The Vlad Chiriches effect downs Stoke

The Vlad Chiriches effect downs Stoke

The Manchester United and Stoke City defeats, 3-0 and 4-0 respectively show the importance of patience and the tactics Spurs employ of tiring out an opposition.

Tiredness cause mistakes, both physical and mental. You can not always see mental tiredness but if you are constantly asking opposition players to make decisions you are mentally putting them on the spot. Some of the decisions they make will be wrong, giving you a chance to take advantage. Equally, the more decisions a player has to make the more mentally tiring it becomes.

I have told the story before of coaching a group of whose suffering mental challenges that affected their lives every day and that those responsible for bringing them to the coaching session told me and my assistant coach that we had to be permanently hyper happy with them. It was certainly the hardest two hours mental work we had ever done and I was exhausted at the end of it.

It is a similar scenario our off the ball movement puts the opposition into. Constant vision, constant thinking what will my opponent do next, where will he move. Playing a reactive game leaves you a step behind the opposition, s a defender has to anticipate. mentally he not only has to be constantly alert but constantly making decisions.

The physical and mental effort tire players and we are seeing the results in the second half of games. if one team is strong and one team is weakening then the gap becomes wider, quicker. It is no surprise that passing Arsenal teams used to nick goals late in games when the fatigue element is at its widest.

A tired mind turns off for a moment, it makes a wrong decision when under pressure, sometimes when not under pressure, just ask Vlad 'Calamity' Chiriches! Who can forget him needlessly giving away an 89th-minute penalty against Besiktas to cap a disastrous personal performance.

In all top level sport the mentally strong will beat the mentally weak. We are in the ascendency at the moment. Can Leicester City respond without Jamie Vardy? We'll see next weekend.

In the meantime, it's another good week to be a Spurs fan. Smile and be happy folks, you'll have a better life.

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