Long standing reason why we dropped more points
For 2 years here and a further on on Facebook I have received abuse for writing that Spurs have to learn to be clinical when we are winning by a couple of goals.
Fans not thinking of the bigger picture or beyond that one game argue you should be happy we won, I am of course when we do, but there has been a worrying trend at Tottenham to think we have done enough. Thus when we get the chance to make it 3 or 4 goals we spurn them and think it doesn't matter, it does and today showed why.
When you are winning you should bury sides, you should score, 3, 4, 5, 6 goals, the 6th goal should be as important as the first, but it isn't. We subconsciously train ourselves that missing glorious chances doesn't matter, when it does. I argue that if you train yourself to be clinical when you have already scored 3 goals then you are training yourself to be clinical in a tight game when it is 0-0 or 1-0.
We had a glorious chance to take the lead at Old Trafford which could well have seen us take three points but we spurned that opportunity, today we again were not clinical enough. A superb ball from Christian Eriksen from the edge of our box perfectly into the path of Chadli who controlled it and only had the goalkeeper to beat. What did he do, he blew it by making a schoolboy error, he kicked the ball to far in front of him.
Ryan Mason was through with a one-on-one with the keeper just as he was against Manchester City last season, again he allowed the keeper to save it.
There were other chances, the game should have been buried but the point I made after last week (Lesson taught, work to be done) the lesson we had to learn, we didn't. The lesson to take from last week was that we had to be mentally stronger when we conceded a goal.
When the opposition score we panic, we start playing with fear so the teamwork goes to pieces, when we concede we always look like conceding another very quickly. We survived that dodgy patch last week yet this week we concede two goals from a position of strength and throw away two valuable points. Two games gone and we haven't won a game, that adds its own pressure for the next game which could affect our performance.
You will hear it often, it's how you react to difficulty that determines how good you are as a player and as a team, anyone can play well when everything is going well, when it isn't is when you learn about a player. Mentality is not just about saying the right things, that is meaningless, it's about totally believing them and living by them. Put simply our players need to be mentally stronger and the only way that is hoing to happen is if they are trained to be stronger, we can continue the slow boat to China approach or we can call on a specialist to speed the process up.
Toby Alderweireld knows how to defend bit a lapse in concentration and a penalty. Stoke back in the game and we throw away two points, had we been clinical before that wouldn't have had the impact it did. This is all preventable by simply making work with a sports psychologist a compulsory part of every players training.
If you do the same thing over and over again, and make the same mistakes over and over again, which we have been doing for years, then you have to change what you do, not simply change the personnel doing it.
Further Tottenham Reading
Would selling Eriksen be so bad?
"I don't know" isn't god enough
OFFICIALLY LICENSED PRODUCTS
What better way for your children to start the day than then by waking up in a Spurs bedroom and having their breakfast in a Spurs bowl while you enjoy your morning cuppa in a Spurs mug, simply go shopping at our Football Shop and make their day special every day.
Fans not thinking of the bigger picture or beyond that one game argue you should be happy we won, I am of course when we do, but there has been a worrying trend at Tottenham to think we have done enough. Thus when we get the chance to make it 3 or 4 goals we spurn them and think it doesn't matter, it does and today showed why.
When you are winning you should bury sides, you should score, 3, 4, 5, 6 goals, the 6th goal should be as important as the first, but it isn't. We subconsciously train ourselves that missing glorious chances doesn't matter, when it does. I argue that if you train yourself to be clinical when you have already scored 3 goals then you are training yourself to be clinical in a tight game when it is 0-0 or 1-0.
We had a glorious chance to take the lead at Old Trafford which could well have seen us take three points but we spurned that opportunity, today we again were not clinical enough. A superb ball from Christian Eriksen from the edge of our box perfectly into the path of Chadli who controlled it and only had the goalkeeper to beat. What did he do, he blew it by making a schoolboy error, he kicked the ball to far in front of him.
Ryan Mason was through with a one-on-one with the keeper just as he was against Manchester City last season, again he allowed the keeper to save it.
There were other chances, the game should have been buried but the point I made after last week (Lesson taught, work to be done) the lesson we had to learn, we didn't. The lesson to take from last week was that we had to be mentally stronger when we conceded a goal.
When the opposition score we panic, we start playing with fear so the teamwork goes to pieces, when we concede we always look like conceding another very quickly. We survived that dodgy patch last week yet this week we concede two goals from a position of strength and throw away two valuable points. Two games gone and we haven't won a game, that adds its own pressure for the next game which could affect our performance.
You will hear it often, it's how you react to difficulty that determines how good you are as a player and as a team, anyone can play well when everything is going well, when it isn't is when you learn about a player. Mentality is not just about saying the right things, that is meaningless, it's about totally believing them and living by them. Put simply our players need to be mentally stronger and the only way that is hoing to happen is if they are trained to be stronger, we can continue the slow boat to China approach or we can call on a specialist to speed the process up.
Toby Alderweireld knows how to defend bit a lapse in concentration and a penalty. Stoke back in the game and we throw away two points, had we been clinical before that wouldn't have had the impact it did. This is all preventable by simply making work with a sports psychologist a compulsory part of every players training.
If you do the same thing over and over again, and make the same mistakes over and over again, which we have been doing for years, then you have to change what you do, not simply change the personnel doing it.
Further Tottenham Reading
Would selling Eriksen be so bad?
"I don't know" isn't god enough
OFFICIALLY LICENSED PRODUCTS
What better way for your children to start the day than then by waking up in a Spurs bedroom and having their breakfast in a Spurs bowl while you enjoy your morning cuppa in a Spurs mug, simply go shopping at our Football Shop and make their day special every day.
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