The College Dropout

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.

Agreed on the first point. Kelly did great for the opening goal. But he doesn’t look particularly impressive on the ball.

Aye. Harsh sub. Should get the LW spot for now.

Murphy did great for the goal. And that got us the points. He was largely awful though. Super bad.

Lads don’t have the ability. Schar return and Tonali back will help. But Joe, Kelly, Burn aren’t possession based players in the pl

Aye Barnes played better.

Don’t know the reasons but he’s been bad. lucky to get so many minutes recently.

Then how do we regularly win football games? Sit deep and hit teams on the counter? Build from the back in a possession based system? Im happy we won. and the points return.

I don’t blame him for the goal. Not a great save in the lead up. Blocked the shot that was going wide or out and Burn blasted it into the net. Poor on the ball as usual. That’s a given.