These autopsies are coming all too fast and freely, but we’ll discuss Nuno’s extremely limited future, not just at Tottenham but in football, a little later…
What’s obvious from reviewing the goals (above) is that Spurs were entirely outplayed on each occasion. Our porous midfield was continually outgunned, and the Spurs backline looked on like unreliable eyewitnesses.
We were sold a fairytale of the Tottenham DNA, and presented with a coach who told us he was going to make us proud. The truth is, Daniel Levy recruited a defensive dullard, a man in well over his pay grade because he was not just inexpensive, but actually willing to drink heartily from the ENIC’s poisoned chalice.
Even when we had Eriksen, Demeble and Wanyama/Dier making a reasonably effective unit, I still feel we were short in midfield. We’d often huff and puff and never look like breaking teams down. But now the midfield is simply dysfunctional. Individually, I think PEH and Skipp are OK players that can do a job, but as things stand, they are too samey and leave us very short on attacking initiative.
Davies shoulda done more to stop the first.
Been saying the same regarding our midfield for ages, offers no creativity and little support at both ends of the pitch, but picking out individual players for criticism is not the problem.
For me the whole squad apart from Lloris maybe, are either not performing to their previous level or are finding their way as recent signings.
Our lack of ability in midfield was summed up with the second goal. Hojbjerg hits an awful pass to Skipp, who still should control it better, but gives it away. But why didn’t he see the danger and foul Fernandes or Ronaldo? Take the yellow card and keep us in the game lad (like it would have mattered!). Fred did this and got a yellow card after he knew not to give Spurs a chance. That is professional football Skippy.
Midfield has been the biggest problem area for the past 3.5 seasons… we have no Dembele someone who can run with the ball, make a tackle, who can play for 90 minutes… I didn’t see the game yesterday but it appears as though Moura was our best player by far, so with that being the case someone else has to make way…to not do so suggests incompetence or a game plan that was already scripted prior to being played. I would be seriously tempted to play 3 centre backs next game just to give us some width…
I don’t see the missing Poch idea as holding up. There are not too many of his stalwarts left in the squad. There may be a few who are wondering why on earth we would sack Mourinho and bring in Nuno; I certainly would if I was in the team.
Turning to the video, for me, the big problem area we have at the moment is a non-functioning midfield. There may be problems with Son and Kane and the defence may not be perfect, but until we can get a functioning midfield, we are going to struggle.
Kane and Son did not play well yesterday, but in the main, they were feeding on scraps and have been pretty much all season and Davies aside, I thought the defence was sort of OK. For me the only two outfield players that came out of the game with any credit were Emerson and Romero, who at least showed a sense of urgency and fight.
If you look at the midfield, Lo Celso was trying to get up and down the park and make things happen, but when you have PEH and Skipp both playing a fairly static game, the forward group of players get isolated with little in the way of passing options. The few good moves we saw yesterday that showed any sign of promise, came when there were bodies forward and players like Kane and Lo Celso were able to plays some one touch football. Too much of our play out from the back was ponderous with players taking multiple touches and having passed the ball, too rarely then moving to receive a return pass.
If we’re going to play with one of Lo Celso and Ndombele as the creative force, one of Skipp and PEH has to be moving up with them to give us some passing options. Too often you find one of those two will only get up in support of the attacking group when we’ve moved the ball forward and glacial pace and the opposition has had plenty of time to organise and ensure there’s little or no space to play with.
And then there’s Moura. I understand why people were frustrated when he was hooked and my enthusiasm for Bergwijn is non-existent. However, Moura too often runs into blind alleys and, since he nearly always drives in-field, we end up very narrow, especially when you have Davies posing so little forward threat. Ultimately, I don’t think we had anyone on the bench who was going to affect the result and if Bergwijn was the man to come on, for me we looked more balanced with him replacing Moura than we would have had he replaced Lo Celso. However, whichever way you slice it, our midfield is miles off the pace and for the real problem area in that team, which I can only see being fixed by bringing in one or more new faces, as I don’t see any combination of the current group forming a decent midfield unit.
Any coach/manager crazy enough to spend time kissing Levy’s backside is welcome to the job. Your hands will be tied, as will be your tongue. The players are still missing Poch who just gave up as has Kane and your rep will take a beating, similar to Spurs yesterday. Success in business leads to self-delusion and feelings of grandeur and we are in a similar position as Newcastle who have finally got the new owners they craved. Though it will take time with the players and new coach. They too were going nowhere. Hearing from Joe Cole is typical, giving Redknapp a heads up on Hazard who insisted he was worth the quoted 16 mill after seeing for himself, Levy just would not cough up. Another huge loss in our chairs twenty years of basically mediocrity. We were mediocre in the European Cup if you remember. Same as the two second places where Poch was not allowed to buy some proven quality winners who would have seen us over the line. Chelsea in the eighties where nowhere when we were in our last great spell until Burkinshaw saw what was coming. Now they are Football royalty with TWO European Cups after their chair was told to F*%K OFF, by, you guessed it, Levy. He would have funded us to many Leagues, European trophies and Cups, just look at their history in the last 20 compared to ours. Levy is incompetent same as Nuno and nothing will change while he sits in that chair. Levy is not smart enough to listen or learn.