Although it’s depressing for the rest of us, it must be nice for the big teams to be able to pick and choose which competitions they win and which they forfeit. Of course Spurs are not one of those teams, however much they think they are.
This third euro comp could be spuds best chance of qualifying for Europe next season as the winners go into next years Europa league. So hopefully they field a stronger team than the one in Portugal and pick up some injuries. Gonna be a hard Sunday afternoon for that the golden boys. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It may not be pretty tippy tappy football, but I think we need to go back to GT's longer ball game if we hope to survive in the PL. This may not always work against a quick and mobile defence, but I think it would have worked against the way Brighton were set up. What we have is lightning quick forwards and we must take advantage of this by getting the ball into space over the top for them to run onto. At Brighton we were up against 3 giant, but slow and ponderous CB's and had we gone over the top we would have murdered them for pace, plus their fullbacks would not have been able to run amok down the wings as they would have been forced to sit back more. Maybe a 4231 might suit us better as that would shore up a defence with 2 DMF's and a lone striker to hold up play, which should possibly be King and 3 speedy ATM's, probably Sarr & Dennis out wide & Cucho playmaking behind King.
Only problem with this is that teams know we have bags of pace up front and will combat that by not playing a suicidally high line, just as Brighton did
yes, this was apparent from the very early stages. Brighton defended deep and tight, especially on Sarr’s side. They seemed to steer and press the play in such a way that we often went to the left where Sema was allowed much more leeway than Sarr was. When we did go to the right the ball was played into Sarr rather than ahead of him to run onto. Made it much more difficult to hit them as hard as Sarr hit Targett last weekend. this, combined with our midfield being a distant second best, made life difficult.
I don't know how much difference it would have made in the grand scheme of things, Brighton are player for player better than us, and have a better manager to boot, but surely playing Cucho from the start would have been far more threatening to them than playing Sema. The midfield unfortunately was always going to be an issue, with Kucka out and Tufan not available yet, we just didn't have much of a chance of competing there, Etebo played well against Villa, but couldn't do much on his own!
You're right, a front three of Cucho-Dennis-Sarr potentially creates more problems for the opposition but then again there's nothing inherently wrong with going with Sema-Dennis-Sarr and trying to keep it 0-0, stay in the game, before bringing Cucho off the bench to cause a different type of problem in the second half. Perhaps that was the plan, but it was a plan undone by going 1-0 down after 9 minutes. If the hope was to get to HT at 0-1 and make a change at the break to get ourselves level that was undone by conceding in the 41st minute.
I don't really get this line of thinking myself, sure, Sema works hard, but so does Cucho, and he offers far more going forward, so teams can't just ignore our left side and kill us going the other way
It's certainly frustrating as a fan but I can see merit in the idea, especially away from home, of staying tight for as long as possible and keeping a potentially match-winning card for a substitute's appearance. It seems counter-intuitive but the intensity and pace of the game is such that a quick, skilful player like Cucho might have more chance of winning a tight away game in a 30-minute appearance than a 90-minute one. It's all ifs, buts and maybes, of course, and as a supporter I want to see the best possible XI on the pitch at all times – partly because I have no idea how fatigued they are and I always assume that taking off one of the good ones with 15 minutes to go is going to weaken us catastrophically.
The classic football fan mentality. The last match was bad, therefore ALL matches will be bad forever. I reckon we will improve from the weekend's meek showing. Prediction Spurs 1-1 'Ford Son (63), Cucho (37)
Whilst I'm looking forward to a few post-match beers in London, I can't say I'm holding out too much hope for the game. Spurs rode their luck against Wolves, indeed, but I think they'll be strong at home this season and if Kane is in from the start it'll be a long afternoon for us. 3-0 Spurs.
I go back to NYC at 7am Monday morning. Yet I’m going to be spending my last few hours in the UK at Spurs watching our backline somehow cope with their strikers. Thank god it’s a long flight and I can spend 7-8hrs getting drunk for free trying to forget.
Long ball against Brighton who are amongst the best aerial defences in the PL? Heading balls Is bread and butter for them. The idea that we could just go long and get behind them with regularity is folly. The PL is a technical league now where even Burnley have been forced to join in to an extent. Play long ball for any length of time in the league and you’ll get battered regularly.
Might be a useful tactic against City, where Pep is vain and dumb enough to play the same way against all opponents with absolutely zero regard for anything coming the other way!
I think QSF had the right idea in his first season ie 4-6-0 formation and hope that Foster scores from a goal kick.
Lovely 'old school' paper tickets arrived this morning. Delivered by our cheerful, whistling postman (why don't more people whistle in public these days?). What a marvellous system Spurs have in place. Could Watford's ticket office adopt this simple and highly efficient technique for issuing tickets?
Liverpool won the league playing long ball in the 19/20 season. It's not the tactic that's the issue, it's having the players to make it effective.
They absolutely did not. Sure they played some counter attacking stuff at times, but the vast majority of their play came from Robertson and TAA feeding Mane and Salah. Their success came from wide areas - that’s not long ball.
I remember that game. Spuds away as well. Could not believe Foster was beaten by their goalies long kick and a bad bounce. Summed up our luck that season.
Well Kane says he he staying .. https://mobile.twitter.com/HKane/status/1430496495225262084 Hopefully won’t be celebrating with a goal or two !
Harry Kane will be like a new signing, and with the euphoria of 60k fans bellowing support... this is the latest from Xisco, just in...
I dont usually wish things like this to happen. But I would love Kane to limp off with a career threatening cruciate knee injury on 5 minutes.
I'm expecting Kane to burst into tears on the pitch and start hitting himself on the head with a hammer now that he's realised Daniel Levy has just done him up the A with no lubricant. Less trophies than Capoue LOL.
We almost beat them a couple of years ago when we were gash. They're gash and have been for a while, another faux big club like Arsenal.
Does anyone know who writes for this website? Some really interesting and apparently ITK articles recently: https://watfordopinions.com/2021/08/25/deeneys-days-at-watford-looking-numbered/
I don't wish Kane ill, but it would be nice if he picks up his annual ankle injury in training before our game this Sunday
