Pochettino has a lot of work to do
Reading Mauricio Pochettino's comments it becomes clear that the players did indeed underestimate WBA, they thought it would be easy, especially the front four.
Our attacking game is based on interchanging and quite frankly we didn't. In previous games Chadli has been everywhere, yesterday he seemed to stay on the left. If you have an interchanging front four where one isn't interchanging, and I'm not suggesting this was down to Chadli, then the others can fully interchange, they can only do it amongst themselves on half the pitch.
In midfield Dembele, after being excellent against Sunderland, was poor today, losing the ball and back to his standing in front of a player waiting to dribble round him, totally slowing our game down. You can see why Pochettino has highlighted getting the ball from defence to attack quicker as a problem, he saw it first hand yesterday.
Tottenham have to play at pace, but there is no pace in the team, it's full of ball players. That means you have to move the ball quickly and let the ball do all the work, the only times we did that was when we were crushed to the side line, which happened too often. We didn't make the ball work in areas where it mattered, around their box.
To play the system intelligent movement is essential. Against a packed defence this is not the first time these players have looked clueless. Even Eriksen's free-kicks were poor, which shows the mental state was negative. I suspect the players didn't truly believe they could create anything, they tried yes, but trying without belief is only going through the motions.
Without belief you won't perform at your optimum level, with belief everything is heightened, from desire to vision to the execution of a pass, it's all that little bit better and it's that little extra in your game that makes the difference. Where was the lob from Eriksen for instance, that we saw at Sunderland in the opening minutes, a one-two with Adebayor to create a scoring chance. Didn't see an attempt at anything different once. We just made the game easy for them all day.
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Today was a day for the non-believers, the fans who don't grasp the mental side of the game. The feet only do what the brain tells them to and if your brain isn't making the right decisions then your feet can't do the right things, your body can't move into the right areas of the pitch.
Decision after decision after decision was wrong. If I wrote performance reports on that lot then only Hugo Lloris and to a lesser degree Danny Rose would come out with much credit. I don't fancy writing that much negativity. The problems I have highlighted before were all in evidence.
We didn't play the full-back in when we should have done, our two centre-backs are the worst two at the club and Chiriches is simply not good enough, he should have cleared the ball into touch instead of trying to be clever and giving away the needless corner from which they scored, not the first he needlessly gave away.
Capoue did some good work but was slow, Lamela the main culprit at picking the wrong pass, he worries me and I have to keep reminding myself he has hardly played in the Premier League and needs time to adjust.
Adebayor was static, Chadli lacked movement and Eriksen didn't know what to do. They attackers all ran out of ideas and were playing balls with no conviction. It was back to reaction football, the front four just didn't seem to be on the same wavelength.
I glorious chance to go third and add belief, when the chance is there as Spurs so often do now, they bottled it, into their shell and put in a weak performance. Mentally we have to do better, Pochettino has a lot of work to do.
Our attacking game is based on interchanging and quite frankly we didn't. In previous games Chadli has been everywhere, yesterday he seemed to stay on the left. If you have an interchanging front four where one isn't interchanging, and I'm not suggesting this was down to Chadli, then the others can fully interchange, they can only do it amongst themselves on half the pitch.
In midfield Dembele, after being excellent against Sunderland, was poor today, losing the ball and back to his standing in front of a player waiting to dribble round him, totally slowing our game down. You can see why Pochettino has highlighted getting the ball from defence to attack quicker as a problem, he saw it first hand yesterday.
“At the beginning of the game we were really slow, moved the ball slow and had a really slow tempo. Our approach was wrong.
“I was angry. Or disappointed. I don’t know the best word to describe my feeling but we had a very, very bad day.
“I was surprised by the approach. We need to show more because in the Premier League, every game is difficult.
“We were slow and had a lack of movement. Then it’s difficult to get into the game. You need to show you are the best team and the way we played didn't allow us to do this.”
Tottenham have to play at pace, but there is no pace in the team, it's full of ball players. That means you have to move the ball quickly and let the ball do all the work, the only times we did that was when we were crushed to the side line, which happened too often. We didn't make the ball work in areas where it mattered, around their box.
To play the system intelligent movement is essential. Against a packed defence this is not the first time these players have looked clueless. Even Eriksen's free-kicks were poor, which shows the mental state was negative. I suspect the players didn't truly believe they could create anything, they tried yes, but trying without belief is only going through the motions.
Without belief you won't perform at your optimum level, with belief everything is heightened, from desire to vision to the execution of a pass, it's all that little bit better and it's that little extra in your game that makes the difference. Where was the lob from Eriksen for instance, that we saw at Sunderland in the opening minutes, a one-two with Adebayor to create a scoring chance. Didn't see an attempt at anything different once. We just made the game easy for them all day.
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Today was a day for the non-believers, the fans who don't grasp the mental side of the game. The feet only do what the brain tells them to and if your brain isn't making the right decisions then your feet can't do the right things, your body can't move into the right areas of the pitch.
Decision after decision after decision was wrong. If I wrote performance reports on that lot then only Hugo Lloris and to a lesser degree Danny Rose would come out with much credit. I don't fancy writing that much negativity. The problems I have highlighted before were all in evidence.
We didn't play the full-back in when we should have done, our two centre-backs are the worst two at the club and Chiriches is simply not good enough, he should have cleared the ball into touch instead of trying to be clever and giving away the needless corner from which they scored, not the first he needlessly gave away.
Capoue did some good work but was slow, Lamela the main culprit at picking the wrong pass, he worries me and I have to keep reminding myself he has hardly played in the Premier League and needs time to adjust.
Adebayor was static, Chadli lacked movement and Eriksen didn't know what to do. They attackers all ran out of ideas and were playing balls with no conviction. It was back to reaction football, the front four just didn't seem to be on the same wavelength.
I glorious chance to go third and add belief, when the chance is there as Spurs so often do now, they bottled it, into their shell and put in a weak performance. Mentally we have to do better, Pochettino has a lot of work to do.
3 comments
Sorry super coach from Argentina, I don't understand what exactly you are trying to prove! The boys on the park are getting worse than ever before! The defence is horrible, Kaboul is clueless and slow his heart is not in the game, Cheriches should never be playing in the EPL very unreliable and lacks talent. How can you have Vertongen on the bench and play Cheriches? Rose does whatever he likes. Dembele - he's trying to show his great skills but loses the ball 7/10 times - he used to shoot at will, now he shows off how he can dribble then embarrasses himself. Chadli not on the park sorry but he needs to be fed by a player with talent. Eriksen he's a different man to last season, he will not shoot, he can't take a proper corner nor free kicks , he is not himself! Brings me to the Argentinian show pony Lamela, OH YES he can dribble, has speed and runs around players, but so can the road …