Player Watch - Tanguy Ndombele

mrlilywhite said:

In my book, it was a dreadful performance by all of them & isolating one player from that 1st half performance as culpable, is shortsighted at the very least. TN played his part in that terrible first half, but I could pull up more than one player that played equally as bad, if not worse in that 1st half, but hey it's easy to pull apart a record signing who hasn't started well at the club because everybody else is at least trying, whereas TN isn't.

Tactics were some of the worst I've seen from a Tottenham manager - even dim Tim had a system that players understood. How you can easily ignore the tactics in that game tells me that you have only one agenda here and that is to lambast TN for delivering the same shit that every other player delivered in that half.

Let's look at the changes JM made and not just the players -

1st half - Jose lines up with a 3 at the back, but because of the deep defensive line, it invites the home side to sit in our half and that back 3 becomes a back 5 of all central defenders, who with their backs to the wall incorporates a clear the lines mentality, that means long balls bypassing the midfield and returning it back to the home team, clearing into touch or a scrambled clearance that is anything but useful for midfielders to work from, so from the back 3/5 it's chaotic, evidence of that is clear with Sanchez struggling under pressure and in an unorthodox system, as well as Dier & Alderweireld. Our makeshift fullbacks are there to provide width and or support to a midfield two. Due to the pressure of the system, we are playing in, they cannot push out enough, therefore that leaves an exposed midfield of N'Dombele and Skipp having to work against the home teams midfield 4 - Their defensive 4 does not need to contend with Lamela, Alli or Bergwijn, as they are not influencing the game at this point due to having to sit deep & the only one with pace to worry them is Bergwijn. Basically, Burnley have men spare to provide an overload when needed and because of our shape & defensive line. There aren't many midfield duos that would perform any better in that situation - it's a 2 vs 4 during Burnley's attacking phase. With the mentality we had yesterday, we can be thankful that Burnley is not that great at breaking teams down. HT 1-0.

2nd half - Changes have to be made, not just players either and Jose, rightly sees this (the bleeding obvious). On comes Moura & Lo Celso for TN & OS. So what changed? The introduction of Lo Celso and Moura? The tactics? or both? A lot of folk have trouble dissecting this. So let's look at the defence - No longer a back 3/5 it's now a flat back 4, with fullbacks given instructions to defend 1st, support 2nd and a bit more license to move into space when the opportunity arises. The defensive line pushed up to ease the pressure of the defence and also bringing them closer to the midfield of Dier, Lo Celso & Lamela, thus giving them more options to play a simple pass and with Alli & Bergwijn operating in forward positions. With more numbers in midfield, we are able to compete and better their midfield. Now the tables are reversed because we have better options to control the midfield. We have fullbacks able to move into space and play more supporting roles, We have Dier sitting in the midfield shielding the defense (and playing one of his best games in the DM position for some time), we have Lo Celso, who with confidence gaining is making some wonderful trademark runs and passing is crisp and accurate and we have Lamela being busy as the most attacking out of the 3 midfield players at this point, with better finishers, we win this game. The point is though that you can blame players not performing and rightly so, but you can't just jump on the bandwagon and throw one player under the bus, when the answer is clearly the system, which would have yielded the exact same result had it been Skipp & Lo Celso in there. I mean if you are going to trash N'Dombele, then the same needs to happen to Skipp. FT 1-1.

Ultimately, the fault always mostly falls at the feet of the manager because he is the one that has to make sure he sends the team out with the right system. You only need to look at JM's predecessor, Poch to know that no matter how many great players you have, if you set them up to fail with the wrong system/tactics then 9/10 times they'll fuck it up. I will most def support Jose in his thoughts about TN, in public? No. For yesterday's 1st half performance - definitely not. That one is all on the manager and that's what pisses me off most, is that he put the team in an impossible position and then used TN as the easy target. Sure he didn't/doesn't work hard enough, but yesterday wasn't one of those games to single him out alone.

Click to expand...

Vinny_Sammways_left_peg said:

Why are you trolling so hard?

Click to expand...

Spurs_Bear said:

He’s fed up...

Click to expand...

spursfan77 said:

Sounds like the player he replaced has retired a year after we sold him for £11 million

Mousa Dembele calls it a day at the highest level due to fitness and injury issues

Mousa Dembele has officially announced that he has retired from football at the age of 32. The midfielder has not played for Belgium since September 2018 when he played the final ten minutes of the 3-0

www.spurs-web.com

Mousa Dembele has officially announced that he has retired from football at the age of 32.

The midfielder has not played for Belgium since September 2018 when he played the final ten minutes of the 3-0 win against Iceland in the UEFA Nations League which brought his international appearance total to an impressive 82 caps

Click to expand...

spursfan77 said:

Sounds like the player he replaced has retired a year after we sold him for £11 million

Mousa Dembele calls it a day at the highest level due to fitness and injury issues

Mousa Dembele has officially announced that he has retired from football at the age of 32. The midfielder has not played for Belgium since September 2018 when he played the final ten minutes of the 3-0

www.spurs-web.com

Mousa Dembele has officially announced that he has retired from football at the age of 32.

The midfielder has not played for Belgium since September 2018 when he played the final ten minutes of the 3-0 win against Iceland in the UEFA Nations League which brought his international appearance total to an impressive 82 caps

Click to expand...

fedupyid said:

Mourinho worst Spurs manager in 40 years.

Click to expand...

jay2040 said:

You - worst Spurs fan in 43 years!

Click to expand...

Everlasting Seconds said:

I also see that the Mourinho hating brigade has successful spread amongst themselves the “5 cb” mantra even though one of them is also best wing back and another was moved to midfield. But if can call it 5 cbs, our hatred is justified.

Click to expand...

jay2040 said:

Stopped reading as soon as you mention dickhead Tim!

Click to expand...

mrlilywhite said:

You wasted your time just to type that!? Jeez I know it's Sunday, but bloody hell mate.

Click to expand...

spursfan1991 said:

If an offer enquiry came for him in summer, we should cash in. We should accept a loss on this guy. He will be a star in a slower league..

Complete waste of money for spurs.

Click to expand...

Ossie85 said:

What are you on??
We started with 5 players that their natural position is CB.
Vertonghen, Toby, Sanchez, Tanganga and Dier. Aren't they all CBs?

It was even mentioned in my spanish speaking stream.

Click to expand...

JakeCOYS said:

The way we were set up in the first half was appalling. How he can scapegoat Ndombele is crazy.

Click to expand...

BringBack_leGin said:

I think that if we're looking at the part where he criticises Ndombele's performance, we also have to listen to him when he sais that he expects a better Ndombele next season and praises his talent.

One must either take into account the whole quote of none of it.

Also, it is not incorrect to say that in the first half Ndombele was not showing for the ball, in the second half Lo Celso was.

Click to expand...