Palhina plays DM
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He’s a very good 6. I’d say easily in the top 5 in the league. Before his reds I’d argue he was the leagues best 6.
He was fucking unlucky to get a 2nd yellow for diving, one of only FOUR players to receive a yellow this season, literally no one gets a yellow for diving.
There is a difference between him now and before the reds in what he does, specifically when receiving the ball deep in the pivot when facing our goal and that’s he’s no longer taking the ball on the half turn and then beating the oppo press, now he passes the ball back from the direction it came from. This I think is deliberate as he’s a confidence player (most are). If you want to stop Spurs then you have to stop Biss, most opponents don’t press us high anymore as they know that’s want we want them to do, so the next line to press is Biss, he is the oppo focus of their press, the moment he receives he always has a player on him.
Our build-up is still very good as we manipulate the oppo we have become very patient, even if the old farts sat around me just want us to lump it “forward”. We rarely lose the ball and usually beat the oppo mid block. But because he’s not taking the ball on the half turn our build-up is slower and of course it’s not as exciting, as seeing any player drop a shoulder and beat their man is fun. But this was always very high risk.
But I think doing this has brought back his confidence, he so rarely loses possession.
What is key is who & how we play our 8’s. Sarr has the legs but plays high up the pitch, his at his best when pressing high winning turnovers. I think Bentancur improves our build-up as he’s slightly deeper (closer to Biss), which means when Biss passes back to CB, Bentancur is open to receiving the ball in the return pass, he’s also a better passer of the ball than Sarr.
Also with Sarr often playing so high up if oppo do attack us then Biss is isolated (as to can be our CB’s as these 3 are our only players we leave back) but this is the risk reward that we are happy having.
The moment he starts to take a ball on the half turn again then this will be time when everyone will notice him again. I’m not sure we will see it as often as before because it’s probably just outside the margins of risk vs reward though.
TDLR I think he’s great and is a big reason why teams create so few opportunities against us now.
Right now him and Romero are our MOST consistent players. I’d like to add VDV to that but can’t as he’s only just come back from injury.
Was better against Wham. Green shoots but he's been very inconsistent this season.
Bissouma has been consistent?
Yes, that's what I said. His performances are easily up there as our most consistent (with Romero). Plays the same game, every game. Oppo is limited no barely any chances against us because of the work he does in making this happen, he's almost never loses the ball and this despite him being the most pressed player in the team (Madders is the next pressed player). He's the oppo target, when he receives the ball he's the trigger for the oppo press, no player in our team is as tightly marked as him. Yet he still never loses the ball.
I can write this about him after every game and such is the consistency I expect to right it again following the next game.
This is the definition of consistency.
The ONLY time his performances dropped was following his red card (2nd yellow) for diving. There's been zero change in what he's doing now, to then other than the fact that now he doesn't take the ball on the half turn. This is a huge difference, as it was part of his game pre-cred card.
So, I absolutely saw his confidence drop when he came back from red card/(and Afcon) but "confidence" is very hard to define exactly how it translates to what he does. The more I watch him the more confident I am with his performances as they are consistent each and every game. It's why I'm concluding that I think taking the ball on the half-turn is deliberate by us (an instruction to him).
When I first noticed this, I posted it here a couple of months ago and was critical about it because I thought his ability to take the ball and beat his marker was critical to us being so good on the eye (in our first ten games). Whilst I still would love to see him do this again because it was lovely to watch and without a doubt made us launch an attack far quicker than we do with our build without him doing it, it is the ONLY thing that's changed.
So, maybe it's not "confidence" and just an instruction to not play this way as it's too risky as every team can look to anticipate the ball to him and the likelihood he would turn and take them out of the game, so we saw some teams jump on that ball almost before it was made?????
If we see him reintroduce his half-turn as he takes the ball under pressure then I'm confident to stick with "confidence" was an issue. The assumption being that by telling him not to do it and do all the other stuff well, almost faultlessly is building his confidence back up to a level where he does the more risky stuff again. But if he sticks exactly with what he's doing (and has been for the past couple of months), then saying it's a "confidence" issue would be wrong, as it's a deliberate team instruction. Time will tell on this.
Everything Ange espoused was about players taking risks and him taking responsibility for the mistakes.
After Rodri robbed him for a goal, Ange took responsibility even when a large group of fans had small dick energy about it. I doubt Ange has changed who he is and told him to stop being himself or take less risks.
More likely is he was having a dream season that got sabotaged and he allowed it to get to him. Good thing is we are seeing flashes of him coming back. He was the best CM on the park vs West Ham, I’m expecting him to only get better against Forest.
The issue I have with Biss, the only issue is that he got so far into his head. We need serious competition for him so he knows he can’t allow himself to indulge in the self pity again because it killed us.
So he plays the same way but I still see him lose the ball at times - he’s not playing as well as earlier in the season so unsure how that can be deemed consistent
In the first 7 games this season he looked extremely good.
However after that he got his 2 red cards which, perhaps understandably, disrupted any consistency as that in turn meant different players in midfield.
After that came Afcon where he picked up malaria just before the tournament began, and whilst he played the first game he didn't look in good shape and he missed a lot of Mali's playing time in the tournament.
Since returning from Afcon he has not been as effective as he was in the first 7 games of the season and in turn Spurs midfield is now more permeable than it was - although the last game v Wham he looked a little better, although still a shadow of his performances in first 7 games of the season.
The Mali coach has also dropped him from the last squad announced, possibly due to a combination of Afcon performances and Spurs performances since then.
So I'm at a loss to see why your comments (and I have had enormous respect for you as a poster over the years) are so different to what most commentators (and Mali coach) think of his form in 2024. He may (as you say) be less likely to lose possession now, but it seems that this seems to make him less effective - so I'd really like him to go back to the more risky play where he may lose possession but generally he's far more effective, and that resulted in Spurs beating more teams !
Postecoglou and Spurs to avoid suspension woe ahead of yellow card cut-off pointPostecoglou and Spurs to avoid suspension woe ahead of yellow card cut-off point
He plays exactly the same way he has always done, less ONE significant thing and that's taking the ball on the half-turn. EVERYTHING else is exactly the same.
He lost the ball more when taking the ball on the half-turn, because this is a far riskier thing to do and Oppo were actively anticipating it as it was a trademark move of his. But we all liked him because this was silky and exciting to watch. So remove that bit of his game and everyone thinks he's shit as a result. He loses the ball less now than he used to as a result. He's still vital in our build-up because he still takes the ball off the GK and CB's with a player down his back. It's just the ball now goes back to the CB's rather than him turning his marker.
Consistency means he plays the exact same way. And he plays like this every single game, therefore that makes him consistent.
I agree but I think you can both play in a consistent manner/style (which he does) and perform to a consistent level (IMO he hasn’t).
The ONLY thing that he does differently in the first handful of games to post-Afcon is he no longer looks to take the ball on the half turn. So much so that I don't think I've seen him do it once. Whereas doing this was almost a trademark move of his.
We all love to see players drop a should and beat their man, it looks great, and in his case put us on the front foot in a matter of seconds as he beat the press. Everything about this made him look fantastic (but he did lose the ball more when doing this, it was also in a more dangerous area of the pitch). So by not doing this, he's become a functional 6, our build-up is now slower and more methodical, maybe even boring as we pass a lot between CB's GK and Biss without going anywhere but we almost always find a way to eventually progress the ball up the pitch.
So our eyes no longer see the silky skill beating the press but see him being more of a wall-pass in our slower build-up. This is my theory as to why people think his performances have dropped off. When all the while he rarely loses the ball whilst always receiving the ball back to goal with an oppo player glued to him.
(I honestly don't factor anything the Mali manager says or did, I've no idea how he plays of them, what role is asked of him, are they a possession team, or a low block defensive one - I just taking everything I've seen of him in a Spurs shirt).
Not being tasked with doing the exciting silky stuff anymore doesn't mean he's playing at a lower level. I would like to see him do his drop-of-the-shoulder stuff because it's fun, exciting etc but he's absolutely not doing any more, which is a very deliberate instruction from Ange.
Our record since he's been back in the team is there all to see. We now dominate the midfield (we now dominate games), during his suspension/illness/Afcon we didn't have control of games (not just down to him obviously I think having both VDV & Romero at CB is also key to this) but it just emphasises how solid he is, how key he is in our build-up (which is one of the most effective in the PL).
It's not as "fun" as his function has become less risk-averse, and that's why I think the perception on his performances has changed (I was in that camp early on too, as I noticed him no longer breaking the press as he once used to, but he's still a very press-resistance player as he so rarely loses the ball (less now than he used to when we all enjoyed watching break that press).
Neither did Dembele. It's not the be-all and end-all for a #8
Dembele was insanely elite at a few aspects of the game which made up for his very big deficiencies when it came to creative passing or adding goals.
Bissouma is good, but not nearly as good at the stuff Dembele was great at. And unlike Sarr he doesn’t have the technical quality or even desire to get in to the box for goals or to create chances.
Ideally you want your 8 to be able to do this stuff. Again, Sarr is a really good player to mould in that role. I also don’t think there is a better 6 at the club & we would struggle to find one in the TM.
He’s had 135 shots in his PL career and only 22 have been on target and 3 have been goals. He’s not an accurate striker of the ball. Everyone gets lucky once in a while - see Wanyama screamer.
He struck it a few times against West Ham and it was bad. It’s fine (Dembele was the same) just keep him out of those situations as much as possible.