My thoughts (i.e. largely a defence of AVB):
- We don't seem to be a team like Arsenal or other challengers for top 4 that has even semi-clinical finishing prowess; Yes we've had this issue for a while, but I'm struggling to see signs that AVB will ever mould a tram that creates and scores a relatively high number of goals. In fact, even in those cases when we can and should be racking up the goals, we don't seem to actually want to against poor opposition. 2 goals up and we seem to actively ease off. Thus our GD is always worse off than our direct rivals. GHod knows what would have been the case without Bale.
I seem to remember Chelski under AVB being mostly less potent than the previous seasons. And hanging onto slim leads was often punished by the concession of late goals, in PL and esp in the CL.
I think the thing we are really lacking in the final third is a bit of cohesion between the front 4. We have all the attributes – movement and finishing (Soldado), craft (Eriksen, Holtby), pace and penetration (Lamela, Lennon, Chadli, Townsend), and long range shooting (Siggy). They’ve just not played enough together yet and we’ve perhaps not found the best balance either (Lamela being gradually integrated will help I think)
AVB has said before that 2-0 is the perfect result and any more is expending excessive energy. Remember this approach enabled his Porto team to go through a season losing just one game in all competitions. I’d rather we won more games overall, than clocked up the occasional rugby score.
- Perhaps a part of this is AVB insistence on playing with only one striker; He actively didn't seem to want to buy a striker last January; remember the reaction to Defoe's injury: buy Holtby now not in the summer! If we were only to always play one striker it seems that Benteke or somebody with some of those physical attributes would have been more ideal than Soldado (who cost 26m so was not a stop-gap...). AVB wanted to use Torres or Sturridge instead of also integrate Lukaku. You need more than one way to score; in fact how limp are we now from set-pieces since Bale has left?
Our whole team is very physical. Soldado, Eriksen and Holtby are about our only players under 6’ (Paulinho and Walker too, but they are bulky), so if anything our balance is too far the other way. Benteke would have made us incredibly one-dimensional and even less effective against teams sitting deep.
AVB clearly prefers a pure movement and finishing CF (Falcao, Torres, Soldado) to a target man #9. Ideally we’d have the option of Ade to complement Soldado, which hopefully we soon will, or in January we’ll buy a young Ade-type replacement.
- Our conceding of goals from set-pieces is also poor; How have we become so bad in this regard?? Harry's team were very good in this regard so the fact we've gone backwards on this issue has to be done to AVB's coaching methods...again I remember Chelski getting weaker in this area...
This has been a weakness of ours for decades. I think AVB wants to move us properly to zonal marking (shown by the Espanyol experiment) and we’re possibly just caught between the two stalls at the moment.
- We seem to be hell-bent on using our high-line at all costs, even though we have two of the slowest CBs in the league, who whilst good are always going to be susceptible to traditional British balls over the top with pacy runners attacking. Again Chelski seemed to have the same problems, highlighted very often, most famously in their 5-3 loss against Arsenal.
The high line is what enables us to be so effective at dominating midfield – it’s a calculated risk. Lloris doesn’t keep coming to our rescue, the system is purposely designed so he’s more active in defending.
- Our build-up play is often far too slow, just like what Chelski fans claimed...
When you are playing against a parked bus, it doesn’t matter as much. The point is to keep probing, to eventually pull someone out of position to make room for the killer ball. I like this style – there’s an inevitability about our play, like we are toying with our opponents. Jumpers wrote an interest post the other week comparing us (not that he was keen on it) to Liverpool of the 70s (
http://www.glory-glory.co.uk/showthread.php/5163-The-Spurs-Way).
It would be interesting to see whether AVB's Porto side ever scored hatfuls or were just winners by 1-0s and 2-0s over the season.
I just fear that AVB's performance in a league like the Prem will always be infuriating until he is able to be less cautious and do get the basics (for this league anyway) right.
As above. As soon as his teams are two up, AVB starts preparing for the next match. At Porto he always used to take off a forward and bring on a midfielder (from 4-3-3 to 4-4-2) and kill off the game through total possession. It’s completely calculated and is about being efficient, at the expensive of being flashy.
