Spurs switch off when it's time to switch on
There is plenty of panic about among Spurs websites and on Twitter, everyone is looking for a scapegoat and latching onto anything that backs up their preconceived opinion, what has actually happened in the games so far is fairly irrelevant to them.
We have the jealous of Chelsea anti-Levy anti-ENIC crowd, who don't possess any idea of how the club should move forward apart from be somebody's plaything, anybodies, as long as they simply give us their cash. It's an 'I don't want to work for a living' mentality I want to just be given money to life.
Then we have those with a personal dislike of an individual player who pipe up to tell you their opinion must be correct because of one game, regardless of how the individual actually played in that game. Kyle Walker was excellent against Manchester United and there were calls for him to be replaced, quite oblivious to the fact when Lamela came on he didn't do his defensive duties.
Bentaleb makes a mistake and the Bentaleb haters are on his back, Alderweireld makes a mistake and suddenly he needs to be replaced with a younger less experienced player, hardly logical, then Vertonghen has a bad game and suddenly the man on Barcelona's short list is apparently useless.
Instead of focussing on an individual people should be looking at the whole and seeking the underlying problem. These players are not bad players so why, regardless of who we put in, do they make mistakes? More importantly why do we make sloppy mistakes?
As mentioned in a previous article, that is down to the mentality of the player and it seems the mentality of the team as a whole. When we score the team switch off, when we start a half we are switched off and at times during a game players switch off.
I wrote an article on Andros Townsend in August of 2014* about his mental approach and how as a substitute he wasn't mentally prepared when he came on, he only mentally starts when he crosses the white line, which mean he has to then mentally assess the game and make mistakes before he can 'get up to speed' as the commentators will tell us. That should have mentally been done before he has even come on the pitch and that is part of the problem we face now.
*Townsend is Wrong
When you are not mentally prepared properly for a game you are 'off the pace' you are on the back foot, the other team have an advantage if they are mentally prepared. Perceived smaller side are motivated to put one over the big boys and you will often see them start fast while the other side tries to quell that initial enthusiasm.
Quelling it so you can assert your game is easier if you are mentally prepared yourself, what is difficult though is to pick up that mentality after the game has started. It is an individual thing then so if some don't pick it up the side can't perform the most efficiently as a unit, thus it becomes difficult to quell the opposition.
We started slowly at Leicester, making mistake after mistake with no opposition player anywhere near us, that tells us the players are not concentrated on the task, are not mentally right and are not sufficiently internally motivated, the game doesn't matter enough to them, not all of them but some certainly.
How many times have we started a second half slowly, it happened several times last season, most notably against Newcastle United at White Hart Lane where we conceded a goal straight away. You have to ask did the same thing happen when we scored the goal at Leicester, did the players mentally relax, or at least some of them?
With 10 minutes to go that was criminal. Everyone has jumped on Vertonghen for backing off and backing off, but as I have pointed out before you have to look for the root cause and solve that or it will keep occurring. I would ask where was Ben Davies in this particular incident, Mahrez came from the left touchline and from the kickoff where was he, the midfield should have been dealing with the midfield area. Vardy had gone over to the left so Davies had two players, nobody was helping him, should Vertonghen have been challenging Vardy or should he be closer to Mahrez to keep him away from pour box. Either would work with a defensive midfielder covering the space he left.
That is an aside though to the main point, we have to address the mental concentration issue, clearly over the last year we haven't done so and changing personnel doesn't change the overall team attitude, which is at these time lackadaisical. You can not afford to have that attitude if you want to be a winner and with a young team we have to instill it in them while they are receptive to learning.
In cricket a batsman will switch off between balls when the bowler is walking back to the end of his run-up, before switching on to face the next delivery. There is a time and a place to switch off but there is a time when you must switch on again and it isn't after the game has started.
Look at how we celebrated the goal, it was as if we had already won, the players mentally relaxed, they were all in a group so it was the ideal time when celebrations had finished for an old head to give a few short words telling the youngsters to concentrate fully, it's time to switch on for the last 10 minutes and see the win through.
There was no wise head there to do that so it didn't happen, the result we lose two points. Our problems are not the players, not the system but our failure to take the mental side of the game as seriously as we should. It is great that we have a happy friendly squad but you have to use that so that they all fight for each other.
At the moment it is at time counter productive because it is helping the players relax just when they should be full of determination and concentration, they should all be switching on together after a celebration, they aren't.
Roberto Soldado had lost all confidence in front of goal but we didn't do the specialist work he needed, we just effectively left him to figure his head out himself. I wrote he would return to Spain to an area he knows to recapture all the old feelings in a league he knows, in a style of play he knows. That I insisted would mean he would go to Villarreal while everyone was shouting Sevilla and elsewhere, the result he scores after 31 minutes of his La Liga debut because his head is in a better place mentally.
It may well be a similar story for Erik lamela, if we are not going to do the mental work with him we should to turn him into the player he can be then there is little point keeping him. He I suspect subconsciously wants to be in Italy where he has happy memories, they will help him perform again.
If you don't believe mentality plays it's part that's fine, if you think it's mumbo jumbo that's fine, if a player thinks it's mumbo jumbo then is he going to go to a mumbo jumbo specialist and ask for help? How then is the issue going to be solved if we don't incorporate more compulsory mumbo jumbo work in the weekly training program?
Related Tottenham Reading from the Archives
10 minute subs appearances can tell a lot
He's like the kid in the park playing for his own fun
How to improve Dembele, Lamela, Townsend
We have the jealous of Chelsea anti-Levy anti-ENIC crowd, who don't possess any idea of how the club should move forward apart from be somebody's plaything, anybodies, as long as they simply give us their cash. It's an 'I don't want to work for a living' mentality I want to just be given money to life.
Then we have those with a personal dislike of an individual player who pipe up to tell you their opinion must be correct because of one game, regardless of how the individual actually played in that game. Kyle Walker was excellent against Manchester United and there were calls for him to be replaced, quite oblivious to the fact when Lamela came on he didn't do his defensive duties.
Bentaleb makes a mistake and the Bentaleb haters are on his back, Alderweireld makes a mistake and suddenly he needs to be replaced with a younger less experienced player, hardly logical, then Vertonghen has a bad game and suddenly the man on Barcelona's short list is apparently useless.
Instead of focussing on an individual people should be looking at the whole and seeking the underlying problem. These players are not bad players so why, regardless of who we put in, do they make mistakes? More importantly why do we make sloppy mistakes?
As mentioned in a previous article, that is down to the mentality of the player and it seems the mentality of the team as a whole. When we score the team switch off, when we start a half we are switched off and at times during a game players switch off.
I wrote an article on Andros Townsend in August of 2014* about his mental approach and how as a substitute he wasn't mentally prepared when he came on, he only mentally starts when he crosses the white line, which mean he has to then mentally assess the game and make mistakes before he can 'get up to speed' as the commentators will tell us. That should have mentally been done before he has even come on the pitch and that is part of the problem we face now.
*Townsend is Wrong
When you are not mentally prepared properly for a game you are 'off the pace' you are on the back foot, the other team have an advantage if they are mentally prepared. Perceived smaller side are motivated to put one over the big boys and you will often see them start fast while the other side tries to quell that initial enthusiasm.
Quelling it so you can assert your game is easier if you are mentally prepared yourself, what is difficult though is to pick up that mentality after the game has started. It is an individual thing then so if some don't pick it up the side can't perform the most efficiently as a unit, thus it becomes difficult to quell the opposition.
We started slowly at Leicester, making mistake after mistake with no opposition player anywhere near us, that tells us the players are not concentrated on the task, are not mentally right and are not sufficiently internally motivated, the game doesn't matter enough to them, not all of them but some certainly.
How many times have we started a second half slowly, it happened several times last season, most notably against Newcastle United at White Hart Lane where we conceded a goal straight away. You have to ask did the same thing happen when we scored the goal at Leicester, did the players mentally relax, or at least some of them?
With 10 minutes to go that was criminal. Everyone has jumped on Vertonghen for backing off and backing off, but as I have pointed out before you have to look for the root cause and solve that or it will keep occurring. I would ask where was Ben Davies in this particular incident, Mahrez came from the left touchline and from the kickoff where was he, the midfield should have been dealing with the midfield area. Vardy had gone over to the left so Davies had two players, nobody was helping him, should Vertonghen have been challenging Vardy or should he be closer to Mahrez to keep him away from pour box. Either would work with a defensive midfielder covering the space he left.
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That is an aside though to the main point, we have to address the mental concentration issue, clearly over the last year we haven't done so and changing personnel doesn't change the overall team attitude, which is at these time lackadaisical. You can not afford to have that attitude if you want to be a winner and with a young team we have to instill it in them while they are receptive to learning.
In cricket a batsman will switch off between balls when the bowler is walking back to the end of his run-up, before switching on to face the next delivery. There is a time and a place to switch off but there is a time when you must switch on again and it isn't after the game has started.
Look at how we celebrated the goal, it was as if we had already won, the players mentally relaxed, they were all in a group so it was the ideal time when celebrations had finished for an old head to give a few short words telling the youngsters to concentrate fully, it's time to switch on for the last 10 minutes and see the win through.
There was no wise head there to do that so it didn't happen, the result we lose two points. Our problems are not the players, not the system but our failure to take the mental side of the game as seriously as we should. It is great that we have a happy friendly squad but you have to use that so that they all fight for each other.
At the moment it is at time counter productive because it is helping the players relax just when they should be full of determination and concentration, they should all be switching on together after a celebration, they aren't.
Roberto Soldado had lost all confidence in front of goal but we didn't do the specialist work he needed, we just effectively left him to figure his head out himself. I wrote he would return to Spain to an area he knows to recapture all the old feelings in a league he knows, in a style of play he knows. That I insisted would mean he would go to Villarreal while everyone was shouting Sevilla and elsewhere, the result he scores after 31 minutes of his La Liga debut because his head is in a better place mentally.
It may well be a similar story for Erik lamela, if we are not going to do the mental work with him we should to turn him into the player he can be then there is little point keeping him. He I suspect subconsciously wants to be in Italy where he has happy memories, they will help him perform again.
If you don't believe mentality plays it's part that's fine, if you think it's mumbo jumbo that's fine, if a player thinks it's mumbo jumbo then is he going to go to a mumbo jumbo specialist and ask for help? How then is the issue going to be solved if we don't incorporate more compulsory mumbo jumbo work in the weekly training program?
10 minute subs appearances can tell a lot
He's like the kid in the park playing for his own fun
How to improve Dembele, Lamela, Townsend
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