Match Threads Spurs Vs Leicester

[walworthyid]

I agree completely. There is nothing to prove that being very cagey is the way forward either nowadays as the 2 most successful teams Liverpool and Man’s City are completely front foot teams. We might end up watching pretty rubbish football and still win no silverware.

This is my point. The only relatively successful cagey team is athletico Madrid and they really are the exception.

Chances are that we won't win anything this season as is the case every season, there are only 3 domestic trophies up for grabs and therefore no more than 3 teams can win something in any given season. I would rather go for glory on the front foot than on the backfoot.

 

[dudu]

This is my point. The only relatively successful cagey team is athletico Madrid and they really are the exception.

Chances are that we won't win anything this season as is the case every season, there are only 3 domestic trophies up for grabs and therefore no more than 3 teams can win something in any given season. I would rather go for glory on the front foot than on the backfoot.

I just think 'backfoot' is an unfair term to use and shows a lack of understanding about how we are trying to play. We are literally primed and ready to attack at all times.

We have the most shots on target per game in the prem yet play in the opposition half the second least of any team.

This means we are becoming a finely tuned goal-scoring machine. We don't need to pass the ball 200 times in the opposition half to create goal-scoring opportunities, which was frustrating to many on this board when we were playing like that.

To add to that 47% of the shots against us come from outside the box and only 4% come from inside the 6-yard box. We are also an extremely effective defensive unit, giving the opposition very few good changes to score from.

And we are less than a year into Conte's reign, and unquestionably not the finished article yet.

So I think it's fair if you dislike the footie being played, I just don't think it's right to brand it something that is not. We aren't desperately defending and waiting to hit a team on the break - although it did feel like that at times against Leicester. We are defending as a team, inviting pressure on our terms waiting to take advantage of teams coming on to us.

 

[Gb160]

Yes, apologies. I was wrong in my reply. I did say I wouldn't enjoy it. What I mean is that I would enjoy having won it but not the process of winning it if that makes sense.

This whole debate on here boils down to something quite simple for me, do you enjoy watching our matches? If you do, lucky you and there is nothing wrong with that. I personally don't. I prefer a more progressive and aggressive, pressing style of football. I find us quite passive and when we do have the lions share of possession we lack imagination and creativity.

For some people the ends justify the means, so if we win something it will have been worth sitting through loads of poor performances.

For me that is a trade I wouldn't naturally want to make. I want us to play well first and to my logic good performances will eventually lead to points on the board. It doesn't always work out that way and perhaps I'm wrong in that conte is building from the back to develop our players mentality snd resilience and that we will eventually click. I dont know.

Only time will tell.

That's not what Conte is known for though.
What you're doing is like going to a Chinese restaurant and moaning that you prefer Indian, or going to a Metallica concert and moaning that you prefer Taylor Swift.
You're literally wasting your money going to matches, and your time watching them. You'd be better off finding another hobby while Conte is in charge.

 

[spursfan77]

That's not what Conte is known for though.
What you're doing is like going to a Chinese restaurant and moaning that you prefer Indian, or going to a Metallica concert and moaning that you prefer Taylor Swift.
You're literally wasting your money going to matches, and your time watching them. You'd be better off finding another hobby while Conte is in charge.

Or just sucking it up, stop moaning and get behind the team?

I’m enjoying not losing. Had far too much of that in my time supporting THFC.

 

[ajspurs]

I think our standards in what we do when we actually do have the ball have slipped massively in the last few games and that's where my frustration stems from, it's been way too careless from just about everyone and because we often don't have the ball a great deal anyway it can be incredibly annoying to see us give it back so easily. The last few games have been littered with misplaced passes and failed flicks around the corner from our front 3 contributing to a real inability to have the ball stick in that area.

It's the execution rather than the style itself.

 

[walworthyid]

Or just sucking it up, stop moaning and get behind the team?

I’m enjoying not losing. Had far too much of that in my time supporting THFC.

I'm 100% behind the team. In that I want us to win, I just care how we do it. The 2 are not mutually exclusive.

 

[walworthyid]

That's not what Conte is known for though.
What you're doing is like going to a Chinese restaurant and moaning that you prefer Indian, or going to a Metallica concert and moaning that you prefer Taylor Swift.
You're literally wasting your money going to matches, and your time watching them. You'd be better off finding another hobby while Conte is in charge.

Not really and not really.

The correct analogy would be that I have been visiting my favourite Chinese restaurant for the last 41 years when one evening i go in and ask for chicken chow mean and the waiter brings me chicken biriani!

I was here long before conte and God willing will be here long afterwards. The fans are the club. We can't change clubs or run contracts down or refuse to train. It's in our hearts and in our blood. I'll die a spurs fan.

So I'll support spurs in the way I see fit thanks.

 

[walworthyid]

I just think 'backfoot' is an unfair term to use and shows a lack of understanding about how we are trying to play. We are literally primed and ready to attack at all times.

We have the most shots on target per game in the prem yet play in the opposition half the second least of any team.

This means we are becoming a finely tuned goal-scoring machine. We don't need to pass the ball 200 times in the opposition half to create goal-scoring opportunities, which was frustrating to many on this board when we were playing like that.

To add to that 47% of the shots against us come from outside the box and only 4% come from inside the 6-yard box. We are also an extremely effective defensive unit, giving the opposition very few good changes to score from.

And we are less than a year into Conte's reign, and unquestionably not the finished article yet.

So I think it's fair if you dislike the footie being played, I just don't think it's right to brand it something that is not. We aren't desperately defending and waiting to hit a team on the break - although it did feel like that at times against Leicester. We are defending as a team, inviting pressure on our terms waiting to take advantage of teams coming on to us.

Fair enough, when you look at in those terms you're absolutely right. Our record speaks for itself, we concede few, score loads and very rarely lose as a result.

You have to concede that for all that, something is missing or is just not quite right.

I obviously hope that as we fine tune it, add new players and grow in confidence that the execution of this style of play will become more entertaining and controlled.

It may well be that in trying to find the balance betweem style and substance that conte's skill is securing the substance first. Because let's be honest, if he were losing games playing in a more open style he would probably not last long anyway.

I guess this is one of the reasons that we have struggled for silverware and sustained success, we demand good football and victories and you can't always have both!

 

[C1w8]

As I've said before mate. It's the new breed that think the City way is the only way to play.

They'll try to out manouvre you with terms like "recognisable patterns of play" and quote xg stats until the cows come home.

How anyone can't be anything but made up with that today is beyond me. They'll tell you we were out played by Leicester and it's not sustainable, yet you won't find a Leicester fan on the planner that wouldn't swap performances today.

We've lost one game in 9 this season and yet it's still doom and gloom from some quarters. You're absolute spot on when you call it entitled bullshit, and this forum is so much poorer for it.

Our xg stats are pretty consistent with our points return, with only the game vs west ham where you could say we didnt deserve a point based on chances created, so nobody can really use that one as an arguement against the team atm.

I watched the first half of the arsenal game sunday, they absolutely dominated brentford in terms of possession, nicked two goals from a corner/cross and basically played keepball for the whole first half, turned off at that point but i suspect the 2nd half was similar given how the rest of the game played out. It was so dull to watch though they were massively in control so i guess felt more "secure" for their fans. Cant say id prefer us to play like that tbh.

Personally i dont mind ceding possession so long as we look dangerous, which we did saturday...though a bit more fluidity when we do have the ball (like the last 30mins vs leicester) would help and hoping that starts to pick up starting with the arsenal game.

 

[Gb160]

Not really and not really.

The correct analogy would be that I have been visiting my favourite Chinese restaurant for the last 41 years when one evening i go in and ask for chicken chow mean and the waiter brings me chicken biriani!

I was here long before conte and God willing will be here long afterwards. The fans are the club. We can't change clubs or run contracts down or refuse to train. It's in our hearts and in our blood. I'll die a spurs fan.

So I'll support spurs in the way I see fit thanks.

No that's a terrible analogy, anyone expecting Conte to serve up Chicken Chow Mein obviously hasn't been paying attention.

 

[cider spurs]

Curry beats Chinese hands down. Close this fecka down. Drops mic. Adios Amigo's.

 

[dudu]

Fair enough, when you look at in those terms you're absolutely right. Our record speaks for itself, we concede few, score loads and very rarely lose as a result.

You have to concede that for all that, something is missing or is just not quite right.

I obviously hope that as we fine tune it, add new players and grow in confidence that the execution of this style of play will become more entertaining and controlled.

It may well be that in trying to find the balance betweem style and substance that conte's skill is securing the substance first. Because let's be honest, if he were losing games playing in a more open style he would probably not last long anyway.

I guess this is one of the reasons that we have struggled for silverware and sustained success, we demand good football and victories and you can't always have both!

I think this is a more pragmatic way to look at things.

I can absolutely concede that something is missing but that something for me comes with more games and more familiarity, with each other and the system.

If we think about what has been missing/not been right in previous Spurs teams and how many of those holes are being plugged already, in less than a year in the job...... quality in our squad depth, defensive stability, danger from set pieces just to name a few..... it is possible to look at where we are right now in terms of what we still have left to gain rather than what we are missing and be excited that we have a lot less work to do to get there than when he arrived.

 

[spurmin]

Really, because yesterday there were a few occasions when I and pretty much everyone around us went oh shit this doesn’t look good.

when Daka ran through and shot tamely everyone literally said oh shit

there was another occasion when a Leicester player can’t remember who declined to shoot when in a very good position and passed back to the edge of the box. Again everyone around me was relieved he didn’t shoot.

We seemed quite open yesterday compared to say the Wolves game where we conceded possession but not really any clear cut chances

I just watched the replay of the game. Always amazes me that without the stress of not knowing the result the game is completely different. Apart from the penalty, the first 28 minutes Leicester never threatened at all. It was just that 15 minutes before the break and in that time we hit the bar.
They did have a decent spell in the second half but they weren’t battering us.

 

[Hotspur33]

I just think 'backfoot' is an unfair term to use and shows a lack of understanding about how we are trying to play. We are literally primed and ready to attack at all times.

We have the most shots on target per game in the prem yet play in the opposition half the second least of any team.

This means we are becoming a finely tuned goal-scoring machine. We don't need to pass the ball 200 times in the opposition half to create goal-scoring opportunities, which was frustrating to many on this board when we were playing like that.

To add to that 47% of the shots against us come from outside the box and only 4% come from inside the 6-yard box. We are also an extremely effective defensive unit, giving the opposition very few good changes to score from.

And we are less than a year into Conte's reign, and unquestionably not the finished article yet.

So I think it's fair if you dislike the footie being played, I just don't think it's right to brand it something that is not. We aren't desperately defending and waiting to hit a team on the break - although it did feel like that at times against Leicester. We are defending as a team, inviting pressure on our terms waiting to take advantage of teams coming on to us.

Nice post.
Having watched the Leicester game back, their goals came from a moment of madness from Sanchez. And their second goal was a counter attack that came from us actually pressing them high up the pitch.
I can see the game plan and thus far it is working.
my concern is the game plan is very similar to the Mourinho plan, albeit with a different formation. I’d say that where we differ to Mourinho era, is as you have said, we don’t give up many good chances to the opposition. Mostly shots from distance, which I back Hugo to deal with more often than not. Also we are creating more chances. Rather than only having 2 shots all game.

Against Leicester I’d say whenever we got into our mid block, we suddenly became very passive and pedestrian. A good team will be able to easily play between our lines if we play like that. Also, our front 3 sometimes need to just hold on to the ball. I appreciate that in order to counter attack, we might give the ball away on occasion, because everything has to be done at speed, but when we are struggling a bit, just hold onto the ball instead of flicking it to nobody.

 

[fishhhandaricecake]

Whenever someone quotes that Bill Nic quote from 60 years ago I just laugh now. It's nothing more than a sound bite as far as the modern game is concerned. I always remind people that throw that quote up that it took Bill 3 years to get Spurs to the top, and he didn't have to do it with numerous club's having financial superiority over him. Let us not forget Greaves was a record transfer when we signed him in 61. We were top of the food chain back then.

Could we play better football right now? Sure, we've done so numerous times in the recent past, and we've also won fuck all doing so.

Conte has got to do so much more than just get us playing nice football. He's got to win games and completely change the mentality of the players. This isn't all going to happen in 10 months. Like I said took sir Bill 3 years to do it.

Could things be better? Absolutely but did I expect them to be in under a year considering all the hurdles? Definitely not, and anyone who thought we were going to be up to City and Pools standards in under a year are thoroughly deluded.

Bang on mate

 

[tevezito]

Great post, I get to the stadium an hour early and only leave at the final whistle. Much easier to go home with 3 points of course.

If you leave at the final whistle, you're clearly not a real fan. Why not stick around for another three pints of neck oil and take in some live music, we might be able to afford Bastoni in January then.

Yes, apologies. I was wrong in my reply. I did say I wouldn't enjoy it. What I mean is that I would enjoy having won it but not the process of winning it if that makes sense.

This whole debate on here boils down to something quite simple for me, do you enjoy watching our matches? If you do, lucky you and there is nothing wrong with that. I personally don't. I prefer a more progressive and aggressive, pressing style of football. I find us quite passive and when we do have the lions share of possession we lack imagination and creativity.

For some people the ends justify the means, so if we win something it will have been worth sitting through loads of poor performances.

For me that is a trade I wouldn't naturally want to make. I want us to play well first and to my logic good performances will eventually lead to points on the board. It doesn't always work out that way and perhaps I'm wrong in that conte is building from the back to develop our players mentality snd resilience and that we will eventually click. I dont know.

Only time will tell.

I still don't understand why people talk about enjoying winning or enjoying 'nice' football? Surely the enjoyment is in the fact it is a live event and you never know what's going to happen next? we might put some nice play together, we might score a goal, we might defend well as a team, we might fuck up big time, etc. etc.

Surely watching the team develop under Conte (after the window developing under Paratici) is fascinating? We never know what's going to happen next, so even watching Davs pass straight to an opponent unmarked in front of our goal is 'entertaining', if also incredibly frustrating? I feel sorry for those who only enjoy us winning things, but also feel sorry for those who only enjoy the 'good things'.

You only live once and only support Spurs once, and never know which match is going to be your last, so while you might enjoy a big win (6-0 v Bournemouth or 0-1 v City) more than a frustrating defeat (2-0 v Porto), I'd recommend enjoying both experiences and thanking the manager and team for doing their best to do the best they can for Spurs.

 

[deka_spur]

I think our standards in what we do when we actually do have the ball have slipped massively in the last few games and that's where my frustration stems from, it's been way too careless from just about everyone and because we often don't have the ball a great deal anyway it can be incredibly annoying to see us give it back so easily. The last few games have been littered with misplaced passes and failed flicks around the corner from our front 3 contributing to a real inability to have the ball stick in that area.

It's the execution rather than the style itself.

100% this.

Once we sharpen up and stop being so sloppy we will be great to watch. But we do play a direct style and because of that there will always be misplaced passes and we will often be require to soak up pressure as we let the other team have possession.
I do like the way we press though - not very often, but as somebody else pointed out - We press after a slight mistake from the opposition and do it very well.
As we get towards the end of the season those teams that do a constant high press will tire... But we won't as we are very deliberate when we press.

I am very much enjoying watching us at the moment, and yes I have my moments where I get so frustrated with the sloppyness etc. But enjoy the ride.

 

[ero1x]

Fair enough, when you look at in those terms you're absolutely right. Our record speaks for itself, we concede few, score loads and very rarely lose as a result.

You have to concede that for all that, something is missing or is just not quite right.

I obviously hope that as we fine tune it, add new players and grow in confidence that the execution of this style of play will become more entertaining and controlled.

Yep, it’s embarrassing the amount of times we needlessly concede possession by passing to the opposition...
Once we fix (or fine tune) this our play should become more controlled and entertaining.

 

[Gbspurs]

Attackers on the bench isn't that important. We have plenty of game winners on the pitch and can make changes to suit them if it's not working (3 in midfield, RWB on to move Perisic up etc).