Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur Pre-season Thread

For a moment I thought you said put to death in a paddling pool

 

It also reminds us of the bore fest that is Portuguese style football and why we got rid of the special one.

 

Maureen time wasting in a friendly!

 

Worse, the MouAnon fans are out in force again, once again showing their collective amnesia about our record between semi and final being W9 D1 L8...

 

Disappointing that. The result don’t bother me but the performance of the team did. Many were very lethargic for a final pre-season game. Considering all the fitness work we’ve done I’d have expected a lot more intensity and effort from some.

Perisic, Lenglet and Romero can be proud of their performances, the rest… not so much.

 

I think we will learn more from that game than Roma will.

 

Thoughts on pre-season in general, starting with positives:

Romero been great in every appearance, our “Player of Pre-Season”.
Kane excellent in all but today, would’ve won it otherwise.
Son very decent in all but today.
Perisic impressed in his first start and Lenglet played really well when he came on too, these two could form a very good understanding on that left side with Son, especially in games we’re expected to have more of the ball.
Dier’s been fairly decent.
Bentancur’s also been comfortable.
We’ve played some good football at times and with the new players getting further adjusted, we should look a good outfit over the course of the season.

Negatives:
Despite a good cross today, Sess has been poor, still far too timid for an attacking WB.
Hojbjerg been very poor, it looks like he’s the number one midfielder with Bissouma and Bentancur competing to play alongside him and whilst I like our midfielders, I think Bentancur should be number one.
The RWBs of last season just need to go.
Richarlison’s dived about 6 times across the 4 games, pissing me off already.
Sanchez at LCB has been absolutely horrific and if he starts there on Saturday Conte needs to give his head a wobble.
Skipp being injured for most of it has sucked.

Today showed we could do with more creativity, though it doesn’t necessarily have to come from the middle (albeit it’d be nice), having a right sided Perisic would make a huge difference. I hope Conte gives Spence a shot, because persisting with the other two will get us nowhere.

Most of the negatives can be easily eradicated with a change in selection so nothing to really worry about.

Looking forward to Southampton.

 

Need a centre back who loves commanding during corners…that comes with top dollar…we should be looking. Conceding from corners still remains an Achilles heel it seems

We also need a creative midfielder and it was evident

A weakness in both positions was on display today

needs sorting asap if we want to challenge all the way imo

 

Agree with most of this. Bentancur is definitely our best midfielder IMO. I think he’s still a bit underrated but he just does everything you want from a deeper midfielder.

 

What's happened to Skipp? Another injury or still the effects of the last one?

 

https://juststream.live/StatorIgluContender

 

Gashed his foot in training

 

Spurs came out sleepwalking and lost as the result. They controlled 2/3 of the match and would have won except for bad finishing and two pens not awarded, one an absolute head scratcher.

The match really made me thankful both for Conte and the departure of Mourinho.

Agree with almost all Dier Hard's opinions. Except

Hjobjerg did have a couple of really poor giveaways, which is a habit with him. While they catch the eye, I have yet to see them lead to a goal...though I wouldn't trust my memory. They also draw attention away from him being effective both at preventing goals and at creating them. The combination of him and Bentancur was brilliant the last half of last year. Spurs went from getting overrun with three midfielders to overrunning with two, and Hjobjerg deserves a fair share of the credit. My theory about Hjobjerg is that people don't like him because he's too reminiscent of every jerky teammate you've ever had. He always seems too bossy and too aggressive.

Both Bissouma and Skipp have the potential to be better players, maybe, but Hjobjerg has earned his spot for now. Also, I think Conte sees Bissouma and Bentancur competing for the 6 spot, and Skipp and Hjobjerg for the 8.

Son has been the best finisher in football the past five years. He's a superb dribbler, has an excellent key pass on him, and is a model teammate and human being.

However, when he's bad he's pretty wretched, and he was bad yesterday, I thought (as was Kane). "A black hole of possession" can describe him nicely. I would get him a sports psychologist because what goes wrong seems very fixable. He has a bad moment or three and loses his cool. It's always been that way with Son. He led Leverkusen in a charming stat they kept called WMOM (Worst Man of the Match). Kane (and most other players) are much better at staying calm and turning it around eventually.

 

Ali gold reported he got studded on the foot in training that needed stitches, should be back soon

 

I like Hojbjerg in general, I just think he’s had a really bad pre-season and of our four CMs, I think Bentancur is currently the standout but the impression I’m getting based on minutes given in pre-season is that Bentancur is fighting with Bissouma to start alongside Hojbjerg, when personally I’d have Hojbjerg battling with Bissouma to partner Bentancur. Once Skipp’s back then it adds to the competition.

In terms of 6 and 8 roles, I think Conte is looking for them all to be 6/8 hybrids, there seems to be times one ventures and one sits and vice versa, I like that too, variation and switching it up is good as it can confuse the opposition. The arguable downside is that we don’t have an out and out specialist but I like all four of our CMs, all very good all-rounders.

Son’s always been like that and it’s why I tell rival fans on the Prem board that Kane is a significantly better player than Son. That’s to no sleight against Son but Kane is so complete that if he doesn’t score in say 10 games he’d still likely be one of the best Spurs players on the pitch and contributing in other aspects. If Son isn’t scoring he’s often very anonymous. Still an absolutely fantastic player but I don’t think rival fans appreciate just how good Kane is, though as I said on our transfer thread a few days back, it’s an English fan thing in general to often discredit and play down the quality of our country’s best player(s).

 

I have to wonder if this year's pre-season is where we see the side effects of him playing approximately 3,00,006 minutes over the last couple of seasons

This is likely why Bissouma was signed, because we can't expect Hojbjerg to play every minute and over every blade of grass three seasons running

 

Skipp’s gonna miss two or three weeks, sounds like that freak injury in training before the Rangers game was worse than feared. Has a hairline fracture in his heel from it.

Bissouma also had a tweak in his hamstring from the Roma game and now doubtful for Southampton.

So Skipp injured, Bissouma doubtful and Richarlison suspended… nice start!

 

...and somehow it's bad that we'll be playing the team that clicked into devastating form late last season, according to the Twitter fanbase

Anyway, what're the odds we get a Tielemans story by 3pm?

 

Somehow Spursy is coming to mind! On paper we should still get a result but then we’re Tottenham Hotspur and I’ll be damned if I ever go into a game with 100% confidence.

I’d take Tielemans for a bargain fee, though I think he’ll go Arsenal, they can offer him a much better chance of regular starts.