Spurs vs City post match

Once again, this team has shown that it can't keep it's composure when pressed and harried, this includes virtually all of the players (apart from Stones and Bravo).

Apart from about 10 mins in each half, when Spurs players started to tire, we never looked in control of the game, we made the wrong passes continuously, under-hit them, over-hit them, made the decision to pass when we should have held the ball, or passed too quickly when no-one was in the right position or being closely marked by a Spurs player.

In short, it was last season all over again.

This team lacks the mental strength to ride out a high pressing game and just wait for the right moment to counter-attack or take the wind out of the opponents sails.

Truly good teams know how to do this, we don't and haven't been able to for the last two seasons, thanks a lot Pellegrini.
 
Pochettino did what he had to do to put us into uncomfortable situations. He asked his players to disturb our pass out from the back game, and they were doing it very well as a team even if we could get the ball up to Sterling, Silva, Navas they were tackled very quickly they lost so many balls because of it. Or they forced errors out of Kolarov, Zaba, Fernando to lose the ball in dangerous places or they just had to use long balls even tho Pep hates them. But with these long balls what chances we had to win in the air when it was Walker-Sterling or Sissoko-Navas or Verthongen-Kun duos fighting for it?

If their pressing didnt work they closed our players down so well and so many times and they were aggressive with the tackling while lot of times we were just waiting to be tackled.

Son and Alli played especially well and they worked extremely hard off the ball as well.

On the other side we were not better today than in any really bad games under Pellegrini.

Pep has two weeks to analyze the hell out of this weeks two bad results, I am sure he will do that and come up with a gameplan that can be used against this particular type of opponents.
Conceding very early is certainly a very bad thing against anyone but especially against a pressing team (3rd minute Celtic goal, 8th minute Spurs goal) as that just gives them that extra motivation that it worked so quickly so they keep it up even more/longer.

Last season we had absymal record against top 6 or even top 8 clubs in PL. Pep needs to improve that in order to win the title.
 
Jazzman said:
I sometimes genuinely think that is second priority for Pep, first being to keep hold of the ball.
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So people say but not Pep. He always said the priority is to be able to defend.

Obviously he requires both but it doesn't matter how well you do either, if your arse goes under pressure & it all goes out of the window, which is what happened to Kolarov again.

But we are top of the league, have just come back from a (self inflicted) knackering midweek game & had to face one of the fittest teams in the league, away from home.

We still competed til the end. Sort out the fuckups & we win the league by a margin imo.
 
Danamy said:
We lost the game in midfield, it looked like we got bullied at times but seemed to have a better shape when Fernando went off and Dinho dropped back to link defence to attack.
I thought Stones was immense today and was easily our best player.
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Agree with your comments. We've lack mobility in Centre Mid for the last few years, if Dininho is injured or having an off day we're wide open.
 
For around 70 minutes we were 2nd best in all departments. Partly down to team selection in my opinion. How Navas and Fernando are getting a game I'm not sure, especially one as important as Spurs away. Sagna would have been a better option than Zabaleta who's best days are sadly behind him and there's nothing to say about kolorovs contribution that hasn't already been said.

Even so we still had a couple of good chances to get the game to 2-1 but it didn't happen.

The whole team will hopefully learn and we move on to Everton at home who too haven't won any of their last 2 matches.

Theres not a lot to worry about just yet and talk of us not being contenders is a bit silly.
 
Bullied by an average no-mark like Wanyama and the aggressiveness of Rose and Sissoko.

Silva has never liked it up him and the ability to squeeze and turn a ball into an offensive situation drops out of sight when KDB is not in the side.

Zabba and Kolarov need to go in January.
 
Neville Kneville said:
So people say but not Pep. He always said the priority is to be able to defend.

Obviously he requires both but it doesn't matter how well you do either, if your arse goes under pressure & it all goes out of the window, which is what happened to Kolarov again.

But we are top of the league, have just come back from a (self inflicted) knackering midweek game & had to face one of the fittest teams in the league, away from home.

We still competed til the end. Sort out the fuckups & we win the league by a margin imo.
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Well said
 
We was all over the show today totally out done in midfield and the passing at the back wasn't to good either. I don't get how Zaba can play 2 games in a week his legs had gone today. Thought Pep should of started Clichy and Sagna at the back Kolorov has had 2 poor games this last week .
 
Put it this way, if we'd had Bournemouth, Watford, Southampton, Hull and Stoke in our first 7 games AND had spent over 180m AND broke the world transfer record AND was 5 pts off top spot AND had got turned over at home in the derby managed by somebody new to the league, I'd be on this thread complaining. But we aren't and I'm not.
 
blueinsa said:
Listen to the man!
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Presume we have a melt down on here; not got time to read back over what has been said but suspect that I don't think performance was as bad as many will make it out to be. Spurs were better on the day and are ahead of us on building a team that delivers the kind of work rate Pep wants. Unfortunately, I think we will see evidence as we go along of problems that are innate in the group of players we have, which has not been sufficiently overhauled yet. That said, I thought Pep got his staring 11 wrong but he still has plenty to learn about his players.

Prefer to try and find some positives.

Stones, 2nd goal aside, being the most obvious one.

People will slag our defending and praise Spurs' but we had only one less goal attempt (in total and on target) and that was the penalty. We conceded two poor goals but had some clear chances and I thought Silva, Sergio and Nacho should all have scored. Over the game, we made more successful tackles, more interceptions and more ball recoveries; although Spurs attempted more tackles and their pressing and aggression caused us problems and denied us space at times.

I don't think we are as bad under the press as many do but we need to improve, part of that will only be solved by changing personnel but I think the existing personnel can do better and hopefully Pep's coaching will see us improve on that score. Thankfully, very few teams will press us as well as Spurs did or be as capable of doing to us what they did on the second goal; mind you I did think they got the run of the ball on that one but it may have been reward for their intensity.

However you shape it, it was not good enough from City. Pep will have discovered things about his charges today and he will learn even more from their response to defeat.
 
Kolarov has been brilliant in the majority of our games this season. It would be quite frankly harsh if he were to depart in January.
 
Eaglechief said:
Once again, this team has shown that it can't keep it's composure when pressed and harried, this includes virtually all of the players (apart from Stones and Bravo).

Apart from about 10 mins in each half, when Spurs players started to tire, we never looked in control of the game, we made the wrong passes continuously, under-hit them, over-hit them, made the decision to pass when we should have held the ball, or passed too quickly when no-one was in the right position or being closely marked by a Spurs player.

In short, it was last season all over again.

This team lacks the mental strength to ride out a high pressing game and just wait for the right moment to counter-attack or take the wind out of the opponents sails.

Truly good teams know how to do this, we don't and haven't been able to for the last two seasons, thanks a lot Pellegrini.
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Wow - still Pellers fault.
 
Eaglechief said:
this team has shown that it can't keep it's composure when pressed and harried, this includes virtually all of the players (apart from Stones and Bravo)
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No offence but who could beat today Spurs at their home ground, comfortably, with clean shit and 3 goals difference?
I doubt any team in the world at this particular day.

Be patient.

I might add that even with a good gameplay and 100% ready best players in the squad Pep still could lose. Like any other favorite, top team. And this also apply to Spurs.

In the end it's not a tragedy or end of the world.
 
tolmie's hairdoo said:
Bullied by an average no-mark like Wanyama and the aggressiveness of Rose and Sissoko.

Silva has never liked it up him and the ability to squeeze and turn a ball into an offensive situation drops out of sight when KDB is not in the side.

Zabba and Kolarov need to go in January.
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Everyone around us in the ground were saying the same, sadly they've both run their course and we need new blood in the full back positions to help suit our style.
 
Yeah so this is a work in progress, and there are more changes to come.
I'm curious if the "size" of players are to be considered for future acquisitions.
The physicality of the Spurs helped them today. And this league demands physicality of a certain level. We have dramatically improved our quickness and youth, and I wonder where Pep stands on the physical size of players
 
Neville Kneville said:
We still would have had a tough game if DeBruyne & Nolito had played. Or if Gundogan started.

It's not possible to stop teams doing what Spurs, or Celtic did.

It is possible to ride it out, keep a clean sheet & score.
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It doesn't help when you gift the opposition goals like we have in the last two games
 
Im sorry but i didnt think Spurs were particularly good today.

Their work rate was immense, their physical approach was obvious and commitment undoubted but were they particularly good? i thought their errors in possession and in front of goal were as plentiful as city's. We were beaten by pure effort today.
 
george22 said:
Yeah so this is a work in progress, and there are more changes to come.
I'm curious if the "size" of players are to be considered for future acquisitions.
The physicality of the Spurs helped them today. And this league demands physicality of a certain level. We have dramatically improved our quickness and youth, and I wonder where Pep stands on the physical size of players
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I think we shouod try to get fullbacks who are physically upto it as well as football wise.

But we are not conceding many free headers at corners. Which is brilliant by Pep imo as it was 1,2,3 per game last season.

Today we were tired so it would be tough anyhow
 
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