Spurs vs City post match

BillyShears said:
I thought the decisions on which full backs to play was strange to say the least from Pep, but no doubt he had his reasons.

Overall though the performance was pretty poor. We were bullied on and off the ball, slow to react to 2nd balls, weren't really prepared to put a foot in. I felt that the experiment of playing Fernandinho in front of (and then later next to) Fernando didn't really work at all. Fernando's done decent coming on to close games down but starting in our toughest game of the season was basically asking for us to forget everything we've learned from Pep and revert back to what we were doing last season (which is more or less what we did).

It feels as though we're incredibly light and lightweight in centre mid. Worrying as hell that without De Bruyne in the middle we look like we can't get our game plan going at all. Was the same first half at Swansea, and for most of the Celtic match. I don't like the idea of becoming over reliant on one player so early in the season and so early in Pep's reign.

The honeymoon is well and truly over now. The players need to react. Pep needs to find solutions to problems he's encountering. I know this is cruel but this is a season too far for Zaba. Whoever's decision it was, whether it was Pep's or Txiki's, to not buy a r/b, it was fucking criminal, because when Zaba plays it's not just a small weakness, he's a disaster waiting to happen. Also, what's the deal with Maffeo? Young, hungry, surely he' can't do worse.
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A good summary Billy,the points about Fernando are spot on.

We were simply bullied and outfought in midfield,and Aguero,unlike his opposite number....didnt offer the same industry/tenacity or willingness to help out.Silva is incredibly lightweight against a midfield that plays a physical,high energy game and was for the most part ineffective.
I immediately pointed to our fullbacks being an issue on hearing the team news and i reluctantly stated we would be beat - kolarov and zabba against their speed and energy was suicide.
Regarding Maffeo,my only thinking is that Pep believes he might still be too raw.
 
OB1 said:
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.
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Good post.
 
Poor team selection really, why Sagna and Clichy were not in I'll never know. Kolarov and Navas need booting out in January, Navas tries but he's fucking hopeless and nothing ever comes of his endeavours.
It also didn't help Pep mentioning that it would be "Good to lose" continually. i never like losing and I was amazed he came out with such a negative statement.
 
BLUEMATT23 said:
Poor team selection really, why Sagna and Clichy were not in I'll never know. Kolarov and Navas need booting out in January, Navas tries but he's fucking hopeless and nothing ever comes of his endeavours.
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That's nonsense.Something should have come from his endeavour in the first couple of minutes,when the out of sorts Silva completely fluffed the gift he provided.
 
FantasyIreland said:
A good summary Billy,the points about Fernando are spot on.

We were simply bullied and outfought in midfield,and Aguero,unlike his opposite number....didnt offer the same industry/tenacity or willingness to help out.Silva is incredibly lightweight against a midfield that plays a physical,high energy game and was for the most part ineffective.
I immediately pointed to our fullbacks being an issue on hearing the team news and i reluctantly stated we would be beat - kolarov and zabba against their speed and energy was suicide.
Regarding Maffeo,my only thinking is that Pep believes he might still be too raw.
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What surprised me the most is that the only change Pep made in the 1st half was asking Fernandinho to sit in alongside Fernando. The lack of quality when we did win the ball back was crying out for Gundo and potentially Aleix Garcia too. Also thought that Kolarov's head went very early on in the game and he could've been replaced as well.

Thankfully there's very few teams in the world who can play like Spurs do and in the PL only maybe Liverpool who can do it with their intensity and quality. However it shows that there are still glaring weaknesses in our squad and player who maybe now the honeymoon is over will revert to the level of performances we've come to be used to over the last couple of seasons.

I still think we're favourites for the league, but in terms of how much progress we've made and need to make, as Pep keeps saying there's a long way to go.
 
Metalartin said:
Watching it again I think some people are overreacting, for a start on another day we could easily have come away with a point, Sergio and Kelechi could have both scored at least a goal a piece in the second half, aside from the Penalty and a few shots from outside the box they didn't create that much compared to us. The own goal was very unlucky for us and set the tone for Spurs had that not gone in and maybe had Silva got a hold of that ball that was flashed across the box(Serg scored one like that at Swansea) it could have been a very different game.

Spurs were good but we weren't outplayed we gave as good as we got but there were individual mistakes and there will be days like that for all teams, some of our older players have played a lot of high intensity games and need a rest IMO that's when the mistakes come when players are tired.
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I don't think we were outplayed but we were out muscled and they didn't make the sort of errors that Kolorov did.

The age of the players is a problem and it is being addressed but it will take another season for me. We played a tough game in midweek but he could have taken Zab out and Kolorov out had he wanted to. Spurs were in Moscow though too so I don't think we can use that as a reason.

We need new full backs and have done for years. Why this keeps getting ignored is a mystery to me.

Whilst we had chances, most came in the last 15 minutes. I thought from their first goal to around 70 mins we were pretty average. I think Kelechi causes problems for the defenders and to be honest I would rather see him playing and reverting to 3 at the back with Stones as the ball players and two wing backs who will bolster the midfield. None of our 4 full backs are good enough for me, particularly when it comes to competing in Europe.

The next two games will be interesting at home. Both winnable but a step up in quality from what we have faced so far. We have played all of the bottom four and one team in the bottom half so far so perhaps we were getting a bit carried away by the start and there may be a few bumpy roads ahead. If we can have a season where we win virtually all our home games though we will be up there. It was that ultimately that cost us in the last 2 seasons and what helped us win it in the two title winning seasons.

It's going to be a great season by the looks of it. Arsenal, Spurs and Liverpool all look good so far and teams will be taking points off each other all over the place. What we have to make sure is that we avoid the slip ups against the Stoke's and Watford's.
 
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