Spurs Summer Transfer Window Day 82
That's a lot of days 8 and some want names of a fresh superstar signing every day!
I do wish my eyes would settle down, I'm fighting with them not to develop eye ulcers at the moment and have been for the past couple of weeks.
They have been constantly watering for a week now, it makes life difficult. Retire to bed and the dark about 8pm each evening.
Richarlison already looks as if he is enjoying life at Tottenham, even though he hasn't started a game yet.
His mentality is exactly the type of mentality I have been saying we need in every player for years now, finally we are starting to assemble a squad with that mentality.
That is more important than anything, football is 95% mentality, 5% skill. Most players have the skill level, fewer have the mentality to go with it, I reference Dele Alli again as an example.
He had the mentality to get to the top, but not the mentality to stay there, other things became more important and no he is in a Turkish backwater, the place you go when you have no other options.
It could be good for him, it could be a reality check when he isn't in the limelight of UK fans.
There is plenty of talk about Richarlison with his showboating and I have no issue with the tackle that came afterwards, or the deliberately falling on a player to try and hurt them.
I do have an issue with the deliberate kick back of the leg/foot to kick him in the groin, pretending it's an accident, it wasn't.
I certainly have an issue with the late challenge on Bentancur when the Forest player had no intention of going for the aerial ball whatsoever, only the man.
That should have been another yellow card as it was dangerous play, as shown by Bentancur having to be taken off. You could give someone concussion doing that, in fact he did.
I started reading a piece by Rob Guest Football.London and having had a chat with him before I'm not surprised ho he misread the game against Forest.
He writes the it 'wasn't straightforward' (yes it was) and that 'the hosts caused them major issues throughout' (no they didn't).
Spurs merely let them have the ball in non dangerous area, looking fancy there is irrelevant. They did not continually carve Tottenham open and quite frankly, never looked like scoring.
Guest then contradicts himself saying they 'couldn't convert possession into meaning chances'.
So they caused major issues without meaningful chances!
Make your mind up.
Spurs are 'winning when playing badly' except they are not playing badly, we are playing the pragmatic football that is our style and the one-touch passing was excellent at times.
I felt no concern for the result throughout watching that game.
It seems to me that Rob Guest and folk like him don't understand the game and certainly could never make coaches.
You can control a game without having the ball.
The season stats show that Spurs create better quality chances than the rest of the Premier League and give away less quality chances than other teams, restricting sides to long range efforts.
Prior to that game Spurs haven't conceded a chance within our own six yard box, yet we scored a goal on their six-yard box.
Playing this style is what won Chelsea many trophies, what has made Conte one of the best managers in the world.
A few folk need to understand it better.
Tottenham had more shots than Nottingham Forest (19-17) and more shots on target (7-1).
Spurs committed 29 fouls, Forest committed 77. Henderson, the Forest keeper made 5 saves, Lloris made 1 save, yet it's Spurs with the 'major problems' apparently.
Sorry but for me that demonstrates once again that reporters are merely professional writers with limited football knowledge, Louis van Gaal was right.
Conte spoke to Sky Sports and said we must continue to improve, we must continue to look for the fastest way forward, the fastest pass forward, which is a straight line.
They players are gaining confidence with their group defending and as we have discussed before, defending for periods of time brings it's on anxiety, which produces mistakes.
The stronger mentally the players are in this situation the less mistakes they make and that all comes from controlling your emotions.
No bookings for the defensive unit when the opposition had more of the ball speaks volumes for the control of the performance and shows those 'major issues' were non existent.
That there highlights the difference in mentality and why fan mentality isn't player or manager mentality, it's totally different.
It's the same with people running football clubs, that takes a different mentality too.
Kick-off is 19:45 hrs GMT, good job Paris didn't get to dictate time around the world and it as PMT!
The Brits defeated the French again.
Spurs playing away from home means Antonio Conte will look to keep his back three, with the to holding midfielders sitting in front, trying to keep the Hammers to long range shots.
The two wing-backs won't overdo the foraging forward in the first-half as Spurs look to keep it tight.
The 'playing badly' game plan will continue.
This is a fixture I'd be playing our strongest available XI and then rotate on Saturday against Fulham, when I'd expect to see Richarlison get his first start.
We'll have to wait and see whether Bentancur suffered concussion after the Forest player came charging into an aerial challenge elbow first into Bentancur's head.
I didn't give my Man of the Match vs Forest did I, Rodrigo Bentancur, thought he and Højbjerg ere excellent in front of the defence.
It as excellent to see Richarlison make such an excellent pass for an assist against Nottingham Forest on Sunday as that will give him confidence and a sense that he has contributed, mentally that's vital.
Gianluca Di Marzio, the Sky Italia reporter and best friend of Fabio Paratici reports that Spurs removed Pape Matar Sarr from the transfer market immediately after the Notts Forest player went charging into the head of Rodrigo Bentancur with his elbow on Sunday.
When you jump up and forward, you don't naturally keep your elbow out leading you, you do if you want to elbow someone.
It was a challenge missed by most that I felt should have been called immediately for a free-kick and a booking.
I don't think there was malice involved, just a very clumsy, limited African player playing above his level.
Youngster Pape Matar Sarr was due to join Italian side Cremonese on loan.
Tottenham have asked Atlético Madrid for 28-year-old (29 in September) Yannick Carrasco.
The offer made was a loan with a €40m obligation to buy, which has been initially turned down. (£34.18m - US$39.99m - AUS$58.09m)
The obligation part of the offer is dependant on targets being met. It contains clauses like Spurs qualifying for the UEFA Champions League and player performance related targets.
Both sides are still talking and Atlético have indicated they want the full €60m release clause. (£51.28m - US$59.99m - AUS$87.13m)
Spanish reports suggest we are considering offering Emerson Royal in part exchange but as he is our first choice right wing-back, I don't see that happening.
It is transfer deadline day when anything can happen though, almost and might or it may all be an anti-climax.
Either way, the usual people (the agenda driven) will not be happy.
If Conte is happy and he is, we should all be happy because it means the club are backing him and doing everything they can to back him.
1,330 words
COYS
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6 comments
Warning! Don't turn up at WHU at 19:45 GMT tomorrow. You'll miss the first hour. We're currently GMT-1 == British Summer Time (BST). It is 19:45 local time of course, but remember you have lots of readers from across the globe now who could get confused.
I believe Richarlison was taking the piss. What I'm confused about is the reaction to that. Footballers love to niggle & tease when they can. Nutmegs are a perfect illustration of that. Footballers hate that - which is why other footballers do it. It disturbs their concentration and their game. If you don't like it then you have to do something about it - preferably within the laws of the game (otherwise you look a bit pathetic as they did by fouling him). The last thing you want to do is moan or whinge as that shows a weakness that others will exploit. If an opposi…
Relative to that - I believe we're doing quite well ;-)
COYS!!
I mostly agree. I, personally, have every sympathy with exaggeration myself. The refs have a job to do, which is to apply the laws of the game evenly. In my experience they do a pretty poor job of manaaging that. The law is pretty much that any contact to the face (or neck+) should be taken seriously at least. Many take the view that if it doesn't hurt then there's no harm - no foul. I don't. That doesn't take into consideration that we're already dealing with grown males whose very strong - testosterone-filled - instincts when approached aggressively are to hit back hard - with proper violence. This tends to be frowned upon by most - and I have to find myself in that camp if I'm honest. However, people did eventually recognise that if you want to restrict grown men from using violence against each other then you must also restrict any behaviour that can be used as a taunt for such violence. This includes spitting, and aggressive…
I would still prefer to see less simulation but also greater respect for the rules and the "integrity" of the game. I agree that attempts to intentionally harm or even to provoke a player/s should be punished.
Often it's only the "provokee" who gets sanctioned but then again, but then when Son got back at Rob Holding last season in that way, since the ref was busy not noticing a string of infrigements on Son, I was all for it. I guess I'm not above exploiting the rules when it suits me.