Ratings vs Man City

[Chilli]

Oh dear @thinktank you had another mare...first it's Erickson is shit etc, then it's all about how amazing wimmer is....

Do us a favour; for the next week could start telling us how bad Jansen is and how he's not an option compared to Kane...

 

[Luka Van der Bale]

Surprised I'm not seeing more love for Toby. Thought he held our defence together nearly single-handedly first half. Reading of the City attacks was incredible. Knew exactly when to stand off and when to attack the ball.

 

[whitesocks]

Wanyama - 8 - did nothing in midfield, but did well as an emergency CB - pretty heroic.
Dier -8 - was under the cosh for all 90 mins - played in 3 different positions including LCB as the senior partner, and played OK in all roles. That is just as heroic.
Rose - 8 - all action.
Walker - 8.5 - MOTM - all action, a perfect cross for Alli and did enough to put Sterling off.

 

[ClintEastwould]

We win this game with Vertonghen. Underrated player.

We still did well though.

 

[Gaz_Gammon]

I posted this in the match thread, but I think Wimmer is going to be unfairly rated in this match. He is not the best player to match-up against the pace that Pep put up front. It not his fault - he was just a bit out of his element against this line-up, and the tactics used by Pep. Poch recognized the mis-match early enough, and moved to the flat four, and we did not concede while Wimmer was on the pitch.

People can say whatever they want about this Citeh side but Pep is not stupid. He matched up well against Dembele, Dier and Wimmer.

That all said, we dug in kept the faith and drew level with a team that cost over four times what ours did. Two PL losses all season and the second best defence in the PL is good news. One of the top six left to play away and we have a great chance to finish in the top four again.

 

[guiltyparty]

I thought Wanyama was excellent at centre back, you really wouldn't know that wasn't his position. Put Dier to shame

We weren't very good but we faced a wounded dog today. The media hype this week had made out City to be way worse then they are, and us to be way better than we are. This was always going to be difficult, and Pep went for broke

He stopped Walker and Rose attacking, Eriksen was very quiet, and they just had so much quality pressing us high.

Having said that, despite all their fancy play, and they were far better, both their goals were gifts from us, whereas both ours were fantastically worked goals they could do nowt about

A very good away point all told that I would probably have taken before the game and can barely believe we got after that first half. Well done for digging in chaps

 

[mark87]

Surprised I'm not seeing more love for Toby. Thought he held our defence together nearly single-handedly first half. Reading of the City attacks was incredible. Knew exactly when to stand off and when to attack the ball.

He was my MOM before he went off, made some ridiculous tackles. After going back to CB it had to be wanyama as he didn't put a foot wrong.

 

[scat1620]

Rubbing my hands with gleeful anticipation for BC's forthcoming rant in this thread, in very much the same way that you can't wait for Radio 5's Friday film review slot the week that a Sex And The City film comes out knowing that Kermode is going to cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.

Hurry it up, Beece, we're waiting here!

 

[cliff jones]

Toby's positioning and anticipation just about held us together, but for once his distribution was only average. This is where we miss Jan, especially in the three when he can stride out with the ball. Dier, and Wimmer, get into trouble passing with Lloris against a good pressing team and lack pace to boot. Can't see us clinging on to the Rent Boys coat tails while the Belgians are out.

The Eriksen Kane axis was a huge disappointment today.

Marriner has acted the fool before but today was just biased. As for McManaman, I had to turn him off - Sanes stamp on Walkers foot was accidental, apparently. What an irritating, arrogant prick.

The Mighty Kenyan MOM, just ahead of Rose.

 

[kendoddsdadsdogsdead]

Our choice of pass was very poor today. To many hospital balls. To many first touches backwards instead of on the half turn. I haven't seen us look that unsure in possession for a long time.

 

[Gambler]

Wimmer? What did he do to deserve that? Made a mistake under pressure but what else?

Made more than one.

 

[Lighty64]

Not thrilled with our performance, but thrilled with our fight back and glad we've not had our recent momentum hit. We may have had a slice of luck but fuck them, I still remember Balotelli's attempted assassination of Parker right in front of Howard Webb before scoring the winner from a penalty he won. Good point today.

small correction

 

[werty]

Lloris 4 - Poor distribution as usual but two vital uncharacteristic errors.

Walker 5 - Looked well of the pace all game (as did a lot of them) and lucky not to be sent off.
Dier 5 - One of many who wasn't helped by the formation. Did a bit better after the change.
Wimmer 5 - Exposed badly by the formation. Did make one excellent interception/block at the end of the first half.
Alderwierld 7 - Another who looked sluggish at times but any mistakes he made he recovered from well.
Rose 6 - Defensively good, but it was the poorest I've seen him offensively for a while.

Wanyama 8 - One of the few to play to or above his usual level. Definitely wouldn't have gotten anything if he wasn't there today.
Dembele 7 - Only player on our team who can deal with players pressing him.

Alli 6 - Nice goal and a wiling runner as always (though his timing was bad most of the time), but not a whole lot of other involvement.
Eriksen 4 - One of his worst performances in a while.

Kane 5 - Deprived of service but he didn't do an awful lot to help others out either.

Son 5 - Took his goal well but did nothing else and was extremely lazy defensively. I can only assume to was told to stay up the pitch because he did feck all chasing back.
Winks 6 - Alright. Nothing particularly bad and nothing particularly great.
Sissoko N/A - Not sure how long he was on. Would have loved if could have gotten at Kolarov late on but it wasn't to be.

 

[CJMurray]

Surprised I'm not seeing more love for Toby. Thought he held our defence together nearly single-handedly first half. Reading of the City attacks was incredible. Knew exactly when to stand off and when to attack the ball.

I actually thought he was a bit all over the shop at times in the first half. Stepped up to win the ball in midfield and misread it, IIRC that lead to the Sterling through ball which Rose dealt with. Looked like he'd completely lost his man in behind for the Zabaleta chance as well.

Maybe it's just the incredibly high standard he's set but this wasn't one of his better games IMO.

 

[Tottenham_God]

Vorm has superior distribution to Loris.

 

[mpickard2087]

Firstly, a happy new year to all...

After the dominance and excellence of performances in recent weeks, today was a bit of a shock. I don't know where you would choose to begin, in pretty much all facets of the game, tactically, technical and individually, we were second best right from the off. When you are forced to change shape within the first 15 mins you know things aren't going well. They out pressed us, we couldn't keep the ball, our little foibles playing out from the back were put under the microscope, defensively we were wide open at times and dragged about the pitch, and had very few attacks. Lets not dwell on it...

By sheer dumb luck it has to be said we were not on the end of a bit of a thrashing, indeed it looked like it would be two Hugo gaffes which would be the difference. But somehow... somehow... Despite all the struggles in this game, and that we ended with a patched up line up that featured barely a centre half on the pitch and a cm2 of Winks and Eriksen, we managed to find two moments (and quality ones at that) to end up just about clinging onto a point. This team can scrap and dig deep, no doubt about it.

Lloris - Some decent saves early on, then it went pear shaped. Whilst he gets away with some dodgy passing/decisions most weeks, against the best pressing teams it puts team mates under massive pressure. Let's not even talk about the two goals... A day he'll want to forget.

Dier - Was shunted around the pitch, which isn't easy on a player. Was ok but switched off a few times and was a bit soft for the opening goal.

Alderweireld - I don't know what the consensus has been on here in the last few weeks, but since his comeback I've personally thought he's a bit tentative with his defensive work (especially with his movement - running and jumping), is favouring his left foot more than ever, and doesn't look completely over his injury. Now we've had a lot of dominant games where he can sit and just spray passes about, but today I thought would be a test and nippy mobile Aguero running him caused a few problems. There was a great last ditch piece of defending, and it's a testament to how class an act he is that he is still performing 'decently', but personally I think he's short of his best and hope to see him 100% in invincible mode ASAP, especially with us missing Vertonghen. Hopefully the knock today is nothing serious.

Wimmer - Pretty bad half. Once again looks the weakest player in the team with the ball at his feet by quite a distance, and was positionally all over the place.

Walker - Great cross for the goal, positionally had some bad moments.

Rose - Couple of exceptional last ditch challenges, but also some bad moments positionally including in the build up to their second goal.

Wanyama - Thought we lost the midfield battle and he wasn't great with or without the ball, but filled in pretty well at centre half with some good challenges and blocks when he was called upon.

Dembele - See above, minus impressive centre half impersonation.

Eriksen - Wasn't involved enough for my liking and a tad wasteful two or three times. Involved in the equaliser though.

Alli - Typically, sniffed the chance for his goal well and got into the right area. There wasn't much else.

Kane - Involved in the equaliser, expected a bit more with and without the ball though.

Subs:
Son - Decent finish when needed.
Winks - Ok.
Sissoko - n/a.


Luck - 11/10
Ability to scrap - 10/10
Momentum - Still rollin'

 

[yusrisafri]

Wimmer? What did he do to deserve that? Made a mistake under pressure but what else?

You must be his Dad for not being able to see that he was a huge liability.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Ok fellas, we can all stop sucking each off now.

That was fucking horrendous. Amazing how we can go from being so very good to so very bad in 7 days. This wasn't just about ManC, they are a team of talented players, but they are also a team with vulnerabilities, and if we'd have got our tactics right today we could have exploited those vulnerabilities and nullified some of those talented players. We did the opposite.

We were tactically poor, individually inept and collectively shambolic. Just as in previous games recently, Poch's selections, and tactical applications have induced individual excellence and collective cohesion, today his poor tactical application exposed and induced individual vulnerability and disrupted the collective cohesion.

I just don't understand what the thinking was in pushing Alli up to play right up top next to and, at times, ahead of Kane against this side, especially once he'd seen the team sheets, and then watched throughout the 90 minutes as we were out played, out thought and out fought.

It's not like Guardiola had Gundogan and/or Fernandinho in there, he had fucking Yaya as the DM FFS and he Poched Poch with the 4141 that Poch had fucked him over with in the the game at WHL a few months ago. Walker and Rose found themselves sandwiched between Clichy/Zabaletta and Sane/Sterling and neither really coped very well, neither seemed to read or react to what was happening and as a result, for the first 45 minutes both left the wider CB's very exposed. Yes, their remit in that set up was to be higher, but once they could see what was happening, that City were pressing us higher up and overloading, they needed to drop 10 yards and help the CB's play out.

We can take some crumbs of comfort from the fact that Pochettino did realise pretty quickly that he'd got things tactically a little wrong and that Guardiola had got things tactically better, but I just don't think his solutions solved most of the problems.

I think he possibly thought having Alli and Kane up top together might be able to put pressure on Guardiola's penchant for over playing at the back, but once it became clear that Guardiola had shifted emphasis to playing quickly out from defence to feed a midfield area over loaded with footballing ability, he needed to withdraw Alli to deeper areas. He could still bomb on, as is his wont, but it would have given us more "football" in the midfield areas, enabled us to play out and have more of the football and stifle some of City's fluency. Instead he pushed Dier up, which meant we went from this:

Dier-----------TA-------------Wimmer
Aguero
Sane--------Wanyama-----Dembele-----Sterling
Walker------Silva-------------DeBruyne--------Rose
Clichy----------------------------------------------Zabaletta
Eriksen Yaya

Kane-----------Alli
​

To a kind of lopsided 442:

TA--------Wimmer
Sane------Aguero------Sterling
Walker--------Silva--------DeBruyne----------Rose

Clichy----Dier----Wanyama----Dembele-Zabaletta
Eriksen--------------Yaya----------------------

Kane------Alli

To this:

Dier------------TA
Aguero
Sane----------------------Sterling
Walker-------------------------------------------Rose
Silva--------------------DeBruyne

Clichy-Eriksen---Wanyama--------Dembele-----Zabaletta
Yaya
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Son
Kane-------Alli
​

Which did very little to stifle City's gameplay and disrupt the channels they were playing in.

It saw Eriksen play almost as an orthodox RM, who ended up spending most of the game chasing Sane, leaving Alli and Kane to bumble about up front like a pair of stewed prunes in a Dyson vortex, then adding Son's equally erratic bumbling, none of which addressed the problems we were having controlling the football or the game. As a result even after half time City just continued to strut around with complete control of this game.

We should have gone to this:

Dier----------TA------------Davies
Waller-------Wanyama-----Dembele--------Rose
Eriksen-----------------------------Alli
Kane
​

Or maybe even:

Dier----------TA
Walker--------------------------------------Rose
Wanyama
Winks---------------------Dembele
Erikse---------------Alli
Kane

​

Compressed the midfield spaces. Had Eriksen and Alli both dropping deeper but slightly more inverted; we could have had more of the ball, more options for midfielders in possession,move City around, give their players who want to play football something to think about defensively, as we did against Chelsea. instead Kane and Alli were isolated up front, Eriksen was marginalised to the side so he couldn't be that metronomic player he normally is, and there was no cohesion, nobody was familiar with where anyone was.

Yes, both of their goals owed something to fortune, with Lloris contributing to both, but the fact is, it was a cumulation of such moments of continual exposure that led inevitably to defensive mistakes, which was unfortunate because they had seemed reluctant to capitalise on their numerous promising attacking situations. But it was our constant inability to control the football in the midfield areas that allowed City to capitalise with the players Guardiola had placed in these areas. A CM3 effectively of Yaya, Silva and De Bruyne could have been horribly exposed if we'd got it right, but instead Pooh got it horribly wrong and they were allowed to run amok.

Alli and Son both ended up scoring, but lets not kid ourselves for a nano second that that was what we deserved from this game. This game should have been dead and buried for us long before that, even ignoring the blatant pen and sending off Walker should have received before our equaliser. It's no good retrospectively saying the tactics ultimately worked, when we score with our only two times on their box and they waste the 20 times they were in ours, that's just fucking luck.

To compound the tactical problems, individuals, perhaps as well as, but almost certainly because of the tactical problems, were poor as well. Walker and Rose were continually caught reading the game poorly, and exposing themselves and their CB's. Dembele was caught dithering on the ball several times. Kane and Alli made 18 successful passes between them all game. Eriksen had one of the worst games in Spurs shirt.

We got away with one today. Massively.

Individual

Lloris - A couple of decent saves but a couple of really stupid distribution decisions and both goals were poor from him.

Walker - A superb first time ball for Alli's goal but apart from that a really poor game and is lucky not to have given away a pen and been sent off, as well as getting his pants generally pulled down all afternoon.

Dier - Not great.

Alderweireld - Was just about holding things together until he went off.

Wimmer - Harshly booked I thought, but was shaky.

Rose - There was a point in the first half where we were under the cosh, City were pressing the defenders and CM's and Wimmer received the ball deep on the left by the touch line under pressure, and Rose was just stood about 30 yards up the pitch doing absolutely fuck all to give him an out ball. Got to read the game better and know when to drop 20 yards and help his team mates out. One great tackle, but was, largely due (not for the first time) to him being caught wrong side.

Wanyama - Probably the only player to come out of this game with any real credit, and probably the biggest single factor in us getting something from this game.

Dembele - Laboured and ineffective. Got caught over dribbling.

Eriksen - Really poor game. Not helped by the tactics.

Alli - Fucking woeful, but again not helped by the tactics.

Kane - Another really poor game. 8 fucking passes. If that was Janssen he'd be getting Alan Shearer highlighting how "he doesn't do the right things" on MOTD. Nice flick for Son's goal, but did not contribute enough.

Son - It was him stupidly giving the ball away that led to the second goal. Just about made amends for that with a well taken goal but his introduction really didn't solve the tactical problems.

 

[glospur]

Lloris also puts the outfield players under pressure with poor passes and decisions.

You can't blame Lloris for that.

He's instructed to do exactly that. We want to play out from the back and you just have to accept at times that it's going to put the team under pressure.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

You can't blame Lloris for that.

He's instructed to do exactly that. We want to play out from the back and you just have to accept at times that it's going to put the team under pressure.

He's not instructed to play neck high passes to a defender with a man up his arse, any more than any player is anywhere on the pitch, let alone from goalkeeper position. It's just poor decision making.