OOMT - Tottenham Hotspur V Boro

[Finney Is Back]

I don't agree with the comments that we are playing brick. Our chance creation has been very good but our chance conversion has been poor. Surely anyone can see we should have had won by a far greater margin against Sunderland and Boro. I hope as the season progresses our chance conversion rate will improve. We also struggle still with high balls into the box . None of our current defenders are dominant in the air. Maybe this is something we need to address in the next transfer window.

It is extremely hard to get ball playing defenders that are dominant in the air.... Pochettino's system kind of relies on having centre halves who can also play as full backs (watch how the holding midfielder drops in as a third centre half and our centre halves fan out wide to cover our fullbacks being high up the pitch when the opposition turn over the ball). I think with Jan and (especially) Toby we have done about as well as we are ever going to in terms of the heading ability of good footballing centre halves who can also play full back.

 

[StephenH]

Except there was no "mush". We were comfortable, in control, not conceding chances and creating them ourselves. If we play like that in the closing 20 minutes of every game that we are leading by a goal we will win pretty much all of them (and a fair few by a bigger margin than 1 goal). I was at the game and not nervous at all. Boro barely even had a corner or set piece with which to test us in that time.

It's fair enough to have raised expectations. However I don't believe it is fair to expect perfection. We were as good as I think any of us could realistically hope for at the weekend. Yes we should've scored more, but I would be far more concerned if we weren't creating chances. I actually like the Expected Goals For/Against statistics. I would imagine we are currently rated pretty high on XGF and pretty low on XGA.... Carry that on throughout the season and we will do very well.

There was little a "mush" when they introduced some fresh legs, I also spotted a little 'jelly' in some legs around that time.

OT I think I'm going to become a Wink'ett! I do rate Mr Winks.....

Where do these dang fangled XGF/XGA stats from?

And it is "perfection" with a small 'p'............

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Ill have to watch it again re Sissoko tracking back, I can remember. Yes I'm on his case (the poor thing) because I want to see a big upturn from the 'normal' Saudi Sportswashing Machine version, I want to version we played against and the one that played for France. I agree re Chaldi and he has paid the price by being sent the football equivalent of hades.

I watched the game again last night and Sissoko did ok. Obviously that is in comparison to a whole load of team mates who did a whole load better.

I did notice in a few of the close-up shots that our new man may be a few training sessions away from coping with the expectations of the Poch regime. ars* and blowing come to mind.

Think Jansen looked dead on his feet after 60ish minutes, so the across the pitch hounding and channel running became depleted. Not his fault...just getting up to speed but had an effect on our team play.

Eriksen, excellent.

Son, shiny.

Wanyama, very much likey. Perhaps more of an all rounder than i thought he was.

Dele...did give it away a bit but didn't particuarly think he was showboating/too casual

Winks and George.....Gonna be very useful....think we will be able to trust these two.

Watching when knowing the result they REALLY didn't cause us much grief, no real heart in mouth stuff. No silly stuff from us and looked like we tried to manage it on our terms the best we could. We've had much worse than this.

Still not playing anywhere near our best.......and we're second....make of that what you will.

 

[StephenH]

I watched the game again last night and Sissoko did ok. Obviously that is in comparison to a whole load of team mates who did a whole load better.

I did notice in a few of the close-up shots that our new man may be a few training sessions away from coping with the expectations of the Poch regime. ars* and blowing come to mind.

Think Jansen looked dead on his feet after 60ish minutes, so the across the pitch hounding and channel running became depleted. Not his fault...just getting up to speed but had an effect on our team play.

Eriksen, excellent.

Son, shiny.

Wanyama, very much likey. Perhaps more of an all rounder than i thought he was.

Dele...did give it away a bit but didn't particuarly think he was showboating/too casual

Winks and George.....Gonna be very useful....think we will be able to trust these two.

Watching when knowing the result they REALLY didn't cause us much grief, no real heart in mouth stuff. No silly stuff from us and looked like we tried to manage it on our terms the best we could. We've had much worse than this.

Still not playing anywhere near our best.......and we're second....make of that what you will.

Sissoko has a some work ahead of him to win me over...not a fan of him in slightest he would have been way down on my list of players to bring in. So with that in mind .

Vincent on the other hand is grafting and thats a big tick in the Janssen improving box IMHO. Dele Alli will always try a trick or too AND he has earned the right. No other observations about any other individual. Oh how many yellows has Wanyama already got?

 

[StephenH]

See its not just us!

http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football/10594282/middlesbrough-v-tottenham-incident

 

[paxtonwolf]

Hi mate - I was there too.... agree that it was a brilliant atmosphere. Also agree with our first half performance - was as good as I have seen for a long while.

Unlike you though I don't think we went to mush. Boro had a little spell (as any team will in any game). During that spell they still created pretty much nothing, while we still looked dangerous on the break. We then weathered that little spell and controlled the game again for the last 10 minutes or so. The little spell that Boro had came about because they scored with just about their first chance of the game (and even that was from a set piece).

While we were (sensibly) wasting time at the end, I would argue that any team with a 1 goal lead will do this when in the last 5 minutes of a game. It looked to me like we could've played for another 30 minutes and the only team that scored would've been us.

Oh sorry, dont get me wrong I dont have a problem with us doing that. In fact at the end I was shouting for Son and Lamela to do exactly that. It was just a shame it actually got to that situation when we were so clearly in control for the first hour.

Our first visit to the Cellent and I have to say I was quite impressed with the place. Good views all round, plenty of height between the rows, so no issues for the vertically-challenged wife this week.
Just a bit of a nightmare walking back via the 2 underpasses and even worse getting away form the Town centre in the car

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Sissoko has a some work ahead of him to win me over...not a fan of him in slightest he would have been way down on my list of players to bring in. So with that in mind .

Vincent on the other hand is grafting and thats a big tick in the Janssen improving box IMHO. Dele Alli will always try a trick or too AND he has earned the right. No other observations about any other individual. Oh how many yellows has Wanyama already got?

I don't disagree with that. But we pushed the boat out to recruit him (which must imply Levy,Poch see something) and as i said earlier, at this momemt i'm going to give him time to get fit and up to speed. He has shown very impressive moments for France/Toon but they are only moments, and if he needs to do jack all else, so to have the energy to turn it on, that is not gonna work with Poch. So they must think they can build some consistency into him.

And lets not let anything the barcodes spout as admissible.......emotional basket cases with a club to match

 

[StephenH]

I don't disagree with that. But we pushed the boat out to recruit him (which must imply Levy,Poch see something) and as i said earlier, at this moment i'm going to give him time to get fit and up to speed. He has shown very impressive moments for France/Toon but they are only moments, and if he needs to do jack all else, so to have the energy to turn it on, that is not gonna work with Poch. So they must think they can build some consistency into him.

And let's not let anything the barcodes spout as admissible.......emotional basket cases with a club to match

Lets be honest even we cant deny that for 96.7% of the time Sissoko was very poor at Saudi Sportswashing Machine.

 

[tynesidespur]

I was at the game.
The first half performance was outstanding - we should've come in 3 or 4 goals up. Some of my mates weren't too happy with Sissoko but it seemed to me that certainly in the 1st half he slotted in very well. You don't hit that level of team performance unless all 11 players are playing well and following the manager's instructions. In the 2nd half I thought his level dropped a bit but the longer he gets on the pitch the better his understanding will become with the other players.

A lot of us were nervous in the 2nd half and I think that comes from years of conditioning and almost an expectation that we'll concede a cheap equaliser. Up until Poch, its been happening in the 25-30 years I've been following Spurs. Just after we left the ground we all agreed that although we were quite stressed, looking back with clear heads we were never in any real danger of conceding. Bar one slack piece of defending which allowed Rhodes an unmarked header from nearly 18 yards we gave them zero chances - only 1 save for Hugo to make.
The longer we keep producing performances like this, the more confident our fan-base will become. Its like Man Utd who still believe they're going to score in "Fergie-time". They became accustomed to it and so they roar the team on which helps them. Of course its borderline delusional now but it will still help the XI on the pitch. We still need to get to that level of belief but you sense it is coming.

 

[Spurs7891]

It was nice to win our 3rd league match in a row and move up to 2nd in the league. But we are still struggling to kill teams off despite having many chances. After taking the 2-0 lead, the third magical goal could have killed off Boro. But we got complacent in the 2nd half and almost let them back into the game.

Credit to Son for getting both our goals. He has now scored 4 goals in 3 league matches. He needs to continue this goal run at least until Kane comes back. Credit to Janssen for assisting both the goals but wish he had scored 1 instead. Disappointed Lamela didn't start for the 3rd consecutive league match. Lamela should have at least come on much earlier in the 2nd half to help us kill of Boro and and protect our goal.

Our midfield could have done much better in this match. Despite the win, thought our midfield lost the ball too many times. Frankly, Sissosoko reminds of of Zokora. He works hard but lacks the end product and makes too many mistakes. And it was Sissoko who was at fault for Boro's only goal. He should have been more alert and cleared the ball before headed in by the Boro player. Thought players like Eriksen and Alli were too casual in this match. Alli was at fault for wasting the golden chance to score our third goal. He in simply wasting too many easy chances to score in front of goal lately. Wanyama was at fault for giving away the freekick from which they scored.

It was disappointing the way our defence conceded the goal after keeping the clean sheet in our previous 2 league matches. This match shows we cannot afford to lack concentration even against poor teams. It was tense after they scored the goal. But at least we managed to stop Boro getting the 2nd goal.

It is great to move up to 2nd place in the league after 6 matches. But don't think we have been really tested this season. In fact, we have only beaten the poor teams(Palace,Stoke, Sunderland and Boro) while struggled against the decent teams like Everton and Liverpool. We need to improve ourselves when we play ManCity next in the league.