Foot Long Hot Dog
Player Valuation: A packet of pork scratchings
Thanks for pointing out 'fact' Mystic Meg
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This really. Winning is all that matters, only if you're Barcelona or Real Madrid should you be concerned about style, because you already win everything anyway. We really aren't in a position to prioritise style over substance. 21 years...
Barnfred 55
Player Valuation: £80m
We all knew the squad wasn't good enough to compete with the top 6 as soon as the transfer window closed, so what's happening now shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Koeman had to tighten up the defensive play first and generally he's done that, although I'm sure he's still far from happy with our application when we don't have the ball.
Even when we were winning games early on, the performances from an attacking perspective weren't really there. Partly because the boss is focusing on the defensive side of our game initially, and partly because most of our forward players are out of form.
Defensively, we had our first poor league game of the season against Burnley, but if the forwards were on their game we should really have still come away from that game with 3 points
It's not the end of the world, but we do need to get at least a decent midfield playmaker and support striker in the January window, and if we do that l think we'll kick in in the second half of the season. Whether that will be sufficient to trouble the top six very much depends on whether any of them slip up.
Papa Shango
Player Valuation: £70m
Ish.
The amount of times we had the ball in a good position we should have killed them off.
Even last season I thought our attacking play was just as concerning as our defensive play. Mainly because obviously we couldnt defend so we really needed to be a lot more clinical in front of goal to make up for it.
My thoughts are that there is no real point in practicing attacking football. Give certain instructions, let the players do what they do naturally. It's 95% instinctual anyways. Defence is where there has to be a crap load of coaching in order to get everyone on the same page. Organization and set pieces were pretty much thrown by the wayside the last 2.5 years.
Koeman has come in and got the defence MOSTLY on the same page, Jags excluded. The defence surely looks better by any metric. I think tho, at this point, it becomes pretty clear that the attacking aspect of the squad really isn't all that good. I don't really see anything different than what they did last year. They do the same exact 'ok, we're going to press for the first 10 minutes then that's it' they did last year. It's a ton of round peg/square holes that either are unable or unwilling to do the dirty work over the course of the whole match.
And Deulofeu is the most shocking in terms of his fitness. I have no idea how a kid of that age can come on as a sub with 30 minutes left in the match and not be sprinting about the pitch for 20minutes of it.
Koeman has come in and got the defence MOSTLY on the same page, Jags excluded. The defence surely looks better by any metric. I think tho, at this point, it becomes pretty clear that the attacking aspect of the squad really isn't all that good. I don't really see anything different than what they did last year. They do the same exact 'ok, we're going to press for the first 10 minutes then that's it' they did last year. It's a ton of round peg/square holes that either are unable or unwilling to do the dirty work over the course of the whole match.
And Deulofeu is the most shocking in terms of his fitness. I have no idea how a kid of that age can come on as a sub with 30 minutes left in the match and not be sprinting about the pitch for 20minutes of it.
Carlito
Player Valuation: £40m
I think it's fairly obvious that Koeman doesn't rate the majority of the squad he inherited. In fact, he doesn't even seem particularly impressed with the better players.
My take is that he doesn't believe this team to be good enough to play expansive football, and on the evidence of the past two seasons I'd be hard-pressed to disagree.
Hopefully there'll be a lot activity over the next two windows, and we'll see a better standard of footballer on the pitch next season.
My take is that he doesn't believe this team to be good enough to play expansive football, and on the evidence of the past two seasons I'd be hard-pressed to disagree.
Hopefully there'll be a lot activity over the next two windows, and we'll see a better standard of footballer on the pitch next season.
Famous_Seamus
Player Valuation: £225k
Potch actually earned fewer points in his first Spurs season than Sherwood's last. Both Potch and Martinez inherited teams just on the fringe of EL quality. Koeman inherited a team with back to back 11 place finishes.
I understand that you want a better quality product, and I agree there is more improvement needed, but we've already seen improvement over the product we had the past 2 seasons.
mkrudden
Player Valuation: £40m
Jags is part of a defence that has conceded no more than a goal a game before last weekend, the game within which our GK made one of the most bizarre 'saves' I've seen.
Against city, despite the two penalties, he was absolutely fine, typified by that superb intervention from the City cross in the second half.
He's been good all season.
You cannot say that sentence, and then say he was fine. Giving away two ridiculous penalties in one game is an automatic droppable offence as far as I'm concerned. Then he was all over the place at Burnley too.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
This time last season we had exactly the same number of points. At least there was a commitment to get at teams and score goals.
I understand Koeman is left with the players of another manager, and he's concerned about the defence, but it needn't mean a deterioration in attacking performance. It has deteriorated though and that's because he's 'solved' the defensive fragility by simply getting more bodies between our goal and the opposition when they have the ball. The only real solution is to have a well organised back four and a top GK behind behind them, that way we can also have a balance with our attacking intent.
As far as I'm concerned he's miles off doing anything of substance here so far, Koeman.
Nice try David
It is literally impossible to do anything "of substance" 9 games into the season. Whatever you personally perceive as "good football" is not actual substance, not even close.
HongKongToffee
Player Valuation: £6m
I don't think we'll spend in january,i think next summer we will make a good go of it in summer transfer window after Koeman sees what this team needs after a full season and he can identify where to improve the team.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
*sigh*
I said there was a commitment to get at teams and score more goals. There was under Martinez. What I've seen so far from Koeman is a man who goes for safety in numbers. Well he's going to have to throw off the security blanket at some point because the trend is poor: last five games = no wins goals, for 3 goals, against 6....and that's against some terrible opposition apart from City.
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