There’s been a rumbling concern amongst fans over the quality of Doherty and one part of the more nuanced debate was in respect of Matt being more comfortable playing in either a ‘3’ or a ‘4’. After yesterday’s débâcle, I think the point is moot. He’s just not very good at playing football at this level.
The biggest grip is apparent lack of awareness when it comes to positioning, which is a massive handicap for a defender. If we nab a still from the video above, then it really does make one wonder what Ledley King’s role at the club is achieving. This is basic stuff.
Bad positioning
This move didn’t result in a goal, but it does highlight how abysmal the Irishman’s positioning was. Arsenal has a free-kick, and what does Doherty think is going to happen in all that space to his right? I understand that he can’t be everywhere, but surely a part of his brain is going to be aware that this entire channel is open.
Goal
Tierney and others caused absolute mayhem down that right-wing. Gareth Bale’s defensive capabilities are limited and moving Hojbjberg in to mop up only served to leave us exposed elsewhere.
Tottenham has been on this cycle of buying players that ‘aren’t quite’ the real deal for too long. Yet the money IS there, We’re paying Bale £320,000 a week for goodness’ sake.
Very depressing.
He signed him too, but that’s nothing to do with Jose. Nothing is! 😂
He survived Covid.
I think he was left on to avoid damaging his confidence… in the old Mourinho days players had a lot more mental strength & could handle all kinds of substitutions or decisions made on the pitch which impacted them.., these days mental health is nearly always brought out the closet when players persistently under perform.
In fairness Davies lacks pace but his positional sense is generally pretty good… Doherty has neither pace, positional awareness and has also lost the ability to cross a ball…. not sure what that leaves as a redeeming attribute… good in the air? 🤔
That I can agree with. If at all possible, Aurier should have come on for the second half at least.
Doherty was a decent player at Wolves but he has struggled horribly, got covid and now has lost confidence as well. Not an easy first year, but he hasn’t shown enough to warrant much goodwill – plus the Arsenal fan thing was always going to rear its head if he didn’t do well.
He doesn’t defend well and has provided precious little in attack. So what does he do?
As bad as Sissoko is I would have played him at RF 2nd half instead of our Garden Gnomes. Remember Botch playing Son at Left In the Cup Semi?
Leaving him on for the 2nd half was ten times as bad as originally picking him.
Rewind to last week against Palace. 1-0 up with minutes until half time. Docherty loses his man and fails to cut out a cross. Benteke scores. Fast forward to this weekend. 1-0 up with only minutes until half time. Docherty loses his man and Tierney crosses for Arsenal to equalise. The fact that this player is unable to rectify his own repeated mistakes is as worrying as our coaching staff being unable to eradicate these problems or select a player who can.
I don’t completely blame Mourinho but the selection of Doherty and failing to hook him at half time were his fault. Mourinho was also instrumental in bringing him to the club. But as a club, supposedly a big one, we continue to make the same mistakes, mainly in our transfer decisions. I stated in my previous post that the blame for our lack of success is completely on the shoulders of Levy and it doesn’t matter who the manager is. Nothing will change until he goes or ENIC sell up. Ergo Groundhog Day!
Doherty is terrible, yes. Unsurprisingly, not every signing works out, even if they are the manager’s choice, but getting the manager’s choices at least gives him a chance to build a team, as opposed to getting 2nd or 3rd rate knock-off versions and hoping for the best (see Nkoudou, Njie, Chiriches, Stambouli, Saha, Nelsen, Paulinho, Pienaar etc.).
Hojbjerg has been one of our best players this season, so to dig him out for last night feels unfair. Having to babysit Doherty probably didn’t help his overall performance, but there were far worse offenders.
As for branding support a “cult”? Jose is not beyond criticism, far from it, and I don’t understand what we were doing for 75 minutes of the derby, but just like many other fans, I find myself currently in a state of extreme disillusionment regarding the players and owners. The manager – any manager – is up against it at Spurs, so if there’s a positive result, I’m over the moon, but poor results, given the long-term neglect, lack of churn and competition, should not be too surprising.
Apportioning much of the blame to the players and cutting Jose some slack is therefore logical to me – most of these players failed under Poch and got him sacked, and if they are failing under Jose too, it’s really not the manager’s fault anymore.
Jose has them in a cup final, hopefully the last 8 of the EL and still – despite everything – not too far off a top 4 spot. Under his guidance, Kane has evolved into the best forward in Europe, Son has looked more lethal than ever, even Ndombele improved his fitness a bit, but there are some things that just can’t be fixed – such as our supposedly big players hiding in a derby. That can only be fixed over time by shifting those who retreat into a shell under pressure and replacing them with – and this is controversial – men. Grown-ups. Adults.
If we’re sh-t then, I’ll have the knives out for Mourinho, but until such a time, I think we should rather identify the weaknesses of the squad and address them. If that doesn’t happen, it doesn’t matter much if I’m the manager or if we buy out Guardiola. The same things will come back to haunt us in the end.
Or Tangy selected!
You did not have to be an Einstein to deduce from the start that Tierney would have Doherty on toast!! Perhaps deceptively quick Sissoko ought to have utilised as an emergency full back on this occasion?
Spot On David , Why wasnt he taken off ? I have given up on this Crap to be honest .
Woolwich looked for weak link and found it. Had Davies been in the other side they’d have exploited him too. Teams with an ounce of something about them will do this to us when they see certain players playing.
For those of you who worship the cult of Jose, Doherty was a pivotal pick of his as was Hjojberg who had a poor game yesterday and who looks increasingly limited in attacking positions. N’Dombele who still cannot last 90 mins should be played further forward to at least take advantage of his dribbling skills. Notwithstanding this, 22 years of Enic and Levy, resulting in one League Cup and thirteen managers says it all. Back to Groundhog day, nothing ever changes.
Different management?
Especially bad performance against Arsenal from a Gooner? 🤔
‘Threw’ not three!
That’s such an unfortunate expression on Doherty’s face! 😂
Gooner, three it for em, can’t be trusted, get him out. Not only that, he ain’t good enough for us either.
Don’t blame Doherty but Mourinho for the selection compounded by him not being withdrawn at HT?!!
How can he be so poor in a Spurs shirt when he was putting in top performances at Wolves. Baffling
I didn’t realise how shockingly slow Matt is until I saw him play for Spurs. He lacks the pace to recover from being out of position. It seems Nuno at Wolves found a very specific role that suited Matt and their style of play. Aside from this purple patch Matt has spent the majority of his career in the Championship, League 1 and the Scottish PL. He got ZERO support form the prancing horse in front of him but Matt looked so out of his depth yesterday.
Could have been at lot worse had Tierney been more accurate with his crosses.
Clearly all Jose’s fault, I bet he told Doherty to let Tierney go past him at every opportunity and I expect he also told Hugo to kick it to a red shirt at every opportunity.