What went wrong vs West Ham?

[Beni]

Here is what I thought was wrong yesterday, and at times this season

1. Inverted wingers - These are good aslong as you have attacking fullbacks to overlap and get behind the defence. With Walker, we have that down the right, so you can get away with Townsend or Lamela playing infront of him.
On the left, until Rose is back, we need to play an attacking left back, which Naughton and Fyers are not. So, for me we either play Vertonghen, or if we insist on Naughton at left back, we play Chadli or Townsend.

2. Defensive Midfielder - Sandro has to be a starter for me, or Capoue when fit. Regardless of if you think the game is easy on paper, and up against a lesser side, you always need someone that has the discipline to just sit and marshall the back four. You can always sacrifice this player, if you need to start chasing the game.

3. Paulinho - As I said earlier in the thread, Paulinho is a box to box midfielder, and likes to make late runs into the box and will score the odd goal this way. Having no natural defensive midfielder next him, prevents him going forward as often as he would like and should. Having a Sandro or Capoue, will enable him to help our attacks and score goals.

4. Movement - If we're playing inverted wingers and no attacking fullbacks, or they're struggling to get in behind defences, you need a striker with movement. Defoe is a striker that likes to drop deep, and receive the ball, turn, shift and shoot. Having no width creates a congested central midfield, that will need to either shoot from distance, or find a striker that picks gaps for through balls. Only Soldado is capable of this out of our strikers, and even so, playing with no width is not a game plan we should be playing and has hindered his start to the season.

5. Soldado - His game relies on service, and if we're playing with no width and with players that have more of an eye to shoot than create, he is going to struggle to get into games. Players like Sigurdsson, Townsend would rather shoot than look for the pass. To get the best out of him, we need to play attacking full backs, and more creative players in the team to give him the creativity of either balls into the box, inbetween defenders, or over the top playing on the shoulder.

For me, the best team when all fit that will get the best out of each player, is the below:-


....................Lloris..........................

Walker...Kaboul...Vertonghen...Rose

.............Sandro...Holtby................
...................Paulinho....................
........Lamela.............Eriksen..........
...................Soldado......................

 

[dagraham]

So far most of the talk has been about tactics and formations etc. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is attitude.

Imo we still suffer from a big time charlie attitude. Roy Keane once said it runs "through the fabric of the club" and he's right imo.

We always think we've made it before we've actually achieved anything. This runs from the fans with the mind the gap nonsense, to now thinking we can win the league because we had a decent start and dismissing other teams.

It includes the players blabbing off to the media saying we've got a better squad than Arsenal several times in the last few years.

It includes the board whom all too often rest on their laurels, such as Jan 2012 when we thought we were guaranteed CL and didn't invest.

Yet when it comes down to the nitty gritty we don't deliver. How many times have we started well only to fade? How many big games have we lost when we were favourites?

It's why we think we can just turn up against West Ham and automatically claim the 3 points. You have to earn the right to play and maintain a hunger and intesnsity to win throughout the season, not just in certain games.

 

[double0]

So far most of the talk has been about tactics and formations etc. One thing that hasn't been mentioned is attitude.

Imo we still suffer from a big time charlie attitude. Roy Keane once said it runs "through the fabric of the club" and he's right imo.

We always think we've made it before we've actually achieved anything. This runs from the fans with the mind the gap nonsense, to now thinking we can win the league because we had a decent start and dismissing other teams.

It includes the players blabbing off to the media saying we've got a better squad than Arsenal several times in the last few years.

It includes the board whom all too often rest on their laurels, such as Jan 2012 when we thought we were guaranteed CL and didn't invest.

Yet when it comes down to the nitty gritty we don't deliver. How many times have we started well only to fade? How many big games have we lost when we were favourites?

It's why we think we can just turn up against West Ham and automatically claim the 3 points. You have to earn the right to play and maintain a hunger and intesnsity to win throughout the season, not just in certain games.

I agree with a lot of what you've said. With the two week break we're only going to read negative comments now and to be fair our start to the season as a hole hasn't been a disaster-Bale gone and all our new players. We have to trust AVB yes he is a numbers manager methodical and quite subborn at times hopefullly with the players we brought have gelled, it should help us to play a more progressive game, in a way our foundations are being put in place and really that 0-3 result ( considering the luck with two of them the first and especially the second was a joke) was a blip.

 

[SpurSince57]

'Defensive Midfielder - Sandro has to be a starter for me, or Capoue when fit. Regardless of if you think the game is easy on paper, and up against a lesser side, you always need someone that has the discipline to just sit and marshall the back four. You can always sacrifice this player, if you need to start chasing the game.'

Think we have missed this in some games, but make no mistake, down the years top teams have been able to leave their centre halves isolated as they chase results because they're good enough to defend one v one. In Dawson we've got one who needs consistent protection from a defensive midfield player. Sorry to keep making this point but while he remains in the team, it's going to be a huge struggle to make the top 4.

In reverse order, all CBs benefit from such protection.

Would it surprise you to learn that Dembélé is our most effective ball-winner, winning over 90% of tackles this season? And that Sandro isn't?

 

[ItsBoris]

I think the biggest problem is lack of width, which was in part due to the poor play from our fullbacks, especially Naughton who shouldn't be playing on the left at all. It also is because both our wingers yesterday were coming inside, and generally all our players move toward the ball rather than away from it.

I don't see why it is so complicated, we should have two wingers fairly wide, even if they are inverted wingers they should almost be hugging the touchlines unless they have the ball, then there should be fullbacks pushing forward and overlapping, and a #10 in the middle who has space to work with created by the wide players. 2 central midfielders, one of which is a proper holding DM (Sandro or Capoue), and the other a box to box player (Paulinho/Dembele).