The Aston Villa Report
The Aston Villa Report
We sit 4 points off the top, 3 points off second place and 2 points off third place, albeit with the goal difference needing improvement.
That will be difficult with Harry Kane simply going through the motions.
Morning folks, Tottenham Hotspur Blog News (THBN) with a quick look at the Aston Villa game which I found frustrating with, what seemed to me, so much work still to do to get the team to where Nuno wants them to be.
As I have written in previous posts and as Dele confirmed to you all in midweek, this takes time, you can't just click your fingers and everything fits into place, as fans seem to expect.
Certainly our anti crowd expect it as they want something to beat the club with, something they seem to want to do more than support the club.
Kane isn't fussed whether he scores or not at the minute and there was no great celebration from him when Spurs did score the opener.
No pumped fist.
No delight, happiness but not delight, which there should have been after Arsenal.
There was delight from Reguilón, just a well done from our vice-captain basically though.
Kane was putting the effort in to try and ensure Spurs held on when we were 2-1 up though.
That was the only positive I saw from him apart creating space in and around the box for himself a few times, like when we scored that goal.
Then he was free.
His blast way over the bar summed his game up for me, last season that would have been on target forcing the keeper to be equal to it and make a save.
Lucas Moura gave the ball away 5 times in the first 12 minutes.
That's ridiculous, goodness knows how many times during the 90 minutes.
He scored, great, but he isn't the level of player we need to be challenging at for trophies regularly.
He simply gives the ball away far too often, every game, often with lazy passing.
To me he could be a far better player than he is but he doesn't seem to be improving or getting more consistent in the Premier League.
Oliver Skipp was getting dragged out of position far to easily, usually to our right-hand side, leaving a hole in the centre that Aston Villa exploited.
His other problem is staying on his feet.
He wants to tackle on the floor all the time, which simply takes him out of the game, as with their goal, when he should have stayed on his feet.
Where is he expecting the ball to go when he lunges in like this, he isn't in control of it, he can't pass it.
It was that error that led to their goal.
Social media is saying what a wonderful game he had, he was in fact poor in the first half particularly.
We did learn that all three of our midfielders have licence to go forward and it is up to one of the other two to act as the defensive midfielder when Skipp does go forward.
That didn't work with the three against Arsenal because if Ndombele was left he didn't perform the role.
Yet against Aston Villa he was sprinting back chasing players near our goal, that was a pleasure to see at last.
Dele now has a fight to get back in the team and looks, with the introduction of Giovanni Lo Celso ahead of him, that he will be consigned to the UEFA Europa Conference League.
It has seemed patently obvious to me that Romero should have been starting ahead of Sánchez since he arrived and that Emerson should have been starting over Tanganga.
Gollini, Doherty, Rodon, Davies, Sessegnon can all get game time there without the need to play them in the Premier League.
That should remain unchanged for much of the season with Lo Celso and Ndombele fighting over a spot.
A producer no less, was trying to tell the world on social media that Eric Dier was out of position for the Villa goal and was responsible for Arsenal's first two goals as well!
Against Arsenal the midfield were the issue leaving the defence exposed while they trotted back from 40 yards away, but no, that's Dier's fault.
Clearly the guy needs to stick to being a producer as he knows little about roles, responsibility and defending, or that a team defends, not just the defence.
Dier was in the right place today but didn't lunge to cut out the cross for whatever reason.
That was his mistake today.
He hadn't lost his man, he was in front of him, where he should be, but, and I'm a defender of his against unjust criticism, he should have lunged to cut out the ball for a corner.
Dier incorrectly left it for Lloris, an error on his part.
That was his error, not his positioning, there was nothing wrong with that.
As I said earlier, the source of the goal was Skipp in midfield.
As a coach you look for the root cause and solve that so the remainder doesn't happen.
In this instance Dier should be impressed upon to cut out a centre like this because he does on the other side and was a rock in our defence apart from that one instance.
Then again Romero should have realised he wasn't going to get to his man on time and halt his charge.
Skipp error, leads to a Romero error which leads to a Dier error.
They are connected, stop the first, the other two don't happen.
I hope we bring in Franck Kessié next summer, or even January, for young Skipp to learn from and develop alongside.
We need an upgrade in that position, it's such a vital position.
At the end of the day it was a battling win today, a few chances where we were not clinical enough again in front of goal.
These three points were important but so are the next three against 19th placed Newcastle United, who have had two draws after an opening loss in their three home Premier League fixtures this season.
Well that's it for this morning's offering folks.
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1 comment
I agree HK was at less than his best. I suspect that's more to do with not having the will to push himself outside of the games (Training etc.) as he used to, rather than not caring on the day. He tried, but the preparation wasn't there it seemed to me.
Nevertheless, overall, I was happy with the performance generally. It seemed a big step in the right direction.
COYS!!