That was absolute dross. The positives from it were that it confirmed that Sanchez and Royal and Winks shouldn't be picked again this season, or ever.
Their second goal in particular - we have a right wingback (Royal) and a midfielder (Winks) who should be looking to track any runs into the box, but instead they just stand there like the shit they are.
Whenever Skipp is unavailable our midfield is a shambles. I don't understand why Betancur wasn't in from the start.
That was a real shit show. That was Hojbjerg's worst performance for Spurs. I hadn't read that he was carrying an injury. Betancur must start next game, and boy do we need Skipp back. Also need Dier back - nobody is in charge on the back line. And it would help if everyone passed to players on the same team. And I guess Doherty should start next game, too.
If JWP wanted to leave, he wouldn't have signed a new contract last summer. He's this generation's Le Tissier for Soton. I can't see him ever leaving Southampton.
Unfortunately Conte had limited options with Dier, Tanganga and Skipp injured. Conte should have started Bergwijn and moved Moura to midfield where he really excels at winning balls and doing something creative. If Hojbjerg was indeed injured then don't play him. Son, Kane, Bergwijn Reggy, Winks, Moura, Royal Davies, Romero, Sanchez One big problem is Royal is not good enough to play in Premier League. Same with Doherty. So pick your poison I guess. Should have loaned them out instead of Lo Celso, who is higher quality even if out of position a bit. Reguilon showed again that he is the worst finisher in the PL. How many times does he miss and then bury his head in his hands. Someone should make a compilation
If he wants to win anything he'll leave. And he should soon, he's 27. Imagine him instead of Royal. Would be amazing. Feeding quality crosses to Kane
Maybe he doesn't want to leave, which is why he signed a five year contract instead of leveraging his old contract to force his way out? And why would he want to play as a RWB?
All this talk of individual errors or players not being good enough distracts from the bigger problem of how we're struggling to play out of a press. I raise this clip as an example: Lucas does well here to cut out the pass but when he looks to his left, there's no one willing to get open. Soton are set up as a 4-2-2-2 precisely to create a central overload so Lucas' only options are to play it to his right where Royal (who is marked) is, over the top to Kane (who is up against three defenders) or diagonally to Son (who he doesn't have enough time to hit a pass to). On paper, we set up as a 3-4-3 but we defend in a 5-4-1. When the ball is won, the solution to get out of the press always seems to be to lump the ball forward to Kane or Son and bypass midfield entirely. I will grant that Bentacur - much less, prime Eriksen or prime Dembele - probably does better in this situation but they still need teammates who make runs in order get open when the ball is turned over. Presently, it doesn't appear that the players are aware of what they need to do or where they need to be.
with him spurs can win. get the right mix of players, the right quality and chemistry. I think spurs only need a few tweaks to the roster to get start winning more consistently.
he can play in the middle or on the right. he looks confident on the right. if southampton get a big enough offer they'll part with him. but oh well. maybe you're right
That can work often. It's kind of one of our strengths. We aren't really known for playing out of the back, though I think we do an ok job of it at times, it kinda depends on the opponent. We do it good against smaller teams.
When we had proper central midfielders, nobody would come to our ground and press like that because 1) we were doing the pressing 2) we always had the ball, and 3) if you played like that against us, you would get shredded. Poch was banging on about refreshing this aspect of the team as early as the end of the 2017-18 season, but we are now into 2022 and we still haven't addressed the problems in central midfield. The current squad reminds me of our teams from the 2006-2010 era, when we kept buying the same type of attacking midfielder who didn't provide many goals or assists and was useless defensively (Jenas, Bentley, Ghaly, Zokora, Routledge = Lo Celso, Ndombele, Gil, Gedson, Royal).
Looking at the recent history of Spurs (1992-2022), we have had only two periods where we had focused buying, meaning we actually bought players for the positions we needed strengthening in: the Redknapp era 2009-2012, and most of the Poch era 2014-19. Not surprisingly, those are the periods when we qualified for the CL.