Readers, forgive me for moving on to another thread so hastily after last night’s match – by all means, feel free to continue to vent your frustrations in that discussion here – but I wanted to move on from the inevitable (and very understandable) negativity the match has brought up within our fanbase. I want to move away from commentary deriding Antonio Conte and our midfield (issues we’ll revisit later, I’m sure), and maintain a more forensic, constructive approach to analysing our shortcomings, starting with right wing-backs.
Now, I dislike pinning collective failings on individuals, but last night, some players weren’t good enough. One player who I thought was good in some aspects against Sporting (but mostly not so good in others) was Emerson Royal, who nonetheless made fascinating viewing last night (offensively and defensively). Generally speaking, I do feel he has been improving his attacking presence of late – statistically, he has already equaled his entire total of assists from last season (the grand total of 1) – and he was a thorn in Sporting’s side at times yesterday.
Although the numbers can never truly give a wholly accurate account of proceedings, SofaScore demonstrates that last night, Emerson had three shots on target (including one big chance at the start of the second half), and attempted 4 crosses, only 1 of which was successful. Although this is nothing to write home about, for a player who doesn’t usually attempt to cross, this does represent an improvement on what we’re used to seeing from him.
Yet, once again, the last set of stats (and the final scoreline) particularly highlight how his final ball was nowhere near good enough, as has so often been the case in his Spurs career to date. Yesterday, he spurned several decent openings going forward, and defensively, he could (and should) have done better on both goals, more so the second. This was rather disappointing, given how defending is generally his strength.
Nevertheless, the blame for both goals cannot lie solely at his door – the entire defensive unit has to take a long hard long at themselves in that regard. The second goal had worrying shades of Mitrovic’s effort the other day vs Fulham – someone has to show him away from goal there, it was too easy for Gomes to dance through the Spurs defence.
Back to Emerson, however, and I do feel that when Kulusevski doesn’t start, Emerson feels more pressure to join in attacks, as we saw last night. While it’s all well and good seeing Emerson’s offensive confidence improve, it’s an approach that’s hardly been fruitful to the side, and I’ll expand on this now.
When he’s paired up with Kulusevski on the right, he tends to give it to the Swede and watch him go off bamboozling defenders with his left foot, letting him do all the attacking. This approach has generally been successful, given Kulusevski’s effectiveness in the final third – he boasted the highest number of goal contributions after Kane and Son last season, and of course, he only joined in January!).
However, nowadays, as he was last night, Emerson is figuring out how to play with Richarlison, who tends to drift in far more centrally than Kulusevski, almost playing like a striker at times. This inevitably gives him the license to bomb forward at will, something he’s generally very good at despite his conservative instincts. Given Emerson’s offensive limitations, however, I don’t feel as though this attacking license emerging from his combination with Richarlison will do him good – his conservative game and limited attacking output seem a more natural fit with Kulusevski, who’s always next to him, ready to receive the ball and shift onto his left foot to shoot or cross as he pleases.
If we are to see more of Richarlison on the right, I’d be interested to see how he compliments Doherty, who’s arguably more effective going forward than Emerson. With 2 goals and 4 assists in his little purple patch between February and April, I hope he recovers from his devastating injury at Villa Park and proves his fitness, and gets a trial run with Richarlison to add something different to our right-hand side.
I know this will not go down well with most supporters, but I don’t think Emerson was anywhere near as bad as some are making out last night, and I don’t think he’s as terrible as a player in general as is generally made out. There is a reason why he has started every game this season, even though we’ve got two capable right wing-backs sat on the bench.
His positioning at both ends of the pitch is excellent, and (last night) aside, his defensive contributions are hard to fault. It’s just his lack of (substantive) contributions going forward that are consistently letting him, and ultimately, the entire team, down.
While I would love Spence to come into the fold sooner rather than later, and would like to see Doherty at some point just to give us a different dimension going forward, it’s clear that Spence needs more time to come into our way of thinking (to paraphrase Paratici and Conte), and Doherty is still taking time to recover from last year’s injury.
In addition, although I think he definitely needs upgrading on, I don’t think Royal deserves as much berating as he’s been subjected to since joining the club last season. Last night’s failings – and some of the laboured displays we’ve been subjected to so far this season – are not his fault.
I will ultimately conclude by asking any reader willing to comment: of the three right wing-backs presently at our disposal, who would you like to see stake a claim on the right wing-back spot? Moreover, would you be happy to retain the current trio, or would you sell one or two and seek an upgrade, either in January or the summer?
Really a good observation and an idea to move forward since AC has become bereft of ideas. Take this one to think about. How about Kane on the right of Richarlison and Son on the left and Kulusevski coming as a nr. 10. Choose either of Hoj, Yves orthe Argentine as holding mf. Replace Dier with Lenglet. There will certainly be more flair and pace in the whole team. Also easier to change formation during game.
Spence. Why does he need more time?
He is fast,skilful can cross, can beat players.
I know Conte does not like skilful, young players. In fact, Spurs are guilty of not producing young talent even though we have fantastic facilities. The last star we produced was Marcus Edwards who was fantastic last night but we got rid of him!
wentworth,
It wasn’t Conte who sent Marcus Edwards packing, was it?
As to Spence: being fast and skillful doesn’t mean he yet knows what his responsibilities on the pitch are under the current system.
TK I didn’t say Conte was responsible for releasing Edwards.
I think Spence deserves a chance rather than gathering cobwebs on the bench like Harvey White.
Conte seems to be stuck in a rut.
I was just pointing out that and earlier manager wasn’t keen ojn Marcus for all of his pretty skills.
My impression is that managers at WHL found him difficult to fit into the ways they wanted to play.
I’ve often wondered why we don’t cross into the box more often, before the opposition sets up their defence. We have been in position to put an early ball into the box on so many occasions, but rarely do. Instead, we stop and pass it back. This makes it difficult to find a through ball for a runner as the opposition have covered all the options. How hard can it be to lift a ball into the box? Surely it’s a basic skill and should not even require much practice at this stage of a players career. Yet we still seem to find it so difficult. To cross the ball into dangerous areas at least puts pressure on defences.
Your suggestion is too sensible to be of any ise Geof! 😉
* to be of any use
Agree Geoff, by not crossing the ball gives them time to regroup, we should be mixing it up, with all the talent we have we lack ideas up front.
Wing backs have a defensive job to do and Conte doesn’t trust Spence enough to do it consistently, simpel as that. Agaisnt the teams playing for a point, Spence’s chances will increase but probavbly not in the CL unless it’s a dead rubber at the end of the group stages.
The obvious reason why some teams don’t cross plenty of balls in the box is because they don’t think they can win enough aerial duels to make it worthwhile. Whether it is lack of a focal point (probably not a problem for us, unless we ask Kane to drop deep and play passes), a problem/lack of height and/or poor heading ability (probably more of a consideration if players like Son are having to go up against the Dan Burns of this world) – there is a reason why our coaching staff doesn’t feel it is worthwhile.
In the end we can all criticise the methods but I always go back to the track record. Conte knows what he’s doing and you don’t win Serie A and the PL by luck. His methods work.
Maybe he doesn’t yet have the right players at his disposal, but then it’s a recruitment problem. We can all ru Conte’s tactical rigidity and regret the fact that he won’t change his ways to suit the players at his disposal, but let’s face it: MP was the master of adapting his tactics to suit players like Alli and others. Some Spurs fans look back fondly to that period, understandably so, but the point remains that while we were easy on the eye and players seemd to have the freedom to express themselves, we won nothing.
How long do we want to keep on doing the same things over and over while expecting different results? Or do we trust a proven coach to show the team another way, with tried and tested methods?
Maybe it’ll take Conte another year to get it right. It took Klopp more than 3 to start winning things, and his first year at Liverpool yielded next to nothing.
In a few months, with an ill suited squad, Conte got us top 4. Can we not just trust the process?
Reading your post twice BS, you may well be right there! COYS
As 123 said …. it makes sense to mix it up, especially when other strategies are not working.
MP might not have won anything but he took us to the greatest heights playing attractive, attacking football. If Levy had supported him with decent transfers, he would probably still be with us.
I have very little faith in Conte’s rigid tactics. We have scraped through results so far and been boring and dismal.
Watch this space if we lose to bottom club Leicester.
Geof – I find it hugely premature to conclude that strategies are not working when we are 3rd in the league, 1 point off the league and unbeaten, and 2nd in our CL group and going through as things stand.
I am all for making a case for change when/if things aren’t working, but I justfind it hard to make a very compelling case right now…
BS …. Substitute the word options for ‘strategies’ (which I should have done in the first place) and you’ll see what I mean. We break fast and reach the goal-line, only to stop and play the ball back. We nearly always choose not to cross the ball first time even when it is clearly beneficial to do so. That’s what I meant.
Yes, that seems a bit less definitive!
wentworth – MP has been supported with all the money in the world at PSG. The result?
His first year, he finished 2nd in a one horse race.
His second year, he was dumped out of the CL unceremoniously despite having arguably the best front 3 in football, throwing away a 2 goal lead in 15 minutes in the process.
There is absolutely no proof that backing MP would have resulted in anything else than wasting money. As a matter of fact, he did plenty of that at Spurs, sanctioning moves for Lo Celso and NDombele.
Let’s praise MP for what he did well, but let’s not make him out to be a coach that he simply isn’t.
To somehow talk MP up compared to Conte, who has actually won Serie A twice and the PL, is pretty baffling to me. If MP had won things elsewhere, a case could be made.
But the reality is that MP has flattered to deceive and has generally under performed, whereas Conte has over performed.
If I had to chose whether to keep Conte or see the return of Poch, I’d take the Argentine Italian over the Italian Italian. Much more fun. Too bad DL wouldn’t spend the dosh to bring in players the way he has for Conte.
Oops! lol. heck of a typo. Don’t let the kids see this page. My bad.
I think you are wrong BS, conte won the league a few years ago, the game changed, conte hasn’t same with jose etc. Conte has been back you csnt blame recruitment. Conte needs to play to the players strength.
Conte won the league in 2017, the FA Cup in 2018, Serie A in 2021. That’s just looking at the competitions won in the last 5 years. A look at his finals appearances in the last 5 years, or a longer look back in time would even further pad his credentials.
How many coaches in world football have won more, more recently? i’ll be waiting.
Conte has been backed this summer. Up until then he was working with players who didn’t fit his tactics.
And here you are drawing conclusions less than 3 weeks since the transfer window shut. If you’re not willing to give a coach more than 3 weeks to get a team to jell, you need to look at yourself first, I think.
BS you obviously are happy to support boring, negative football condoned by a coach relying on past glories.
The Spurs way has always been exciting players and attacking football.
Moanino started the rot.
⁸i’m happy to support winning football in whatever way it is delivered, and I find it very hard to disagree with the results under Conte overall.
It is also not lost on me that Mourinho actually won a trophy last year. The argument for those coaches being “yesterday men” kind of goes down the drain in that situation…
You may personally dislike it, that’s fine, but you can’t say it’s ineffective. If you are, you are blatantly disregarding facts to remain attached to a hunch based in your imagination.
Yawn.
I’ll tell you what wentworth. If cConte delivers a trophy with Spurs, you can yawn yourself back home while the rest of us will be celebrating.
I’m not obsessed with a trophy. I like to watch exciting, free flowing football. That’s what I pay to see.
Boring, defensive football just to win a tin pot is not my idea of fun.
Come back the real Spurs….that is why my family support you even through the present dull times.
What is wrong with exciting football?
Nothing wrong with it, but not at the expense of football for me. I’d take little pleasure watching Spurs play exciting football and be in a relegation battle, or even mid table mediocrity again. Been there, done that, time for something new.
Not at the expense of results*