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Post by chrisparker on Apr 18, 2016 21:28:48 GMT
When there are 5 spurs players running towards you to snatch the ball, you don't try to play your way through them. Is that really so hard to figure out? Imbula, Wolly, Affelay, Cameron were all making shocking decisions when they had the ball. Defensively, I don't think we've ever been so poor since the 4-0 tonking at Everton a couple of years ago (or perhaps even further back when we lost 4-0 at the Brit against Chelsea.) Some of our players didn't even bother putting a shift in today & it makes my blood boil. The only one who seemed to care was Arnie & he was shocking as well.
Why don't players like Bojan, Affelay & Shaqiri even bother to help the team out defensively? Do they think they're better than the rest & aren't entitled to do the dirty work? Shaqiri does try occasionally but the other 2 don't. We were sliced apart at will today by a team that looked so far superior than us (both individually & collectively) that it's almost worrying. And it's not just because they've got better footballers but because they work so much harder than us. I'm not a Spurs fan but all credit to them, they deserved to win this game by a much bigger margin. And where's the leadership on the pitch. If Johnny Walters was playing today, he would've given the whole team an earful. We don't need fair players, what we need is people who care about the club & care about losing. I can picture at least 6 of the 11 players will just dismiss our performance today as just another bad day at the office & move on to posting funny pictures of themselves on social media. We don't flair players, what we need is players who care about the club.
I said before the game that if Whelan plays well, then we have a chance of sneaking something today. But as it turns out Whelan was probably the worst player on the pitch today. He was cluelessly pushing forward leaving acres of space for Dei Ali. It's true that the only way to play against teams like Spurs is to press them high up the pitch & put a lot of pressure on the ball but this only works if the defenders are also willing to press the opposition. Our defenders seemed to press at the beginning of both halves but then slowly started pulling back leaving tons of space in the middle of the park, which is just suicide against a team like Spurs. I'm a huge fan of Imbula but he was beyond awful in the 2nd half, a passenger who was jogging to & fro without having any real influence on the game.
Also Hughes needs to sort out our attack very soon. At the moment, our tactic seems to be - Give the ball to Arnie, Bojan, Shaq & hope they can create something. We need to have a clear vision of how we want to play in the future.
And last but not least the Wolly, Shawcross partnership needs to be broken immediately. Shawcross is off form at the moment & I'm sure he'll return to his best very soon but Wolly isn't good enough. We need a young, fast CB to play alongside Ryan with Wolly as backup option. And as someone earlier pointed out, we need full backs with pace, who can run 20-30 yards with the ball, like Rose & Walker were doing today.
If Hughes doesn't quickly sort out our defensive frailties, we might be witnessing another ridiculous scoreline against Citeh. It's really a good thing that all the teams below us are shite right now so I still expect us to finish in the top half. What's disappointing is not the fact that we lost (I really would've been genuinely surprised if we'd snatched something against a spurs side that's fighting for the premier league title), what's disappointing is the manner of the defeat.
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Post by cheadlepotter on Apr 18, 2016 21:47:15 GMT
I can think of a few ways we can change our attacking strategies for the better, but I'm stuck for ideas at the back. There's not one back 4 I'd be happy with against Man City, and even though you could argue that if we're successful up front and constantly putting pressure on them then it would harm their attacking intent, but this is a team with the likes of Aguero, De Bruyne etc playing for them.
I genuinely fear that we could see the biggest defeat of the season for the whole of the football league this weekend.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 18, 2016 21:50:46 GMT
We can't suddenly change an ethos that the manager has tried to instill from day one.
We have no outlet when we play the false 9 and we have to take the risk of the back lads playing it out. That is what he is trying to do.
Sorry, but that is what this manager has brought to the table. We take it or leave it.
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Post by kevkj on Apr 18, 2016 21:50:51 GMT
We don't just need a fast centre half we need two quicker full backs, one on one were so slow all over the pitch in all positions. The whole back four were shocking.
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Post by chrisparker on Apr 18, 2016 21:58:22 GMT
We can't suddenly change an ethos that the manager has tried to instill from day one. We have no outlet when we play the false 9 and we have to take the risk of the back lads playing it out. That is what he is trying to do. Sorry, but that is what this manager has brought to the table. We take it or leave it. To be fair, this was the first time we've played the false 9 since the end of January if I'm correct. Even when we had Joselu on the pitch, Wolly still insisted on playing it out from the back when there are 4 players running towards him. These decisions are inexcusable & it has cost us on more than one occasion. I've never seen Shawcross do anything of this sort & they're both managed by the same manager. |
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Post by chiefdelilah on Apr 18, 2016 22:00:21 GMT
We can't suddenly change an ethos that the manager has tried to instill from day one. We have no outlet when we play the false 9 and we have to take the risk of the back lads playing it out. That is what he is trying to do. Sorry, but that is what this manager has brought to the table. We take it or leave it. The decision making has to be consistently better than it is though. And we have to move it quicker and move quicker in the final third. |
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Post by johnnysoul60 on Apr 18, 2016 22:06:36 GMT
The gap in quality is understandable but the gap in effort is unacceptable , whenever we got the ball we were pressed and harried and given no time wheras we never pressed them the space kane had for the first summed it up pathetic. It was same at liverpool but the poor keeper took the rap for the idle wasters in front of him tonight they have no excuses and Hughes will be under pressure if we get too many performances like the last couple and rightly so there was no heart or pride it was like watching a non league side tonight and for the money they earn its a disgrace
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Post by swampySCFC on Apr 18, 2016 22:10:54 GMT
We played an excellent side today who play as a team, pass the ball to feet short or long and have a dangerous attack.
We shouldn't be too down beat about it but they are everything we aren't in that we run in to blind alleys, misplace too many passes and don't look dangerous at all. Then we have a patched up defence that struggles to defend at key moments in the game and offers no threat in attack
Bit of a clear out in the Summer required
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