments Arsenal were defending with 10 (often 11) men and hitting us on the break with 5 or 6 at a time. Our only chances of getting a goal were to counter their counter quickly or to get something from a set piece. It's good that we scored from the latter because Dembele was often restricting the former.

That's not to say he didn't do a lot of good stuff too, but I don't think he did much that Chadli can't do and he would come with the added advantage of keeping our moves slicker and faster.

Just because we played really well doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.

True. There is always room from improvement (and I'm not too sure how far into the game you wrote that comment) but I am never a fan of changing things when the team is on top and we were on top pretty much throughout that game. Arsenal's goal was well against the run of play and our equaliser was a long time coming. I don't think Chadli would've pressed as hard as Dembele. I'm also not sure he would've retained the ball as well as Dembele did receiving it centrally often with an Arsenal player tight to him. I think having Chadli on may have improved our ability to counter Arsenal's counters as you put it, but I think it would've done so at the expense of allowing them to gain control of the game (or certainly a lot more control than did have) and an Arsenal team in control of possession are a very dangerous team I think.

Personally I think that if Chadli is to come into the team in a game like that then Lamela is probably the one to make way (although, again, I think we would lose a lot of our pressing and workrate with Chadli in for Lamela).

 

[thfcsteff]

That Animal Farm comment wasn't necessarily aimed at you, but I disagree that "no-one has an agenda against Townsend". Unfortunately, I think some do and make all comments about him through this warped perspective. I have found you one of the fairer posters on here mate - not that I always agree with you! - but think your comments are usually worth listening to ( comments about Lamela's role in our winning goal notwithstanding )

BTW I think it was you and I who first advocated Dembele in the more advanced role, where he is now excelling.

Appreciate that, thanks mate...yes, I did say that if we were to ever get anything out of Dembele in this era he should not play deep. But I think a few others did too. I cannot claim sole ownership of that

 

[thfcsteff]

Ive watched the match 3 times now and I still think Dembele slowed things down too much.

At the time I made those comments Arsenal were defending with 10 (often 11) men and hitting us on the break with 5 or 6 at a time. Our only chances of getting a goal were to counter their counter quickly or to get something from a set piece. It's good that we scored from the latter because Dembele was often restricting the former.

That's not to say he didn't do a lot of good stuff too, but I don't think he did much that Chadli can't do and he would come with the added advantage of keeping our moves slicker and faster.

Just because we played really well doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.

Indeed, I watched the whole game again last night and three times Dembele simply held on/made the wrong decision/moved too slowly. Having said that, he did some great stuff too and showed a strength and resolve which was vert very helpful that high up the pitch. His most frustrating tendency is his reluctance to shoot; he has a cannon, he's pretty accurate, yet he passes it up too many times. He forced a couple of saves yesterday! And I agree, there is room for improvement and there will be; this is a developing squad, but it is their hunger which is simply exhilarating right now.

 

[chicken_badge]

Nice day at work today I work at a school and my voice was still a bit hoarse - had a job taking assembly! Was on TV for a second or so at the game but loads of kids mentioned it to me, turns out a photo did the rounds on twitter. Just grateful it wasnt after Arsenals goal, they celebrated in front of us and it is a very good thing my tirade at Ozil wasn't caught on camera.

Also anonymously sent message this to a Liverpool supporting colleague:

 

[Pirate55]

Here you go.

Thanks Milo. I think this rather proves my point. Most of the passes were backwards or sideways. Four forward ones failed and one deep in our own half failed going backwards!!His supposed three "key passes" were all short and backwards! Even more pertinently, there wasnt a single pass even attempted into the opponents penalty area. (Dont know what happened to the corner he took that led to the first goal in these stats!!!)

Compare this to the Eriksen stats for example. He had numerous passes into the penalty area (albeit some of these would have been dead balls) and although all of these failed as Eriksen didnt have a particularly good game, the point is that at least he tried to play key passes into areas that hurt the opposition. This is largely lacking from Lamela's play at the moment and is the area he needs to substantially improve on imo.

 

[milo]

Thanks Milo. I think this rather proves my point. Most of the passes were backwards or sideways. Four forward ones failed and one deep in our own half failed going backwards!!His supposed three "key passes" were all short and backwards! Even more pertinently, there wasnt a single pass even attempted into the opponents penalty area. (Dont know what happened to the corner he took that led to the first goal in these stats!!!)

Compare this to the Eriksen stats for example. He had numerous passes into the penalty area (albeit some of these would have been dead balls) and although all of these failed as Eriksen didnt have a particularly good game, the point is that at least he tried to play key passes into areas that hurt the opposition. This is largely lacking from Lamela's play at the moment and is the area he needs to substantially improve on imo.

I think that reading of the data is a little selective. Our game plan is not based solely on getting the ball into the box quickly, we frequently shoot from distance and play short passes to runners around the box. So, just because a pass is backwards, it does not mean that it is a negative pass. We also need to consider the balls that he is receiving and the position of the players around him.

I'm not massively into playing one player off against another and have no axe to grind with Townsend but given this was the comparison that was being made earlier in this thread and they are our only two real options on the right, this is quite interesting.

http://www.squawka.com/comparison-m...leading_to_goal/tackles_won/interceptions#avg

 

[billyiddo]

Interesting link that last one Milo, i added in a few other stats to the ones you highlighted and Lamela comes out on top in everything (that i looked at anyway) - also switched to per 90 minutes rather than game average and same story there.

Though probably a little unfair on Andros as he hasn't featured as much as Lamela over the season.

 

[milo]

Interesting link that last one Milo, i added in a few other stats to the ones you highlighted and Lamela comes out on top in everything (that i looked at anyway) - also switched to per 90 minutes rather than game average and same story there.

Though probably a little unfair on Andros as he hasn't featured as much as Lamela over the season.

Yeah. I originally had the stats in as totals but changed it to averages to make the comparison fairer.

Andros comes out on top for the shots stats but I am not sure how many of us want to see him shooting as much as he does.

 

[milo]

I've added Eriksen and Chadli for a comparison of our main options for the three behind Kane

http://www.squawka.com/comparison-m...n/interceptions/total_shots/shot_accuracy#avg