Hear me out folks!
Jose is oft criticised for his old skool tactics, one based on less possession, less pressing and more about shape, organisation and dropping off teams into a defensive set. Perhaps adapting our game to the opponents rather than imposing our style. I do not think we can argue too much that this is more or less what we have seen from Jose's Spurs so far. A team that carries less possession and relies on pacey counter attacks.
What has become clearer i think at the back end of last season when we had our key players back and certainly yesterday is that we are an extremely potent counter attacking team. When you add Bale to the front line the opposition will be constantly wary of the space they leave in behind and with Kane dropping deep to spray the passes about teams will now be more fearful of us.
What does this fear do? It will see their defensive lines drop off us. This undermines the press of these teams, it creates spaces and holes in a more spread-out team and should give us more time and space on the ball in the middle of the park. This is to a degree how Liverpool have evolved under Klopp. We still lack a quality ball passer out of the defence and really we probably need a Winks upgrade to really complete the picture.
Spurs are a team that has lacked confidence for quite some time. This is starting to return now i believe. You could see that we just needed a goal just needed to get our season up and running, some sort of conformation that what we are doing can work and we can be a success in the way we play and that came a bit on Sunday for sure.
As a team we have also not had much fear factor for a while. In this league your weaknesses are attacked ruthlessly, and we for a while have failed to cope well vs an aggressive press. Now, and with Bale added, teams will view us slightly differently, fearful of that pace and will hopefully become increasing more wary of our strengths and less able to impose theirs on us.
I hope that this very clear threat that we posses is part of the evolution of Spurs under Jose, one that will see us in time control games better and also one that will see the opposition less willing to push so many numbers up the pitch in an aggressive press, meaning also that our defence/midfield sees the pressure on them reduced.
Just my view. What do Spurs fans think?
The evolution of Spurs under Jose
posted on 21/9/20
comment by MourOUTho (U22347)
posted 1 hour, 2 minutes ago
I would be less vocal about his tactics if they actually worked. The problem is, if you look at the stats for the vast majority of games under his stewardship, we give away far more opportunities than we have ourselves.
I get that we will generally have less possession, but looking at shots on goal, the opposing team has double, sometimes treble the amount we do. Jose is just extremely lucky that we have some world class forwards who are far more clinical in front of goal.
Whenever we have come up against decent side with strikers who are less profligate, we get beat.
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Is this not part of the whole approach though. Teams will be less willing to pressurise us, will be more circumspect, not over commit if they fear the outcome if they lose possession.
Modern football is so much about flooding the opposition half and applying pressure, always having numbers there to be able to make a pass that to counter that is to provide a genuine threat into the space they leave. If this threat of ours continues to expose teams they will be less aggressive, and this provides our midfield and defence with some relief.
posted on 21/9/20
I can remember plenty of games under Pochettino where Spurs had 70 per cent possession, all the chances, yet still lost.
Jose has his own style, and it has been hugely successful for the best part of 20 years. Who are we to say it is not working?
posted on 21/9/20
comment by Devonshirespur (U6316)
posted 7 minutes ago
comment by fridgeboy (U1053)
posted 51 minutes ago
I don't see any significance in Sunday's performance to somehow justify that we're heading in the right direction. We're not. For me, Sunday was a poor team performance punctuated by the occasional piece of individual brilliance. We also benefited from one of the poorest defensive displays I've ever seen from Southampton. If it were not for Lloris we'd have conceded as many as we scored.
The reason we keep coming unstuck is that the best teams can slice through our defence easily so the low block doesn't work (unless we get lucky like City at home last year). Against the smaller teams who are defensively more organised we don't have the craft or creativity to break them down so that means that not only is this a confusing week-by-week shift of message to the players, we also lack any sort of identity and cohesion. The very best teams in the world have a way of playing and it doesn't change for anyone. We'll take you on at our game, not yours. Jose's way is horrible to watch, outdated and blatantly not working. A win like yesterday isn't a masterclass. It's good players showing individual brilliance. It's not evolution, it's devolution. Bale will help cover over the cracks in the same way Son and Kane did yesterday but we won't make any sort of progress in the modern game this way.
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So you add Bale to that front line. You think the opposition will not adapt their game to reflect that. Always in the back of the defences mind will be the searing pace of our attackers, but they will continue to give 50% of the pitch to run into.
It is the small doubts that affect teams and players, whether its a defender deciding in a split second whether to drop or step forward, of a midfielder committing to win the ball back, if you know that the wrong decision will expose you to our biggest threat then it is harder to be absolutely certain in your decision making.
We still need a better ball player in a deeper CM position and if you remember bac to when we had Bale & Lennon terrorising teams, it was Modric pulling the strings. Winks aint fit to lace his boots, Huddlestone was also superior, maybe GLC can make that position his?
I also think that you cannot underestimate the power of confidence. We have lacked it for ages. Lloris said on the amazon show, it is the most powerful thing in football, so easily lost and so hard to get back, and this is true. We need to start building up our confidence and this has been happening I believe since the restart last season.
Jose's style isnt easy on the eye at all times, but you'd say Chelsea's is, right? Yet we scored more than them since Jose arrived and conceded less and gained more points and in very difficult circumstances. Same for Leicester, another 'pretty' team.
People need some perspective that we are rebuilding. People are tired of no trophies, but seemingly so many are also fixated on style and entertainment, even being critical when we score 5 (and could have had 7).
We will see how things move forward.
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posted on 21/9/20
comment by MourOUTho (U22347)
posted 1 hour, 11 minutes ago
I would be less vocal about his tactics if they actually worked. The problem is, if you look at the stats for the vast majority of games under his stewardship, we give away far more opportunities than we have ourselves.
I get that we will generally have less possession, but looking at shots on goal, the opposing team has double, sometimes treble the amount we do. Jose is just extremely lucky that we have some world class forwards who are far more clinical in front of goal.
Whenever we have come up against decent side with strikers who are less profligate, we get beat.
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Spurs beat both Man City, Arsenal last time they played them, both have top strikers.
posted on 21/9/20
Oh we were wonderful against Man City. Definitely wasn't like a giant killing in the 3rd round of the cup with our play.
posted on 21/9/20
I think it's going to be hard for myself or MourOUTho to convince you of our point. If we're conceding double the amount of opportunities to the opposition as we're making then on average, over time, we will lost twice as many games as we win. It's that simple. Good players and new recruits may change that stat a little but from where I'm sitting, we've got a long, long way to go and no solitary 5-2 win away from home is going to change my mind on that one.
Further to something Devonshire was alluding to - you say that teams will fear us with Bale, which is undoubtedly true, and they'll likely drop off a bit as you say. At what point does that then become something positive for us? It seems to me as if we have just as much trouble against sides that sit in as we do against those that bombard us. We've not got any craft, no Eriksen, no players that can see a pass the rest of the ground can't to break a team down. Oh, hang on, yes we do. His name is Ndombele and out manager, the manager you back, would prefer to stick him on the bench to rot.
Let's face it, you're not gonna convince me and I'm not gonna convince you. Let's just leave it and see how it pans out. In a year from now if we're sitting high in the table or holding a trophy aloft, I'll gladly come on here and bow to your superior knowledge. As it stands however, from my perspective, the trajectory is down, not up.
posted on 21/9/20
comment by fridgeboy (U1053)
posted 34 minutes ago
I think it's going to be hard for myself or MourOUTho to convince you of our point. If we're conceding double the amount of opportunities to the opposition as we're making then on average, over time, we will lost twice as many games as we win. It's that simple. Good players and new recruits may change that stat a little but from where I'm sitting, we've got a long, long way to go and no solitary 5-2 win away from home is going to change my mind on that one.
Further to something Devonshire was alluding to - you say that teams will fear us with Bale, which is undoubtedly true, and they'll likely drop off a bit as you say. At what point does that then become something positive for us? It seems to me as if we have just as much trouble against sides that sit in as we do against those that bombard us. We've not got any craft, no Eriksen, no players that can see a pass the rest of the ground can't to break a team down. Oh, hang on, yes we do. His name is Ndombele and out manager, the manager you back, would prefer to stick him on the bench to rot.
Let's face it, you're not gonna convince me and I'm not gonna convince you. Let's just leave it and see how it pans out. In a year from now if we're sitting high in the table or holding a trophy aloft, I'll gladly come on here and bow to your superior knowledge. As it stands however, from my perspective, the trajectory is down, not up.
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I'd say that its thenext part in our evolution. If we are more feared then we gain more space, we wont be coughing up the ball so much, will have more possession and more control and will not concede as many chances.
The next step is what we do when we have time on the ball and that remains to be seen, but you'd hope with the quality of NDombele and GLC we can be more inventive than when it was Winks & Sisokko with a half uninterested Eriksen.
Evolution....not instant transformation. One of Liverpools defensive strengths is that they are such an attacking threat teams fear over committing. They used to be an all action team that relaied more on the counter attack but now teams sit off them and they control games - look how CFC set up against them yesterday, a workmanlike midfield of Kante, Jorginho, Kovacic with Mount and Havertz who are also midfielders. They were very ineffective even before the red.
You seem to be critical that we do not have enough possession and concede too many chance, but then you say "At what point does that [teams sitting off us] then become something positive for us?"
Well what do you want? More possession or not? Lets see how that develops, how combinations can be created in the CM and understanding with strike force. You've written off our ability to do anything in possession, cos its Jose, yet this is what we were like in Poch's last year.
posted on 21/9/20
Like you've said its not just about having possession it's about knowing what to do with it.
We don't look like knowing that under Jose, none of his sides ever do.
posted on 21/9/20
Fear is only created from results. If you win and win well all the time as Liverpool do, then of course the opposition will sit in fear. We're not winning much and we're not dominated games.
You talk about evolution as if we've got the same team Martin Jol inherited. We've had 5 years of dominating games and possession and winning well and qualifying for CL every year. All that stopped when Jose came in and now you're telling me that the plan is to eventually start dominating and controlling games again? Didn't we just do that and if that is the plan then why get rid of the manager that had us doing it in the first place? Why not back him with a Bale when we had the chance?
In response to your last paragraph, all I want to see is a successful side that even when we lose shows progress. I don't mind losing the odd game if we're dominating and have 25 shots to their 5. That can happen. That domination turns into wins and wins turn us into a feared prospect. I see absolutely nothing to fear about Jose's approach.
Lloris was probably our best player post-lockdown which is a major worry as far as I'm concerned. We shall see. If Mourinho wins a trophy or gets us top 4, you win. If he makes zero progress and gets sacked in a year, I win. Fair?
posted on 21/9/20
comment by Christopher - High Priest of The Church of Ndo... (U20930)
posted 5 hours, 38 minutes ago
Like you've said its not just about having possession it's about knowing what to do with it.
We don't look like knowing that under Jose, none of his sides ever do.
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None of Jose's title winning and championship league winning and europa league winning fa cup winning league cup winning sides knew what to do with the ball