Up to and since the West Ham game

Jose seems to have s** himself hasn’t he Spurtle, since the Westham mess.

Indeed, Don. There were the odd signs of this last season. Even in our good run towards the end, we beat Leicester 3-0 but never bothered attacking for almost the whole second half. And then the last game with Palace we took the lead and didn't bother turning up second half and they equalised, much like this season against them.

After the Everton game, I thought Jose may have changed his ways, and it looked that way from our performances and attack, but ever since that West Ham result it's been dreadful to watch.

What is really irking me is that Jose seems to be implying that it’s actually the players playing like this in the 2nd half of games against his instructions. He’s basically saying that it’s not him telling them to set up like this and just defend. He said it after the Palace match and strongly implied it in his interview today.

If that was the case, then fair enough, but I actually do not believe him.
And I am sure the players are losing trust in him if they can hear him blaming them for not acting on his supposedly different instructions.

comment by (U22519)
posted 9 minutes ago
What is really irking me is that Jose seems to be implying that it’s actually the players playing like this in the 2nd half of games against his instructions. He’s basically saying that it’s not him telling them to set up like this and just defend. He said it after the Palace match and strongly implied it in his interview today.

If that was the case, then fair enough, but I actually do not believe him.
And I am sure the players are losing trust in him if they can hear him blaming them for not acting on his supposedly different instructions.
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I was thinking about this. I think there’s a part of it that’s down to Jose’s archaic tactics of course, but is there a part that’s down to our inability to dominate games, ie our midfield isn’t cohesive or technical enough?

I still think it’s mainly Jose, because when we led under Poch we were never this negative or defensive. In fact this is probably the most negative football I’ve ever watched as a Spurs fan.

Did a similar thing at Chelsea after we beat them 5-3

comment by (U22519)
posted 3 hours, 10 minutes ago
What is really irking me is that Jose seems to be implying that it’s actually the players playing like this in the 2nd half of games against his instructions. He’s basically saying that it’s not him telling them to set up like this and just defend. He said it after the Palace match and strongly implied it in his interview today.

If that was the case, then fair enough, but I actually do not believe him.
And I am sure the players are losing trust in him if they can hear him blaming them for not acting on his supposedly different instructions.
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I have no idea what you mean by "the players playing like this in the 2nd half of games".

What happened in today's second half is that Mourinho took off his two best players, Ndombele and Son. Ndombele was terrific, taking the ball up field and drawing players away from Kane & Son. Was he out of gas at minute 70? Didn't look it.
And then, putting Lamela on for Son.....I don't think Lamela ever touched the ball.

Finally we started with a weakened defence, Doherty is not good enough, and Winks in the midfield is way way too weak a player.

So...if we don't get at least 3 goals the game is always going to be up for grabs. And indeed, we very nearly lost it in the last minute.

But I did not see "negativity". I saw an inability to control the midfield after Ndombele left. We had a corner in minute 93. Bergwyn was always trying, and Kane was fouled every time he got the ball. I lost count of the number of fouls on Kane, but they had 4 yellows by minute 60. If referees don't stop this deliberate fouling of a top player, of course you won't want to watch the game.

At least you should understand why the game didn't look good to you!

comment by Don_tottenham (U3372)
posted 4 hours ago
Jose seems to have s** himself hasn’t he Spurtle, since the Westham mess.
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I cannot understand what Mourinho is doing. But I will admit that I do not see what goes on in training and in the dressing room. At least I will give him the benefit of the doubt.
Indeed here are the questions I would ask:
1. Why start Winks? He should be traded out of the squad. Too weak for the Prem.
2. Why start Doherty? Perhaps because of Aurier's latest blunder?
3. Was Toby being rested? Sanchez did okay but Toby was needed. God only knows who in today's defense can deal with corners? Davies lost the corner they scored on!
4. Why take Ndombele off at minute 70? He was by far our best player, and kept us in the game, controlling the midfield. He did not look out of gas. Moment he left, things went downhill.
5. Why sub Son with Lamela? Lamela was a nonentity in this game.....I cannot remember him even touching the ball.

It was pretty obvious we needed another goal, and if you're going to go into defensive mode........you couldn't do it with the players that were left on the pitch.
Nearly lost the game at the end too!

He was the same at United. Started the same but after the loss at City, José's United became the side like Tottenham are resembling now.

I thought Son was pretty anonymous too and got muscled out of everything.

Whenever we did get hold of the ball, nothing worked: poor passing, poor control, bullied off the ball.

Son was awful, he gave the ball away cheaply on a few occasions, but don`t expect Mourinho to call him out on it like he did with Dele.