There Used to Be a Midfield There
Earlier in the season when we were outscoring our performances, a few of us said it's hard to sustain that long term, to be honest, I'm surprised we lasted this long. For all those saying we are now bottling it, I'd say it's largely bottle that's got us this far into the season with this many points, because it sure as shit hasn't been the quality or cohesion of our football, no matter what the happy clappers want to keep ramming down our throats.
And this isn't just this season either, the writing was on the wall for much of last season too. There was a clear drop off from the previous season.
Various factions of us have ideas about where the problems lie. And many point the finger at our FB's. But in a league where Leicester can win it with Simpson and Fuchs, and Cheslea with Moses and Alonso, there's no way any of our FB's, as imperfect as they may be, are copping the lion share of blame.
We have adequate full backs by this league's ropey standards, we have the best pure CF, in Alli, Son and Eriksen we have two or three of it's best and productive hybrid AM's/wide forwards and we have the best CB pairing in this league, and some pretty decent depth at CB too with Sanchez, Dier and Foyth.
Where we lag miles behind our rivals is the gaping hiatus where a midfield should be.
Saturdays abomination of Dier and Sissoko is possibly one of the worst midfield's in this division. I mean there are teams in the relegation zone who have better midfielders.
This is not a new phenomena. I believe we would have been able to finish above Leicester in 15/16 if we'd had a proper midfielder next to Dembele, instead of a centre back doing his impression of Phil Jones doing his impression of Marcel Desailly. As soon as he was upgraded with Wanyama, a voracious busy cunt with more dynamism and an ability to hunt and gather, who could also move with the ball and play it quicker, we improved exponentially - and had the best season, not just in terms of results, but performances too, in my memory (back to the 70's when I started watching in earnest) and probably since the days of Nicholson (and maybe one season under Pleat in 87).
The message should have been loud and clear to Pochettino - "neglect this area at your peril". But he ignored all the warnings.
While the midfield deteriorated, money has been spunked on a bunch of peripheral athletes - Sanchez, Sissoko, Aurier, Moura. It's like spending on a new bathroom suite when you've got damp and your roof's leaking.
And it's not all about spending. There were options here. Winks, should be much further on in his development by now but he only gave him 8 games in the two years prior to this season, whilst we got to watch Dier and Sissoko play hot potato ping pong for two years. Onomah got 20 fucking minutes in his last two seasons, none in CM - could he have possibly been more limited than Sissoko given two years to learn how to trap a ball further than most can kick it like Sissoko's been given?
And he's pulling the same stunt with Skipp. Introduced earlier in the season, the kid handled himself with aplomb, clearly a much more natural midfielder than Dier and definitely Sissoko, but he's now been mothballed, as it was with Winks, as it was with Onomah (and we'll get onto KWP in a bit).
As soon as the heat got turned up on Saturday, Dier and Sissoko just fucking disappeared, stopped wanting the ball (Dier went from 40 passes first half to 19 second, Sissoko went from 28 to a fucking pathetic 13 second half). Having a a midfield pair that are scared to receive the ball under duress is bad enough, but to compound this, both are poor and hunting the ball down, winning it and turning it into transition, they are reactive, Dier just sinks further and further back, dragging the opposition onto us, and Sissoko just trundles around like an bewildered overgrown toddler who's lost his mum at the zoo.
We ended up just humping long balls, which has become a “thing” for us lately, and it’s pitiful to watch.
Like Winks, KWP has wasted nearly three years of his life whilst Pochettino has been teaching Aurier how to take throw ins. I don't think he was terrible Saturday at all, every time he plays he shows signs of being able to do things that Trippier and Aurier can do, but in the same bundled package. He can run with the ball, take people on, he gets his head up in forward areas (hence his excellent assist rate) but his defending needed time on the pitch to develop - as with any player - and 5 or so league starts spread over three seasons, with a couple of cup games at LB, just isn't conducive to proper "development". A scandalous waste IMO.
The first half it was nice to see Eriksen and Alli back in the same team. Two brains are always better than one. But Southampton were dreadful, playing a high line but deciding not to press the ball high up, allowing Alli and Eriksen to get on the ball, dictate and thread through balls, unfortunately Kane wasted most of them and we ended up going in 1-0 instead 2 or 3.
I still don’t understand why Poch persists with Moura as a CF. He just spends most of the time running, head down, into a congested sea of legs, invariably creating or producing the square root of fuck all.
The second half was just a shit show, to add to the collection in the last couple of months.
To compound what was already going wrong, the midfield zombies, Moura et al, we had Rose deciding to do his Timothy Atouba impression in our six yard box. It was diabolical defending.
I said at the start of this season Poch needed to get brave and integrate, get some new life into this team, especially in the absence of any purchased input, the only player he's taken a chance on, Winks, has probably been the only player to come out of this season with any credit (Vertonghen as well maybe). I just wish he'd had the bollocks to do the same with KWP and Skipp, and maybe even Jack Roles too while Alli was out.
I'd happily take a 5th or 6th place and a potential cheque to cash in the shape of some promising kids, what we might end up with is 5th or 6th and a hefty overdraft at the bank of footballing talent.
Individual
Lloris - pfft.
KWP - Was generally decent, but clearly has defensive learning to do, if he'd been played the last three years, might have a fully developed RB by now who's better than our other options.
Sanchez - Not great.
Vertonghen - Had better days.
Rose - Another dreadful game, offered nothing offensively and a horrendous error for their first goal.
Dier - I keep reading "brilliant how he drops into the back line" like it's some kind of tactical epiphany. Like it's more useful than a midfielder who can actually play football under pressure. OK first half, abysmal second.
Sissoko - Has well and truly regressed from the "meh" it took him two years to find, and everyone to wank over, back to being as dynamic as a clockwork zombie. Pitiful second half.
Eriksen - Very good first half, created a couple of nice chances, but as the service dried up to the AM's and we just started humping it long, his influence wilted. Still managed to see more of the ball than Sissoko, despite playing mostly as the ACM.
Alli - Good to have him back, nowhere near as involved as Eriksen (seeing about half as much ball) but he created the goal and a couple of other situations. Dropped back into midfield second half before being subbed, and was helping, I would have left him on personally.
Moura - As ever, lively but largely unproductive.
Kane - I hate the "playing himself back to fitness" stage with Kane. It's still Kane, but everything he does just seems about 50-75% as good.