Another game, another marauding gaggle of angry fans sharing their valuable insight with football’s online world. This is the tip of an unpleasant iceberg and one that fervently believes the former Wolves man shouldn’t be a starting XI player for Tottenham. Someone on the blog even called Doherty mediocre mid-game. At which point I looked at the in-play stats. Matt was doing quite well. So let’s see how it finished up for the boy, shall we? Or was the hysterical abuse, actually on point?
Doherty made 5 Interceptions, more than any other Spurs player, and depending upon where you get your statistics from, only Rüben Neves did better in the discipline.
Aerial duels is another one. Doherty matched Ben Davies, and was just pipped by Eric Dier in this area. 75%, so nothing to get aerated about.
In fact, across the board, the Irishman didn’t particularly stink the place out at all; his successful passing accuracy was 83% which is pretty respectable. For balance, one aspect that Matt didn’t have all his own way was losing the ball, but again, this wasn’t anything that ought to have got folk unhinged.
Losing possession 8 times, with 3 of those occasions being in one’s own half, is yet to be declared a capital offence, especially when none of those losses resulted in a shot on our goal.
Conclusion? Less yelping, more understanding.
Class dismissed.
In fairness, I’m no fan of Davies but bar marking for the goal he had a decent game by his standards. Doherty I though was fine but as the US commentary here pointed out numerous times, we had no options to pass to going forward. That’s a tactical issue.
Difference between a wing back and a fullback.
You clearly don’t watch on TV if you think Dier should go. Very few teams sell their best defender
Id love to be able to defend doherty as i had so much hope for him, especially as we had kamikazi aurier as the mainstay. However what i see is someone who dosnt read the game (did you see his defending for the goal against stoke) and he has added nothing to the team as he is inferior to kwp, so why bring him in. When we seem to be playing with 2 defensive midfielders every game, he should be able to get forward and have sufficient cover. Why do people defend him by saying he has to get used to the team, he’s been playing premiership football for years so if he’s not used to it by now, he may as well retire.
Doherty aside, I did question at the start why Jose was starting with 5 defenders against a side that hasn’t been anywhere near as good as it was last season.
Palace and now Wolves should’ve been 6 points in the bag given the form we were in against City, Chelsea and Woolwich, and possibly even Liverpool.
I think we have too many mediocre players. The way we’re playing atm is no different to how it was with Poch at the helm.
Dier has been awesome this season but the other 2 i agree
you cant pass the ball to wolves players …. this attackers were deep defending
Doherty was moving forward but nobody to give the ball …kane son defending, or he moves forward and he is not given the ball on many occasions …..he is better than aurier who passes the ball blindly
Doherty was moving forward but nobody to give the ball, or he moves forward and he is not given the ball
He wasn’t that bad, he just didn’t attack. Receive the ball in their half, stop and pass it backwards. Looked like his instructions from the coaching staff were to not get caught upfield if Reguilon was also up there and that made him overly hesitant and cautious.
He can play in a back four without too much adjustment imo, it just needs to be in a team with Davies as the LB, so that Matt is the attack minded full/wing back of the pair.
Ermmmn
Mourinhos tactics should only be employed away to big boys. All other matches attack & defend properly when we lose the ball. Not just sit back on a 1-0
Winks, Dier probably & definitely Sanchez have to go , i dont watch on tv as i lose my rag. But i gave it a go last night. Pierre looked like he had had too much Cmas pudding
Robertson took a full season to establish himself in that Liverpool team
Spurs fans in general are notoriously and historically abusive towards their fullbacks, and their opinions on such should be widely disregarded. They know not what they do… or what they see.
What I want from my full backs is Andy Robertson’s non stop energy passion and desire getting to the byline and whipping some decent balls into the box as opposed to sideways passes!!
Doherty hasn’t been great (coming into a new team and new position – sort of – and the covid-19 business didn’t help him either) but he’s certainly no disaster and doesn’t deserve the vitriol aimed at him.
Aurier is probably the better option now but it took him around three years to achieve some degree of consistency (and the brainfarts are still very much present). Doherty – much like José – deserves time.
To be fair, Doherty was sound enough, but certainly not stellar. 5/10 seems a fair performance grade. Aurier, in spite of the penalty box aberration against Leicester, is still currently the better fullback option.
I think he needs to play in ‘3’. This isn’t great for him.
Doherty did pretty well for a side that coughs up a lot of possession. He’s not lightening quick but is very dependable which is all I want from my full-backs. He should get better.
I hope you are right but I just can’t see it.
Apart from winning some duels / tackles his sole contribution is supplying an assist for Kane’s goal against WBA. That’s it!
He’s taking longer to settle than hoped for but I think he will come good.
Aurier is Auier!
it’s a sad indictment on the club that all our full backs are woefully ineffective.
Doherty was bought on the back of his sparkling displays for Wolves which sadly he has currently not replicated in a Spurs shirt.
Utility player Ben Davies is a better centre half than full back!!