One cannot but note the bewildering words Harry Redknapp on Sky Sports Premier [at about 1700hrs] where the former football manager and now face of his own Roly Poly brand took exception to Jose Mourinho being credited with improving Spurs’ tactical wit.
Apparently two days is an insufficient length of time to have aided the Tottenham players in this respect.
Indeed, the line about our lot “just” needing a change of voice shows a quite staggering contempt for Mourinho, whose list of honours is voluminous.
Opposed to Harry’s honours which could make a Post-It note look spacious.
What we got from Jose, for an hour at least, was a new lease of life from a group of players who had previously given up the will to live.
Sure, every side gets a new manager bounce, but what was evident to me was how less confused Spurs looked.
The xG ratio against West Ham was 1.56, yet Spurs scored 3 times. This is inconsistent with the bulk of data under Pochettino.
Harry Winks was far more useful under Mourinho. The Englishman had been heavily criticized for his seeming unwillingness to playing attacking balls for Pochettino.
Winks’ in the attacking third was good to watch.
Eric Dier saw more of the ball than anyone, bar Davinson Sanchez.
Dier was also extremely dominant during West Ham’s frequent aerial attacks, winning 5 defensive duels, 2 headed clearances and winning 4 attacking duels.
Harry Kane’s contribution was also more useful. The 27-year-old recovered the ball on 6 occasions, and was notably more physical in challenges – coded language for Kane was far more determined to stay on his feet and win the ball outright, opposed to fall over.
Harry Kane covered more ground than any Tottenham player against West Ham – the most he has in any Premier League game in over three months.
— Hotspur Hacker (@HotspurHacker) November 24, 2019
The skipper committed four fouls in total — the joint-most that he has conceded in any game in his entire Premier League career. pic.twitter.com/G0uROqV8la
If having the right players in the right positions doing the right things isn’t a tactical success, perhaps Mr Redknapp could expand further?
Davies. Make the most of it coz you won’t be here long.
Moura has quite often looked like a fly trapped in jar but yesterday he gave a performance that suggested he knew exactly what his role was and didnt spend the match getting in other peoples way. Same goes for Ali. It was like Mourinho said this is what your position is now go and show us what you can do. The team played like they were on message. We haven’t been able to say that for a while
Things that can be said in two hours:
‘Dele, young man: despite having the talent to be the first name on Southgate’s teamsheet, right now you do not have a rats arse’s chance in hell of ever being selected for a squad again. Give me sixty minutes of real Dele on Saturday and I will pick you again. That might start getting you into Southgate’s thinking again.’
‘Moura, young man: you may think that Kane was a narcissistic little turd for demanding to be playing in Madrid on June 1st, but right now there are 174 reasons why you will never win that war. So go and do what you did in Amsterdam at the London Stadium on Saturday. That’s right: you are starting.’
‘Son, me old son: you are just as good as Sterling but for some reason you do not have his arrogance in trying to steal Kane’s glory. That is a good thing in my book, as I want both of you as team mates banging in 20+ goals a season each, not two bulls locking horns every week trying to do the other down. Cruyff and Neeskens is what I want from you two…..’
‘Kane: you have been a loafer this season. You know I think you are the best striker in Europe but I want you doing your talking on the pitch, not fronting up for rubbish performances to the media. Be in no doubt, I will drop you if you start behaving like Pogba….but what I want to be doing is telling the whole world that £500m is too low a selling price for Mr Levy…..and that means you getting close to 200 career goals for Spurs, preferably more, come season’s end.’
Thst would probably only take fifteen minutes, but it may have had a useful effect.
Still left 105 minutes for other valuable interventions…
Maurice’s last couple of teams have been odd. Dier and Foyth in the back 4….that needed changing and I don’t know what Poch was doing. He knew it was over.
They wanted to impress the famous man. That’s what it amounts too. It’s true you can’t do much in 2 days. I expect it would have been a comfortable victory even if Poch stayed on account of Stratford Utd being absolute dog todd.