Perhaps Ndombele playing europa conference games may also help his confidence and help us get more out of him. It’s also a difference pace to the PL. whilst he’s been massively underwhelming for the money, we’re stuck with him for now, and he has tonnes of ability. At the very least, some good performances against farmers will help us get as much of our money back as possible.
All this talk of potentially finding our best line up is great. Just try not to think about injuries and squad rotation.
Well that was much better. Spurs won't win anything this year. I'm hoping for some decent football, and this was it today. Funny what happens when it's all round pegs in round holes. There were plenty of causes for concern, most caused by a passive approach with the lead. Lo Celso has been better than Ndombele overall, but missed a couple of chances today. Ndombele's creativity ought to be in more demand against bunkered teams. His lack of movement was a big part of the weakness in CM today. Son was brilliant all game. Hojbjerg had a great sequence of play for the first goal. Emerson was excellent. Reguilon went from wretched this season to very good today. Some nice skill at the end. More of this, please.
Been busy this afternoon so didn’t see anything of the match. Good win and much needed. How was the performance?
Highlights: Much, much better. Started a little slowly, but grew into the half and deserved the lead. Gave away a sloppy goal, reacted well and then Lo Celso for Ndombele killed the game off. Should've killed it off properly with good chances for the Argentinian and Kane. Ran down the whole of injury time in their half too, which is good consider it was 5 minutes. All of it must've come from their ****ing set-pieces. Nice to get a win over Dean Pulis' Astoke Villa.
A big concern is the CM situation. Going into this season, many (myself included) assumed we'd add either a proper DM or at least a deeper playmaker who could help us control the midfield, leaving us the option to choose between Hojbjerg OR Skipp in the 'engine room' role. Now that it is abundantly clear that we need to start both, I do worry about rotation. A CM of Winks and Lo Celso/Dele might scrape it in the EuCL group stage and/or early rounds of the FA cup, but beyond that I can see us overplaying both CMs as we go deeper into the season. To my mind, if we really want to take the EuCL and domestic cups seriously, we need to act in January and ship out one of Winks or Dele while bringing in someone like Kessie or Nandez.
One obvious thing today was that both Emerson and Reguilon were pushing into space on the flanks so we could spread out our play more, while in previous games they (and Doherty) seemed to constantly be playing level with our midfield that effectively encourages either a lot of sideways passes or trying to pass through the middle more out of hope than expectation More of that and then it's a case of tweaking the lineup to optimise our system, rather than wondering what the point of our system is
Our midfield options are so poor. It's regrettable but true, that Winks, Dele and Ndombele just aren't up to it. The last couple of years' turnover of coaches and Levy's refusal to accept Mourinho's recommendation to get rid, has allowed that situation to persist for far too long. We desperately need Pape Sarr and A.N Other to provide some real quality competition for places to Shippy and Hojbjerg...and additionally, someone to put pressure on Lo Celso to produce the football that he plays for Argentina, in our shirt. We are so vulnerable and would be royally screwed if either Skippy or Hojbjerg get injured without those replacements. There's nobody at the club to play those roles to an acceptable level
Well for one thing, Lo Celso would provide the football he does for Argentina if he played in the position he does for Argentina, rather than be shunted around various positions where he can be "good" rather than sticking to one position where he could be "great"
Passmap time please log in to view this image Okay, so here's the weird thing: this doesn't look massively dissimilar to that of the last few matches, barring some minor differences i.) We're pinging around more passes ii.) Emerson is playing higher up iii.) More passes are making their way through to Harry Kane Obviously there's things which don't look great, for example the Hojbjerg/Skipp/Ndombele/Lucas pileup in the middle, or how it appears passes are making their way to Ndombele but don't seem to be making their way back out again (with the exception of one of the massive bundle of lines around Lucas being from him), and it has to be said Skipp looks odd as he's not receiving passes from the back while also only finding Hojbjerg or Reguillon when he has the ball - but what this does show is that we did strike a balance between solidity and creativity without sacrificing the shape and structure of our team, and all it took was accepting that the Skipp/Hojbjerg pairing is the closest our midfield has to an engine room while also loosening the stabilisers on the FBs So, how does the next international break **** us up royally?
My 1st match back at the lane since the Norwich FA Cup , overall happier with the team,formation and effort but after last week that is no surprise, I thought Royal and Romero are starting to look the part , PEH and Skipp managed but once more needed help from Ndombele who went missing all to often Please get the lad from Metz at Christmas and this will be a better more competitive side
"Close your heart to their desperation. Close your heart to their suffering. Do not allow yourself to feel for them. They will not feel for you." please log in to view this image
He deserves a lot more scrutiny than he’s getting. The same people slating Ndombele (rightly so) seem to be very quiet when it comes to Harry Kane. It’s all well and good scoring against teams in the ECL but the PL is the bread and butter.
He nearly scored and should've had an assist for Lo Celso, that backheel pass was quality. He definitely wasn't poor. He was more involved with general play today too, still not getting enough service but it was more than previous games, the goals will come.
He did very little until Lo Celso came on and the next time he takes a free-kick someone should slap him.
Tbf I didn’t see the game, only the highlights that PNP put up. The chance at the end was one you’d expect him to score allday long though. Sounds like he was more involved but for him, he’s on a huge scoring drought in the league and that needs to end asap.
Freekicks are ****, no argument there and we've all been saying that for years. But his general play today was fine and when Lo Celso came on we had more fluidity getting the ball forward which then allows Kane more of the ball in the final third. It's hardly a coincidence that he looks better when he's receiving the ball more closer to the opposition's goal instead of having to come back to near the halfway line to get it because our style of play doesn't seem to involve "getting the ball to the striker"... Scarlett's unfortunately found that out too.
If we get him more chances like his one late on today he'll end it sooner rather than later. The man can't be expected to hit tons of goals when he barely receives the ball in the positions he needs. Nuno's the only manager who's managing to completely stifle the bloke, that's a gift and a curse in equal measure.