They are without Rice (suspended), Odergaard and Califiori (injured) while Solankle and VdV's status for us is anyone's guess. Do not adjust your TV set: they will wear their black kits because the PL has declared their home kit has too much white, which means we will have to wear a changed strip when we go to the New Library later in the season.
Another effing game not live on Peacock so I'll miss it. That's 3 of the 4 games so far. Their absences are nice but we know better than to assume that will make it any easier. Hopefully Solanke is fit and can get his first goal or three.
Here are the teams: Tottenham XI: Vicario, Porro, Van de Ven, Romero, Udogie, Bentancur, Maddison, Kulusevski, Johnson, Son, Solanke. Subs: Forster, Spence, Davies, Dragusin, Gray, Sarr, Bergvall, Odobert, Werner. Arsenal XI: Raya, White, Saliba, Gabriel, Timber, Partey, Jorginho, Havertz, Saka, Trossard, Martinelli. Subs: Neto, Kiwior, Kacurri, Heaven, Lewis-Skelly, Sterling, Nwaneri, Jesus, Kabia.
Getting together at 12:30 with some old high-school pals, some of whom I've not seen in 20+ years. I'm gonna be a reyt grumpy bastard, I fear.
This article pretty well sums up why we won't win anything with this guy: https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...lou-tottenham-arsenal-premier-league-football
And this game was a perfect example of why we needed to sign quality in the window. Our two big signings, Werner and Odobert, came on and did squat.
It wasn't a rebuttal. It was the articulation* of how tiresome your spiel is. Multiple regulars have f*cked off this forum for it - and have articulated so - and I completely understand why. Rebuttal has long since been proven to be utterly pointless. Carry on. *or implication, technically. This is the articulation.
Will reserve judgement until I can watch it but it's a pretty bad run of form now, something like 7 losses in the past 11 going back to the end of last season. Seems wayyy too easy for decent teams to get a win over us.
To be fair, I wouldn't say it was particularly easy for Arsenal today. Defensively we were pretty good, as they didn't create much (though absent two of their midfield stalwarts) - conceding only on a corner (again). We didn't create much ourselves, but we created enough to say (again) that our final ball/finishing has let us down. What worries me (at the moment; it'll be something else tomorrow) is that it doesn't really appear as though the players believe - either in the system or themselves. In attack we look nothing like we did in the first third of last season; and while we're admittedly getting less space now, back then we attacked even through congestion, putting even packed defenses under far, far more pressure than we seem to be doing this season. Hell, I remember complaining that if the fullbacks didn't come forward, we were too narrow - but we were still throwing it all at it and making defenses suffer. Arsenal's defenders won't have felt lucky keeping a clean sheet today ... which I suppose is rather contradictory to how I opened this post. I don't know if it's down to Ange taking a different approach (doubtful), Maddison's drop (off a cliff) in form, something(s) else, or, as stated, belief and buying in. But if it's the latter, Ange really has his work cut out for him.
We're good at possession, but I can't figure out how, once in the final third, shots are supposed to be created. I assume they work on this in training? Son, Maddison and Johnson were all rather poor - that's 3 of the front 5.
I just think we lack the quality in the final third. Do you think any of our wingers would get into Arsenal's team? We've sunk 80 million in Johnson and Odobert, and taken on Werner on loan. I'm afraid it's Ndombele and Lo Celso all over again. And where are the young stars everyone is talking about? Nowhere to be seen.
Early last season, we were moving and injecting the ball into even tight spaces. If it didn't come off, it didn't come off, but we'd press immediately, and there was constant pressure at the back for the opposition. Now, you'll see Sonny and Kulu trying a bit, but when it doesn't come off, we're not creating as much pressure (or at least not as effectively), and there's more of a sense of letdown ... "what was he trying to do?" ... as opposed to it just being a part of what we do. It's the kind of thing that everybody has to be in on - constantly - to be effective. And it seems clear that not everyone (anyone?) is consistantly playing that way. We don't appear to be a cohesive unit in attack. If Ange says we need more space, we're not finding/creating it. And if he says we don't, we've got serious execution problems - not because we're not doing it well, but because we're not doing it, full stop. edit: and yes, it is like Leicester and Newcastle, which is why it's more concerning than a one-off narrow loss to a league frontrunner.
I would love to see Ange's system with better players, but unfortunately, this transfer window showed me that's not going to happen under the current regime. We got a preview of the limitations of his system at Celtic. While they walked the SPL, they got spanked in Europe (38 GA in 16 games). So his system will be found out at a higher level with lower quality players, as we have seen in the PL (14 defeats in the last 32 games and 56 GA). Now what we don't know is if that would be the case with better quality players in attack. But as Spurs are constituted now, everything that Pook said above is true. I fear that the gaffer's days are numbered.
In the final analysis, that may be true. But these same players were much more effective in the final third early last year. We can say, "well, it didn't take long for the opposition to sort us out" regarding popping balls into wide channels and putting our centerbacks in difficult 2v2 situations, and easily explain the shift in results. But some sides were already sitting deep and we were able to put them under near constant pressure - with these players. They're not doing that now. Do we need better attacking players? Maybe. But the ones we have can - and should - do it better than they have been.