Charlie Eccleshare and Tom Worville for The Athletic published a piece on Spurs so early this morning that some of you were just coming in from an all-night COVID-19 lockdown bender in your living rooms, and bits of it are worth pillaging for analysis in this place…
The Athletic tackles the issue of fouling, or more accurately, the alleged dark arts of said profession. Which is fair comment, to a degree. However, looking at the boys’ piece, I cannot help but make two crystal clear observations.
One: Whilst Pochettino never won anything, he did deliver decent also-ran finishes. Hurrah.
Two: Klopp’s side is at the foot of all these tables; a manager that has won the league and already won the Champions League. So let’s be more like Jurgen, eh?
So Charlie Eccleshare and Tom Worville came close to making the right point, but no cigar.
Pochettino is NOT the benchmark of success. The man at the bottom of all these graphics is. Jurgen Klopp.
There’s one inevitable conclusion. Stop wasting time fouling, and play like a winner. It’s not about “niceness”, it’s about playing to win, and who doesn’t admire Liverpool’s extraordinary “nice” success?
Good refs play advantage and let the game flow.. I wouldnt want the game becoming even more strict and soft.
Exactly
I believe liverpool just happen to be a lot better at defending and tackling in particular.. Better quality players the likes of van dik, fabinho, robertson, milner they time their tackles right and get the ball, so concede less fouls… Sitting back and containing and countering then we are bound to concede less fouls, rather then pressing and forcing the issue from higher up… Since we have been nicer we have dropped down the table.. Man city are at the top, liverpoo at the bottom, the arsenal are right at the top. Its just stats reflecting whos worse at defending… The arsenal and we all knew that 😂
Considering the vibe Jose walked into midway through the season I think he’s done a fantastic job. Judging his style of play with these/those disinterested limp lot is/was bloody stupid. Some of them thought they we’re too good to be here. (They aint/wernt. None of them will go onto play for bigger clubs. Anyone who thinks we’ll play like this next season is a moron. Not many of pochs lot will be here when we start lifting silver. Big up Jose and Sacramento. Poch killed the spirit of a lot of these players. Many were glad to see the back of him.
Didn’t Jose berate one of our players for letting someone through without fouling him or did I dream it/under a different manager
I think these stats are bourne out of a tactical shift. Under Poch, we dominated the ball, so therefore our weakness was when the opposition broke on us and a valid tactic to negate this danger is the tactical foul. Man City do it a lot and it’s successful.
Under Mourinho, we’re playing more on the counter, which means we don’t have the same situation when we lose the ball. In theory at least, we’re more ready for it, so less need to tactical foul. But note the percentage is still only a small change from 7.6 to 5.5. It’s not huge and I wouldn’t read to much into the difference.
Interesting stats. Let’s not forget Poch’s playing background was as an international Argentinian central defender. I can’t help but feel that the referees could be much less tolerant of the professional fouling that goes on. How many times do you see a player upended in mid flow and the miscreant, at best, getting a yellow card? The matches would flow much better if this was severely clamped down on.