Article by David LevyThe 0-1 home defeat against Newcastle was the third consecutive loss before an international break for Tottenham this season. Not only do we have to endure a 2 week break from any meaningful top flight football, we get to do so without having witnessed Spurs score for a little over 180 minutes of football. We broke our transfer record twice in the summer transfer window on offensive players Roberto Soldado and Erik Lamela after already breaking it on free scoring for Brazil, Paulinho. Having also purchased other offensive players such as Erikson and Chadli, the lack of goals scored so far this season (9 in 11 games) has been unimpressive.
If you don’t score, you won’t win. It’s a simple enough statement that has never rung truer to Spurs fans as it has right now. In the last 4 seasons we have averaged around 1.6 goals a game - a far cry from the 0.8 we are currently averaging and as we approach 3 difficult games against teams who have scored 2 if not 3 times as many goals as us this season Spurs fans are anxious and becoming divided with their feelings about where the team is headed.
Words such as turgid and awful are being bandied around in describing the football that has been witnessed by the Spurs faithful and anyone who watched the games vs West Ham, Hull, Aston Villa and the first half against Newcastle would be hard pushed to argue. Slow build up play, a lack of dynamic movement, Soldado isolated, Lamela not getting game time and not enough chances being created are all frustrations that are being aired, frustrations that are ever increasing as the slim margin victories have disintegrated into dropped points.
Tottenham fans demand a certain kind of football to be played at the Lane. The free flowing kind where ‘To Dare Is To Do’ and ‘To Do’ is to entertain, to captivate, inspire and most importantly win. We have been blessed in the recent past with players who have encapsulated this ethos and managers who have allowed our football to represent what we want to watch.
But it hasn’t always gone the way we would like it. Often our attacking flair would come at the cost of robust and trustworthy defending rarely resulting in victory in the big games against the big teams. In fact the last trophy we won was under much maligned manager Juande Ramos, who was sacked for failing to produce a victory in our first 8 games of the season following the Carling Cup victory.
AVB this summer (similarly, yet in more extravagant fashion than with Juande) had his talisman sold and was bought a shiny new team to play with. What he is trying to do with this team, however, is vastly different to what we are used to seeing and the current divide between fans centres around whether or not AVB is capable of piecing the rest of this puzzle together. Can he find the balance between the gung-ho and the hard to beat team that will bring silverware to White Hart Lane again? Can he make us contenders in whatever competition we are a part of?
Most would say he now has a squad at his disposal that is capable of becoming contenders. We do. But the transformation we all want to see is not going to happen overnight. Time and time again, we experience managers taking time to get their new squads playing to their full potential. The more experienced Roberto Mancini took over a season to get it right with his new Man City team which consisted of more Premiership proven and world class players that AVB has at his disposal. Even Arsene Wenger struggled just a few years ago too after an upheaval to his offensive squad.
It is obvious for all to see that AVB is yet to get his new offensive unit working seamlessly and some would go as far as to say they can see no improvement since the opening day vs Crystal Palace. Yes we have looked unconvincing at times but to claim that we are not improving is a little wide of the mark.
AVB has been working with practically the same defensive unit for a year now and he has managed to bring a relative stability to an area of our game that for so many years had been our downfall. The freak West Ham game aside we have looked solid at the back and have arguably been the best defensive team in the Premiership, conceding in only 4 out of 11 games whilst allowing only a minimum amount of chances to our opponents. That alone is testament to what AVB is capable of achieving. Spurs have rarely been a team that is hard to beat because of our defence and while we aren’t completely there yet, we are closer than we have been in a while. This is what a little bit of time and a lot of hard work can get you – visible change.
So what for our offensive prowess? When are we going to become the team with the stalwart defence and the dangerous attack? Much to some fans surprise this is what AVB is aiming for. However, it takes time to get players who are as new to each other as they are to the system to play in sync. That instinctive movement and understanding between so many new moving parts will take time. We have had the solidity at the back to protect us while our attack is learning their new trade and that has translated into a few victories where luck may have been the greatest factor in earning the points that we did. But let us not dismiss that we have had the chances to score over twice as many goals as we have done so far.
I'm not talking about Andros Towsend 26 yard pot shots. I’m talking in the area, clear sight on goal chances that have been squandered. AVB’s system of ball retention, high pressing, opposition tempting football does work. We have seen it do so in glimpses and fits and spurts and we have been unlucky not see to more goals produced in the league because of it.
We should have scored against Newcastle and Everton, we should have scored more against Swansea and Cardiff and the reason we didn’t in those games was not because AVB’s system does not work. Watching the highlights again it is apparent that AVB’s system helped create those chances only to see the shot struck at the keeper or wide.
OK - there were still periods of those games where a few too many passes went sideways and we are certainly still not finding Soldado with enough through balls but the evidence is there that we are becoming a team who is capable of definitively beating our opponents. In a month we have gone from a team who has looked a little lucky to come away with the points we did to a team who is unlucky not to have come away with more. Once this system balances out and we start playing with Instinct, I believe we will become a team who makes their own luck and shoves it down the opponent’s throat, suffocating them in defeat.
Having a balanced view is hard after losing another home game, and being patient in such pressurised modern day footballing times is not something that comes so naturally anymore to the average fan. Its just something that we will have to do. AVB is a thoughtful, intelligent man who without question sees the failings we see. We as the fans need to allow him a realistic period of time relative to the amount of new moving parts he has to work with. We all want to see these players fully come together and produce the sum of what their collective parts is be capable of achieving and our next game, away to dangerous at home Man City, will be a test of everyone’s resolve.
So let’s continue to get behind the team in a manner which shows that we have belief in this side, in AVB and in the system he is trying to implement. A bit more patience now may reap bigger rewards down the line. Once the puzzle is complete, AVB’s spurs team will hopefully have blossomed into a team that we all enjoy to watch and other teams fear to oppose.
COYS
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AVB's worst defect is his procrastination in introducing players to the first team. Chiriches was one; Lloris another; Lamela is another prime example. Nobody, even the least knowledgeable person, doesn't understand him. I mean fancy buying a top class player and then taking soooo long to put him in the team. And I don't accept any rubbish excuses that they have to learn the language, too young, etc. I don't think Chiriches speaks any English, but he quickly was up and running. So this excuse with Lamela doesn't hold water.
ReplyDeleteOn being too young, first of all such players were playing already in the first team from where we signed them; and they were playing fantastic football. So what do they have to learn? I don't know if any of readers remember Pele'- he was playing for Brazil national team at the age of 17!
By AVB's way of doing things, if he bought Messi or Ronaldo, he would keep them on the bench at least 3 months!!
Rubbish manager.
Can only agree with above comment,he's rubbish!
ReplyDeleteI agree that Lamela has done enough to earn a start in the side and perhaps if had he started or at least come on in the Newcastle game the result would have been different. But creating chances wasn't entirely the problem in the end. It could also be argued that while Lamela produced a fantastic second half performance against Sheriff he is yet to put together consecutive good performances, something other newbies have done and have been rewarded for. Lamela himself admitted just a few weeks ago that he was still adjusting to moving to the UK and while i agree age is not an issue, different players will need differing adjustment periods. Even our Beast, Sandro, needed to be bedded into the side slowly when he first arrived.
ReplyDeleteI also think introducing Lloris slowly was a calculated move for AVB. What makes Hugo such a dynamic keeper are his 'sweeping' abilities. His slow integration was possibly more to do with the fact that out defence was learning a new system and one AVB may have felt the system was ready to be put into practice Hugo was slowly played more and more often.
Lets see what happens. The next 3 games will tell a lot about this teams abilities.
He's not rubbish, but he IS intransigent and inflexible at the times when he needs to out-think opposing managers. I don't have a problem with his long term aim of getting Spurs to play his system. Eventually, it will slot into place and he and the team will no doubt be vindicated. But, in order not to waste yet another season (whereby our club and squad have missed out on a worthy CL place) he needs to adapt in the face of how other (especially lesser) teams play against us. That is the KEY ..and I would start by playing just ONE holding midfielder at the Lane, not two, which although it gives us greater possession, makes for slow and ineffectual build-up with little imagination in the final third.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree. He has shown some real naivety at times when given a conundrum by the opposition manager mid-game. Id say most notably this season during the Chelsea match when he had no reply for Mata coming on at half time.
ReplyDeleteThat being said he has engineered some pretty impressive victories, (Man City at home last year spring to mind) i am just not so confident that we could come back from being a goal down just yet.
Also we really do need to find a way to break down the teams who come to play with 10 men behind the ball. I think having Danny Rose fit and playing on the left with someone like Chadli above him will see us stretch teams a little more and we will have two overlapping full backs trying to get crosses in.