It Could Get A Bit Messi In Here - The Football Thread.

wokeupnew said:
Need to beat City at home and Need to beat Liverpool away which will be very, very difficult. Spurs have fared significantly well against the Top 6 this season compared to last season however. Our results vs. the top 6 have historically been horrible. Lost every single game away from home last season. Under Conte, Poch, Jose, Nuno, all crap. But Ange is different.

This is from r/coys that someone updates after each result. We don't fare well against mid-table~ this season.

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Brighton game was a bit of a fluke in that two braindead penalties from tired players stole the draw (a self inflicted wound if ever there was one). I think Brentford was the season opener and our pre-season was disrupted (Kane leaving like a day before the game, the cancellation of the fixtures in Asia, etc). Wolves was two late goals you can place squarely at the feet of Eric Dier. West Ham was the game we outshot htem like 2 to 1 but couldn't put the game away. Chelsea we outplayed them to pieces until the injuries and red cards blew that up.
 
ngower said:
Maddison had 19 goal contributions (with a team that got relegated) in 30 matches last season. KDB had 24 in 32 matches with the title winning team.

I think you can't bring up KDB without also saying how much Maddison returning is going to elevate Spurs.

In theory, Spurs 18 could be: Vicario, Udogie, VDV, Romero, Porro, Bentancur, Sarr, Maddison, Werner, Son, Kulusevski with a bench of Richarlison, Johnson, Bissouma, Dragusin, Royal, PEH, Lo Celso. That's more than competent enough to keep pace with the big boys, especially without the need to roate squad among too many cup competitions. Also worth mentioning that Spurs still have to host Arsenal and City, and those games tend to go Spurs' way. Even four points from those fixtures likely plops Spurs up into top 3.
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city are proven at getting a minimum 46 points from the last 57 available over a 6 year period. Liverpool have kept up with them 4 of those years. They’re battle hardened to sprint for the line and sprint hard. They’ve done this whilst going deep in the cups all those years. Maddison may hit those numbers but KDB doesn’t do it in isolation, he hits the highest number in a team full of high numbers. Plus you conviently miss the other player I mentioned. Haaland. You don’t have a Haaland or a Salah. That’s not to mention their understudies in both teams.

If they keep up with that record I don’t see spurs coming close to keeping up with them. Hell spurs could hit brilliantly hit historic title winning numbers in the second half of the season and end up 10 points off them if they do that. Those two teams have confounded everything I’ve known about what is possible points wise in 35 years of following the game.
 
ngower said:
Brighton game was a bit of a fluke in that two braindead penalties from tired players stole the draw (a self inflicted wound if ever there was one). I think Brentford was the season opener and our pre-season was disrupted (Kane leaving like a day before the game, the cancellation of the fixtures in Asia, etc). Wolves was two late goals you can place squarely at the feet of Eric Dier. West Ham was the game we outshot htem like 2 to 1 but couldn't put the game away. Chelsea we outplayed them to pieces until the injuries and red cards blew that up.
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You can make excuses/what ifs for each game this season. It's kind of how it goes for everyone. It is/was compounded bad luck on top of back luck. Going forward from here there should be fewer of those now that most players are back from injury and as Ange gets players in that he wants. It's crazy how quickly he's getting everything going even when most fans would have been happy with 6th or 7th this season. We shouldn't even be talking about potential title chances but the fact we are is testament to how good of a job Ange is doing.
 
wokeupnew said:
You can make excuses/what ifs for each game this season. It's kind of how it goes for everyone. It is/was compounded bad luck on top of back luck. Going forward from here there should be fewer of those now that most players are back from injury and as Ange gets players in that he wants. It's crazy how quickly he's getting everything going even when most fans would have been happy with 6th or 7th this season. We shouldn't even be talking about potential title chances but the fact we are is testament to how good of a job Ange is doing.
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Not excuses, just explaining how things went down. The Chelsea game was a fluke and kinda screwed us for a month. Eric Dier has been woefully poor under Ange to the point where he just stopped playing him. Brentford game I recall the first half us looking lost, so it's entirely fair to bring up the Kane drama and what that did for that first game. Brighton was frustrating because go back and watch the highlights, the penalties conceded were really stupid fouls to give up (e.g. Kulu pulling a shirt in the box).

My point is that all those goofy ass games had self-inflicted wounds. It's rare that a team has outplayed us this year (honestly, I can't think of a game where we looked the worse of the two sides, maybe the recent Everton game?) and that was with a B team. If KDB is a boost for City, why isn't Maddison? If Salah and co coming back from cups is a boost, why isn't Son and co?

Villa are basically neck and neck with Spurs right now and the tone around Villa is drastically different from the tone around Spurs. City are behind Spurs and yet their title challenge isn't in question. Arsenal looks god awful and yet people still expect them to finish above Spurs.

There's no real point arguing--it's all people talking out their ass at the end of the day (myself included)--but I'd like to revisit this chat at theend of the season and see where Spurs landed. If we aren't in the top 3 I'd bet it's only by a point or two*

*This is, of course, assuming we don't lose like a dozen players to injury again
 
ngower said:
Arsenal looks god awful and yet people still expect them to finish above Spurs.
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Yes, thankfully our dip is occurring during winter break and not the last 5 weeks of the season like last year....I reckon we will be 3rd (tied at 43 with Villa and City but 3rd on GD) after the weekend despite being god awful...so that's a great sign
 
Jonathan Y said:
Yes, thankfully our dip is occurring during winter break and not the last 5 weeks of the season like last year....I reckon we will be 3rd (tied at 43 with Villa and City but 3rd on GD) after the weekend despite being god awful...so that's a great sign
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Unless Jesus/Saka start discovering goalscoring form or y'all sign a striker I don't see the slip ending any time soon. Raya/Ramsdale stuff also feels like a bit of a distraction still.
 
ngower said:
Not excuses, just explaining how things went down. The Chelsea game was a fluke and kinda screwed us for a month. Eric Dier has been woefully poor under Ange to the point where he just stopped playing him. Brentford game I recall the first half us looking lost, so it's entirely fair to bring up the Kane drama and what that did for that first game. Brighton was frustrating because go back and watch the highlights, the penalties conceded were really stupid fouls to give up (e.g. Kulu pulling a shirt in the box).

My point is that all those goofy ass games had self-inflicted wounds. It's rare that a team has outplayed us this year (honestly, I can't think of a game where we looked the worse of the two sides, maybe the recent Everton game?) and that was with a B team. If KDB is a boost for City, why isn't Maddison? If Salah and co coming back from cups is a boost, why isn't Son and co?

Villa are basically neck and neck with Spurs right now and the tone around Villa is drastically different from the tone around Spurs. City are behind Spurs and yet their title challenge isn't in question. Arsenal looks god awful and yet people still expect them to finish above Spurs.

There's no real point arguing--it's all people talking out their ass at the end of the day (myself included)--but I'd like to revisit this chat at theend of the season and see where Spurs landed. If we aren't in the top 3 I'd bet it's only by a point or two*

*This is, of course, assuming we don't lose like a dozen players to injury again
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I feel like the villa talk was about a month ago. They’ve had a drop off since and I’d equally expect them to have an unbelievable season for them without challenging. There is also the goodwill for a complete left field run at the top teams, they’ve been nowhere near this since the 90s!

With city and Liverpool it’s experience and in league title races it’s horse for courses most of the time. Plus as mentioned above several times they are unprecedented in English league history when it comes to gathering points in the back half of a season. In all my time following the league I can only think of Leicester in 2016 as winning a league title with a squad that had zero title race experience.
 
ngower said:
Unless Jesus/Saka start discovering goalscoring form or y'all sign a striker I don't see the slip ending any time soon. Raya/Ramsdale stuff also feels like a bit of a distraction still.
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Martinelli, Odegaard, Saka, Jesus, Trossard, etc. all need to get back into the goal scoring routine. The big 4 all had over 10 goals each last year. Hence the dip. I don't expect it to continue
 
Jonathan Y said:
Martinelli, Odegaard, Saka, Jesus, Trossard, etc. all need to get back into the goal scoring routine. The big 4 all had over 10 goals each last year. Hence the dip. I don't expect it to continue
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Yeah saka looks tired and Jesus never was prolific but the one that really baffles is Martinelli, he was electric last year and has been really poor this. On the other side you look very solid down the middle of the park, Rice has been an exceptional signing and looks like he’s spent his whole life playing there.
 
Jonathan Y said:
Martinelli, Odegaard, Saka, Jesus, Trossard, etc. all need to get back into the goal scoring routine. The big 4 all had over 10 goals each last year. Hence the dip. I don't expect it to continue
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That’s really it. Defense improved significantly compared to last season. If you were scoring at the same rate as well, you’d probably be miles clear at the top of the table.
 
Sounds like Maddison (and Solomon) are expected back for the FA Cup tie against City. HUGE boost, particularly with Lo Celso out. Skipp was fine in that AM role but knowing we can employ Maddison, Kulusevski, Richy and Werner or Johnson, with the other and Solomon off the bench, is a huge boost. That midfield worked fine against United but I'm not convinced it'd hold up as well against City.
 
ngower said:
Sounds like Maddison (and Solomon) are expected back for the FA Cup tie against City. HUGE boost, particularly with Lo Celso out. Skipp was fine in that AM role but knowing we can employ Maddison, Kulusevski, Richy and Werner or Johnson, with the other and Solomon off the bench, is a huge boost. That midfield worked fine against United but I'm not convinced it'd hold up as well against City.
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I think Johnson needs to be benched for a bit and play Kulu and Maddison with Skipp as another 8 and Bentancur as the 6. Kulu owns City recently so his creativity and form should be favored over BJ.

So it would be:

Werner-Richy-Kulu

Skipp-Bentancur-Maddison

Decent forward and midfield that.
 
I guess the money isn't everything. A little surprised the Saudis let him out of his contract but I guess in the grand scheme of things, he's fairly low on their priority list.

 
wokeupnew said:
I think Johnson needs to be benched for a bit and play Kulu and Maddison with Skipp as another 8 and Bentancur as the 6. Kulu owns City recently so his creativity and form should be favored over BJ.

So it would be:

Werner-Richy-Kulu

Skipp-Bentancur-Maddison

Decent forward and midfield that.
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Johnson's been fine, he just hasn't had the end product. Arguably the same could be said for Kulusevski. But I agree Johnson probably makes way for Werner and Kulusevski. It's a luxury of riches to be able to bring Johnson off the bench.
 
ngower said:
Johnson's been fine, he just hasn't had the end product. Arguably the same could be said for Kulusevski. But I agree Johnson probably makes way for Werner and Kulusevski. It's a luxury of riches to be able to bring Johnson off the bench.
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Yeah he’s done well with 1 goal, 3 assists. He has high expectations but should sit if you can play both Deki and Maddison, especially against City. It’s a good problem to have.
 
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