Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Crystal Palace

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like I said...I do understand the disappointment I just think some of the criticism is a bit ott but I don’t wanna sound like a dick (shut it ) so will leave it alone now.
Have a great evening everyone...cmon Dyche...do some good for once!

 

Some are underestimating Palace. They played some good football today. They have big and strong players and they passed the ball nicely.

There were some positives today. The first 30 minutes saw spurs play attacking football. They were playing positively. I enjoyed the first half. Spurs did make a mistake of playing defensively in the second half but I don't think they intended to.

I'm disappointed spurs didn't win in a game that was winnable, but a point is still a good point. If spurs can at least get a point against liverpool, Spurs will be on a good trajectory but even a loss can be mitigated by beating liverpool at the reversed fixture.

 

Still top with many lessons to learn for Wednesday

my worry is every team has a period of dominance during the match...can we cope with Pool’s period on Wednesday?

A good little mental wake up before the big one

 

What are our ambitions?
To finish in top four? a point away at Palace is decent.

 

Ambitions? To win the league of course!

Top 4 would be a great consolation though.

Spurs are unbeaten in 11 (?) and I'm very happy with our progress to date. No-one honestly thought we would be where we are at present.

 

no chance is Jose here to finish top 4

We are trying to be a level up from that

 

We are not winning every game...Palace have been playing well, in form. Little blips are good for a reset...I expect us to put in a great performance on Wednesday

 

Whether it’s top four or to win the league/ trophies, we definitely shouldn’t be considering a point against a side who’ve often been involved in relegation battles in recent years as decent. Especially when that point came from after being in the lead and in control for the first 45.

 

You would have thought we'd have learned after the West Scam match that sitting on a lead for 60+ minutes is not viable as Dier and Aurier both have mistakes in them, but what did we do yesterday? Try sitting on a lead for 60+ minutes, and then Aurier made a mistake in a dangerous area

Considering their keeper was having a worldie, sitting back was asking for the inevitable to happen, especially when we were more than capable of taking the game to Palace when we wanted to

 

The notification mob are being original, I see...

 

Pass map time

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The obvious positive here is the triangles between Hojbjerg/Reguilon/Ndombele and Dier/Reguilon/Hojbjerg which shows that we always had somebody in place to receive a ball from our CBs, which was the biggest issue against Antwerp as the CBs apparently forgot that Winks was standing in front of them for the entire game However, this also showcases two issues we had, which it;s safe to say came from sitting back so damn much
i.) Sissoko is an absolute mess there, as he's sitting deeper than Hojbjerg yet isn't receiving the ball from the CBs while also being left of centre meaning that he's drifting far too inside when he realistically needs to be covering Aurier on the right (remember this for a moment)
ii.) Dier was looking for long balls all game, yet as this shows he simply wasn't successful with them at all and that just invited Palace back onto us

Also, the way we have a No Man's Land to the right of the centre, with Kane and Sissoko drifting to the left and Bergwijn pulling way to far into the centre to compensate is an issue, especially that huge gap behind Bergwijn - and it looks even worse when you look at Palace's map

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Eze and Zaha were linking up a lot down Palace's left flank while Benteke was bringing Eze, Zaha and Schlupp into the game from the centre, so it makes sense for our attacking efforts being on our left/Palace's right, and that's shown - but on the other hand, you soon realise that Sissoko was being pulled into the centre to double up on Benteke with Hojbjerg and leaving space on our right/Palace's left, which is where Zaha and Eze were getting a lot of success because Bergwijn was the only player covering Aurier

If we stayed on the front foot and had Sissoko push up, he'd have been pressing in the space between Eze and Zaha, and the fact that was Palace's most successful combination is where our tactics failed - not because of Sissoko, but because he was told to sit so deep

 

There's one thing I forgot to mention when talking about the pass maps

For a ten minute spell Son and Bergwijn switched flanks, which goes a certain distance in explaining Bergwijn's position shifting slightly - but also goes to say that we failed to pass to Son for that ten minute spell, given only Reguilon and Ndombele managed to get a pass to him at any point while also further making it clear just how poor Sissoko's passing was as he found neither of them at any point