Well that was tough viewing wasn’t it? Just as we start to gather a bit of momentum, we have the rug pulled right out from under our feet, and so it proved again tonight.
A decent run of 3 wins on the bounce came to an abrupt halt as Spurs slumped to second-half strikes from Fred and Bruno Fernandes. In truth, however, the damage was done long before Ben Davies’ deflection took the ball past Lloris in Spurs’ goal.
For starters, ponderous on the ball, and passive off it, we contrived to surrender 19 attempts on goal within the first half. Within the first 30 minutes, Lloris had to be called into action 5 times – 5! None of them were exactly ‘routine’ saves either.
Conte was seething, but whatever rocket he gave the lads at half-time served no inspiration whatsoever, and we somehow seemed to become even more passive and ponderous after the restart.
The 3-5-2 formation only works when we press as a unit and drop off as a unit – as we did effectively in spells against Leicester, Brighton, and Everton – but pressing of any sort was completely absent tonight, and United almost had a free run at goal, as evidenced by the total attempts figure of 28 from United, 10 of which were on target.
Granted, given the lack of faith in Bryan Gil (which is wholly justified in my view) and Lucas Moura’s lack of match fitness (and arguably, his lack of quality in the final third), I don’t think we had any other choice but to play this system,which most readers were calling for in the build-up to this game in the first place…the old adage ‘be careful what you wish for’ comes to mind!
That said, I think one ought to allow for some mitigation in this regard, in the sense that the players (particularly Yves Bissouma) are still getting used to playing with a midfield three, and – with all due respect – playing this formation against Man United will obviously yield more challenges than playing it against Leicester, Brighton, and Everton.
Although it is unfair to single out an individual for our collective misdeeds tonight – indeed, the only player in lilywhite in my book who can emerge from Manchester with his head held high is Lloris – Yves Bissouma struggled a lot in my eyes.
Generally speaking, he held onto the ball too long, and when your back is against the wall, you need quick balls into your forwards in order to release pressure and force your opposition towards their goal rather than yours. Via Whoscored, he had the fewest touches of the midfield trio with 44 (which can be interpreted in several ways, of course), compared to 85 for Hojbjerg and 62 for Bentancur.
However, it was generally a poor night for our midfield, who made just 1 key pass collectively, and were overrun in the centre frequently by Casemiro, Fernandes, and Fred (Fred, of all people…Fred! The man who Louis Saha called out ahead of the match for being unworthy of playing in League Two).
What disappointed me the most was our failure to effectively go direct when it was clear playing out from the back wasn’t cutting it – of our 52 long balls, only 30 were successful (again via WhoScored).
When the opposition fields a vertically-challenged centre-half who is about as physically imposing as ‘Nick Nack’ from ‘The Man With The Golden Gun’, we simply have to be more accurate when going direct, and keep targeting him, as Brentford did in August with great success against Lisandro Martinez.
I felt Kane was really tame against Martinez when we actually had success going long, only winning 1 aerial duel throughout the match. Kane ultimately failed to use his size and physicality with the same efficiency as Ivan Toney did against Nick Nack in Brentford’s landmark win 2 months back. This in particular was really disheartening.
In conclusion, while this was exhausting viewing, what is even more tiring is listening to the tosh and histrionics from certain segments of our fanbase and the media getting on Conte’s back and placing our shortcomings on the Italian’s shoulders. Get behind the manager!
I anticipate the whole “will he/won’t he stay” argument to rear its head in tomorrow’s back pages, as is always the case when we lose. Get behind the manager, get behind the players, and remember how lucky we are to have him leading the club – he’s a proven winner, and we’re not proven winners. I know whose side I’m on!
The only things we needed to take away were points. Didn’t happen.
We’ve lost to Arsenal and United, both away games. If we win our home games against them we are back on track.
We remain ahead of the two-points-per-game target. We need to keep that up against Newcastle.
Mustn’t knee jerk but that for me was the worst performance of a season that’s contained a good few powder puff moments. We looked awful from minute one!
Sit back and give them a buffet style all you can shoot.
Very flat performance. Hugely disappointing. Man U weren’t even very good. They just wanted it more.
Lots of people calling for 352 but last night showed that tactics aren’t a solution to everything.
Too many players were below par yesterday, with the likes of Kane and Dier being run into the ground. Fatigue is starting to show.
Bissouma also quite disappointing. Just throwing new players at it isn’t necessarily the solution either.
We lost yesterday because some players were tired and some didn’t want it enough. Ultimately Conte is the one picking players and he’s responsible for motivating them, but I saw so many misplaced passes yesterday, surely Conte isn’t asking his players to pass it straight to the opponent… The buck stops with Conte at the end, but I think the players themselves deserve plenty of blame for last night.
Let’s just hope it was a bad day at the office. Overall we have started the season well, so no need to over react. But we need to see a reaction this weekend.
A bad day at the office…never a truer word/phrase, hopefully… but generally we were crap!
Tiredness, yes that is definately a problem, run into the ground, yes! lol!
Demanded tactics were changed, 3-5-2, done, but still got overrun and outplayed, mainly from sheer balls n effort, to put it simply, they wanted it more than us, why oh why can’t we want it? we ended up being 5-3-2, as I have said many times…Spurs act like “rabbits in headlamps”
Our run v the top sides is appalling esp away, but we can put some of the wrong right when we get the Chavs, Gooners and MU at home, fingers crossed.
On to Sats game Geordies at home, will we be poor v them? I certainly hope not! COYS
“even more tiring is listening to the tosh and histrionics from certain segments of our fanbase and the media getting on Conte’s back and placing our shortcomings on the Italian’s shoulders. Get behind the manager!”
As for me? I’m not in the mood to get behind the manager. He likes to back pass too much, and I’m not fit to take the back pass I’d get if I’m backing him. I’ll back another manager who doesn’t like to back pass so much. Then it matter less whether I’m backing him. It matters whose up front from him.
How on god’s earth are we still in third place? This speaks poorly of the state of the PL this season. The way our lads played yesterday, we should be in 14th position, not third.