The Portuguese Pulis was the man responsible! Let me posit a wild theory, with you. Maybe some of our players weren’t great, last night? Allow me to substantiate that argument by highlighting how miserable some of our players’ performances were, last night.
A team is only as good as the sum of its parts; the only exception to this east understand rule, is when the opposing side is particularly weak; and then… oh, hang on, we were playing Fulham. Meet Eric Dier.
Long balls? Attempted 13, succeeded on only 4 occasions.
Passing? 84% successfully accuracy. One might expect on such an occasion a comparable level of achievement from a short-sighted goose.
Duels? Didn’t win a single one on the ground, but managed nailed 4/9 in the air.
Tackles? This is a left field category, eh? Zero tackles.
Possession lost? 14 times against this class of opposition is humiliating, nothing less. Eric Von Clownstick.
Newsflash: Eric Dier as a centre back is not working. or would Levy sacking Mourinho solve that?
He made shapes David . He made shapes.
Salaries a problem
it is advisable to notshelfer
2 class strikers. Bale finished , La Celso out, no guile in midfield or speed on wings. Dier & Sanchez are not title class. Keeper knocking on. So only 1 part of team is right. The defensive midfield fine. Oh , Winks a Sunday pub player
he was better than Dier
Is it possible Dier was ‘instructed’ to make a lot of long balls, by Mourinho? Not a bad plan… but change the instructions when it’s not working.
And Dier got away with his handball v Newcastle because he had his back to Carroll and so couldn’t know where the ball was! Shouldn’t players keep an eye on the ball most of the time?
Dier didn’t seem to know where the goalscorer was but he could see the shirt number on Dier’s back.
An English International player who can’t really pass the ball unless it’s five yards back or sideways.
Team selection is everything, and responsibility lies with the manager for that, but the emphasis Mourinho appears to have based his whole tactical structure on is keeping clean sheets, which in the PL is asking a lot, too much in fact.
I don’t think that is a plan that can work week in week out, individual games yes as we have seen, but you cannot base a plan on not conceding a goal, every time you play, it’s just not practical in the modern day game. Every team has the capability of scoring a goal, whether it’s by skill or just good luck, so using that tactic is the wrong approach for me.
He obviously has reservations over some of his defenders in the best system to employ them, that is the only reasoning I can think of for the negative way we play.
I have said this before but he needs a rethink on his style of play with it being so disciplined, there are players with literally a ball and chain round their feet dying to express themselves, but can’t.
Exactly. If you have a midfield who are incapable of providing a supply to the strikers, the sensible option is to go long and hope HK and Sonny engineer a chance.
At our peak we had the DESK; Dele linking up with Kane and Son, providing them chances and using their presence to get into scoring positions. Eriksen could transition quickly with a killer pass into the front three.
Now we have Winks, Sissoko, PEH and Ndombele trying to service the front two. PEH can pick a pass, but is usually playing too deep as an enforcer to do much of this. Sissoko never plays a decent pass. Winks is neat and tidy mostly but never makes anything happen. Ndombele has the talent but always runs out of steam second half, and is forte is driving runs, beating players with his pace and control.
Is it any wonder that HK has had to take on some of Eriksen’s role? Without his assists, Son would have very little to show.
We just do not have creative players; Lamela, Moura and to some extent Bergwyjn all have little to their game apart from dribbling at max speed hoping to get to a shooting position. More often than not, they go into cul de sacs and lose possession. Bale is a lost cause.
Which leaves Dele.He has been tragically mismanaged, having fallen out with Mourinho because of his attitude and work ethic. It is up to Mourinho to get him back to his peak, that is the job of a manager, to get the best out of his staff. Mourinho seems to have given up with Dele at the first sign of difficulty, and is wasting a valuable resource through his own laziness and stubbornness.
The bottom line is this H. Regardless of the tools Jose has at his disposal (which is a separate subject), he picks the team. So when you persist in leaving your best CB on the bench and play two inferior central defenders, in Dier and Sanchez, then don’t point the finger at them, point it at yourself. Do you seriously think that Alderweireld would have both missed the tackle that let the attacker get to the bye-line for the cross that lead to the goal and then failed to mark the striker who headed it in? No, neither do I.
Also considered to be one of the best CL defenders at the time of his transfer.
Answer: Not. In high demand at the time of his transfer to Spurs Rodon was bought on the strength of his performances for Swansea elevating him to the Wales side. Looking comfortable and assured is good enough for me!
Before I bash Dier (which is deserved usually) – why did he do so many long balls? Every time he tried to pass it out of defence he was left with limited options mainly because Winks decided to hide behind the Fulham players instead of finding space. This left the defence isolated in possession. When Winks was found with the ball he would pass it most of the time back into defence or sideways then try to hide again. The only time Winks managed to move away from Fulham players was when we didn’t have possession. He was great at finding space then.
I think Dier is slow and hasn’t fully adapted to the CB role yet and it shows when he isn’t with Alderweireld, but the link up play with the midfield just wasn’t there. Partly because of playing 2 DM, but also because the other midfielder was shocking and it was like 9 against 10 most of the match. The guy is the opposite of Carrick – Carrick used to make everyone around him have more space and time on the ball and play better. Winks puts everyone under pressure, drifts around, and hides. His reading of the game is poor and he really isn’t good enough for the Premier league let alone a top 4 team.
Some blame comes onto the manager also though – he loves Dier and thinks he can adjust – although I also think it is going to be an adjustment and I am prepared to give both Dier and the manager a break on this one.
Wales!
Whilst agreeing Dier was particularly poor last night,so too was Sanchez.And certainly not for the first time.I wonder if Dier’s performance was because he ‘s not comfortable knowing Sanchez is not reliable.Yet they both lasted 90 minutes.I too wonder why Rodon is not getting any PL game time.
As for Sissoko and Winks the less said the better.
So we can we won’t see Dier at CB at the weekend then? Oh wait, yes we will. So sacking the manager probably would solve this problem then.
Got this one all wrong H
They are taking samples of his DNA to try and clone him at Hotspur Way
He’s a mother Tom Bloody Carroll!
The buck stops where? With the manager.
He was picked to play CB.
He was deemed worthy to play 90mins even though he looked a little bit broken after 15/20mins and was playing a little bit shit.
We played 3 holding midfielders at home to Fulham.
One of those was played right wing because we don’t have any other attacking players that can play there presumably?!?
His 1st substitute was after the inevitable equaliser – you knew it was coming – and it was a man who hasn’t played in six weeks (?) and is always a little bit broken.
Only 1 man making these poor decisions.
Don’t get me wrong if we win stuff – he is certainly worth sticking with and needs his chance to do it – but equally there is no point tossing the baby out with the bath water and scapegoating individual players or blindly defending his shortcomings. Jose is making the decisions the players are trying to execute the plans and when it goes wrong the entire playing and coaching team are eligible for criticism because it is simply horrible to watch.
Improvement required please!!
Offer dier, winks and lamela for greelish. How could they refuse
I have an idea let’s get Kim min jae. He is cheap will fit in well. Can’t be worse than dier
Oh for a Grealish!!
Ta.
His prolonged period of inept performances suggest that he is out of his depth at PL level.
Toby is one for the future?
I’ll give you a list of what Winks does game in game out if you like: –
Passes it sideways and backwards.
Slows down any attacking play we may be about to engage in.
Gives the ball away.
You’re welcome.
A £15m busted flush. Nice work if you can get it. Mugs everywhere. Agree try rodon can’t be any worse than being dier.
In fairness to Dier he was excellent in our narrow win against the Baggies!
You’re bang on. Amongst other things this style of play is not sustainable.
Not sure what Winks did for 90 mins. Please enlighten me?
I am in agreement with this.
Keeping chopping and changing combined with poor team selection / tactics fuels the argument that Jose is a busted flush!
When you have you actually seen Rodon? (Marine does not count)
One thing worth pointing out here is who is responsible for making Dier our ‘lynchpin’ at centre back? He gets more minutes than anyone else despite being dog sh!t, which I am in agreement with you on HH. Why then continually pick him ahead of someone more competent, i.e. Alderweireld who, lest we forget, was hooked at half time with the game won against Marine on Sunday presumably to preserve his legs for games such as last nights?
Whilst I agree that we are still paying the penalty for many wasted transfer windows whilst Levy piled every penny into his ego project which was the stadium, there does have to be some culpability in respect of the manager when it comes to things like team selection (when there are clearly some good quality players being under-used) and his lack of pro-activeness in utilising the bench when anyone with half a brain can see the same second half pattern emerging time and time again where conceding our lead is inevitable. There’s plenty of evidence to back up this theory as well (case studies include Palace & Wolves prior to yesterday’s capitulation).
In summary; Mourinho is not solely to blame but he could certainly be doing a better job of trying to ‘add value’ within the autonomy that is at his disposal imo.
For somebody schooled in Portugal, Dier is shockingly bad technically. You need at least one of your centre halves to be able to play a bit of ball out from the back. Dier is a mainstay in Jose’s team when there are other options such as Toby, and as the manager the book stops with him.
God I miss Jan.
Or you could also say if mourinho had picked a more offensive attacking team and stopped this ten men behind the ball rubbish we might score that second or even third goal. As another poster pointed out what we all have known for years dier is piss poor on the field and not any better in the stands. Mourinho picks him so why not try rodon or tanganga alongside Toby. A more productive forward thinking coach would see this and sort it but mourinho is a dinosaur he will stick with him so yes blame dier but also blame mourinho because he is creating this weekly rubbish.
Liking the look of Rodon I think he should be given an extended run out in the team starting against Sheff Utd.
Dier is Dier thats why Jose likes him and probably one of the first names on the team sheet. Why Sanchez was selected yesterday is anybodys guess. That was a non starter!
My preference is Rodon and Toby.
shit article Dier has improved, winks and sanches are the problems
Mourinho is the one who thinks Dier is a CB, no one’s forcing him to consistently play him there (or at all). Dier’s form has improved compared to the last couple of seasons but he’s still not good enough for a op 4 team. We are Liverpool of a few years ago and need a VVD and Salah to take us up to their level.