Post Match EPL Tottenham (A) 1-2 Sat 20th December 17:30

[Halmeister ★]

This all sounds very fantasy driven though. Yes, we’re badly coached but Slot has always played with wingers and relied on goals/creativity from out wide. To think he’s now coaching them to play narrow is a bit weird.
For all the shit we throw at Slot he can’t be responsible for Jones losing the ball or when some of them try fancy flicks that see us lose possession.

I thought we were far to cautious yesterday and the game plan was not well drilled, at all.
But Spurs didn’t create anything of note until after the goal by Pigeon head.
We shit our pants at 2-1 and it’s surprising that people didn’t see it coming when this team has lost so many games and are bereft of confidence.
To many young players, no physicality, tactics, home crowd added to the above and its mayhem for a few minutes. Mostly from set pieces. And we don’t defend them like a top team to say the least.

We played pretty well from HT and until they scored. The rest was poor.

It's fantasy driven to want our players to do the basics and move the ball quickly and get it wide?

He does want us to play narrow. While we have Gakpo and Salah contributing from wide, they cut inside, rarely ever looking for the overlap or to beat their man on the outside. That's been ramped up this year as we play even more narrow and through the lines. You just have to watch us to see that.

Even if you don't believe that he's coaching us to play the way we currently are, he's out of his depth and responsible whatever way you slice it. Either he's coaching this turgid shite, or he's not and they're ignoring him and doing it anyway. Pick your poison.

The rest I largely agree with.

 

[Hansern]

It's fantasy driven to want our players to do the basics and move the ball quickly and get it wide?

He does want us to play narrow. While we have Gakpo and Salah contributing from wide, they cut inside, rarely ever looking for the overlap or to beat their man on the outside. That's been ramped up this year as we play even more narrow and through the lines. You just have to watch us to see that.

Even if you don't believe that he's coaching us to play the way we currently are, he's out of his depth and responsible whatever way you slice it. Either he's coaching this turgid shite, or he's not and they're ignoring him and doing it anyway. Pick your poison.

The rest I largely agree with.

No, it’s fantasy driven to think we are being coached to play narrow.
Spurs were pretty good defensively yesterday and held their shape with 10 men which limited us.
Salah has been part of the problem this season. We lack width.

 

[Halmeister ★]

No, it’s fantasy driven to think we are being coached to play narrow.
Spurs were pretty good defensively yesterday and held their shape with 10 men which limited us.
Salah has been part of the problem this season. We lack width.

I think he is coaching that. And like I said, if he's not, that's just as bad as his message isn't translating to the players and/or they're ignoring him.

I don't think Spurs were particularly good defensively. We're just slow and turgid going forward. Speed kills and we have none of it in terms of thought and intention.

There was loads of space on the counter, out wide and in midfield, particularly at 2-1. They weren't holding their shape. It was frantic and we didn't have the composure or presence of mind to play it around them.

At the end of the day, the buck stops with the manager.

 

[Fabio ★]

We didn't attack with pace or directly until Frimpong came on. Then it went shit again when Frimpong went off.

We need wingers playing, not inside forwards

 

[Hansern]

Yes, it’s probably some master plan started by Salah that all the players should ignore the manager so he gets sacked. Sounds plausible. Or maybe it’s Chiesa. Anyway, fucking puppetmaster.

 

[Halmeister ★]

We didn't attack with pace or directly until Frimpong came on. Then it went shit again when Frimpong went off.

We need wingers playing, not inside forwards

We never do. It's shit. To be fair to Wirtz, he was taking players on a bit too. But hardly anybody else does it or is capable.

Salah tries, but runs in a straight line at the full back every time now. And Gakpo cuts in and gets crowded out 99% of the time. At least Frimpong is direct, quick and tried to go on the outside.

 

[Fabio ★]

We never do. It's shit. To be fair to Wirtz, he was taking players on a bit too. But hardly anybody else does it or is capable.

Salah tries, but runs in a straight line at the full back every time now. And Gakpo cuts in and gets crowded out 99% of the time. At least Frimpong is direct, quick and tried to go on the outside.

I think a lot of our success last year (aside from early Salah form) was having 1 winger direct and able to go left or right, a 9 coming deeper, and Salah doing what he did.

Now we've got 2 workmanlike wingers and Ekitike in the middle.

We need pace, we need trickery. It should be wirtz or rio on the left and then Salah or Frimpong on the right. Let them counterbalance each other. Ekitike or gakpo can be central. Chiesa can fill in any other time

 

[Irishanfield]

It's baffling really. I'd really love to know what he's thinking.

If there are actually anything happening in there..

I saw on post match interview where he said that people will only talk about the last 10 minutes while the other 80 minutes we played good... Did he not watch the game. If he thinks this then this is exactly how he wants us to play, boring sterile football
I don't really pay much attention to xg but when a team that played 60 minutes with 10 men and a few more with 9 has double the xg and more chances than you then you can hardly think it was a good preformance in general.
There is no way the quality of players we have should struggle against 10 and then 9 players.

 

[Hansern]

To be fair we only struggled in the closing stages of the game, and that’s when the chances were created. That in itself is worrying. This team is extremely weak mentally.

 

[Fabio ★]

To be fair we only struggled in the closing stages of the game, and that’s when the chances were created. That in itself is worrying. This team is extremely weak mentally.

Think there was a chance pre - red card where kolo muani headed at Alisson unchallenged. Other than that, neither side were superb. We just struggled to pass the ball in the last 20

 

[Red Mullet]

To be fair we only struggled in the closing stages of the game, and that’s when the chances were created. That in itself is worrying. This team is extremely weak mentally.

Yep, losing 9/12 will make you mentally weak when you’re, again, only winning 2-1 after leading by 2. That’s understandable.

But we survived so the thing is do we improve in the next game or do we end up on another losing streak?

 

[dee ★]

It was a game of very few clear cut chances up to the last quarter, then we scored our second, Richardson came on and upped the aggression a further notch which we didn't handle well at all. Romero kicking out was a clear response to the cuntishness Richardson brought onto the pitch (given Romero needs very little encouragement).

The last period of play seemed to consist of us trying to continue with our tired, worn out slow build up play with Spurs whipped up into a forment and harrying us like dogs. It wasn't a good look.

We played well enough to contain Spurs both before and after Xavi Simons brain fart and 0-1 was fair return for the slight superiority we were showing away to a team in the bottom half of the table. What happened in the last quarter is a symptom of the players as a group not knowing how to respond to a change in tactics/formation/tempo.

 

[Irishanfield]

Yep, losing 9/12 will make you mentally weak when you’re, again, only winning 2-1 after leading by 2. That’s understandable.

But we survived so the thing is do we improve in the next game or do we end up on another losing streak?

The problem with slot's style is that we struggle to create chances. We struggled against 10 men yesterday when there should have been space with the extra man but we played to narrow and to slow. When you are 2-0 up and concede then you give then onus to the opposition and when you have been playing to just contain instead of trying to kill the game off then this stuff will happen time and time again.
I see us struggling to create good chances against wolves but hopefully we should be strong enough to win easily but with slot's tactics I'm still worried whether we will win

 

[Farkmaster ★]

No, it’s fantasy driven to think we are being coached to play narrow.

If I had to describe slots attacking style in a nutshell in the most charitable terms it would be vertical central line breaking passes. That's narrow.

 

[peterhague]

Also, as much as I like fast and exciting football, I do think it's remarkable just how seldom Slot's critics on here ever even acknowledge that this kind of boring, slow, possession-based technical football is exactly what's dominated and won about 9 of the last 10 PL titles, and completely outdid Klopp's great team over about 5 seasons. it's hardly totally ridiculous to think something like that might actually be a path to success. Arsenal might well win the league this year doing it, too.

 

[Halmeister ★]

Also, as much as I like fast and exciting football, I do think it's remarkable just how seldom Slot's critics on here ever even acknowledge that this kind of boring, slow, possession-based technical football is exactly what's dominated and won about 9 of the last 10 PL titles, and completely outdid Klopp's great team over about 5 seasons. it's hardly totally ridiculous to think something like that might actually be a path to success. Arsenal might well win the league this year doing it, too.

Slow, controlled football football can be devastating when it's incisive and progressive.

With us, though, this season, it's side to side, ponderous and aimless. The majority of the time it's Van Dijk passing it to Konate, who promptly gives it back to him. We'll occasionally lay it back to the keeper to spice it up.

Just because we play slow football doesn't mean it's akin to anything like Man City play. It's just slow and shit.

 

[Farkmaster ★]

Also, as much as I like fast and exciting football, I do think it's remarkable just how seldom Slot's critics on here ever even acknowledge that this kind of boring, slow, possession-based technical football is exactly what's dominated and won about 9 of the last 10 PL titles, and completely outdid Klopp's great team over about 5 seasons. it's hardly totally ridiculous to think something like that might actually be a path to success. Arsenal might well win the league this year doing it, too.

Yes, but I don't think this boring is the same as that boring.

It's a start though. In time, yes, winning could become mundane. We are some distance from that though.

 

[KopRed]

Our attack hadn't worked well this season, we know that. And that was with a full team. Yesterday Salah, Gakpo, and Isak were not on the pitch from the beginning, are people expecting free flowing attacking football / goal threat galore all of a sudden? That's just wishful thinking.

On top of a stuttering attacking, we were conceding goals when we pushed forward, either from a soft midfield or from defensive mistakes. The 3-0, 4-1 results are not one-off. Who do you think fixed the problem? We ain't scoring but we are at least not conceding easy goals anymore, isn't that down to Slot's changes?

Credit when its due, the results don't come by themselves. We are still not doing too well, but we take the 3 points and move forward, and hopefully we will continue to improve to get to a level to possibly win something this season.

 

[Hansern]

With the lack of cohesion and patterns of play so far you’d think we were bedding in a lot of new signings. Yet we’ve created the second most chances in the league this season. The other 18 teams must really be shit given how awful we’ve been.

 

[peterhague]

Yes, but I don't think this boring is the same as that boring.

It's a start though. In time, yes, winning could become mundane. We are some distance from that though.

Yeah I'm just saying that the evidence says you win leagues by controlling games and dominating possession, and just tiring the opposition out. I think the Klopp approach probably made it harder than it otherwise would be.

 

[Irishanfield]

With the lack of cohesion and patterns of play so far you’d think we were bedding in a lot of new signings. Yet we’ve created the second most chances in the league this season. The other 18 teams must really be shit given how awful we’ve been.

Taking loads doesn't really mean alot though.. We aren't creating good scoring chance. Take 15 shots in game might look good but the reality watching those chances tells a different story

 

[Fabio ★]

I don't think we're controlling games. We have a lot of the ball, but then squander it, shit ourselves an promptly concede

If we looked solid at the back i would be perfectly fine with us finding out feet in attack. But we're not. We're having teething troubles up top (quality of chances is low), but the defence looks completely lost. Primarily our 2 centre backs who aren't new.