When we beat City in January we were one point behind them and were playing entertaining football. People are getting way too giddy over Postecoglou's new manager bounce. The way he persisted with the same suicidal tactics with 9 men was reminiscent of how we played at Anfield in the second half last season.
Ange Postecoglou | New Spurs boss on 4 year contract
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) was joined by comedian Ali Woods to look back at the best and worst moments of a rollercoaster season with the annual United Hour Awards.
Has Ten Hag been sacked yet? We're not sure and we hope not, but it's looking more likely as the days pass.
Who should replace him and why is it taking so long to make a decision?
At first, I wanted to call it brave but on second thought it was foolish. Chelsea were so incompetent they could have easily sat back and hit them on the break. Chelsea didn't look like scoring with anything resembling a low block.
Yes I'd wonder what the narrative would be with the commentators and journalists had they played a more clinical team tonight.That is actually hilarious when they word it like that
If Chelsea weren't so woeful in attack, it could have been double figures.
I think pushing the backline up is fine if the front line goes too. Otherwise you're basically just daring the opposition to play it over you. At a few points their entire team was sandwiched between the half way line and ten yards in front of it.
I really like him.
I'd take him at United in a heartbeat.
I'd take him at United in a heartbeat.
That season after a bright start in the league before Cleverley injury a few games before the thrashing defeat at home to City, we went on 7 games out of 8 scoring 1 goals. In the mix was CL games against opener game against Benfica, and especially the infamous Basel game where we played for a draw and deservedly eliminated! In EL Second leg against Ajax in EL was horrible display. Enough said about both games against Bielsa's Bilbao. The season was riddled with good defensive performance and clinical finishing, and negative football. Zombie passing men was not only started in SAF final season.
Real Madrid had German clubs especially Bayern as their bogeyman until Ancelotti Real Madrid thrashed Pep's Bayern. Mourinho playing safe and got backfired was the reason their 2 CL elimination against Bayern and Dortmund still hurt despite their latter very successful CL haul. CL was there for their taking and they're overall better than that version of Bayern and Dortmund.
That was not true if you look at the first half when Chelsea got Spurs pinned back. Notably the disallowed goal and the red card for Romero sequence.
That strategy was fecking stupid. Make Chelsea earn it don't just allow them to try and play thru balls that a fecking youth team could accomplish
This is not comparable. Our players gave up and no tactical change would wake them up to damage control. Our players didn't come out of that second half without any spirit. They were defeated at the end of the first half. They didn't try to play any kind tactic: Shaw poor defensive work to cover for Martinez for one of the conceding goal as example.
Tottenham showed belief in the tactic and had a decent chances to come back into the game until the third goal. Remember that they lost 4 starters (3 of which in the defense without natural replacement) due to different circumstances during the game on top of 2 men down.
I wouldn't say they were pinned back. A stupid giveaway in their own end lead to that exchange. Chelsea looked largely toothless before that point.
Horrendous strategy, and people are calling it "brave". The Ange love in is getting ridiculous. 
Grass is always greener for some cretons.Horrendous strategy, and people are calling it "brave". The Ange love in is getting ridiculous.
I don’t know why he’s getting so much praise for those suicide tactics. There’s nothing brave or admirable about a high line on the halfway line with 9 men. That’s just stupidity.Horrendous strategy, and people are calling it "brave". The Ange love in is getting ridiculous.
He's the new Bielsa.
Cool. It's all well and good believing in the manager's daft tactics, however most top half PL clubs with a decent finisher would've finished that game on double figures (4-1 was very kind to Spurs). Liverpool's xg against United was a lot lower than Chelsea's tonight. The fact that most pissheads around me at the pub were all saying the same thing throughout most of the second half ("why don't they sit a few yards deeper?!") says a lot about Postecoglu's tactical naivety. We could all see it a mile off and he failed to address it.
Yeah, agreed. Chelsea has struggled all year to score goals, especially against organized defenses. Just put nine behind the ball and defend for 30 minutes like Liverpool almost pulled off against Spurs.
I think Ange's insistence on never changing tactics will get stress tested pretty hard over the next few matches with Romero out for three games and Van de Ven likely out for substantially more than that. City will absolutely murder them if they play the same aggressive high line football with a Dier/Davies partnership and Villa might too.
It's doing my head in. He's had a few lucky wins along the way and then on paper he got hammered by Chelsea who have struggled to get goals.Horrendous strategy, and people are calling it "brave". The Ange love in is getting ridiculous.
Parking the bus with 9 men and Emerson Royal and Dier as your starting CBs sounds like an excellent strategy tbf.Horrendous strategy, and people are calling it "brave". The Ange love in is getting ridiculous.
There are tactical methods of defending with 9 men that sit somewhere in between defending on the half way line and parking the bus.
Share them please.
Also share the teams that have successfully deployed such tactics.
Liverpool vs Spurs a few weeks ago. Up until Matip booting the ball into his own net in the last minute of stoppage time, they rode the wave pretty well.
Disclaimer: there aren't many examples of PL teams drawing when it's 11 men vs 9 men.
This. Any other manager would be taken to task for being wreckless and naive, yet he’s been lauded for being brave despite getting trashed by a side who struggle to score goals. They had several other chances to score too but only a very poor forward line kept the score to 4.
I think he’s rode his luck quite a bit but that really ran out in a significant way last night, even though that first Romero red card incident was a pretty terrible call that went Spurs’ way too.
To be honest when we played Spurs at Spurs we had the better of that game up until Bruno missed a sitter of a header. After that they edged it for the rest of the match and put their chances away, but for the first 35 minutes we dominated them. I’ve watched them a few times this season and they play with amazing energy and are extremely front foot forward, which is fun to watch, so I don’t begrudge them their relative success to this point. But……they are going to get found out. They’ve ridden their luck a fair few times in matches that could, and maybe even should have gone against them, and today they were horribly exposed. They easily could’ve lost by a cricket score.
The fun, front foot forward type play is all well and good but there is something terribly naive about how they play and once teams properly figure them out, they are going to have a few bad days at the office. It is like when Scolari first joined Chelsea and he won the first ten games in a row. Then teams figured them out and they fell apart. I’m not saying that will definitely happen here, but it has that sort of feel about it. So much of what they did today was self inflicted and suicidal. Every fan watching knew exactly how to exploit them once they went down to 10, and lo and behold that’s exactly how they were torn apart.
Be interesting to see how they cope without Romero the Butcher and Van der Ven. But there’s also a lot you look at in that team and can admire. The athleticism in CM with Bissouma and Sarr is something I envy. The same at full back. I generally think Porro is a fecking terrible player but it’s amazing what Ange has gotten out of him. Udogie, whilst being guilty of a brain dead performance today, has been generally brilliant for them. So many intense energy down that flank. Sort of full back I would kill for at United.
https://understat.com/league/EPL/2023
https://understat.com/league/EPL/2022
That's not a lot lower.
I am not sure you understand the overall idea about how xG is calculated. I meant you're aware penalty has high xG value, and the 3 other goals Chelsea got are tap in right?
If you have the stomach for it, rewatch and count the number of blockers beside DDG in fifth, sixth and seventh goal, and you got the idea why xG stats may be low. Not that it's not easy shooting angle for Liverpool.
Nobody in their right mind would think a full eleven conceding 7 goals and using xG against them to justify it as any sort of better defensive tactic, when Liverpool entered our box for fun.
Please explain it is then in detail.
Else this is what it looks like: with 9 men, the more you set your defensive line back, the more playing space in front of the defensive line you allow your opposition. Unless you park the bus, and actually use all your 8 outfield men to block shot and give up any counter attack intent; a middle block is more dangerous than those two options: still a lot space to run in behind with more time and better angle to spread the pass.
Also remember after Udogie sent off, Tottenham ended up with Hojberg as CB, Emerson play as LB instead of his natural position. That's already more difficult than when Liverpool went down to 9 men against Tottenham earlier this season and went to back 5 system with all 5 defenders playing in their natural positions.
Why you take opinion of pissheads as correct? You already know they're not thinking straight.
I think the final result of 4-1 obscures how the actual game played out. Spurs were well in this until the 93rd minute when Chelsea made it 3-1, even with 9 men. Dier had the ball in the back of the net, but was offside, Son missed a good chance, and how Bentancur didn't score I don't know. Would any of those chances come about if they had just sat back in a defensive block at 2-1 down?
man some miserable folks in this thread. Ange loses one game and the pitchforks our out from resident armchair tacticians.
It's funny to see the hate for this guy on here. Posite-Coglou vs Anti- Couglou
Drawing any conclusions or Overanalyzing a performance once a team went down to 9 men is bonkers to be honest , whether you believe what Postecoglou did was brave or in the camp who believe it was naive and stupid thing is you are reading too much into it either way .
If Chelsea hadn't been useless in front of goal, he would have had his first 0-7
He basically decided not to give his team the highest chance of salvaging a point from the game after going down to 9 men. They probably would've lost even if they sat back but with keeping his high line he was basically willing to let Chelsea score 6-7 goals, or even more
He's a good manager but today he made an objectively stupid decision
Oh, and they'll be 20+ pts off the title in May, so hopefully that conversation dies down soon
He's a good manager but today he made an objectively stupid decision
Oh, and they'll be 20+ pts off the title in May, so hopefully that conversation dies down soon
Is that some hipster term now? The love child of a cretin and a crouton?
I don’t quite get this comment. Do you think having them try and defend on the half way line made it better? Is it not easier to defend as a defender, no matter who you are, to defend play in front of you, rather than having to defend constantly chasing back towards your own goal?
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Now the real test comes when they would be without VdV, Romero, Udogie in the next game. James Maddison may be potentially out injured too. Still a bit lucky for them that they only play that one game before international break. Before playing Aston Villa, Man City, West Ham, Newcastle.
Give it time. I have seen enough of them here. These flip flops will flip flop soon. He’s flavour of the month right now. Give it some time.Horrendous strategy, and people are calling it "brave". The Ange love in is getting ridiculous.
After 1 game where they had 9 men?
We are going to see if Ange is the real deal now. They've been riding a Solskjaer -esque wave but now they've got some serious suspensions and a few injuries we will see what they're really made of. My feeling is Spurs are going to drop off quite heavily - they have had a couple of somewhat fluky results to keep them where they are right now - but we will see.
Ange could be the real deal even with drop off that might happen despite his full squad being available let alone that might be caused by injuries and suspensions .
Tottenham simply don't have the players that can sustain their early season form even with every body fit and firing they simply aren't that good and that can't be used as criticism of their manager .
If Tottenham end up with 70+ points while playing good progressive football with decent system in place going forward then it should be considered job well done .
They were never going to be title contenders. They had an easy run of games where they've scraped wins agains Sheffield Utd, Luton, Palace, 9 men Liverpool. I know people are praising them for their spirit yesterday, but they completely lost the plot under the slightest pressure in a completely winnable game for them and they ended up losing 1-4.
The next few games (Wolves, Aston Villa, Man City, West Ham, Newcastle) will be brutal and I expect them to drop back into 4th/5th where they'll be fighting for the rest of the season.
The next few games (Wolves, Aston Villa, Man City, West Ham, Newcastle) will be brutal and I expect them to drop back into 4th/5th where they'll be fighting for the rest of the season.