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Player Watch - Tanguy Ndombele

rez9000

Any point?
Feb 8, 2007
11,942
21,098
@Ossie85 You can laugh all you like, mate, but I think one of your earliest posts after Mourinho was appointed sheds some light as to your position:

If he's the devil or not it will be seen.
But I agree Levy has destroyed the work we've done this years with this appointment.
Mourinho is the complete opposite of what we've been building.
We may win an FA Cup but I don't see a prosperous future for the club with Mourinho.
I feel it as a short term move to win anything at all cost

I wonder if you'd concede that maybe, just maybe, you're indulging your preconceptions and aren't being fair...?
 

13VanDerBale13

Well-Known Member
Jul 12, 2011
14,269
33,647
There is one thing that massively bugs me about this... If he is so out of shape and unhealthy then how did he pass the medical?

Given that we’ve had so many injuries this season it’s hardly surprising that our medical team have fucked up once again
 

Ionman34

SC Supporter
Jun 1, 2011
7,182
16,793
I'm not gonna go over the same things again, so let me ask you this.
Have we ever played with GLC and Moura and 5 at the back from the start in these last games??? I know we did. Then did we perform like yesterday's second half or did we lose the midfield like in the first half???
Don't know and it's irrelevant to what I'm arguing. In THIS game, we lost the midfield battle in the 1st half but won it in the 2nd, all with a change in personnel.

The fact that you can't argue the logic of what I'm saying, but need to ask superfluous questions, speaks volumes.
 

Ossie85

Rio de la Plata
Aug 2, 2008
3,916
13,215
Don't know and it's irrelevant to what I'm arguing. In THIS game, we lost the midfield battle in the 1st half but won it in the 2nd, all with a change in personnel.

The fact that you can't argue the logic of what I'm saying, but need to ask superfluous questions, speaks volumes.
I've tried arguing the logic with you, but you can't seem to understand it. So I've tried using a logic exercise, but you don't want to.

So I won't bother discussing this any further
 

arunspurs

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
8,807
35,543
True, but GLC had a better setup to work with. Not denying Ndombele had a bad game, but he suffered from a terrible tactic. Most of them did. But Skipp and him the most.

Couldn't disagree more.
First Half :
Ndombele was standing near the center circle, neither moving forward or backward to receive the ball. There were 2 Burnley players cutting his passing lanes. But then, did he move ? nope. With no option to play ball through from back, our CBs kept hitting long to no one up top and giving possession away. Skipp was cutoff from him.
So as Jose said ,'we didnt have a midfield in first half' - 100%

Second half :
Moment the ref blew the whistle, GLC was on the move. He never stopped running. Initially Burnley started with same 2 players closer to GLC, but he dragged them out of place and moved into space to receive the ball. Eventually, Burnley players didnt want to get dragged out too much, stayed in their position and let GLC dictate play. This was that easy. All Ndombele had to do was, some off the ball movement to space and be ready to receive the ball and pass and start playing football.

This was nothing to do with going to back 4. This is just down on Tanguy not moving his arse enough.
 

Ionman34

SC Supporter
Jun 1, 2011
7,182
16,793
I've tried arguing the logic with you, but you can't seem to understand it. So I've tried using a logic exercise, but you don't want to.

So I won't bother discussing this any further
You've offered no logic whatsoever, you've piggy backed lilywhite, and I've presented the counter argument to that. So your fallback is to point at other games that have no bearing on how this one played out. That's not a logic exercise, it's a scramble to eke out some relevance from the irrelevant.

One point we do agree on though, don't bother discussing it further.

Drop the shovel, so to speak...
 

Ionman34

SC Supporter
Jun 1, 2011
7,182
16,793
Couldn't disagree more.
First Half :
Ndombele was standing near the center circle, neither moving forward or backward to receive the ball. There were 2 Burnley players cutting his passing lanes. But then, did he move ? nope. With no option to play ball through from back, our CBs kept hitting long to no one up top and giving possession away. Skipp was cutoff from him.
So as Jose said ,'we didnt have a midfield in first half' - 100%

Second half :
Moment the ref blew the whistle, GLC was on the move. He never stopped running. Initially Burnley started with same 2 players closer to GLC, but he dragged them out of place and moved into space to receive the ball. Eventually, Burnley players didnt want to get dragged out too much, stayed in their position and let GLC dictate play. This was that easy. All Ndombele had to do was, some off the ball movement to space and be ready to receive the ball and pass and start playing football.

This was nothing to do with going to back 4. This is just down on Tanguy not moving his arse enough.
Nail. Firmly. On. Head.
 

Timberwolf

Well-Known Member
Jan 17, 2008
10,328
50,217
Wouldn’t really call our demise over a 15 months the blink of an eye.

We’ve been bad since early 2019.
Tbh we've been some shade of bad since the start of 18/19. We had a ton of wins in the first half of the season but the performances were rarely anywhere near what we'd seen in the previous 2-3 seasons. So many 50/50 games won by a single goal or gifted by our opponents missing sitters.
 

Everlasting Seconds

Well-Known Member
Jan 9, 2014
14,914
26,616
Conserve energy?? You run less when you are in possession than when you are not. The only players that run less with how he sets us up are the CBs. The rest have to run more, specially the forwards.
I don’t think that’s true. I think that’s an unproven hypothesis that Pochettino loving Spurs fans have invented lately. There is no objective reason that’s apparent that possession would result in less running.
 

Ossie85

Rio de la Plata
Aug 2, 2008
3,916
13,215
Couldn't disagree more.
First Half :
Ndombele was standing near the center circle, neither moving forward or backward to receive the ball. There were 2 Burnley players cutting his passing lanes. But then, did he move ? nope. With no option to play ball through from back, our CBs kept hitting long to no one up top and giving possession away. Skipp was cutoff from him.
So as Jose said ,'we didnt have a midfield in first half' - 100%

Second half :
Moment the ref blew the whistle, GLC was on the move. He never stopped running. Initially Burnley started with same 2 players closer to GLC, but he dragged them out of place and moved into space to receive the ball. Eventually, Burnley players didnt want to get dragged out too much, stayed in their position and let GLC dictate play. This was that easy. All Ndombele had to do was, some off the ball movement to space and be ready to receive the ball and pass and start playing football.

This was nothing to do with going to back 4. This is just down on Tanguy not moving his arse enough.

I see Mourinho has successfully diverted his blame to Ndombele with some fans.
It was not the 5CBs against fucking Burnley. It was Ndombele.
Ok. He should've kept the 5CBs for the second half then
 
Last edited:

rez9000

Any point?
Feb 8, 2007
11,942
21,098
I see Mourinho has successfully diverted his blame to Ndombele with some fans.
It was not the 5CBs against fucking Burnley. It was Ndombele.
Ok. He should've kept the 5CBs for the second half then
Manure. Keep drinking that Kool-Aid, chap.
 

mrlilywhite

Well-Known Member
Sep 1, 2008
3,174
4,992
He offered nothing at all during the game his role was to carry the ball and link things up but he did nothing. Tactics, the players have to play., offer some heart and application he sold everyone short. Its not defendable.

In my book it was a dreadful performance by Ndombele and whether you like it or not he has to provide more for the team, Of course Mourinho had to change it at half time because the midfield had no control of the game and he was let down by the person who had to be key to our performance and having any control in the game. As soon as Lo Celso comes on starts linking with AlI the game changes.

If Ndombele stays on we lose the game as he was incapable of gettiing on the ball and giving us some sort of meaningful possession
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.
 

pelayo59

Well-Known Member
Jun 28, 2019
1,035
4,588
On The Athletic
Jose Mourinho’s scathing criticism of Tottenham’s record signing Tanguy Ndombele on Saturday night was about a lot more than just a poor first-half display. Sure, Ndombele had been disappointing in the opening 45 minutes against Burnley but Mourinho’s frustration has been brewing for weeks.

Mourinho, according to one source, has tried to be patient with Ndombele but by Saturday night, felt that “enough is enough”. On the other side, the confrontation was viewed by some close to the situation as confirmation that Mourinho’s management style is not best suited to getting the best out of Ndombele — a mercurial if not always diligent midfielder.

First, a quick recap on what Mourinho said at Turf Moor after Tottenham’s 1-1 draw in which he had hooked Ndombele at half-time. “Somebody has to realise this is the Premier League… I hope that next season, he can be fantastic because until now, it is not enough,” Mourinho told Sky Sports — without actually naming the player.

At his press conference a few minutes later, Mourinho eventually dispensed with any veneer of ambiguity and after saying: “My thinking was that in the first half, we didn’t have a midfield,” and defending Ndombele’s midfield partner Oliver Skipp, he went on: “Because I don’t want another question about the same story. I’m not going to run away and I have to say that Tanguy had enough time to come to a different level. I know that the Premier League is very difficult and some players, it takes time. Some players, it takes a long time to adapt to a different league but a player with this potential and responsibility has to give us more than he is giving us.”

Tension has existed since soon after Mourinho took over in November — perhaps unsurprisingly, given the type of player Ndombele is. He is a richly talented midfielder but one who relies on virtuoso moments of brilliance. He has always been less interested in the defensive side of the game and there were concerns about his fitness at previous clubs Lyon and Amiens.

He is about as far away from the Mourinho prototype as it is possible to imagine. And having been signed for £55 million by Mourinho’s predecessor Mauricio Pochettino, starting 11 of 17 games under him, Ndombele started only one of Mourinho’s first nine — the ninth of which was the Boxing Day win against Brighton.

Ndombele was not even in the squad for that match and afterwards, Mourinho said: “He was not injured but not feeling in a condition to play.” Six days later, having limped off against Southampton with a hip injury, Mourinho described Ndombele as being “always injured”.

The Athletic reported at the time that publicly calling Ndombele out did not go down well with some members of the dressing room, though others at the club supported Mourinho’s stance. They were in agreement with the head coach’s view that Ndombele’s attitude and application were questionable, going some way to explaining why he was physically not in the right shape. Soon after, Mourinho praised Ndombele’s “amazing quality” as he revealed that the Frenchman had been placed on a bespoke fitness programme.

NDOMBELE-WOLVES-scaled.jpg


Ndombele has admitted to finding some defensive duties “boring”, which is unlikely to be compatible with Mourinho’s style (Photo: Tottenham Hotspur FC/Tottenham Hotspur FC via Getty Images)
Fast forward to last Sunday and a tragicomic video went viral of Ndombele ambling back to try and stop Wolves winger Pedro Neto — barely breaking into a sprint despite Spurs losing 3-2 at home in the closing stages. Mourinho was asked what he made of the incident a couple of days later and to the surprise of some, he took it in good humour. He laughed and with a broad grin said by way of explanation: “Or Pedro Neto is very fast.”

Mourinho did not want to publicly call out the player again and thought he would be better off making light of it and protecting him this time. Privately though, Ndombele’s lack of conditioning was reportedly becoming a “big concern” — just as it had been to his predecessor. Pochettino started to have doubts by the time he left and a few weeks before he was sacked, raised eyebrows by saying it might take two years before fans saw the best of Ndombele.

By the time Saturday’s match against Burnley came around, Mourinho still felt that Ndombele needed to improve his conditioning and that he was not reacting to the instructions he had been given as quickly as he should have. His physical condition had not been great when Mourinho arrived — not helped by a groin injury carried over from the Pochettino era — and since then, he struggled to adapt to the new head coach’s methods. He has completed 90 minutes under Mourinho just once and in his three other starts under him prior to Saturday, had been taken off after 63, 61 and 25 minutes (the latter with an injury).

Nevertheless, with Harry Winks and Giovani Lo Celso needing a rest, Ndombele was given a rare start — only his fourth in the Premier League under Mourinho. He lasted just 45 minutes and afterwards, Mourinho explained precisely why: “More important than the tactics is to have midfield players that want the ball, to have midfield players that connect the game, to have midfield players that press, to have midfield players that recover the ball, to have midfield players that win duels, and we didn’t have it.”

These failings were a huge disappointment to Mourinho but what really infuriated him, The Athletic understands, was what he perceived to be the player’s lack of effort compared to his team-mates.

Was Mourinho’s assessment fair? It’s not easy to quantify effort but certainly, a look at two touch maps shows how much more involved the outstanding Lo Celso was when he replaced Ndombele at half-time.

Ndombele-touch.png

Ndombele’s touch map (above) compared with Lo Celso’s (below) shows how much more the Argentine offered

Lo-Celso-.png


As for Mourinho’s inference that Ndombele didn’t want the ball, connect the game or recover possession, the evidence suggests that may have been a little harsh. He touched the ball 40 times, which if calculated per minutes he was on the pitch, would have been the second-most of the Spurs starters, while his three possession wins had him joint third (though both figures were bettered by Lo Celso). His 62.5 per cent duel success was the second best of the Spurs outfielders.

But, as mentioned, Mourinho’s reaction was about more than just a sluggish first half against Burnley. And there are some who share the manager’s exasperation — one dressing room source said Ndombele has not made enough of an effort to adapt to the English game. Back in France, a prominent journalist told The Athletic that there was a perception of Ndombele as “arrogant”. This view was entrenched by Ndombele saying in December 2018 that: “To run after the ball against little teams is a bit boring.”

Yet there is another side to all this. One source close to Ndombele told The Athletic that the player requires more careful management and there is a sense that Mourinho is being “particularly hard” with him.

This was a sentiment agreed with by former players Danny Murphy and Ian Wright on Saturday night’s Match of the Day. “At least six or seven players were not at the races in the first half. It’s harsh to use him as a scapegoat,” said the ex-Tottenham midfielder Murphy.

“It’s pretty harsh digging him out,” added Wright — before making the point that it’s his first season and he should be given some leeway.

This is a view put forward by other observers, who make the point that he needs time to be in the best condition and find his best role in the Tottenham team. There is also an understanding at the club that joining Spurs at such a tumultuous time has not been easy. Adapting to the Premier League from Ligue 1 is hard enough at the best of times, let alone with a switch of manager and a team that is constantly changing their system and personnel.

Ndombele will likely need more stability and balance to thrive, and some feel that he would benefit from a more attacking role that exposes his defensive deficiencies less than being part of a central midfield pair. Tottenham’s more direct style under Mourinho — as was the case against Burnley in the first half — is also a long way from being the best method of maximising Ndombele’s rich passing and dribbling quality.

More broadly, he is far from the only player to get this sort of treatment from Mourinho. Eden Hazard, Paul Pogba and Joe Cole are other players with extraordinary attacking gifts that have been singled out in the past. As well as fears about his conditioning, Ndombele has also suffered groin and hip injuries that appear to still be niggling him and may require proper rest. His likely involvement with France at Euro 2020 will not help in his regard.

The question now is what happens next? Given the vast outlay spent on Ndombele last summer and the appreciation of his huge talent, he is a player that everyone at the club wants to succeed. Mourinho himself said on Saturday: “I hope he uses every minute on the pitch and every minute knowing what the Premier League is to improve. Many fantastic players in their first season in a new country; for different reasons, they struggle.”

Though he then added with a warning: “I cannot keep giving him opportunities to play because the team is much more important.”

The former Manchester United midfielder Darren Fletcher said on beIN Sports that he hoped Ndombele used the criticism as fuel to prove to Mourinho what he is truly capable of.

In the longer term, Ndombele still has plenty of time to do that and in the coming weeks, Tottenham’s injury problems mean that he will have more chances to prove he is worth the money and the effort.

He knows he needs to start taking them.
 

mrlilywhite

Well-Known Member
Sep 1, 2008
3,174
4,992
I don’t think that’s true. I think that’s an unproven hypothesis that Pochettino loving Spurs fans have invented lately. There is no objective reason that’s apparent that possession would result in less running.
It depends on what type of possession game you are playing tbh - if you are playing the fluid Man City possession game, then sure it's plenty of running and finding space, etc - If, However, you are playing the slow build-up type of possession game, then it's far less running about, more probing sort of stuff which inherently is less running about, also if you play a high defensive line and play your possession in the opponents half then cutting off half the pitch also affects the amount of running. So in reality, it's subjective by nature.
 

Everlasting Seconds

Well-Known Member
Jan 9, 2014
14,914
26,616
It depends on what type of possession game you are playing tbh - if you are playing the fluid Man City possession game, then sure it's plenty of running and finding space, etc - If, However, you are playing the slow build-up type of possession game, then it's far less running about, more probing sort of stuff which inherently is less running about, also if you play a high defensive line and play your possession in the opponents half then cutting off half the pitch also affects the amount of running. So in reality, it's subjective by nature.
Of course it depends on circumstances. Which is what I alluded to in the first place.
Not having possession doesn’t automatically mean running more. One could also argue that running more without the ball isn’t directly consuming more energy than breaking down over and over again an opposition in their defensive shape.
 

Ionman34

SC Supporter
Jun 1, 2011
7,182
16,793
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.
I've a lot of respect for you mr L, as you've obviously got a handle on the dynamics of a game, but I have to disagree with your assessment.
I've gone through it pretty much in my previous post to Ossie, so I wont go into depth again. What I will say is that I completely disagree with your assessment that the tactic 1st half was to sit back and absorb. My take was that the tactic was pretty much the same as the second half, win the battle in the middle, allowing OUR backs to overload. We attempted that on a few occasions, only for it to break down, with Burnley then having the run of the middle of the park. This forced our backs to sit deep to cover, as them pushing up the pitch and us having no discernible central midfield, would leave us hugely vulnerable. As it turns out, it happened anyway, but you've already pointed out that more than a few had a mare yesterday, which I completely agree with.

The 2nd half change was again as I've gone through with Ossie. We won the CM battles because Lo Celso was far more mobile and tenacious in winning the ball back. Once we'd won the middle, the backs were able to push forward, even Tanganga was able to get down the flanks until Aurier came on to exploit the right further.

So in summary, the turning point was the introduction of Lo Celso with his industry and willingness to take responsibility, it was the catalyst for everything else.

I'll caveat this with this is all my opinion based on what I saw us doing, what I saw us trying to do and what we eventually ended up doing. I can respect your take as you obviously see it differently, but you've backed that up with an analysis, albeit one I disagree with.
 

arunspurs

Well-Known Member
Aug 31, 2012
8,807
35,543
I see Mourinho has successfully diverted his blame to Ndombele with some fans.
It was not the 5CBs against fucking Burnley. It was Ndombele.
Ok. He should've kept the 5CBs for the second half then

What a load of BS

Seriously...I never said I agree with Jose tactics. - so dont put words in my mouth.

Was Ndombele shit in first half ? YES

Did Ndombele move his arse in first half ? NO

Do I agree with Jose that we didnt have a midfield in first half ? YES

I dont know if Jose was defelecting. I am calling, as I see it

Lo Celso came on 2nd in CM. All it took was 2 minutes to get us going. Why ? Unlike Ndombele, he wanted the ball. Moved into space, dragged Burnley players out. And in the end, got hold of the midfield and dragged us forward.
 
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