They were shit, we were maybe slightly less shit. But we tallied a fucking own goal, so it's a fucking low bar to make any statement about how we played "better" than them.
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And if Walker hadn't done anything Rooney would have just rolled it in. Still, we won the running.
Yep. If we keep our fitness up, and replace the shots at goal that Soldado, Townsend, Lennon, Holtby, Ade etc whiffed we could easily better our points.
I have faith in Eriksen and Kane To get way more shots at goal this season.
And people like Dembele, Bentaleb and Mason were not taking enough either. Hopefully Poch moves 2 of those forward.
Exactly my point. Saying those with possession will run less is simplifying the game too much.
Because it's not always true. This wasn't Norwich vs Woolwich, or something, where you expect a team to get dominated and run more, as they're defending and tracking runners. This was an even game, where possession was 50/50.
You could dominate a game and STILL run more, as your movement is good. Keeping possession of the ball does not mean less running, as people will still need to make potential passes for the player with the ball. If anything, it could mean even more running.
Yes of course. All I was trying to say was that trying to get the ball back wasn't - you can't score unless you have the ball - unless you're Utd....
There's been games where the team has had 0 shots on target and beat us 2-0/2-1 (Sunderland last year?).
Keeping the ball doesn't mean anything, it can even be a negative factor. How often do we see CB's passing it to each other, and doing nothing with it? We're not set up to play possession football, we're set up to play counter attacking.
So all the opposition has to do to negate that is give us the ball in the middle of the pitch and we're fucked?
I think we should learn what to do with the ball when we have it - we're not fast enough to be a decent counter attacking team yet.
At home, especially, teams just sit back and say come and break us down, that's not going to change. We must learn to make possession count.
You can tell he watches City every week.
Set up to play on the counter?? What bollocks.
We get dizzy after the halfway line and go backwards. We havent gone to the byline and whipped in a cross for 4 years.
Who the fuck is countering for us?! It all measured slow and predictable.
The last counter attack orientated side we had featured Lennon, Bale, Modric and VDV.
Without wishing to get personal with J (I've done that and we've buried it) that's exactly how I see it. Far to slow to play like that even if we did. Generally by the time we get the ball in the final third, the opposition have everyone back. That's what I see anyway.
Mate I wonder about some fans today.
Do they watch a game, think we were really poor, get really frustrated and annoyed, but then later read that we had decent possession % and decide it was a good game? Or vice versa...think we were really good, but then the stats say they had more shots and ran 100 more miles, so now we must have been shit.
Or do they watch the game like a blank canvass, go home, read a graph and then decide how we played?
Fucking ridiculous.
Man U being a good example of that.
Simple question.
Why do you think it's called 'The Counter-Press', if it isn't countering?
Countering doesn't always have to mean running 40 yards with the ball and swinging in a cross. We press so high that it doesn't matter if we lack pace, as there's only 20 yards to their goal.
Just a shame you use this forum to stroke your ego off, rather than learning about the game. It's embarrassing how little you know about it..
But it's not counter attacking in the traditional sense. Let's not get tied up with semantics - I doubt anyone would describe us as good on the counter attack - we're not, we break too slowly and run out of ideas in the final third. I understand that people see the game differently.
We're a possession based team which plays a high press. The 2 are not mutually exclusive.
Yea i'm not sure why people have it in their head that there is a trade-off between possession and heavy pressing?
We just need to improve on the ball because our off-the-ball game is quickly becoming one of the best in the league. We take too long to pass in the final third and we have no players who can run at and stretch opposition defences. Hopefully we can address this by the end of the transfer window by adding players that actually give us pace in our attacks and that constantly make dangerous forward runs
I think you are on to something, but that tactical awarness, situational intuition or what you might call it, is a lacking factor as well.
Once in a while 'stepping on the ball' is the right thing to do, in order to get others in (or back) to position. Also to maintain that lovely right to get oxygen to your head for 30 secs etc... Of course that ever so difficult split decision choise, is something that makes the difference between good and great teams/players imo.
I guess my simple and small point is, that having fast players doesn't mean they should go all out on every ocasion - but rather be set up to use their speed where it hurts the most, and sometimes that takes some setting up.
I am sure we have the players to do that, despite the youth of the team. And the decision line go like this imo: Loris - Verts - Eriksen. I am quite excited for Alli on that parametre as well btw... When to go for it and when to step on it over 90+ mins.
Edit: Kane is in that line as well ofcourse (him and Eriksen are the triggers for the initial press), but was playing out from the back in my head when writing that...
Yea I thought that kinda goes without saying.
What I meant by the 'constantly making forward runs' is when we are in possession of the ball looking to start an attack, to have at least 2 players making an attacking run so that the player in possession not only has the opportunity and to make a forward pass, but has options for that pass.
For example; when Woolwich look start an attack, they have players coming from deep, players out wide (and obviously the striker) all making forward, intelligent runs often running beyond the striker, providing the player with the ball with a number of passing options (I hate using Woolwich as an example but I have some analysis of their run making stuck in my head at the moment). I think at the moment we fall victim to a lot of static off the ball movement, resulting in purposeless attacks and sideways passing, something I think every spurs fan gets frustrated with.
This is why I am so excited for Dele Alli because I think he can bring exactly this from central midfield, not to mention his physical attributes. Also, the arrival of Clinton N'Jie should also see a change to the way we attack, when he plays that is.
The counter press doesnt work for us though no matter how many times you post a gif of Eriksen shooting over the bar.
The team is not set up to play counter attacking football at all.
It does matter, very much that we lack pace....you might have missed the part where we are trying to sign Njie to help with that.
You talk in theories. You are an encyclopedia football fan...you dont trust your own eyes. You dont believe what you have watched (if you even did watch)....just read squawka and try to piece together whatever bullshit to make you sound like a visionary.
When was the last time we scored a goal on the counter?
We are a counter attacking teams dream opponents.
Our pressing worked very well against United. What didn't work was Dembele and Chadli. Dembele just doesn't attack, and Chadli is only good at shooting, he doesn't create. That left all the creative work to be done by Eriksen and Kane.
Lamela for Dembele and possibly Pritchard for Chadli and we have a much more dynamic attack with 4 players who can all create chances for other players.
We don't generally counter-attack because we're usually the team with the ball, needing to move it around to get the other team out of position. Other teams like to counter attack against us because aside from maybe 5 other teams, we're not going to be playing teams who want to come out and attack, they all want to sit deep and counter. This has been the same since we first started being a regular in the European places, as we went from being a team that others thought they could beat in a fight, to a team they worried about. We've had that same problem of teams just wanting to park the bus and counter for at least 7 years now. It's the price of success.