The College Dropout

Imo Lampard had that great timing and knack of being in the right place at the right time. Gerrard just a massively talented player. He could do what he wanted almost in terms of scoring. Kinda like Rooney - I can’t think of a typical Rooney goal, he scored all types. Players like Henry and Mbappe score all types too. But the classic Henry is the one from the left hand channel 1v1 open body push to the far corner. Mbappe is the same thing but he turns his foot last minute to whip it near post. Robben was famous for getting to his spot and whipping it around the defender to the far post finesse style. Barnes zones are similar to Robbens

Aye and Jota has brilliant movement in the box. Great in the air, uses both feet. Jota isn’t much taller than Barnes and is shorter than Gordon but he’s a massive danger in the air. Going back to Son. He looks a decent size but he’s not a factor like that physically from headers and such either.

No agenda. He’ll score goals in the PL. He’s talented, has his limitations. I just don’t think his profile was the right one to spend £45m and likely £80k+ p/w. But lad has ability. If you look at his goals in YouTube. Loads of them are similar. There’s a Harvey Barnes zone. Wilson’s a proper poacher, he’ll sniff out the tap in, follow up every rebound etc. I’ve not seen that from poachers instinct from Barnes consistently. I don’t think Son has it either but he’s a brilliant finisher. Son has every finish in the book drilled down. While I think Mo Salah does.

Agreed. For me he has to play LW. His best attribute is his ball striking and finishing. Coming off the left gives him the best angles for finishing and final balls. His general finishing is good. But he’s not like a Wilson or even a Gordon where he’s going to be in the right spot at the right time and he doesn’t have tremendous box movement. Instead most of his opportunities come from getting to certain ‘spots’ and shooting. So for me - he has to play on the left to get to those shooting spots that give him the best angles. He’s automatic with it - you can tell he’s drilled those 4-5 finishes time and again. That doesn’t translate to the right. Last season Gordon started to develop those ‘spots’ and finished but he has more to his overall game that’s applicable at RW. That tenacity. Drawing fouls etc. Edit: Rich will probably perma-ban me at some point. Take good care of yourselves people.

Thir midfiedl is always wide open. It's a coaching problem.

So happy to have him back. He's got class. Moves the ball quickly. My only gripe is that he's possibly too quick at moving the ball. As a team we could do with with a bit of la pausa. Take the sting and momentum from the opponents with the ball, put your foot on it and keep it. In time I'm expecting some proper football to break out between Schar, Bruno, Tonali & Livra. Too many of our starters yesterday get closed down, stand still, then try and find a simple pass by moving their body around the ball. Tonali isn't Bruno technically but his touch, ball manipulation, agility etc. seems levels above Longstaff.

Pure speculation. But I think Eddie’s biggest issues will be if his approach aligns with Eales and Mitchell and the owners. Our summer targets and FFP issuer don’t suggest we have aligned goals and plans.

People seem desperate for Eales to be under pressure or lose his job. Eddie is more likely to get sacked before Eales. Eales is probably yet to action his own plan, just got his own DOF and hasn’t had his own manager.

Also re: the press. We also don’t have the bench options to allow us a high press. Isak has previously struggled to press for 90 minutes. With Wilson out, he has to play 90 minutes. New kid seems to be on the Lewis Hall track. We’ve only got 1 CM sub and 1 winger sub (Almiron seemingly been demoted). When we have a bench of Wilson, Willock (prayers), Longstaff etc. I hope for a more aggressive game plan.

We just have to accept the pre planned subs/waiting until we concede to change is part of Howe‘S style. It’s a limitation of his but there’s so much upside with Howe in other areas.

Didn’t think he had a good game. Second to the ball frequently. Excellent for our second goal and stuck in there.

Just a young lad. But he wasn’t good.

I like Ange’s willingness to play the Odobert boy. But he wasn’t good at all imo. Neither was Kulu and Son.

I agree with everything except I don’t think it’s poor finishing from the opposition. In the box we defend well last ditch and have one of the best shot stoppers in the league. We get our blocks in and make the final ball difficult. We make it hard for teams to finish us off like we did in the 4th season.

I don’t think Spurs looked good in the final third. The young lad, Son, Kulu, Maddison not at it. Not enough ability in central midfield or threat from fullbacks apart from Porro taking shots from distance. Maybe they need a focal point striker to bounce things off. The best thing about their performance is they competed physically really well and won most of the duels. They got a lot of the breaks in little tussles. Very Spursy in defence as you would expect. We looked a poor footballing side for the 3rd game in a row. But determined and hard to beat. If I supported another side in the top 8, I wouldn’t be seriously worried by either team. Thankfully for us, Man U are Man U, Chelsea are Chelsea and Villa are in the CL. The other 3 are levels above again.

Agreed. Fantastic results to the start the season. Performances have not been there but I trust that they will come. HTL.

I don’t base my opinions on individual performances. He was the wrong position and profile of player. If we achieved our transfer goals he probably wouldn’t have started. We are having to play a LW at RW or a RW that isn’t good enough. Separately, I like him as a player. Now we have 2 great options at LW, and poor RW options. yeh we might as well play them both and not get the best out of one of them. That’s the best we can do in our position.

Manchester City have owners that most likely broke financial doping rules. They have multi club model with the aim of subverting FFP. They have the best academy in the country and they sell academy players for millions every season. Man City hired all the Barca football people to run the Man City footballing operations. They do all of that so Pep Guardiola doesn’t have to worry about FFP or anything. The football people bring him players and he can have pretty much whoever they decide to want.

If you look at his passing statistics for a CB or as a FB. It’s very average. He’s not a particularly accurate passer. Not a progressive passer. Not tremendous at carrying it. Eye test. He looks ok on the ball.

I’m happy we won. That doesn’t make it a good performance. someone said they think our game plan this season is to nick a goal in the first half and defend deep and bravely in the second half. That is a Brucey game plan. I don’t for a second think that’s Howe’s plan for the season. that’s what we ended up doing against Bournemouth, against Forest and today. But I don’t think that’s the plan. When we get Schar back, Tonali playing, I expect us to go back to aggressive pressing.

I’m taking this for a lacklustre performance and 3 points. We’ll aim to play better with Schar back and some time on the training pitch. We sat in against them last season. But we also pressed them really aggressively in deeper areas. Won our duels. Incisive on the ball. Today we defended bravely in our box. But we lost a lot of duels in midfield. Sloppy on the ball. Plenty of individual mistakes. Taking too many touches. In short we weren’t at it today. We were the last time. Too many individual mistakes. Not cohesive as a team. But we hung on in there. Determined. Thought Spurs were bad in the final third. Too many touches. Not making the right runs. We were like this against Bournemouth and Forest too. We look at our best with all our ballers on and aggressive.

For a Bournemouth player aye. A Bournemouth CB. We have Trippier, Schar, Botman, Hall at his best. He’s nowhere near.

That plan is a recipe for disaster. That’s ultimately the Pardew and Bruce plan. Nick it with a bit of magic. Defend deep and hope teamwork and desire gets us through. We need to get back to fucking pressing.

Aye but not for a fullback. Agreed. Complexity and breadth of the sport has grown. Howe shouldn’t be managing our FFP situation.

Agreed. He was a warrior. But those mistake were so bad. Not MOTM for me.