Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Royal Antwerp

Anyone knocking on Jose's door tomorrow will be met with these stats on his wipe board
Won 15
Drawn 4
Lost 2
Can't argue with that

 

I agree with what you're saying but how do the squad players be seamlessly drafted in to upcoming fixtures if they're not getting the required minutes in the Europa games? I think we could be playing a dangerous game, would love to be wrong though. The Spurs in me is just saying Kane and Son are gonna get run into the ground as they always do and one (or both) is gonna pick up another long injury.

 

Painting yourself into a corner is always a bad idea. We're restricting the functioning size of our squad, going into the busiest time of the season.

He overplayed players last season and it ****ed us over completely. If he does it again, he could ruin a very good start to a season

 

Surely the final 30 minutes is better than the first 60?

 

Jose Mourinho laughs and admits that he "can't keep everyone happy". He seems happy enough with it though.

Did Harry Winks storm off?

"Every player I tell them to go straight to the shower when it is cold."

Cleared up.

 

Spurs boss Jose Mourinho speaking to BT Sport about the bringing on three regular first-team players after an hour: "The game is open, when I thought about the changes the result was 0-0 then we scored a goal but that didn't change my mind.

"We needed a little bit more of routines which these players (Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Tanguy Ndombele) have, and the intensity. They had the intensity because they play week in week out. We managed to keep Antwerp away from our goal. Joe Hart didn't make a single save. 0-0 at half time - I thought in the second half with bit of intensity they will collapse.

"It was a great free kick from Gareth Bale and a striker smelling the second ball to score. The decision was made. Harry is Harry and Sonny is intense.

"I can't keep the squad happy. I believe they are happy because we are winning but they're not happy because they're not playing."

On Harry Winks leaving the pitch: "Every player that left the pitch I told them to go to the shower because it was cold. Some decided to go and some decided to stay."

 

For what purpose though? It's not like Kane and Son aren't match fit. Vinicius, Bale and Winks however aren't likely to be at peak fitness and so taking them off today done them no favours.

We've got a shed load of games coming up and we'll need to be relying on the latter three at some point - possibly Dele too, if they underperform when called upon it's not really their fault when they aren't getting the sufficient game time to keep themselves as fit as possible.

 

It is down to a balance, one can reduce/increase game time. It is Joses job to get that balance right. He ain't done too badly in the past.

 

Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer still.

Good managers keep all of their squad inside the group no matter what. Dele may be underperforming badly but we might need him in the he weeks ahead.

 

Dele has to keep himself fit, his chance will come.

 

All in all Jose’s doing amazing but I just fear that down the line we may burn our key players out and undo all the work he and his team has done. That’s based on past experience by the way, we all know Kane is susceptible to injury and Son’s had one or two too. We’ve got a large squad this season and I think a few have been poorly managed which *could* come back to bite us.

 

He broke Kane and Sissoko last Christmas.

Covid bailed him out. Without it, we'd not be playing Thursday night football and would have had **** all transfer budget this summer.

 

If I’m honest Dele more so than the others probably isn’t as massively needed, albeit a game like today he should’ve got some minutes to help keep fresh should he be required.

Winks is the only other industrious CM we have and so I think he’ll get some minutes for one of Hojbjerg or Sissoko at some point. Tanguy and Gio will likely rotate and therefore I can’t see a proper way in for Dele. The door’s not completely shut on him but I think he more than anyone else in the squad is in the hardest position (other than Gedson ) when it comes to getting game time. He’ll need one or both of Gio/ Tanguy to get injured and even then, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jose dropped Kane deeper and played Vinicius up top - and to be honest, on current form, I’d prefer that.

 

I'm not calling on him to start but he could have got 10 or 15 minutes, andpreventing the risk of Sonny picking up an injury, whilst giving him some incentive to train hard.

I don't see the sense in doing otherwise.

 

Training ain't playing.

 

he broke them? He’d only been their a few months I’d say the previous manager left them on their last legs. Like that broken cup handle you place carefully in its correct position for the next person to grab before you shout ‘oh look what you’ve just done’.

I’d say it’s the culmination of continuous seasons for Spurs under Poch and England that broke Kane and a lack of a real back up striker which nullified any chance of Son getting a rest when possible and ended up breaking him too.

 

Yeah definitely should’ve played today, I’ve said that. I don’t know why he didn’t even start to be honest but with regards to upcoming league fixtures it’s hard to see him get much game time even with a congested schedule. There seems to be 2 or 3 better options in that number ten/ advanced CM role that I think Jose will go with.

 

Both Poch and Jose have ran our key players into the ground to be fair. I get that as managers it’s a results business and key players offer a higher chance of results but there’s also that fine line where if you ruin your key players then the chances of better results decrease.

This is where my main gripe stands with today’s subs.

We’ve finally got one and from what we’ve seen he’s a pretty good one too and yet Kane is still playing extra minutes whilst Vinicius is having his cut short. I’d understand if Vinicius was playing like Vincent Janssen but this guy seems a really good player from the little we’ve seen.

 

When he became manager, he inherited the squad - good and bad. Whatever Poch did (and he made his fair share of mistakes) were for José to manage. That's life.

He very definitelyoverplayed Kane and Sissoko, who both had injuries the previous season. I've never managed a football team in my life, yet I was calling on him to rest them and play Parrot and Skippy instead.

If I can see it, he bloody well should have. It's his job and he's paid extremely well to get it right. If he does the same again this season, I'm going to be well ****ed off with him and rightly so.

 

he isn’t going to bench his two main strikers early on his tenure or the same people would have called him bonkers for doing that.