So I'm late to this week as I was away and could only watch the game in full today, some observations:
If I was doing an assessment of how to counter our play, I'd work out you can basically take two approaches to beat us:
1) Deep low block and play hard and fast on counter and believe you can take your chances: that is what Wolves did to us.
2) Use long balls all/through passes out to where the space the backs would normally occupy. As we play with high inverted backs these area's were wide open - the higher we push, the more we squeeze the more we are reliant on fast covering and recovery, which is what VDV would normally give us, but he wasn't playing. Instead, Dragu was thrust in, and in three key moments, didn't do great, it showed he still has much to do to fit in to Ange's system of play.
Missing one important player through injury should not be an insurmountable obstacle — but we are far better team when VDV plays. The stats tell us we have won 12 of the 18
Premier League games he has started this season and lost just twice (one of which he was forced off with injury before half-time), averaging 2.2 points per game. Without him, including this latest defeat, our record is four wins, one draw and four defeats — 1.3 points per game.
That is how critical he's been to Ange's tactic of playing a (at times) mad high line. But he's committed to it and wants everyone to grasp it.
His speed allows us to play much further forward and he’s comfortable moving across to play in wide areas when
Udogie pushes upfield. He wasn't there to do that on Saturday.
Dragu endured a very difficult first start : He was caught out by
Rodrigo Muniz for
Fulham’s first goal and failed to stop
Castagne’s cross for Fulham’s second scored by
Lukic. For their third, Dragu was left in a heap as Muniz snaffled home a loose ball, whilst he belatedly attempted to make a tackle. Had Muniz not scored, Dragu would surely have given away a penalty for this desperate challenge.
Of course, it wasn't all his fault, as so many looked below par, but it's key moments like these which handed Fulham the ascendancy and ultimately the win. It reminds all of how we'll need better depth and quality in key area's as we progress (which we will).
I'd go as far to say now he is our single most influential critically necessary player in Ange's system and without him, we looked all at sea. Ange rightly put his faith in his replacement but arguably he didn't rise to the opportunity, but he'd have learned from it.
Fulham had our measure and we simply didn't adjust, or couldn't - they knew what to expect, and had the right game plan to beat us, they'd done their homework well and knew we weren't the same team without him.
With VDV back in for our upcoming games, we'll once again see how his intelligence, speed, and skills work, and we'll see a different game.
All of you should know by now that given the way we play, results like this are possible, as hurtful as it is, these are still very early days.
Personally, I think some perspective is in order, we've come a long way in a very short period of time, and unquestionably have much, much more to do.
I've long predicted we'd finish 5th/6th and if we do I'd see this as a magnificent start; Ange knows better than most how many more windows and how many more outgoings and incomings he's got to achieve to get the depth he wants.
It's a cliché, but I can't find any other way that to say to all my Spurs mates who've taken this defeat so hard; he needs time and backing.
I'm convinced, whether by luck or judgement, he's the best thing to happen to us since Poch transformed us all that time ago, and he will too. And this time, we're not building a stadium, we're exploiting one that's now doing what it was designed to do: give us the funds to compete with the biggest and the best.
So hard as it is, let's just have some perspective of where we now are. It will make this loss and the difficult run in we have, much easier to grasp and still retain our positivity about what Ange can and (will, in my mind) deliver.
He said it better than I can, so far, we've made 4 steps forward and made one back. But unquestionably, we've made huge strides forward.
