Well are we? In the time pochettino has been in charge we've had deft through balls and slide passing(Eriksen) solid defending,a solid midfield and the majority of the time a free scoring forward line plus backup from our midfield in the scoring department! But as for having a bit of steel bit of grit in the middle of the park.......do we have it? Yes Wanyama stands up for himself but he's not been playing, sly kicks and petulance from Dele is no use! Son & Eriksen are far to lightweight they both pull out of 50/50s on a regular basis losing the ball and giving possession away,today we needed someone to win the ball put their foot through it and get stuck in! Not only today though in other matches as well if we're being outmuscled.....are we soft?
-
The Fighting Cock is a forum for fans of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Here you can discuss Spurs latest matches, our squad, tactics and any transfer news surrounding the club. Registration gives you access to all our forums (including 'Off Topic' discussion) and removes most of the adverts (you can remove them all via an account upgrade). You're here now, you might as well...
Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports
When Toby, Verts, Wanyama, Dembele and Sissoko are all fit at the same time, I would say no. I would agree that Eriksen, Dele and Son tend to avoid challenges but most of our players are ready to battle hard. Aside from those already mentioned, Dier, Rose, Lamela and Kane are all also regularly getting stuck in!
I feel like over the last 2 or 3 seasons, we consistently have at least 3 starting players out injured. We’ve never really seen our current squad at full strength. Shame cos it would be mega.
Yeh one thing is in each season the team that wins the league hardly has any injuries, Leicester, Chelsea and now City (up to this point) almost had/have no injury issues.
I feel we have a good 11-14 players but we don’t have depth in some areas and thus burn out players.
I would put our first eleven up against anyone but as mentioned, the injury pile up has really buggered us up. We can cope with a couple, as Poch is capable of mixing it up but currently there are too many for us to put out a team that can challenge right at the top.
City have Mendy out pretty much all season, Kompany as always, Aguero has been injured, and probably more. Right now they've just got a better squad and they are playing braver football.
Define soft, because it means something different to everyone.
Do we allow bad teams to scrap results from us, generally, ala Liverpool? Recently, no.
Do we fold against big competition, regularly, home, away, League, Europe? Recently, no.
Do we let physical teams push us around? Subjective, but I would say recently, not often. We don’t have the most physical forward and attacking midfield outside of Kane, but who does? Our spine is strong when healthy.
I think we are reading a bit too much into one bad result away.
Do we allow bad teams to scrap results from us, generally, ala Liverpool? Recently, no.
Do we fold against big competition, regularly, home, away, League, Europe? Recently, no.
Do we let physical teams push us around? Subjective, but I would say recently, not often. We don’t have the most physical forward and attacking midfield outside of Kane, but who does? Our spine is strong when healthy.
I think we are reading a bit too much into one bad result away.
Yes, when I think of this City squad, the first thing I think of is “brave”.
I don’t think “look at all the talent they bought”, or their attacking options, or their depth, or a keeper that wasn’t just a homeless guy they threw a tacky shirt on.
Nope - brave.
:dembelewtf:
Last edited:
Real Madrid, Dortmund, and that 1 our of 17 everyone keeps throwing out. And let’s ignore that we took 13 points off them at home last season.
And since when does “soft” equate to “only away matches agains teams fighting over CL spots”? That’s an oddly specific interpretation.
Yeh but it’s a far bigger squad in depth than we have. We have Lamela, Waynama and Toby out with Kane, Dele and Winks all coming back from minor injury and we can’t spend £300 mil a season to buy top quality cover/competition.
Sorry, I see that what I did not manage to properly articulate what I was thinking. I mean brave as in ambitious, offensive without fear of failure. They are brave because they dare to attack non stop.
I think that we might be suffering from going a bit overboard on trying to create a way to play that will see us succeed against strong attacking sides like Dortmund and Real Madrid.
Our pressing isn't as high up field or intensive as it used to be, we play a lot more long balls, we are less precise playing out of defence, we are simply put more careful and less ambitious.
It can win games, as we've shown against RM, BD and Liverpool, but have also made us weaker against sides that we need to unlock.
City, in that respect, have been far more brave than us.
I agree. Just found it to be false that they've not had injuries. They are, unlike Chelsea and Leicester, currently winning because they are simply better than everyone else.
The way I look at it it is also part mentally. We are a club suffering from growing pains since we honestly are ahead of schedule on the pitch compared to the plan. The plan was always to try and break into the top 2-3 once the new stadium was built. But here we are before the stadium is even opened through to the knock outs in the CL and with 2 straight top 3 placements. Things like that get in the head of the players, both in positive and negative ways.
These days we always step up against big teams on the European stage, but as a downside we tend to go into the games right after or right before unfocused, with the players focused on our European adventures. Which results in us stumbling in those games most often.
Same can be said in the league. We are now considered one of the big teams, no matter how the media paints it. And on our day we can beat the other big teams quite severely. But as a downside we tend to go into games against smaller teams cocky and then be caught by surprise when they bring the fight to us.
These are actually good problems to have in a way since they point out our growth as a club. But they are issues that need to be addressed by the boss. And they will be once our injuries start dying down. The worst thing to happen to a player often times is that they think that they are unremovable from their position in the starting 11. Competition is good as we can see in the rapid improvement of most of our wingbacks/fullbacks. They push each other and thus improve. Sissoko is stepping up to try and not fall behind in the pecking order in the CM spots too much now that Dembele is being slowly phased out and he is also showing signs of improvement as a result, as is Winks.
With injured players coming back we will be better off since we will have more players to chose from and we can play a motivated side for more fixtures since everyone will want to cement a spot in the 11.
TLDR: Our perceived softness is both a result of our injury problems and of our mental growing pains as a club.
These days we always step up against big teams on the European stage, but as a downside we tend to go into the games right after or right before unfocused, with the players focused on our European adventures. Which results in us stumbling in those games most often.
Same can be said in the league. We are now considered one of the big teams, no matter how the media paints it. And on our day we can beat the other big teams quite severely. But as a downside we tend to go into games against smaller teams cocky and then be caught by surprise when they bring the fight to us.
These are actually good problems to have in a way since they point out our growth as a club. But they are issues that need to be addressed by the boss. And they will be once our injuries start dying down. The worst thing to happen to a player often times is that they think that they are unremovable from their position in the starting 11. Competition is good as we can see in the rapid improvement of most of our wingbacks/fullbacks. They push each other and thus improve. Sissoko is stepping up to try and not fall behind in the pecking order in the CM spots too much now that Dembele is being slowly phased out and he is also showing signs of improvement as a result, as is Winks.
With injured players coming back we will be better off since we will have more players to chose from and we can play a motivated side for more fixtures since everyone will want to cement a spot in the 11.
TLDR: Our perceived softness is both a result of our injury problems and of our mental growing pains as a club.
We think we are better than we are....by that I mean that at times, we feel we can do what we did to Real Madrid to other teams, but with 10% of the application and work rate.
Need to sort that out. Our mentality has to be better across the board....we are too laid back when it comes to half chances, as if the oppo will wait for us to make a decision.
Need to sort that out. Our mentality has to be better across the board....we are too laid back when it comes to half chances, as if the oppo will wait for us to make a decision.