Yesterday’s victory over Wolves represented a further step in the right direction, but more needs doing to continue our upward trajectory.
Indeed, my main negative takeaway is Spurs being slow starters. We’ve improved massively under Conte, yet we have this habit of starting matches slowly, as was the case in the Saints and Chelsea matches…and beyond. Indeed, we went in level at half-time in 19 of our 38 matches last season, having failed to score in 14 first halves in those matches. This season’s matches take it to 21 of our last 41 matches, and failing to score in 16 first halves from the start of last season. A first half lead does not automatically equate to a victory – as Spurs fans know all too well – but many points were dropped last season due to slow starts and soon enough, we will be punished for it. The top teams not only respond to setbacks by scoring late goals, but, more often than not, start matches with intensity. We must start matches like we started the second half yesterday.
Nevertheless, one can caveat this by pointing out that it’s another game unbeaten, and another win that has culminated in seven points from three games that we lost consecutively six months ago. Lessons have been learned, and that is testament to our growing maturity and mentality. Despite being slow starters thus far this month, we’ve ended each game strongly. That can only be promising as we approach peak fitness levels and ease new signings into the team. COYS!
BS,
Mighty Little Leeds fueled by the rivalry and home patch duty, did not “park the bus” as you imply. Patently not true. Even with my lying eyes, the Yorkshire grit was on show yesterday mate.
Tell me if Leeds’ first goal was not in part due to the graft of the Leeds’ forward.
Goal number 1. Mendy harried into poor decision and goal was tapped in.
Goal number 2. Header by Rodrigo. No shooting boot used here.
Goal number 3. Pinball type goal from a cross, two Leeds players being first to the ball.
Can I objectively say that shooting boots were not required ?
You state the stats, great but did you actually watch the match ?
Koulibaly was sent off for a second yellow. Pressured into a cynical second foul ? Stats explain the nature bookings ?
Regardless where we will finish, Cautious Conte got it wrong on the day against Chelsea. He was too cautious. Ceded time and possession to an ill prepared team, whom we could have outworked.
Here is a stat you didn’t see, Tuchel had to sub in players Pullisic and Ziyech to save the match. Both not fancied by him. Two humans that Tuchel has told are not needed. That is the state of Chelsea, see that in the stats ?
I still believe that Cautious Conte is the man to take us forward but I also believe my eyes. I believe Conte can make mistakes. Yes I am critical but positively so. Cautious Conte is the pilot on my flight, I am not rooting for him to fail.
A big part of stats is Inference, that is it infers to something. Not the actual truth but close to it or pointing in that direction. Please tell me again did you watch the actual match or are you inferring.
Mighty Little Leeds, harassed, harried, pressured, matched and out worked Chelsea yesterday. Got their reward. I think we could have done it too.
Leeds fought n battled, got into the Chavs faces, they don’t like it up em lol!
Well done LU, but will you be able to keep this high octane football going? simple answer highly unlikely! COYS
Conte can use the wingbacks however he interprets them in his system. It is his system! Granted.
I literally want PEH or RB, or anybody that plays for us in that position to be trained to take shots on goal. Nothing creative. Arrive late and whack. Work the keeper so the next time he is yelling at his defense to get out and block the shot. An option.
If these two midfielders are that defensive in their position, then the second wingback should immediately get on his bike as soon as the first one is on the move. Everytime. Just what I’d like to see.
You mean like the shot Hojbjerg scored agaisnt Chelsea?
Sure, yes please! And if it goes in again, cherry on top like you say.
If Conte is to take us forward, he must do something about the midfield. The defence is solid; the strike force top drawer. The midfield and right wing back are defensive and pretty inspiring.
We have sneaked a couple of goals by set pieces (unusual for us) but there has been very little of creative opportunities. Teams keep a tight rein on Don and Kane e.g. Son was followed and tightly marked all over the pitch against Chelsea. However, we did not have a midfielder or wing back to exploit the spaces and go for goal.
Hojberg and Bentancur are good midfielders but are unlikely to shoot from distance. ( Hojberg’s goal was speculative that crept through a crowd of defenders) He will not score many more. Bentancur also will not score many. Dier’s super header was from another set piece.
Time to think of the occasional plan B even if Harry drops into midfield.
Typos. Uninspiring and Son.
Arky – no matter how you slice it, 61% possession is a fact, not something I am inferring. It means that for almost 2/3rds of the game, Leeds were watching Chelsea control proceedings. You can call that what you want.
Sure, Leeds had some bright moments and worked hard. But they won’t be gifted goals from keeper howlers every week, no matter how hard they press.
But if you want to talk about intangibles, is it that unusal for teams to up their game in big rivalries? Rightly or wrongly, Chelsea players would have found more motivation playing us than playing Leeds. We probably saw the very best version of them. That’s just the nature of a derby, and there isn’t much you can do about that. They won’t play every week like they did agaisnt us, and taking a single game to prove a point is never a good idea.
But even more importantly, aside from the performances and results, it’s the arrogance of some Spurs fans which baffles me.
I personally think that second guessing a point at Stamford Bridge, a place where we historically have a notoriously bad record, is very poor form.
What god-given right did we have to expect 3 points from that game? We were away from home, playing against a team that finished higher than us last year and won the CL as recently as 2021.
Add in the fact that our manager hasn’t even been at our club the equivalent of 1 full season yet and in the middle of a massive rebuilding exercise both on and off the pitch – where do the unreasonable expectations come from?
I am all for enthusiasm, but we had no right to expect 3 points just because of some speculative theory about the “turmoil” Chelsea are in (and their “turmoil” seems a lot more attractive than most clubs’ wildest dreams).
They remain a world-class squad, full of PL winners, WC winners, proven internationals and they’ve only gone on and sgned Koulibaly, Sterling, Cucurella and more likely to follow. I’m sure they’ll again challenge for top 4 and cups – is it really that shameful to get a point from their home ground?
And where does the theory that “we could have outworked them” come from? A couple of YouTube videos showing Spurs players struggling after a hard training session? What did you think Chelsea were doing at that moment? Drinking at the pub?
Again, I am all for being enthusiastic about our chances, but being complacent is the biggest risk this squad faces. Sure we are progressing, but let’s not overlook the fact that other clubs are making strides themselves (Arsenal) or overblow the so-called “unrest” rivals are facing – we may have a few nasty surprises or wake-up calls if we do.
Not to mention, we are second-guessing the merits/tactics/footballing nous of a man who has won the league in Italy and England and is generally regarded as a top 5 manager in world football.
He gets 7 points from the first 3 games and the monikers are already starting to appear.
Last season only 3 teams scored more goals than us, and who knows where we would have finished in attacking stats if Conte had actually started the season. We finished the game against Chelsea playing 424.
If that is being cautious, I can’t wait to see what being aggressive is!
Ok lemme try this for one more time.
However you slice it BS, you did not watch the match did you ? Plain and simple.
Please do not term me as arrogant, I am not. I like to think that I am not.
I am comparing the approach of the one game which Leeds and Spurs played against Chelsea respectively.
My opinion is that we could/should have outworked them. I see that as a weakness in Chelsea after watching Everton play them in the first match. Us and now Leeds. All three matches in its entirety. I form opinions which I share on here.
You have formed an opinion about Chelsea for this season based upon past seasons.
I think we could have earned all the points by working harder on that day. How did we score two ? Not by ceding time and space to Chelsea.
Do you think that Conte can get it wrong ? If so when do you think it was or will be ? Can I call him out on it ? Will you ?
Well Arky, in the end, you know what they say about opinions…. everybody’s got one.
Finally BS,how long has the Leeds manager been with them to produce a result on the day ? He is not one of the top tier manager. What is the difference ? Why not us ?
BS, so we finished with 4-2-4, my point exactly.
Conte sets up what I see as the typical Italian international style. How many times have I watched country’s like France and Spain go up against Italy and seem to have much more possession of the ball? It feels certain that those squads will go on to win the match and yet Italy continues to frustrate them with their defensive abilities. Sooner or later one of their skillful attackers scores a goal and the game finishes in Italy’s favor against the run of play. Crazy that Spurs are now looking like this prototype of team.
“Personally, I do not want Spurs to win anything unless there is glory attached to it. I’ve thought this for decades and, there, I’ve said it.”
You bring joy to my heart with such words, Geoff. Couldn’t agree more with the thrust of your comment. Winning by boring isn’t worth spit. The game is meant to be played beautifully. Playing ugly takes the joy away.
TK …. I knew you would agree with that remark, mate.
Emerson Royal hasn’t been a wing back until now. Attacking and crossing the ball have not be part of his game. Either he’ll learn the new position or he won’t. Here’s hoping he will. But thus far he’s the one who’s earned the confidence of the giffer, who telling him to go on the pitch and play the position. The odds are he’ll get better with practice and time. But there he is until Paratici finds a replacement, or Conte begins to think he already has someone worth taking over the position. But we need to remember that Royal is playing out of position in terms of what brought him this far. That’s not easily done.
Hi DD
I think much the same re AC, it’s typical Italian tactics (for me)
Try to steal a win against better sides, and play a bit more freely against the weaker.
I did hear a comment re the Chelsea game that it was the best Cante had played in months.
I do think points wise, we’ve done better than expected.
Performance wise maybe not.
I think we’re doing OK was I entertained against S’oton then yes
Not so good against Chelsea, but then I expected a tight game.
I was let down first half by the, Wolves game, I do think we were dominant second half tho”
There is, work to do still, but for me we are better, we don’t give up, we don’t roll over, we, aren’t Spursy. For now, I’ll take that as a starter.
A comment on changes of formations, tactics, and so forth:
A couple of commenters wrote that Conte plays with a wing-back formation and we just should get used to it. Going through the midfield is just not his way,
Yet already this short three-match season we’ve seen a switch from his “preferred” wing back formation to a 424 sort of formation. The general point is that athletic competitions require changes in what one is doing depending on how things are going. Two non football examples come to mind. First Muhammad Ali vs. George Foreman in Kinshasa–no one imagined the rope-a-dope for the first six rounds, especially George Foreman, who the commentators thought was invincible. If you remember, Foreman in the end seemed to fall over onto his face not only because Ali landed a punch but because he was exhausted and befuddled by the tactics he encountered in the ring.
Second example, this one from tennis. Arthur Ashe vs. Jimmy Connors, when Connors was at his prime and Ashe was passed his prime. Ashe always had been a serve and volley smasher of a player. He was not noted for his deft soft touch, but he completley neurtralized Conner when he came out and dinked and positioned the ball and thus changed the match in a direction for which Connors was completely unprepared. Ashe won the U.S. Open championship that way, by playing very differently from what he guessed would not work vs that opponent on that day.
Let me venture–Spurs also need variants in style and tactics. When the opponent has positioned and staked all on disallowing our wing back led attack, has that ability to bring the ball up the middle with make thos skillful passes in the spaces that are not being defended when the other team is prepared to stop movement up the wings.
Every athletic competition requires at least the possibility of doing more than one thing successfully. Consistency can be the downfall of small minds who are unwilling or unable to change tactics and formations at the requisite moment.
A note on disagreements: this site would be too too boring if we all expressed the same opinion. we all need others to show how misinformed they are so that our informed opinions are all the more satisfying.
anyway, that’s my opinion, and its right, and I don’t care if you are too stupid to see that.
Arky …. I watched the Leeds/Chelsea game and agree that Leeds were absolutely brilliant. We all know about stats and how misleading they can be. Chelsea had more possession than Leeds but much of Chelsea’s possession was across the park or backwards. Most of Leeds possessipon involved attacking Chelsea at pace and causing panic in chelsea’s defence. Chelsea also had more shots than Leeds but most of them were poor shots or easily defended. I was only going to watch the start of the game but Leeds started so well that I watched it all.
Just read a quote from Conte: “a draw is half a loss for me.”
Let me offer Conte an arithmetic lesson for free: a draw is two-thirds of a loss.
It’s two of the three possible points that are being lost for each team. Indeed, a draw is a mathematically interesting phenomenon: Each league match has a value of three points, all going to one of the two teams. For the PL since 1981, when a match ends in a drawn, each team gains one point, so the match distributes two points, and the third point thus disappears forever–an ontological loss in the cosmos of mathematics.
A draw thus is an existential loss in the mathematical realm, a threat to the order of things, a threat to the logical order of the football universe. A draw can feel either like a win or a loss to an individual team–the draw with Chelsea felt more like a win to us, but to a loss for them, but to the cosmos, it was a permanent loss of existence of that disappearing point–faded into the aethers of nothingness. A warning to Ethereum and to all who hold cryptcurrency.
Yes, we gained a point from what seemed like nothing, but that was only to our perspective. For the cosmos, a mathematical reality was caste adrift forever. 1981 changed the world of football by destroying its mathematical equilibrium that existed when each match began and ended with the distribution of three points.
Put more simply–a draw is like kissing your sister, which hold a passionate thrill only for the kinky.
When a championship is gained by a draw, remember that it leaves the mythological gods perturbed. Is it worth it? Remember that it is gained by a loss in the balance of the spiritual world–if you worrty about the rhythm of angels who dance on pins.
Sorry, mates, it worried me that Conte seemed not to grasp the horror of what he was saying. Our manager is failing at the school of shamanism. If football concerns winning and losing, a draw is a different kind of loss–its the loss of existential promise, and existential promise is what football offers to the world.
TK …. That was one of your philosophical ramblings that I quite enjoyed. Maybe the cosmos collects all the missing points and celebrates as the true title winners. Cheers.
Alternative view: It’s not the score that brings life to the doing of football, but the joy of the play. It’s the keeping of scores that interrupts the beauty of the acts of playing.
Indeed, it is when we lose a match that we have the greatest possibility of learning about ourselves.
But perhaps here I am speaking of the football played by children on the streets and fields of the world, not yet disturbed by those who keep accounts. The beauty is in the play, not in the keeping of accounts.
Can’t argue with that. You’re on a roll!
Geoff, since I’m on a roll, please do not add mustard. Makes the roll too soggy and I’ll lose my footing. Not good to lose footing on a football site. Especially a site dedicated to playing while wearing hotspurs. Now that’s an activity that requires keeping one’s footing.
Have anyone noticed that there are no points to be won or lost this week, but six points that could be gained next week? Will all those six points survive? Will they be ours? Or are they ours only to lose? Will some simply drift into the oblivion of points that never were to be?
I’m sure all on this site are greedy. We want our lads to save those points from oblivion and put them–all of them–into our account. For wen tend to think that the accounts count for more than the mere playing of the matches. A match comes and goes, but the points not lost live forever on the lists in the newspapers on shelves and in the electronic web sites.
But remember this–our love for the game and for out club is not diminished when some points leave the cosmos for a realm of things whose existence always was mere chimera.
The joy is in the moment of play and watching grown men in shorts run about so skillfully–some of them playing for the glory we feel and that we thus grant to them in return for their playing for us.
Now you’re trying too hard and you’re not cutting the mustard.
Lol.
Any mustard that can be cut must be quite old and dried out. Fresh and soggy, or old and dried out, mustard isn’t my sauce.
Good day, all.