Football: Still in December

[Heartofice]

Its not exactly new information that he is a short term manager. That is probably what Spurs needed at the time though. Poch's era was falling apart, there had been a distinct lack of investment in the team for a few windows, they had a new documentary coming out, the new stadium was just built and needed paying for.. basically Jose needed to come in and make sure they start winning games again for a year or two. 

Almost certainly it will all turn sour, it always does, but I'd suspect it won't go the way it went at Utd. I think Jose has the backing of the top players in the squad, he's managed to turn around the direction of players like Ndombele despite initially looking like he had ostracised him. He told Kane he'd make him into a better player and get him to win things, and he seems to be on course for that. He has also had good backing from Levy so far, with some really astute purchases. 

Also remember it hasn't always just been Jose that has been the problem when he's left. Chelsea didn't back him a couple of times and thats when it started going wrong, I don't think he really got the players he wanted at Utd and even now it's pretty obvious their recruitment is garbage and badly set up.

[Consigliere]

Mourinho had the backing of all the players at United for the first two seasons. Mourinho also did get the players he wanted (for the most part) at United. Managers don't always get their first choice targets. Even Guardiola and Klopp don't always get their first choice targets but that doesn't mean they aren't being backed. People seem to have forgotten that in 2017/2018 we were playing better than Spurs are now - our counter attacking was better and our defending was better. At the same stage we had more points, scored more goals and conceded half as many - we regressed as the season went on though. The difference which makes it seem as though Spurs are doing better is that there is no team demolishing the league this season.

 

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

8 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Kudos to Jones and Williams.  Two teenagers stepping up despite being third and fifth string respectively for their positions.  But doing really well considering their inexperience and stage of development.

I think this assessment is wrong, at least with regards to Jones. Reading between the lines, and looking at his appearences starting towards the end of last season, I think Klopp considers him as a first team player, and not just as kid anymore. His position is probably somewhat similar to Foden's at City a few years ago. I can elaborate on it a bit.

This goes a bit into how Klopp views first team games for young players. There's one way to look at it, give young players games, so they can learn from the experience. So first team games as a tool to imrpove them. Klopp's position on that matter seems to be fundamentally different. He thinks those games have to be earnt, by showing improvements in training. For him those are milestones, or the very aim youngsters works for, throughout their academy years and beyond, to play first team football and earn the right to call themselves Premier League player. [Not giving away games like candy, was the phrase he used with regards to those dead rubber games towards the end of the season, I believe]. Ofc, with the injuries at the defense, there's very possibly a game or two to be earnt a bit earlier right now. But like I said, Jones had earnt his first EPL games towards the end of last season, when Klopp was not really in a rush to play him. So yeah, I don't think Jones is in the same category as Williams.

4 hours ago, baxus said:

The problem I have with Spurs is that they have the players to play a more entertaining and attractive kind of football even with a pretty solid defensive play. I mean, Liverpool played pretty cool football to watch over the last couple of seasons and still had one of the best defensive records in the Premier League. One does not exclude the other.

Hum, I think a certain scouser around here would not describe Liverpool's football that way.

1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

There wasn't much complaint about style when he won trophies with us. The point though is that Mourinho's negativity becomes a liability very quickly. I'm sure Spurs fans are happy with Mourinho right now because he's winning but all it takes is a downturn in results for his negative football to start receiving criticism and that's the point at which Mourinho's toxic nature comes to the fore and makes things worse. 

Salty Mourinho is best Mourinho. The meltdown is always spectacular. I am not sure, what a Spurs brand of football traditionally was/is. Real and United had more of a pedigree of a more attacking football. Ok, United is more in a identity crisis, which looks like they are not entirely sure what kinda team they aspire to be. But that's again beating that dead horse with the seemingly random appointments of managers with different playing styles/philosophies, and the lack of an overarching vision. Solskjaer also does not have a distinct signature as a manager, so also not sure what he actually want(s)/ed to do with that squad of his.

[Consigliere]

I'm not sure United had an identity of attacking football. I think that perception just comes from people looking at Ferguson's time with rose tinted glasses. Fergie was the ultimate pragmatist - he did not really have a hardened philosophy on how a team should play. He didn't really have a preference for possession-based or counter-attacking football. Whatever got the job done.

[Iskaral Pust]

@A Horse Named Stranger I think Jones has taken advantage of an injury crisis to establish himself as a viable member of the MF rotation.  But let’s be realistic that going into this season the pecking order for MF spots was (give or take) Fabinho, Hendo, Gini, Thiago, Ox, Keita, Milner, Jones, Shaqiri.  Jones had basically replaced Lallana’s role in the squad.  I think the additional development opportunity of playing so much, plus his fitness reliability so far, has pushed him up that list.  But if everyone was fit, he wouldn’t even make the bench in most games. 

He’s definitely closer to the team than Williams.  That’s why I used third vs. fifth string.  Williams was on loan at non-league Kidderminster last year.  He was nowhere in the pecking order at the start of the season, but he grabbed his chance when Koumetio and Van Den Berg were both injured.

BTW: Klopp got flak in the summer for not having renewed an aging MF, especially as he added Thiago as another MF over 30.  But considering his original MF rotation was Hendo, Gini, Milner and Lallana, he actually did go out and recruit over two years a next gen MF that are all 4-5 years younger.  That was Fabinho, Ox, Keita and Shaqiri.  But only Fabinho has been reliably healthy. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Thiago was/is simply another kind of midfielder Liverpool didn't have in their squad. That deep lying playmaker, who could unlock defenses with his passing range. That is something you didn't have - and why I wasn't exactly sure how he would fit into Klopp's football. Fabinho's role is basically cleaning up before the defense, basically what Kante does best. I am not sure what the exact plans for Ox and Shaqiri was/is. I'd think they were originally designed for further up the pitch. With Shaqiri as a winger, and Ox either as winger or Firmino rotation option. Keita is really a box-to-box player. Not sure what you lot did to him, that he is now more or less permanently injured. While at Leipzig he was virtually injury free, I think.

[Wilbur]

Keita's national team manager insists on using him to play every minute of every game that the international calendar throws up, and he usually comes back from international duty crocked.

[ljkeane]

Ox is meant to be a more attacking/box to box option in midfield. He's been intermittently excellent for us there but unfortunately keeps getting injured just as he looks like he might cement a starting place. I think Shaqiri was bought to be a reserve option for the front three but he tends to look a lot better playing in midfield. The problem is playing him there doesn't work with the usual set up so requires a change in formation/style of play.

Jones they obviously rated as a prospect coming into the season but without the injury crisis he'd be getting 10 or 20 minute cameos at the end of game not starting in top of the table clashes. Fair play to him though he looks to be really taking his chance.

3 hours ago, Heartofice said:

The problem with this argument is that parking the bus is working. He's played all the big sides and was top of the league, he was a last minute goal away from a draw with Liverpool and could justly say he could have won it. Being more proactive would only make sense as an argument if his current tactics weren't working. 

I think the issue for Spurs in not necessarily that they're a defensive side playing on the counterattack, it's that it's working at the moment because Son and Kane are operating at an absolutely insane level of efficiency. That's almost certainly not going to be sustainable over the course of the season so Mourinho's going to have to find a way to get some of the other players contributing in attack at least a bit.

[Iskaral Pust]

7 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

 

I think the issue for Spurs in not necessarily that they're a defensive side playing on the counterattack, it's that it's working at the moment because Son and Kane are operating at an absolutely insane level of efficiency. That's almost certainly not going to be sustainable over the course of the season so Mourinho's going to have to find a way to get some of the other players contributing in attack at least a bit.

I feel like that has always under-pinned Mourinho’s success.  His first Chelsea team relied on Drogba and Robben to dominate isolated defenders on counter-attacks.  Drogba was often battling two CBs and coming out on top.  Then his Inter success relied on Milito and Etoo being incredibly productive on counter-attacks.  At Real he had a more dominant squad, especially domestically, but against strong opponents he still relied on BBC to produce goals in front of the rest of the team that played more to control the game.  Returning to Chelsea saw him lean heavily on Costa and Hazard for outsized production without much support (Costa’s battling style seemed to recall Drogba).

If Kane or Son get injured or lose form then his approach is suddenly at risk.  He plays the odds but needs peak strikers to nudge the odds in his favor.  He doesn’t have any other way to generate goals from the team if that falls away.

[polishgenius]

1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

I think that perception just comes from people looking at Ferguson's time with rose tinted glasses. Fergie was the ultimate pragmatist - he did not really have a hardened philosophy on how a team should play. He didn't really have a preference for possession-based or counter-attacking football. Whatever got the job done.

 

All this is pretty true - Fergie tended to build squads based around the best one or two of the players he had already, whatever their strengths happened to be, and fill the gaps in based on personality as much as anything else, the only thing really consistent throughout his time was his consistent attempts to get the next Eric Cantona - but in fairness even at his most counter-attacky Fergie was never even close to as defensive as Jose sides are.

The frustration of right now is that Spurs, as Baxus mentioned, almost certainly do have the players to be more entertaining than they are and still retain defensive solidity. They can decry the chances they missed last night all they want, but they didn't have to have gone balls-to-the-wall attack to have counter-attacked more than they did and got a lot more chances.

 

8 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

If Kane or Son get injured or lose form then his approach is suddenly at risk.  He plays the odds but needs peak strikers to nudge the odds in his favor.  He doesn’t have any other way to generate goals from the team if that falls away.

And we already know Kane burns out at least once in every season.

[Heartofice]

I think a lot of sides have that problem though. You could turn around and say that Liverpool would really struggle if you remove Salah and Mane and I think they would. They have managed to do pretty well with injuries to key players like VVD but without those two I think it would be very different. 

You are right though, Spurs really don't have the squad depth to replace those two players. Potentially you could see Bale as a replacement for Son but if and when Kane gets injured they really don't have a decent replacement for him. Son is not the same player in that position at all. 

 

[polishgenius]

6 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

You could turn around and say that Liverpool would really struggle if you remove Salah and Mane and I think they would.

 

This is obviously true but with Spurs/Mourinho in general it's not just if you remove them. Salah and Mane are both able - and do- have runs where they're not at their absolute best but Liverpool have the support system for them that they still do fine, and how they play doesn't change a great deal. Isk's point is that Mourinho's teams rely so heavily on the front one or two being at their absolute peak to create threat and position that if their form drops the team just get nailed back into their own half.

[ljkeane]

5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

You are right though, Spurs really don't have the squad depth to replace those two players. Potentially you could see Bale as a replacement for Son but if and when Kane gets injured they really don't have a decent replacement for him. Son is not the same player in that position at all. 
 

It's not even replacing them though. Son is currently finishing at a better than Messi rate in terms of goals from shots taken. Kane's on pace to absolutely demolish the Premier League assists record and get 25 plus goals. I feel confident in saying they aren't going to keep that up. They're going to need some contributions from the rest of the side in attack.

I agree with Isk that Mourinho's best sides have always relied on a big contribution from top class forwards but Spurs need to get it to a level were Kane and Son need to have excellent seasons rather than superhuman ones for them to win the league.

[Heartofice]

Just now, ljkeane said:

It's not even replacing them though. Son is currently finishing at a better than Messi rate in terms of goals from shots taken. Kane's on pace to absolutely demolish the Premier League assists record and get 25 plus goals. I feel confident in saying they aren't going to keep that up. They're going to need some contributions from the rest of the side in attack.

I agree with Isk that Mourinho's best sides have always relied on a big contribution from top class forwards but Spurs need to get it to a level were Kane and Son need to have excellent seasons rather than superhuman ones for them to win the league.

I think the improvement in Son and Kane's output is very specific to the system that Mourinho is playing, which is designed to get the best of them. They have also been clearly drilled to react to situations in specific ways, if you watch the movement of any of their goals, it is part of a structured set up. I think what would prevent them carrying on that level of output would be for other teams to start clocking onto what they are doing and find a counter to it. 

You'd assume that would happen, yet Leicester won the prem with a pretty simple form of play that teams really struggled to find an answer to for a whole season.

[polishgenius]

5 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I think the improvement in Son and Kane's output is very specific to the system that Mourinho is playing, which is designed to get the best of them. They have also been clearly drilled to react to situations in specific ways, if you watch the movement of any of their goals, it is part of a structured set up

 

It is very much the case and to Mourinho's credit that he's essentially for the first time got Kane and Son using each other's specific strengths rather than putting in lots of good will and effort on the same side but almost separately, but like you say, it can only last so long- at some point if nothing else teams are going to be prepared enough to start slapping someone right in Kane's face every time he drops off and they'll need another route to get Son in behind.

 

8 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

You'd assume that would happen, yet Leicester won the prem with a pretty simple form of play that teams really struggled to find an answer to for a whole season.

 

While true and Leicester did get lucky that Mahrez in particular kept it up (Vardy's since proved more consistent) but they also weren't relying almost exclusively on each other, nor playing at the absurdly efficient level the Spurs pair are right now. Four-fifths of Spurs' goals so far have been scored by the pair of them and about two thirds assisted. That wasn't true of Leicester- for them it was about two-thirds goals and a quarter assisted by the leading pair.

[Consigliere]

I don't see Spurs winning the league - they might pick up one or two cups though. Liverpool have demonstrated that they are the best team in the league  - even with all the injuries, they dominated Spurs and were the better side against City earlier in the season. Spurs won't be pulling a Leicester since there were no teams in the league in 2015/2016 anywhere close to the level Liverpool are now (or City for that matter even though they're having a poor season up to now).

 

 

[The Sunland Lord]

United can overcome Spurs and be on -2 from Liverpool after tonight's win.

Wonder if Leicester will fall into Mourinho's trap like Arsenal and City did or they'll try a different approach.

I know it's early, but Liverpool are too strong not to win the league again.