Sissoko out for three months after knee surgery. Defensive midfielders are now Dier, Winks and Skipp. Oh yeah, Winks may be out, too.
When will England and Spurs learn to stop flogging this guy? Does he have to play the full 90 minutes of a dead rubber against Kosovo? Does he have to play the full 90 minutes when we are 3-0 up at Red Star? You know he will come back early, play a bit for us at the end of the season, play a full tournament for England and be exhausted again for the start of next season.
How does everybody feel about their CL chances v Leipzig given the injuries currently in the squad? I personally think they are fine v Leipzig.. more so considering they begin at home, and if they enter Germany with a lead.. Mourinho is notorious for shutting down teams on the road in the CL to maintain an advantage.
I can't summon up much confidence for a home replay v Middlesbrough in the FA Cup - I don't even wanna think about the Champions League.
We keep hearing about how great Mourinho is at shutting down games, but we have only kept one clean sheet in 13 games under the Portuguese. If we don't get our act together quick like, we will get skinned by Zee Germans.
I get that. I mean, his track record does speak for himself.. and he hasnt been at the squad very long. Even the best in the world need time to put a stamp on things.
I totally get where you are going with a comment like that.. and i totally get why you would head in that direction. Truth is, there are plenty of possible explantions for what Watford has accomplished to date with the talent they have available to them.. But my comment stands.. Mourinho has an extremely successful career, and has a good track record in the CL when considering all things. By no means am i a big Mourinho fan.. actually, the complete opposite. I do believe with some more practices under his belt along with a transfer window or two.. he can certainly right the ship.. and in regards to the CL match up awaiting, i again believe Mourinho will be able to fall back on his experience to take the advantage into Germany where he will play Mourinho style footy and shut the game down
Truth is, there are plenty of possible explantions for what Watford has accomplished to date with the talent they have available to them.. One of them being good coaching. Clearly, the coaches who have come in there have made a massive difference; much less so for our guy, who inherited a team with superior players compared to Watford. i again believe Mourinho will be able to fall back on his experience to take the advantage into Germany where he will play Mourinho style footy and shut the game down What is this Mourinho style I keep hearing about? I haven't seen it since the 2014-15 season at Chelsea. The last time he was in the CL in 2018, his Manchester United were dreadful over both legs against a weak Sevilla side and went out in the round of 16, after which he basically blamed David Moyes and Louis Van Gaal. Everyone raves about the game at the Nou Camp when he was manager at Inter. But for me, it was the first leg at the San Siro, when Inter played Barca off the park where Mourinho was at his peak, the Chelsea team that beat Swansea 5-0 at the Liberty Stadium in 2015 in one of the best PL performances I have ever seen. That is what I expect from Mourinho, but that Mourinho hasn't been seen for a number of years now.
Son out for the season due to broken arm sustained in first minute of the Villa game! What a disaster...
Well that really sucks, but we now need to see more of Lo Celso, Ndombele and Tanganga and less of Dier and Aurier.
so much of our attack has been about creating space on the right for Aurier to get forward, I just can't see us going away from that. or put differently, if we didn't drop it when losing a proper target like Kane, I can't see us dropping it because we've lost Son. and, of course, if we drop Dier, then Winks will be utterly ineffective going forward, which is possible if we just go back to bypassing the midfield and being more direct, but I can't say that i'm hoping for that. I guess the hope is that we see some attacking nous from any combination of Lo Celso/Ndombele/Tanganga, which would be awesome, but there hasn't been much evidence of it thus far. then again, it's not like the other things have been working well, so why not? who knows? obviously not me. I'm just babbling, as per.
When Winks plays with Lo Celso or Ndombele, he is a different player. Dier just can't play, full stop - too slow, can't pass, and doesn't defend.
man... Dont get me wrong.. i think Mourinho has misused his players and demonstrated some poor tactics.. but at what point does this fall on Levy? Mourinho can only do so much with what he has been given.. I think only after a transfer window or two can we really judge Mourinho and his spell at the Spurs.. That wallet better have some deep pockets this summer..
This squad will have to be blown up in the summer, but based on their recent past in the transfer market (Jose and Levy), I'm not overly confident that they will make the required changes. Having a manager and chairman who both think they are the smartest man in the room is a recipe for disaster. Part of me hopes that we really crash and burn down the stretch in the hope that we can get Jose out of the club sooner rather than later, before too much permanent damage is done.
I started that thread in January. https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/to-drain-the-swamp-you-must-get-rid-of-the-levy.2108169/
with this Corona virus halting games... the situation now becomes a somewhat positive thing for the Spurs.. a couple of weeks off with no games to lose.. gives a bit more time to the key injured Spurs players to get healthy and miss less games than expected giving them a better chance of a better finish in the table.