Tottenham Talk on Friday 20th Aug - Thoughts on the game
Tottenham Talk on Friday 20th Aug Thoughts on the Game
Firstly I couldn't agree with the selection when we have four senior players taking no part, Aurier, Ndombele, Sissoko and Kane.
While they are at the club they have a job to do.
None of them played at the weekend and while we are looking to move three of them on, they are still taking wages from the club.
If we can not sell them or loan them, then fitness wise they are not going to be ready, they are going to be behind the others.
We should be getting them up to speed fitness wise and that means playing a competitive game of football, there were far too many kids on the field.
Cameron Carter-Vickers was woeful. He saw strikers running on more than one occasion and simply left them to run behind our defence, one of which they scored from.
Instead of going with a runner he simply backed off and took himself out of the game which shows why he has no future at Tottenham and won't make it as a centre-back at Premier League level.
If you have a central defender doing that then that simply destroys the other defenders.
There is no way Romero can stand out if he has a liability beside him, who drops him in it. He has come from a country, a league where they consider defending to be the equivalent of scoring a goal, it's a passion so he would be expecting a certain standard that he didn't find in Carter-Vickers.
Doherty was as bad in this game as he was in pre-season against Arsenal. When he gets into a position to cross the ball, he doesn't, he wants an extra touch to set it up and the chance of a cross is gone.
Kieran Trippier used to volley the ball first time into the box, Doherty provided no service at all.
Clearly Tomiyasu is needed at right-back to compete with Japhet Tanganga with Aurier and Doherty being sold.
On the left Ryan Sessegnon did nothing to advance his cause, although we must take into account that he is short of fitness so this would have been like a pre-season friendly for him.
I think his mentality is wrong, I think he is weak mentally and that is a worry because it will stunt his development.
I have my doubt that he will turn into the star everyone was expecting.
What is better, to keep the ball in play so you have control of possession or simply let it dribble out for a throw-in where everyone is marked?
The former obviously but on several occasions he simply opted for the throw, even though there was nobody around him.
That is poor thinking, that is not footballing intelligence.
He didn't even manage to get a shot away after 3 minutes when Gil got to the byline and cut the ball back to him 6 yards out, again a poor decision by Sessegnon not to hit it first time.
You have to be judged by your output in his position and there was none.
Giovanni Lo Celso is behind on fitness after playing in the Copa America Final, together with Romero. He obviously started pre-season training after most, having to squeeze in a holiday and he looked fatigued from the start quite frankly.
Harry Winks has done all the pre-season training though and he was woeful in the first half giving the ball away and being easily beaten.
This was his chance to say I should be a first-team player and he didn't even put in a competent performance in the first-half. He was better in the second half but even then only mustered an average score at best.
This is World Cup year, how is he going to force his way into the England squad when he doesn't even deserve a game at Spurs? He needs to move on and play every week somewhere else.
Europa Conference games and Cup games simply aren't going to be enough.
There is a player in Bryan Gil, that was clear to see so his will be an exciting path to follow, he already looks a better player than Jack Clarke who either needs to go on loan again.
It took him 3 minutes to create something, what did Sessegnon create?
Dane Scarlett simply had no service, the same as happens to Harry Kane in these games.
Ten minutes to go and we are hoofing long balls up to a 17-year-old kid 1.8m (5ft 9in) tall, against two experienced centre-halves, one 1.85m (6ft 1in) tall, the other 1.91m (6ft 3in) and expecting him to win headers.
Crazy thinking.
It showed that our thought process were wrong, muddles, affected by he anxiety of the game situation.
This is exactly what I have been talking about when I say we must make sports psychology a compulsory part of weekly training.
Instead of players sitting about playing video games FIFA Football Manager between training sessions, why not have them work on their mentality, it's an ideal time.
A poor performance and Nuno has to share his portion of the responsibility, Harry Kane, Moussa Sissoko, Serge Aurier and Tanguy Ndombele should all have been there.
It is only half-time and we will need to put out a stronger team in the second leg now.
Shot ourselves in the foot.
Well that's it folks.
- Don't forget to share this post on social media
- Visit the THBN website each day
- If you are a supporters group, distribute the article or direct members to it
- Americans share share share, a big audience I'm looking to grow further
- Outside UK - again looking to grow the audience, every share helps
Comments
Post a Comment
Ask me anything here...