This weekend sucked, for the first time in five years I went to a PL match we didn’t win, and it coincided with being the most dull game I have ever had the misfortune of attending. Within 20 minutes Ben Foster had the whole home support pulling their hair out with frustration, and not long after Christian Erkisen caused fans to do the same.
The fault was completely at Tottenham, and mainly Mauricio, not of WBA. They had no reason to play progressively, having just lost a manager, being an appalling vein of form and playing away to one of the toughest teams in the league. The responsibility was on us, and we failed, substantially.
Pochettinho used to get slated for his tactical predictability then the emergence of 5 at the back on top of his 4231 mitigated this issue. Yet this season he seems to be too reliant on 5 at the back, even when it isn’t needed; Saturday’s game epitomised this. The extra defender causes us to lose a man in midfield, something we cannot afford when Dier/Wanyama are not available in the middle of the park. Meaning we struggle to control the park, in the most important part of the field.
Then the heavily debated topic of Rose or Davies, Aurier or Trippier. Whatever your opinion of Davies & Trippier it is undeniable that they are a lot slower than their counterparts and do not attack the opposing fullback anywhere near as much. This means that there will be a lot of early, high crosses from both fullbacks usually from deep. Therefore the logical option would be to have Dele off the striker to have two threats in the air whenever a ball is being crossed, something Son does not excel at.
We ended up playing 5 defenders who have a combined 2 goals in the league this season; are playing without pace with a team who are looking to defend all game; are playing deep & long crosses to only one capable forward; are playing these crosses to one of the best defensive lines in the PL in the air; and have no midfield cohesion to break a team down (unless Eriksen is on form against a heavily packed defence).
Pochettinho, despite everything he is good at, time and time again makes these catastrophic tactical errors which cause us to drop points. Usually there is method in the madness, yet there is far too frequent a hint as to why he still has no managerial silver-wear to his name.
How Poch got it wrong
posted on 28/11/17
comment by Ace (U18814)
posted 2 hours, 37 minutes ago
Way OTT criticism of Poch. Problem is you like all fans have got used to winning matches, so it hits harder when points get dropped. We've just come through a stretch of tough games both domestically and in Europe which we had to navigate with some major injuries woes. We're in the battle for top 4 (which looks like all the chasing pack can hope for this season) and won our CL group. Poch isn't the messiah, he's still learning and he does get it wrong at times, but the point is he does learn and we've seen that with our progression. He's not above criticism, nobody is, but coating him off is a bit much.
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How is it OTT?
What have I actually said that is OTT with regards to Poch? That the team lineup was wrong & that he doesn’t seem to be as tactically flexible as he was before?
Wow, so harsh.
posted on 28/11/17
OP,
To an extent I agree with you about the formations, but my question is why would we need a 3-Man CM against a team that don’t want to use the ball, not as if we were concerned that we’d struggle to get a foothold in the game due to the players we were up against, Luke against Real Madrid for example.
West Brom didn’t want the ball and were happy to ignore it and park the bus so there was no battle for midfield supremacy there. 4231 or even 3421 would have sufficed, no need for a 352. We needed more numbers further forward to compete with their 6 man defence.
Also, why is it that criticism of something or someone seemingly automatically results in ‘oh but he’s done a lot for us’ responses? Nobody is flawless so even if they are on form or get it right 80% of the time, it doesn’t mean you just ignore it when the other 20% shows up. That’s like saying that if someone like Messi, Suarez, Lewandowski or Kane went 10 games without a goal and weren’t contributing elsewhere, everyone should shut up and be grateful because of the hatful they’ve scored already.
posted on 28/11/17
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 28/11/17
comment by eriksensensen (U17512)
posted 4 hours, 22 minutes ago
yeah agree with having options on the bench. would love to be able to bung on a zaha 65 mins in. we defo need options hopefully lamala will help but defo need 2 maybe 3 more options of the bench
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Lamela isn't the answer to all our problems, I'm shocked that he's considered our hero and savior?
posted on 28/11/17
comment by BDK (U21653)
posted 16 minutes ago
comment by eriksensensen (U17512)
posted 4 hours, 22 minutes ago
yeah agree with having options on the bench. would love to be able to bung on a zaha 65 mins in. we defo need options hopefully lamala will help but defo need 2 maybe 3 more options of the bench
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Lamela isn't the answer to all our problems, I'm shocked that he's considered our hero and savior?
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Hero? saviour? I’m guessing most just see him as another option tbh
posted on 28/11/17
comment by BDK (U21653)
posted 1 hour, 20 minutes ago
comment by eriksensensen (U17512)
posted 4 hours, 22 minutes ago
yeah agree with having options on the bench. would love to be able to bung on a zaha 65 mins in. we defo need options hopefully lamala will help but defo need 2 maybe 3 more options of the bench
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Lamela isn't the answer to all our problems, I'm shocked that he's considered our hero and savior?
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Haven’t seen anyone indicate that. He’s a player who played well in his last full season. Most see him as another option
posted on 28/11/17
Cheers for understanding the point Ledders. For me I think midfield is essential no matter who you play because a dominant midfield will stifle out the attacks and pass the ball quickly to the attackers in the right areas.
It is stil the five at the back that winds me up. They have 2 goals between them this season, that is for half your outfield players. We have never had a good back line in terms of goal scoring numbers and I think our last semi-prolific goal scorer we had in defence was maybe Kaboul?! Therefore we are putting so much pressure on the attack to perform. We should have played two CBs, it would show so much more intent.
posted on 28/11/17
No probs. I said it in the build up to the game on here that I’d have preferred 4231 because West Brom would offer minimal attacking threat. The odd counter and set piece as well as about 30% of the ball but that’s about it. They were never going to set out to dominate the midfield against us and they weren’t likely to have many instances where players are breaking from midfield.
To put it into context, we played the same formation at home to some bus parking team as Chelsea did away to Liverpool - albeit with different types of midfielders. Chelsea did it to try and contain and restrict them, what did we do it for?
posted on 28/11/17
Exactly that, it should be our big game formation. It allows for better structure to compensate for mistakes/mitigate mistakes. Yet needs the forwards to perform as one of them has been taken out to compensate.
I also think subbing Vertonghen, the right move was a Aurier/Rose(obvs not on the bench but you get the point)/Sissoko. We needed width, we had 3 extremely competent attackers who already struggled for space inside (Dele, Eriksen, Kane).
posted on 28/11/17
Got it wrong???
Getting it wrong, surely.
And I will call you Shirley on this one.