The joyous screams of ‘Bale is back’, have of late been deafening. I’ve very rarely switched off Tottenham games, but the sense of impending doom as I was picking up on fan reaction was too much. I wasn’t going to learn anything and off went the TV. As we went about putting 8 goals in total against Wolfsberger my spidey senses told me that too many people would believe that thumping a poor side would be a catalyst for meaningful change. Naturally, it wasn’t. How could it be. You can improve morale, but if you have players that are fundamentally trapped by their own capabilities, then the effects of such a victory will be relatively thin.
Total successful actions is the old faithful reliability meter that tells us what the likely outcome was if you gave a player the ball. 29% says Bale was a liability that ought not to be passed to.
Passing accuracy of 47% says his ball control was worse than the odds you get when tossing a coin in the air. These aren’t opinions, they are facts. You may have enjoyed watching Bale play, but the reality was that against the metrics employed in professional sport, we may as well have played with 10 men.
Loose ball duels and offensive duels? He was winning 1 in 8 of them. A sliding tackle that missed, this was an unexceptional 69-minutes if ever there was.
Too many black crosses. Not enough activity in the first place.
I’m kidding of course, but in some games, the referees touch the ball more often.
Another sea of losses.
In conclusion, it would be really helpful if some fans could retain a sense of context. None of this is worth north of the subsidized £300,000 a week it is costing us.
Care to expand?
Thinks he is Ronaldo trying to score with a freekick almost on the halfway line.
Ndombele is the most over rated player at Spurs a complete waste of time.
he was very scared to shoot too
by playing doherty and Davies we effectively play with 9 men. As they do not press forward it creates no space for Son or Bale by drawing out an extra defender. It also makes our wingers then have to sit deeper defensively. Totally changes our team dynamic with those two at the back.
All this afternoon!
Anything on Son, who didn’t even attempt a challenge all night.
En route!
What were Ndombele’s stats?
I really don’t understand what’s happened to the majority of the fanbase of this club. It’s like ENIC have molded a new generation of minds to fit their modus operandi. How anyone would fawn about Bales “comeback” from those 2 matches is …well, It’s desperation as much as anything else I expect. A testament to what we’ve become under Levy.
Bale coming back needed fans in the stadium too – might have given him 10% more ‘feeling the love’
He looks a bit confused as to why he’s on a football field at times
I think Bale may be somewhat out of his depth, coming back to the Premier League. At 31 years old; and after spending 8-years in a league not known for it’s intensity, or bruising, no nonsense defenders, it was never going to be a walk in the park for the lad. Add to that, the last 2-years of being mostly sat on the bench, what else, in hindsight, could we expect.
I believe Mourinho has more than eluded to these facts, when asked about Bale’s form in recent pressers. You do have to wonder though, was this possible outcome discussed between manager and board, prior to us going in for him?
The key thing was with time on the ball last night he still couldn’t put in a decent cross or pass and that should be his bread and butter.
The direct free kicks were sad too.
Never should have returned in the second half – I was amazed Jose didn’t hook him.
I still think he hasn’t got the memo that we really need to win and this isn’t a jolly – sure he wants to play a bit and score etc but I’m not sure it hurts him to lose.
Theres a bit of high and dry ‘galactico’, water off a ducks back easy going’ness which definitely didn’t look great against a pumped up relegation haunted Fulham !