Bus-Conductor
SC Supporter
- Oct 19, 2004
- 39,837
- 50,713
The Hobson conundrum.
As football fans we chase the eternal nirvana. The wonderful performance yielding result. Unless you support ManC on alternate years you rarely get that, the further down the EPL food chain you go the less frequent that Nirvana materialises. It arrived once last season for us, maybe twice or three times we got close if we are feeling benevolent.
So failing that, what would we rather have, some of the disorganised and disjointed shit with wins we saw last year, or decent performances that yield much less ? This is a philosophical question that we all struggle with. Before we even get to what constitutes "decent performances" which is as likely to cause more offence than calling into question the honour someone's mother on a football forum.
But let's say for argument's sake, I'm not talking about bus parking or deliberate tactical pragmatism that involves relinquishing control of the ball for control of the grass underneath it. Or any deliberate tactical plan. I'm talking about just winging it, lottery bullshit that ends up winning or showing some evidence of coaching, some ingenuity, some cohesion, some desire to win, and yet, not winning.
My feet, both of them, are pretty much in the latter camp. I like to believe that performances are much harder to achieve and are indicative of something more long lasting. But not everyone on the train out of Northumberland park was coming at it from my philosophical direction I guess:
Bloke 1: Three years ago we ad Modric, Bale and VanderVaart, nah we got a bunch of fuckin shit nobodies.
Bloke 2: That's what we are nah, just fuckin shit
Bloke 1: Who the fuck as ever heard of Ming Sun anyway
Bloke 2: Or fuckin Clinton Energy
Personally, I enjoyed that game for the most part. As is often the case with Che Poch, the best football invariably arrives in the first 45 minutes, and as with the Stoke game I thought we played some cracking stuff. But unlike stoke we also managed to do so for some of the second half too. There was organisation without the ball, but for the omnipresent Walker mind fuck Everton were utterly sniffless, and going forward there was verve, movement and tempo and we created - I repeat - we created clear quality chances, against a team trying ever so hard to pretend to be pragmatic.
Mason's ball for Kane was beautiful. And when Chadli wasn't doing his daft shit he was creating two great chances for Mason and Kane. Dembele was working hard but unfortunately fucked himself getting himself into the most dangerous position he's been in for months. Bentalab looked back to something like his usual self and even Dier had a pretty decent game. And it was good to have the chippy Rose back, with his puffy chest and desire to bomb forward. Vertonghen and Toby marshalled the lively Lukaku and Kone better than anyone I've seen so far this season, eventually seeing both sent packing.
The only real negative yesterday was Pochettino's continual inability to make tactical substitutions. His inability to introduce the right player at the right time. That game was crying out for Pritchard much earlier than the stupid 7 minutes he got. And as much as Alli's enthusiasm was good, and I don't mind him getting on, for me Pritchard would have been the perfect solution when Dembele was forced off. Instead he put Alli ACM, completely killed Mason's influence by pushing him right and it was a change that I felt lost us some momentum, made us look disjointed for the first time in the game and eventually led to Everton actually clawing themselves back into a game they had previously had very little control over.
Pritchard's craft and guile and ability to pick passes and put in great crosses in forward areas was exactly what that game needed. By all means bring Alli on at some point as well but he could have come on for one of the CM's to give us an even more attacking bias as the game wore on or for an AM is we'd got a goal up to help shore things up. What we then see is Pritchard being brought on to play ACM and Alli then shunted out to ARM, a position as unnatural for him as it was for Mason who was subbed instead of the by now, frustrating Chadli. And this kind of knock-on tactical clusterfuck which saw our momentum squandered some what - at least until we picked it up again towards the last 5-10 minutes - was all down to the first poor tactical choice. Which marred an otherwise good performance.
I have no issue with the chances the keeper saved really, when put through the least you can do is work the keeper. My bigger grumble would be the dire crosses that people made in good wide positions. Walker, Mason, Chadli and Rose I think spring to mind.
There has often been stuff to criticise with Pochettino and god knows I have, but so far this season we've been playing pretty well, and just haven't got what we deserved from 3 of the 4 games. Stoke being the exception where we were so insipid second half we deserved to get punished. But other than that if we'd got what we deserved we'd be 5 points better. Performances have been better IMO than this time last year. Tactically Pochettino's no genius, but at least we are seeing some coached ethos, some cohesion. We are not allowing teams the continual quality chances on our goal we were throughout last season.
My biggest worry is that train bloke 1 and train bloke 2 are the kind of fuckwits whose voices get louder and louder when you go through phases when the ball just doesn't roll your way and before you know it you're in the Ramos or AVB zone. I have always had reservations about Pochettino, but I hope we - the fans - don't start getting all fucking spursy and demanding our tottenham back if results continue to mock performances.
Individual stuff
Lloris - one bad mistake when passing out, apart from that he had absolutely nothing to do.
Walker - The obligatory brain fart first half and again, didn't contribute anything of quality when in decent forward positions. Unless Trippier is looking like Paulo Tramazani in training I fear the end is creeping ever closer to nigh for he of the vacant brain region.
Alderweireld - Good game
Vertonghen - Good game
Rose - He isn't perfect but a least you notice him, unlike his understudy. And his competitiveness is infectious.
Dier - Easily his most competent performance in CM but against the plodding Barry, vastly overrated McCarthy and Martinez's inability to ever do tactical pragmatism, and our improved cohesiveness he had it easier today than our CM's had it for most of last season. I really don't understand what Pochettino thinks he can do that he can't get the more dynamic and progressive Mason (or Bentaleb or Veljkovic) to do with good coaching.
Bentaleb - Back to something more like his old self.
Dembele - Was having a decent game and was great to see him do his twisty turn "thang" inside the box instead of the centre circle.
Mason - Was having a very good game until shifted right. Got himself into a couple of great positions.
The conundrum that is Chadli - Why does the god of football play such cruel tricks. He has talent and is capable of doing some really good things, and he gets himself involved, but he's also capable of the utterly infuriating vacuous.
Kane - Kane worked hard but it was another frustrating day for him. The coaching staff have got to pull him to one side and have a serious word about the stupid choices he makes to shoot instead of getting his head up or trying to dribble instead of laying it off. It's not the end of the world if he goes through a lean spell, it's more important that he keeps doing everything else right, making better decisions, more of the time.
Alli - Showed enthusiasm and got involved and tried to make things happen, but I'm still not sure exactly what he's going to be for us. I can't quite see him playing in a CM2 and he's not crafty enough to play as an ACM or dribbly/crafty enough to play as a wide AM. At the moment he seems to kind of be our Fallani. Clearly the boy has some ability and drive, what he will become in the future I'm not sure ?
As football fans we chase the eternal nirvana. The wonderful performance yielding result. Unless you support ManC on alternate years you rarely get that, the further down the EPL food chain you go the less frequent that Nirvana materialises. It arrived once last season for us, maybe twice or three times we got close if we are feeling benevolent.
So failing that, what would we rather have, some of the disorganised and disjointed shit with wins we saw last year, or decent performances that yield much less ? This is a philosophical question that we all struggle with. Before we even get to what constitutes "decent performances" which is as likely to cause more offence than calling into question the honour someone's mother on a football forum.
But let's say for argument's sake, I'm not talking about bus parking or deliberate tactical pragmatism that involves relinquishing control of the ball for control of the grass underneath it. Or any deliberate tactical plan. I'm talking about just winging it, lottery bullshit that ends up winning or showing some evidence of coaching, some ingenuity, some cohesion, some desire to win, and yet, not winning.
My feet, both of them, are pretty much in the latter camp. I like to believe that performances are much harder to achieve and are indicative of something more long lasting. But not everyone on the train out of Northumberland park was coming at it from my philosophical direction I guess:
Bloke 1: Three years ago we ad Modric, Bale and VanderVaart, nah we got a bunch of fuckin shit nobodies.
Bloke 2: That's what we are nah, just fuckin shit
Bloke 1: Who the fuck as ever heard of Ming Sun anyway
Bloke 2: Or fuckin Clinton Energy
Personally, I enjoyed that game for the most part. As is often the case with Che Poch, the best football invariably arrives in the first 45 minutes, and as with the Stoke game I thought we played some cracking stuff. But unlike stoke we also managed to do so for some of the second half too. There was organisation without the ball, but for the omnipresent Walker mind fuck Everton were utterly sniffless, and going forward there was verve, movement and tempo and we created - I repeat - we created clear quality chances, against a team trying ever so hard to pretend to be pragmatic.
Mason's ball for Kane was beautiful. And when Chadli wasn't doing his daft shit he was creating two great chances for Mason and Kane. Dembele was working hard but unfortunately fucked himself getting himself into the most dangerous position he's been in for months. Bentalab looked back to something like his usual self and even Dier had a pretty decent game. And it was good to have the chippy Rose back, with his puffy chest and desire to bomb forward. Vertonghen and Toby marshalled the lively Lukaku and Kone better than anyone I've seen so far this season, eventually seeing both sent packing.
The only real negative yesterday was Pochettino's continual inability to make tactical substitutions. His inability to introduce the right player at the right time. That game was crying out for Pritchard much earlier than the stupid 7 minutes he got. And as much as Alli's enthusiasm was good, and I don't mind him getting on, for me Pritchard would have been the perfect solution when Dembele was forced off. Instead he put Alli ACM, completely killed Mason's influence by pushing him right and it was a change that I felt lost us some momentum, made us look disjointed for the first time in the game and eventually led to Everton actually clawing themselves back into a game they had previously had very little control over.
Pritchard's craft and guile and ability to pick passes and put in great crosses in forward areas was exactly what that game needed. By all means bring Alli on at some point as well but he could have come on for one of the CM's to give us an even more attacking bias as the game wore on or for an AM is we'd got a goal up to help shore things up. What we then see is Pritchard being brought on to play ACM and Alli then shunted out to ARM, a position as unnatural for him as it was for Mason who was subbed instead of the by now, frustrating Chadli. And this kind of knock-on tactical clusterfuck which saw our momentum squandered some what - at least until we picked it up again towards the last 5-10 minutes - was all down to the first poor tactical choice. Which marred an otherwise good performance.
I have no issue with the chances the keeper saved really, when put through the least you can do is work the keeper. My bigger grumble would be the dire crosses that people made in good wide positions. Walker, Mason, Chadli and Rose I think spring to mind.
There has often been stuff to criticise with Pochettino and god knows I have, but so far this season we've been playing pretty well, and just haven't got what we deserved from 3 of the 4 games. Stoke being the exception where we were so insipid second half we deserved to get punished. But other than that if we'd got what we deserved we'd be 5 points better. Performances have been better IMO than this time last year. Tactically Pochettino's no genius, but at least we are seeing some coached ethos, some cohesion. We are not allowing teams the continual quality chances on our goal we were throughout last season.
My biggest worry is that train bloke 1 and train bloke 2 are the kind of fuckwits whose voices get louder and louder when you go through phases when the ball just doesn't roll your way and before you know it you're in the Ramos or AVB zone. I have always had reservations about Pochettino, but I hope we - the fans - don't start getting all fucking spursy and demanding our tottenham back if results continue to mock performances.
Individual stuff
Lloris - one bad mistake when passing out, apart from that he had absolutely nothing to do.
Walker - The obligatory brain fart first half and again, didn't contribute anything of quality when in decent forward positions. Unless Trippier is looking like Paulo Tramazani in training I fear the end is creeping ever closer to nigh for he of the vacant brain region.
Alderweireld - Good game
Vertonghen - Good game
Rose - He isn't perfect but a least you notice him, unlike his understudy. And his competitiveness is infectious.
Dier - Easily his most competent performance in CM but against the plodding Barry, vastly overrated McCarthy and Martinez's inability to ever do tactical pragmatism, and our improved cohesiveness he had it easier today than our CM's had it for most of last season. I really don't understand what Pochettino thinks he can do that he can't get the more dynamic and progressive Mason (or Bentaleb or Veljkovic) to do with good coaching.
Bentaleb - Back to something more like his old self.
Dembele - Was having a decent game and was great to see him do his twisty turn "thang" inside the box instead of the centre circle.
Mason - Was having a very good game until shifted right. Got himself into a couple of great positions.
The conundrum that is Chadli - Why does the god of football play such cruel tricks. He has talent and is capable of doing some really good things, and he gets himself involved, but he's also capable of the utterly infuriating vacuous.
Kane - Kane worked hard but it was another frustrating day for him. The coaching staff have got to pull him to one side and have a serious word about the stupid choices he makes to shoot instead of getting his head up or trying to dribble instead of laying it off. It's not the end of the world if he goes through a lean spell, it's more important that he keeps doing everything else right, making better decisions, more of the time.
Alli - Showed enthusiasm and got involved and tried to make things happen, but I'm still not sure exactly what he's going to be for us. I can't quite see him playing in a CM2 and he's not crafty enough to play as an ACM or dribbly/crafty enough to play as a wide AM. At the moment he seems to kind of be our Fallani. Clearly the boy has some ability and drive, what he will become in the future I'm not sure ?
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