Tottenham v RB Leipzig Champions League first leg. | Page 16 | Vital Football

Tottenham v RB Leipzig Champions League first leg.

muttley said:
Yeah, agree but we were also behind a bunch of other sides when Jose took over. We have managed to nudge ahead of a lot of them although it can easily swing back.

There is a lot of "snatching defeat from the jaws...." going on again this season. I don't see that changing through to May.
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That's true, we have been the best (points wise) out of that bunch over the past 14 games, so there is that I suppose. And yes, I can also see lots of ups and downs from here to May. Just hope Saturday is an up!
 
Nick Real Deal said:
I have re-watched the first 30 minutes and we dont look as bad as I remember last night. We contained them fairly well mostly. I have noticed Leipzig are quite dirty. Couple of obvious dives and cynical fouling when we won the ball back to stop us breaking maybe should warranted yellow cards red did not give. Bergwijn and Gedson fairly wasteful. The run from Loco ended with the wrong ball that Berg was not expecting, Dele was square !!
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I’m not going to watch it back because I don’t believe in self harm

But was our midfield breaking down over chance we had at breaking?
 
SpursEagle said:
In fairness, Chelsea have been borderline relegation form since that 12 point gap. P-14 W-4 D-3 L-7 PTS-15. That's a major reason why its down to 1 point.

One of their 4 wins was against us at our place where they were the better team, which is galling to think about.
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Another team like the spammers who seem to raise their game against us regardless of current form.
 
I would love us to play fast inventive attacking football from the off, but with what we have it isn't going to happen. As for Jose, love him or hate him or somewhere in the middle.....he can't be accountable for Davies tackle, so many players inability to have a first touch, inability to make 5-10 yard passes, inability to give and go, he just doesn't have the players to do it, cos many are just not good enough. Gio stands out cos he has control, vision and desire....some don't appear to have any of those three aspects to their play.

My 'issue' with Jose atm is his continual use of Serge, not giving Parrott at least a seat on the bench....that aside I think he will make us winners....but next season!

Irrespective of top four I want us to destroy Chelsea. Hope to feck we beat Norwich and go to Germany and attack as if our lives depended on it for the first 20 mins, and see if we can grab a goal....cos that will make it a game and a half....
 
Kinygerbils said:
I’m not going to watch it back because I don’t believe in self harm

But was our midfield breaking down over chance we had at breaking?
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It's not as bad as you might think. Like I said some cynical fouling to stop is breaking out at least 3 times in the first half. We did get the ball through with a few good runs but couldn't make the right final ball or shoot well enough.
 
Jose is a coward. He hides behind excuses and has done for a few years now. When Ben Davies was out he'd have you believe he is a top,top quality left back. Ben is bang average and always has been.

We don't have a striker but he sets us up in a low block 442. No imagination in the first half just fear. We have one of the best ball progressers in world football in ndombele,one of the best talents in Europe last year in Lo Celso,Harry Winks (England's great midfield hope apparently) and the only way he can see fit to use them is one as a sub and the the other 2 covering space 35 yards from their own goal. Dictated by a well coached out outfit made up of mostly players I've never heard of.

From a tactical point of view I can see what he was trying to do but it didn't work and I don't like it. The amount of balls just hoofed up the field. There's no way most of these player enjoy being coached to play this way.
 
trustmeiknow1 said:
Jose is a coward. He hides behind excuses and has done for a few years now. When Ben Davies was out he'd have you believe he is a top,top quality left back. Ben is bang average and always has been.

We don't have a striker but he sets us up in a low block 442. No imagination in the first half just fear. We have one of the best ball progressers in world football in ndombele,one of the best talents in Europe last year in Lo Celso,Harry Winks (England's great midfield hope apparently) and the only way he can see fit to use them is one as a sub and the the other 2 covering space 35 yards from their own goal. Dictated by a well coached out outfit made up of mostly players I've never heard of.

From a tactical point of view I can see what he was trying to do but it didn't work and I don't like it. The amount of balls just hoofed up the field. There's no way most of these player enjoy being coached to play this way.
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Having said all that.....it worked against City and nearly worked against Pool.

Just read the posts before the game, there were comments like 'looks like he's going for it'. But the actual set up was cowardice for a home team. I agree with 'total spurs' post. There was a lot of incompetence in some basic stuff from the players that didn't help. The same players played v City and Pool. Had Davies not committed that foul, we could've won that game and everyone be praising Jose.

In conclusion, I liked what I saw for the last half hour and hope that is a sign of things to come. Add a striker or two in to the mix and our style would be pretty exciting imo.
 
muttley said:
I think perhaps you're picking the extreme position. In reality, it is somewhere in the middle.

What we would have liked to see is a Spurs team go at RBL in the home leg, get a 2 goal lead and then protect that lead by resting behind the ball in the latter stages of the game and playing counter. In reality, Jose chose to do it the other way round and we finished on the front foot and perhaps were unlucky not to nick an equaliser.

There's a reason for that strategy. Firstly, think back through the entire season and you have a set of players simply struggling to adapt to new systems. Poch tried the hybrid 4-3-3 / 4-2-3-1 for his last year and they simply couldn't get it. They weren't pressing either and generally were just a mess. Jose has made it simpler for them. It's about defending deeper, conceding possession and playing on the counter. It's not without challenges but has got us to a point within 4th place. We've had many games where we've started slow and finished strong, even Liverpool where we changed the formation and put in an extra centre half.

So what happens last night if Jose tells his team to forget all of that and play it completely differently for one game? I would have predicted a car crash especially as a third of that squad aren't at the elite 90 mins level anyway. How can they possibly play a high pressing, passing game for 95 mins against an in form team like Liepzig?

In reality what Jose is trying to do is keep us in the CL by sticking to the same playbook he has been using for the last couple of months. It's not his favoured system in the bigger picture but it's one that might just get us through. It probably does make CL priority 3 but we don't even know that until we see the Norwich and Burnely line-ups in a couple of weeks. I think it is though.

I've been to 3 games in 3 months. I tell you something. From Boxing Day home to Brighton through to Saints away through to last night's game there is incremental improvements. I could see players playing for the shirt who knew their specific roles and were playing to their manager in a formation they feel comfortable with. I haven't see that for a while and hope next time I go it gets incrementally better again.
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that last paragraph is interesting because for most of the first 60 minutes I saw a lot of lost souls leaving huge gaps for the opposition to exploit at Will....I wouldn’t say they felt comfortable, but if they did then that says something about them....I don’t know what it is!
 
muttley said:
So out of interest, how do you think we should setup tactically to achieve that?

I actually don't think closing a 11 points gap to 4th is luck. There is method in his madness. Even last night we had 16 shots to their 12 and 5 on target each. You wouldn't think that reading some articles on the game.
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6 of those points came from our last two games where in both instances we were lucky not to be 2 or 3 goals down after 30 minutes and in the City game on another day they should have scored 6....much as I enjoyed the wins, we had huge slices of luck before, belatedly, he let the team off the leash at the end of both games and took control but still in the Villa game needed the luck of a defender missing a straightforward clearance T-shirt than a well crafted move to score the winner.

My point is he demonstrates at the end of most games now that the lads can play slick attacking pressure football, it’s just the poorly organised defensive set up for most of the game that cedes control without a fight....if he wants to defend do it properly with a 541 or a 4141 or whatever and play that higher up the pitch....stop trying to play Aurier (at all preferably) as an attacking option....don’t try to use Alli as a striker because he can’t play there...let Moura be the 1 and don’t ask him to come back and defend so that he can save his energy for chasing on to through balls which could be played if we competed higher up the pitch...use his best defender Tanga...use the pace of Sess to give LoCo a wide outlet instead of Aurier...lots of things he can do even down to playing a youngster or two in place of players who need rest.

I know he has a difficult job, and perhaps his ego won’t accept that he can’t get us a top 4 finish and therefore he puts his faith in older players even though we know they are not the best, and older defensive formations, but a good manager would recognise where the failings are in his approach and change things accordingly....we used to say the same things about Poch.

Its fine to say that we have accumulated a lot of points and on paper we are the form team, but from my perspective we have had a great deal of luck and if the tactics don’t change on Saturday I think our luck will well and truly run out....I hope not.
 
It's clear Jose is trying to keep the players he has left fit as possible for the rest of the season without picking up more injuries.

We are seeing chess games in almost every game.

Some of you can't see it because of your pure dislike for the bloke.

It's not pretty and he ain't perfect but considering the situation he isn't doing to badly.
 
Real Deal said:
It's clear Jose is trying to keep the players he has left fit as possible for the rest of the season without picking up more injuries.

We are seeing chess games in almost every game.

Some of you can't see it because of your pure dislike for the bloke.

It's not pretty and he ain't perfect but considering the situation he isn't doing to badly.
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I like Jose but how does saying Moura and Berg have to play every game keep them fit without risking further injury, especially using the bersion of 442 he insists on playing?
 
trustmeiknow1 said:
Jose is a coward. He hides behind excuses and has done for a few years now. When Ben Davies was out he'd have you believe he is a top,top quality left back. Ben is bang average and always has been.

We don't have a striker but he sets us up in a low block 442. No imagination in the first half just fear. We have one of the best ball progressers in world football in ndombele,one of the best talents in Europe last year in Lo Celso,Harry Winks (England's great midfield hope apparently) and the only way he can see fit to use them is one as a sub and the the other 2 covering space 35 yards from their own goal. Dictated by a well coached out outfit made up of mostly players I've never heard of.

From a tactical point of view I can see what he was trying to do but it didn't work and I don't like it. The amount of balls just hoofed up the field. There's no way most of these player enjoy being coached to play this way.
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That makes at least two of us here who were incensed with his lack of belief and poor tactical acumen

Like you, I believe in getting N'dombele and LoCelso was utterly incredible business and time will prove me 100% right. Add Winks to that and we have a top class midfield who can take on anyone.
 
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