again.
Two trips to Craven Cottage this season for Ange ad a couple of embarrassments as Fulham follow up their League Cup penalties victory with a crushing 3-0 win in the league and some are really baffled.
How could Spurs beat fourth place Villa and then be crushed by 12th place Fulham?
Said that people who thought the United Liverpool games was the greatest FA Cup game ever. Yeah, look at the exciting last few minutes and just ignore the rubbish that went before as United crumbled then Liverpool thought they had it won so didn’t much bother.
And that was the Villa game. Spurs were crap for the first 45 minutes against Villa followed up by being crap for the near 40 minutes between the second goal just after the break and the third goal in added time the following fourth goal just totally glossed over the rubbish.
People also don’t understand why what they did in the first half of the season isn’t working any more.
Because Spurs are 28 games into the season. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice. Teams have wised up to how you combat Angeball. Pack the middle of the park and attack wide. It’s not rocket surgery or brain science.
With the fullbacks pulled in and up front, the inverted wingers coming inside, they just pack that middle area and there’s no space for the likes of Maddison. Son up front, which so many screamed for, doesn’t touch the ball. Then you add in the arrogance of a team that think just because they beat Villa, then Fulham lads. So we get that sloppy display of miscontrol and wayward passes.
You either play your wingers on the correct wing and tuck your fullbacks in, or play inverted wingers and overlap your fullbacks. You can’t expect inverted wingers and tucked in fullbacks to work any more. It caught ’em off guard a few months back but what worked for a whole season in Scotchland is found out quite quickly in a far superior league.
So it came as no surprise when Fulham took the lead after a clueless display by the visitors. And they did so in a way which should show Ange but by the fact he didn’t change anything at the break he chose to ignore. Played wide on a quick break the fullback kept his width before putting in an early perfect cross for the striker to open the scoring.
Fulham were doing everything right, doing what Spurs just seem to refuse to do. Get wide, get behind, get crosses in. No, tap tap tap, inside lose ball, seemed their proffered method.
Now in previous games Spurs after a woeful first half performance have upped their game – Ange doesn’t get the same criticism for being a one half team that Conte did – but four minutes in and again a fullback was wide and playing in an early cross and a it leads to a goal.
Still Ange did nothing, as a few minutes later we were back in good old Omniclusterfuckshambles Spurs country as they coughed up a goal from a corner. An hour on the clock Fulham had three goals. Spurs had one shot on target.
It took Ange another 5 minutes before he finally made changes. Again head scratchers. Bissouma, yes but why Sarr and Maddison? Well, the last one was because he will do anything, absolute anything before taking Kulusevski off. The swede moved centrally, with Johnson now on the right, you know that position in which he’s looked at his best but Ange doesn’t seem to want to play him in until he has no other option.
Not that long ago Ange said his team trained for one winger to put a cross in for it to be met by the other winger at the back post. If that’s the case why did it take until the 70th minute before this happened. Johnson’s cross missed by Werner. Yes, that’s the Werner we know, not that one that can score. Christ it was a sitter.
Hell it could have been 4-0 before that chance, but VAR came to the rescue.
But it’s no coincidence that Spurs look better when Johnson is on the right, when Son is on the left. The front selection should be Richy up front, Son left, Maddison central and Johnson right. But atht would mean benching Kulusevski and we know that’s not going to happen – what does the Swede have on the Greek Aussie?
Dragusin made his first start and was getting the stick, but he wasn’t exactly helped by anyone else was he, yes Romero put in some challenges but no one stopped crosses getting in and no one from midfield was doing any tracking back. No he wasn’t as bad as people were making out.
They got lucky with Villa only managing a draw, still have a game in hand and will have another one with the City game being postponed. But games in hand mean nothing for Spurs, you might as well just write them off.
Dear fans, actually have a look at how they’ve played say since the Wolves loss. Look how they’ve got away with it a few times and admit to yourself that it’s not working and if it wasn’t for Vicario making all those saves it could very well be mid-table no matter what Ange got angry about with that reporter over one step forward, one step back.