The Spurs thread | 2016-2017 season | Serious thread - wummers/derailers will be threadbanned
- Thread starter baanke laal
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Typical Spurs statistics that. Renowned bottlers year after year.
I thought it was pretty obvious that the second phrase is an exaggeration.
Anyway, calling Mourinho's tactics against Liverpool this season "the way to go" kinda hints in that direction and that was the post I quoted. I don't think one of the best managers in the world deserves any praise for getting two draws by playing defensive long ball football against a clearly inferior squad that was built with significantly less money. But that's just me.
I presume you didn't watch the game at OT as the tactics were certainly not defensive or long ball.
It will be a totally different game for us at their place. They will be much better.
Probably.
The Moyes comment was related to his also wretched record away to big teams.
That was always a huge red flag for me when he took over at United.
To be honest, a Liverpool win yesterday was ideal. Spurs won't stop as many points as Liverpool between now and the end of the season so all it does it tighten the gap between us and Spurs.
Both times, Mourinho's tactics were about avoiding the midfield battle, rather than actually dominating it. The second game was influenced by Liverpool taking the lead, which meant that United had more of the ball than the initial tactics suggested and obviously deserved the late equaliser. The underlying story was still somewhat similar.
Anyway, I wouldn't call Mourinho's tactics 'the way to go' in either of the games. That was the actual point I made.
By that logic, Klopp's entire tactic is to avoid the midfield battle - he wants to win the ball from the opposition's defence before their pressing line is broken.
Van Gaal was a loon, but I remember him saying before that dominant Juanfield performance that "the team that breaks the press wins", which is exactly what we did that afternoon, in part by using Fellaini as a deeper target man behind their midfield.
It's not avoiding the midfield battle, is refusing to allow Liverpool to dictate the terms of the match, as Spurs allowed them to yesterday.
Disagree with all of that. Liverpool is dictating the terms of the match, if they force the opponent to play a way that neglects their own strength. If United has to use Fellaini as a 2nd target man to get some sort of control of the game, it's a great thing for the opponent, because one of your worst players becomes the key to the match. What more can you want as an opponent against a superior squad? If you still fail to capitalise on it, then it obviously sucks. But at least you maximised your chances.
If you can break Liverpool's midfield pressing without going past your own strength, you're the one winning back control. A team with more individual talent should find a way to do that instead of hoping for the best by bringing on 'best chest control in football with lots of hair'.
Obviously Poch's attempts to do that failed yesterday, but eventually you need to find real solutions to break a midfield press like Liverpool's because in Europe you'll regularly face teams that combine that kind of pressing with an actual ability to outplay deep sitting defenses and Fellaini won't be a gamechanger often enough to get a result.
Basically shows you didn't watch the game. We went long when they started sitting with 2 banks of 4 in their own half as we could use Fellaini's height to our advantage. Btw, I have seen Guardiola employ the same tactic for BM when playing Dortmund.
At Old Trafford we set out play to our normal game. It was Klopp who tried to stifle us asking Lallana to man-mark Carrick, for all his usual bluster about how bold his side are he changed to combat us. We still should have opened the scoring and it would have been a completely different game but they got something to hold on to due to our set piece struggles on the day.
What's with this 'I didn't watch the game' nonsense. I just quoted a post which said:
That's what I replied to, didn't expect that I had to analyse the two games minute by minute to say that coaching a clearly superior team to two draws against Liverpool can't be the way to go.
And yes, I know that Guardiola used Martinez as a 2nd target man once in a game in Dortmund. Not sure what this has to do with Poch or Mourinho, but anyway. It was an interesting choice and showed that Guardiola is actually willing to look for a plan B. It's probably also worth mentioning that it was still 0-0 when Martinez was moved back to centerback, Thiago and Götze came in and the 'control the midfield with talent' approach brought us a 3-0 away win in the last 30 minutes of the game with Götze as the false 9 and Thiago pulling the strings in midfield. So it's hardly a good example that you have to play that way against Klopp or whatever you tried to say by bringing it up.
Poch is still developing his team, he's still a young manager who will make mistakes from time to time. But I personally think it's a positive that he believes in his tactics and tries to apply them against all kinds of opponents, hoping to improve the team and the tactics to a level where he can play to his own team's strength. He should be encouraged to do that rather than criticised and he'll benefit from it in the long term.
He got his tactics horribly wrong today. City were torn to shreds by Liverpool because they thought they could pass the ball around with their pressing. You think Guardiola did the right thing because they do have better players than Liverpool but were completely outplayed. Guardiola could do nothing despite having some of the best attackers in the league.
It is not a matter of having an individually better squad. It is also about knowing when to tweak your tactics to have the best chance of winning a game. All this nonsense of Mourinho always playing like that against big teams is based from his time when his Chelsea team would win games 1-0. He wasn't defensive even then. He just knew when and how to kill games off.
Now we have gone toe to toe with Arsenal and played way better than them in our home game against them, comfortably outplayed Spurs and were the better team against Liverpool at OT. Against City we had a horrid first half and that caused us a problem.
As for the bold part, this is a Spurs thread yet you started talking about Mourinho's tactics in general so not sure why you were surprised when Guardiola's tactics were pointed out to.
Well actually, I was trying to defend Poch's approach against the "Mourinho knows how to do it" claim, which doesn't make much sense based on this season no matter how much you try to sugarcoat United's performances. Maybe I didn't make that clear enough at the beginning. Still no clue why Guardiola had to come into this.
Guardiola was used as an example that using the same tactics every time irrespective of opposition is suicide when you don't have the best team in the world or by far the best team in the league. Bascially pointing out Poch's mistake and tactical blunders last night.
Full backs positioned at full back would have helped. There was (at least) one time 1st half where Lloris had the ball & the centre backs split wide on either side so they could receive a throw out, with the rest of the team nowhere to be seen. It was ludicrous, ''Liverpool are terrible, we can do what we want'' tactics maybe?
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That makes zero sense at all.
Poch should have used a back 3 which they've used before and would have suited Dier and Ben Davies far more.
They will fall out of top 4. Winning against the big sides at home, but bottling it away. They dont deserve the top 4 and wont get it this year.
You said Poch should keep playing the same tactic no matter the opposition and somehow used that as a dig at Mourinho. All I said was it is stupid to do that by pointing to how Guardiola has struggled here despite beig hailed as a visionary because he seems adamant on not tweaking much. His City team getting pasted by Liverpool and Arsenal merely confirmed that point.
Not sure what is there to be confused about.
I thought of replying to your post @Balu , but seems like your hands our full 
I didn't say Poch should keep playing the same tactic no matter the opposition. I said it's not necessarily bad to do that. My dig against Mourinho wasn't really that bad anyway unless you actually believe that Mourinho's tactics so far this season deserve to be praised. Mourinho is a totally different manager than Poch anyway and it's clearly possible to have success with a variety of tactics in football. This Spurs side isn't built by Mourinho and doesn't have the depth and variety in quality to tweak the tactics as much as Mourinho likes to do against quality sides. Sticking with what your own team is familiar with and great at isn't wrong just because it backfired once against a certain opponent.
And again, I've no clue what you're trying to prove by talking about Guardiola. You mentioned one specific game in which your point of the need to adjust tactics to a Klopp side was actually proven wrong. Guardiola's problems so far this season are totally meaningless in regards to Poch's work at Spurs or the game yesterday or the notion that Spurs should have played yesterday like United did against Liverpool this season. The latter was the initial point I disagreed with.
As i said yesterday, it's their weakest point (like us).
Go, go, goI thought of replying to your post @Balu , but seems like your hands our full
. I rarely have the time to discuss football on the Caf in the last months, so with the missus away over the weekend, I've got time being lazy, lying on the couch doing nothing. So yeah, got time for a bit of silly discussion .I seriously don't get what is so difficult to understand. Maybe having the best team in the league by a country mile makes it difficult for you to gauge this point. You don't do what Spurs did without having the players to do that. Martinez is a prime example of that. He thought he will play the "beautiful way" no matter what. His Wigan team were in prerennial relegation struggle and finally got relegated because he was too stubborn (maybe stupid) to realize you don't play one way irrespective of what you feel. He then went to Everton and made the same blunder which saw him getting sacked.
Poch made a similar mistake yesterday and Spurs' results and performance against the big sides away from home is testament that even after three years they don't know how to tweak their game enough. Now if he was getting results doing that against the big teams, your point would hold value but he has not been doing that for three years so your opinion make little sense to me especially after 3 years of the same mistakes.
One last point, why do you think it's fine to have a dig at Mourinho but then get baffled when we have a dig at Guardiola because both have had brainfarts with their tactics at various stages?
You don't watch Spurs obviously.
United weren't defensive as you stated at OT. If anything Klopp was.
United went more direct at the end but with 3 defenders on the pitch and pushing to win the match I'm not sure you can be critical.
The first game was a totally different affair.
The stock post from people who don't understand anything about football.
Every time a team loses a game they bottled it, it's laughably stupid.
I honestly didn't think it was a dig at Mourinho to say that getting two draws against Liverpool this season doesn't deserve praise for his tactics. I don't mind if you have digs at Guardiola, I just don't get why you think it adds anything to the discussion with me. City had plenty of embarrassing games so far this season and Guardiola has made some laughable decisions in terms of tactics. So what?
People are forgetting your backline is missing arguably its two best performers, always gonna be a difficult game against Liverpool when you're missing good defenders.
The stock post from 99% of Spurs fans everytime they bottle it.
Even beside the last point, do you agree with the remaining post or have anything else to counter on it because my dig or reference to Guardiola was not even the main point in it.
Go, go, go
Well, in that case..
I mostly agree with what you are advocating. A coach, if he believes in his team, must let it play the way it has been successful and not be reactive. To be fair to Poch, Spurs have shown they are seriously good at their game, a prime example of which was out-pressing Pep's City.
But the absence of Vertonghen and Rose had weakened Spurs. So playing at Anfield with a weakened defence meant they were the underdogs. In which case, the classic Mourinho tactics of negating the opposition threat would have helped, atleast in the first 20-25 minutes.
Again, adopting reactive tactics would not really inspire confidence in squad players like Davies, but it wouldn't be nearly as harmful as the first half last night. Sometimes being pragmatic, reactive and I daresay, defensive, does help.
It's just nonsense to be honest. One poor game does not mean you are bottling it. However you have to agree how ridiculously overwhelmed your team looks away against the big sides. Though I still think 5 teams will be looking at the remaining three top 4 spots with all 5 having a decent shout of them deserving to be there.
Liverpool had Lucas in the heart of their defence.
Thats where Spurs fell down yesterday. Conceding at Anfield isn't a crime but to put no pressure at all on their incompetent backline was a travesty.
Not being solid defensively can be excused if they went all out attack but they were shambolic going forward as well.
They set up bad tactically, they're still a very good team, probably the second strongest starting eleven in the league. People writing them off after yesterday will be in for a nasty shock in the coming weeks.
Don't agree with the second strongest starting line up but agree that they are one team who have shown they can bounce back immediately after a poor performance.
It's not really yesterday on its own, its their last 3 games as a colllective. They simply look tired to me and they haven't the personnel to rotate their front 3 so I can't see how they can recover.
Are you saying that teams like Hull, Swansea, Wolves and Plymouth put out better players than what Tottenham did yesterday? Because they managed to either win or draw against Liverpool in recent weeks.
It wasn't the personnel, it was the tactics that let them down.
Stick 10 men behind the ball and hit Liverpool on the counter has proven to get results recently, Spurs have enough quality to do that, but tactics failed them.
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