Not to worry here come Barkley and Pedro. Sigh. This game cannot end too soon Barkley has centre forward? False nine time for Hazard?
Luiz at his absolute worst today. Not sure what our game plan was supposed to be. Sp*rs are absolutely ********ing us. Jorginho’s role as glorified backboard does not suit us against good opposition.
Our tactics are out the window. Tottenham Hotspur are quicker to the ball. We're having a terrible game. We've lost the plot. Since playing Hazard as centre forward he has gone MIA. Not surprisingly.
Sometimes you lose. But this time we were also out played. There was some worrying signs. Yes we need a striker, that we know, we have a shaky defence, we know that too, but this game showed our great little midfield getting owned. Jorghino and co. wanted more time on the ball and Spurs went through them with ease. Our best midfielder today was Barkley and he only played the last 15 mins.
Days like today where I seriously wonder if we’d be better with Kante back at his holding role. The second we lose the ball upfield we’re liable to get ran thru. Seen it with other teams and today Spurs completely exposed us.
I had to go out at 2-0....................thankfully. For me Spurs is THE game of the season, royally f*cked.
This season the goal was a top 4 finish and that we can still achieve. Tactically our team was exposed against spurs. What will Sarri do to change our tactics and get us working properly? I like the way wee play with Jorghino but now “the cat is out of the bag” so to speak. Every team we now play will be using a player in the Dele Alli role - almost man marking Jorghino. Of course there are few players good enough to play that role and most clubs don't have a player of that capability. Pogba can play that role. The question is what will Sarri do to change this? Play Kante alongside Jorghino? deeper. Then what about the right side of midfield? Thoughts of the folks on here, as always, appreciated.
First Morata should never ever start, and watch Bend it like Beckham around the clock with his eyes pinned open ala Clockwork Orange til with the help of French Mustard, Hp Sauce... "Don't tell me. The offside rule is when the French mustard has to be between the teriyaki sauce and the sea salt." (putting aside how easily he is knocked off or loses ball) Whether he scores or not the team is sooooo muuuch better with Giroud. Luiz just nooooo I do think Jorginho and Kante are better in a fluid smart tandem, which we are accomplishing against lesser and medium sides with the high press, but against the best I think Kante has to be farthest back or tandem with Barkly or Loftus-Cheek as a start with fluidity dictating after that and Jorginho has to adapt to a deeper tenish in a 4-2-1-3 in those matches but with Hazard floating dictating the Creative end. Even with out CL, Sarri perhaps needs to go deeper in players, Koviac not showing the promise he showed earlier, so why does he play hurt ahead of the more dangerous Barkly and L-C??? And whether it is Jose, Conti or Sarri this team seems to always think about this part of the season they can saunter and attack especially, but over all play at half/3/4 pace, maaas rapidooooo
I think we need to do this. Kante in front of the back four, especially AWAY against the better sides. Draw away, win at HOME. Thing is, this isn't, or hasn't been Sarri's way and I just wonder how willing he will be to modify his systems. Playing Kante back there is a statement of intent and it is a negative one in some ways. Certainly cautionary and defensive. Necessary. But Sarri has a vision of something else. He also doesn't like to rotate players too much and he has to do more of that, especially in this league, where a lot of these players are playing a lot of games for club and country. This is a physical league. Spurs were very physical yesterday, in a good way. We need to rotate players more. We wait to see what Sarri does, but the problem with managers, is that often hate to tinker with their ideal ways of playing and tinker with their systems. Apart from that bloke at Fulham.
We likely won’t see him make this type of change this year. He will stick to his guns. Klopp was very similar as well. Wanted to go 100 all the time and would give up late goals and cost himself points in his first couple of seasons at Pool. But this year he’s finally learned that he has to change his approach. We will see how good Sarri really is, in a year or two (if he’s actually given that much time). Will he be able to adapt to the league. He’s a great coach, but he does need to continue to evolve and grow. Time will tell.
Sarri would not change his style of play after one defeat, the team had a bad outing that day. Morata needs to score more often, the lack of a regular goal scoring striker is starting to hurt the team.There is too much pressure on Hazard, the team is too relied on him for creating chances and scoring goals.
What rotation was Sarri supposed to do? He has been fine with rotation in my opinion. We could potentially talk of more minutes for Christensen and Hudson in cup games but other than that, it has been fine. The players seem to have an attitude problem like Lobo mentioned. For some reason, when we are on top, we think we are too good and coast. I was watching Guardiola's interview where he was talking about the importance of having 2 world class players in each position. It is not just for back-up but to keep the first 11 on their toes as with a slight drop in quality, they can be easily replaced and the fear is already there. Most of the players in our team know that no one can replace them and keep coasting.
Sarri said post match that we have been poor in the last 3-4 games, but this was the first time we'd played a quality opposition. This is more than a bad day. Jorghino has been key to us and its been great, but in this game, he was completely nullified. Sarri has to figure out what to do when that same tactic is used against us again.
Well for a very long time we used to play at 3-point lane and always get the points. We got too used to it maybe?
Ah those were the days! I loved it! Unfortunately I think they have the 'upper' hand on us at the moment, but we will always have 2013/14 where they missed out on the Champions League thanks to our winning the competition