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Johan Lange - Sporting Director

Muttley said:
I think you're somewhat right to hand some of that off to Frank. However, I still think about natural trust across team mates. I have a feeling that Bents didn't trust Palhinha to let him do the things you say. I have a feeling old father time is catching up with Palhinha in these small moments. He can't shut down space like he did for Fulham a couple of seasons back. He's not got the legs to dominate anyone. Still gives 100% though and has some moments in the match. It's nothing like Dele, Dembele and Eriksen doing their thing and knowing the beast Wanyama would take care of business. Players pick up on these things very naturally just like Bents would be picking up on his own b ody changes post injury.

It's perhaps why the other partnerships without Palhinha seemed to look better. It's also why Xhaka has completely adapted his game to be an effective 33 year old whereas a 30 year old Palhinha is still going through that change. Perhaps Palhinha becomes a better adapted player because of this season. Perhaps he now starts listening to his body.
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Interesting; I'd say that sits even more on Frank not knowing how to deal with a potential situation he might not have anticipated (in itself that'd be poor IMO)...
 
Another little nugget that was buried in that ESPN article was a link to another piece containing a story saying that a fortnight or so ago, Ryan Norys (the club's Chief Revenue Officer) was booked to give a talk somewhere in Texas, in which he was due to tell the assembled audience that we were a "cultural powerhouse" who have redefined what it is to be a football club. The talk was apparently cancelled (for some reason). Are we actually the most incompetently run "big club" in the history of the game right now? Difficult to come up with a counter-argument, if you ask me.
 
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mudshark said:
Another little nugget that was buried in that ESPN article was a link to another piece containing a story saying that a fortnight or so ago, Ryan Norys (the club's Chief Revenue Officer) was booked to give a talk somewhere in Texas, in which he was due to tell the assembled audience that we were a "cultural powerhouse" who have redefined what it is to be a football club. The talk was apparently cancelled (for some reason). Are we actually the most incompetently run "big club" in the history of the game right now? Difficult to come up with a counter-argument, if you ask me.
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There's a million and one reasons that it could have been cancelled that have nothing to do with the club. No need to pile in with stuff that we don't know has anything to do with the club when there's enough brick they've messed up already.
 
DubSpur said:
There's a million and one reasons that it could have been cancelled that have nothing to do with the club. No need to pile in with stuff that we don't know has anything to do with the club when there's enough brick they've messed up already.
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We might have double booked him. Or we mistakenly got him plane tickets to Texas in Queensland, Australia. Or he’d prepared a talk on us being a shi tshow, rather than a ‘cultural powerhouse.’ Or…
 
Muttley said:
I think you're somewhat right to hand some of that off to Frank. However, I still think about natural trust across team mates. I have a feeling that Bents didn't trust Palhinha to let him do the things you say. I have a feeling old father time is catching up with Palhinha in these small moments. He can't shut down space like he did for Fulham a couple of seasons back. He's not got the legs to dominate anyone. Still gives 100% though and has some moments in the match. It's nothing like Dele, Dembele and Eriksen doing their thing and knowing the beast Wanyama would take care of business. Players pick up on these things very naturally just like Bents would be picking up on his own b ody changes post injury.

It's perhaps why the other partnerships without Palhinha seemed to look better. It's also why Xhaka has completely adapted his game to be an effective 33 year old whereas a 30 year old Palhinha is still going through that change. Perhaps Palhinha becomes a better adapted player because of this season. Perhaps he now starts listening to his body.
Click to expand...
Xhaka could evolve his game because the in possession qualities are something he always had. He just tried to use his physicality to much previously, as he's matured he lets the game come to him more and that's where his controller aspect shines more now but it's not something he didn't always have. Mongladbach Xhaka isn't a millions off what we saw of him in his last Arsenal season and onwards.

Whereas Palhinha has never really demonstrated any in possession qualities that would allow him to evolve into another type of player. Its a bit like Wanyama where when they lose that physical nature there isn't a great deal outside of that to fall back on.
 
Bishop said:
Xhaka could evolve his game because the in possession qualities are something he always had. He just tried to use his physicality to much previously, as he's matured he lets the game come to him more and that's where his controller aspect shines more now but it's not something he didn't always have. Mongladbach Xhaka isn't a millions off what we saw of him in his last Arsenal season and onwards.

Whereas Palhinha has never really demonstrated any in possession qualities that would allow him to evolve into another type of player. Its a bit like Wanyama where when they lose that physical nature there isn't a great deal outside of that to fall back on.
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yeah we don't have many smart players, i think dezerbi is going to find it frustrating.
 
thfcsteff said:
Interesting; I'd say that sits even more on Frank not knowing how to deal with a potential situation he might not have anticipated (in itself that'd be poor IMO)...
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Did Frank not deal with it though. It's not like Palhinha was an automatic team selection. We saw constant rotation of Palhinha especially in the CL. Let's be honest. Nobody would have had any theories about these other centre mid partnerships if Frank hadn't have been rotating his midfielders.

What I'm sure we can both agree on is that Frank really struggled to get a tune out of any midfield choice. Not sure I've overly root caused it but have seen the Biss exclusion, the pace that Gray was introduced into the setup, the Bents position (to your point) etc. I've also seen Bergval losing the ball in important areas and Sarr flattering to deceive and probably having his best phase as a number 10. I could write an equivalent story about Ange and midfields. Still a mystery to me how Conte won serie A in a 3-5-2, came to a tougher league and chose 3-4-3. I barely saw any midfield with Hojbjerg in it win the midfield battle. Midfield has been a challenge since 2017 when we had Big Vic, Dembele and Dier sharing duties.

I really hope RDZ can change the record with the midfield. It would be nice to be proud of ours again. It's sort of what 50 somethings like you and I were brought up on right?
 
SissokoWasGood (BoL) said:
This idea of Tottenham being overly reliant on data (seemingly thinking that if we could be a richer Brentford that we will challenge for titles) has been under discussed in the media but I think it is getting more purchase finally. Makes me excited to read everything that’s gonna come out if relegation is confirmed, because it’s going to be a fascinating sports story.
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I agree. But as I am sure you are saying, it's not the use of data per se that is the problem but the lack of recognition of it's limitations and how important context and human factors are to that data. For example, it's important to note the data above about how poor our team is at passing. But a decent coach shouldn't need data to do that- it's obvious to anyone watching us. But that data might be useful in scouting a new player.

The appointment of Igor Tudor is likely to be an example of a decision based on data alone. I am fairly certain that Lange and co didn't really know the guy and there appeared to be little consideration as to the human factors around a team facing relegation and the attributes of the coach needed in those circumstances.
 
Robspur12 said:
The appointment of Igor Tudor is likely to be an example of a decision based on data alone. I am fairly certain that Lange and co didn't really know the guy and there appeared to be little consideration as to the human factors around a team facing relegation and the attributes of the coach needed in those circumstances.
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Data in this case being notes from the handover meeting with Paratici?
 
thfcsteff said:
I think Frank carries a large part of this issue with Lange. He was not interested in that sort of player. So while everyone was saying he 'deserved time', my point was 'time for what? To perfect a style of football which relies in crosses, wide play and set-pieces?
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I don't think that's fair. He signed players for specific roles, Palhinha to give steel in midfield as we had conceded so many goals over the last 3 seasons; Kudus to be that game changing player we lacked with Kulu out; Xavi to cover the loss of Madders. He was looking at other flair players like Eze too.

Look, a lot of fans will want to pin where we are now solely at the door of TF especially as we won the EL last season. My view is that he came into an already wretched situation in the league and couldn't turn it around so was trying make best use of resources at his disposal. I think in Ange's first season we saw the best progression of the ball I've seen for a long time at Spurs and TF couldn't replicate that. But we didn't see that last season either. Moves would often breakdown because of poor passing. And of course the best midfield passer has been injured for the whole of the season. As well as other injuries to offensive minded players, meaning he couldn't develop a settled style.

Plus 3 seasons of conceding 60 plus goals before he arrived was always going to come back and bite us on the a*se in the end, in a league where teams are set up primarily not to lose.

I think RDZ is a very good coach but if he doesn't make us meaner defensively over his time here, even if we survive this season, we could be back here next season.
 
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DubSpur said:
I don't think other partnerships without Palhinha have looked better, there's never been any balance all season.

For me the two CMs should be Palhinha and Gray. Palhinha does nothing beside sit and protect the back 4. Gray with a bit more licence to get forward and is the best passer from deep that we have at the moment. Xavi in front of those two. That looks to have the best balance.
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Palhinha has also been on the scoresheet this season.
 
Robspur12 said:
I don't think that's fair. He signed players for specific roles, Palhinha to give steel in midfield as we had conceded so many goals over the last 3 seasons; Kudus to be that game changing player we lacked with Kulu out; Xavi to cover the loss of Madders. He was looking at other flair players like Eze too.

Look, a lot of fans will want to pin where we are now solely at the door of TF especially as we won the EL last season. My view is that he came into an already wretched situation in the league and couldn't turn it around so was trying make best use of resources at his disposal. I think in Ange's first season we saw the best progression of the ball I've seen for a long time at Spurs and TF couldn't replicate that. But we didn't see that last season either. Moves would often breakdown because of poor passing. And of course the best midfield passer has been injured for the whole of the season. As well as other injuries to offensive minded players, meaning he couldn't develop a settled style.

Plus 3 seasons of conceding 60 plus goals before he arrived was always going to come back and bite us on the a*se in the end, in a league where teams are set up primarily not to lose.

I think RDZ is a very good coach but if he doesn't make us meaner defensively over his time here, even if we survive this season, we could be back here next season.
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Yeah I truly do not understand the idea that our midfield problems started this year. It's been the case ever since the latter Poch era. It's why in his last season he attempted the wholesale change of the midfield with the introduction of both Ndombele and Lo Celso and the apparent intention of moving to a midfield diamond. He knew it was no longer working (fudging Winks and Sissoko of course it bloody wouldn't).

We haven't had a good midfield in a decade. There have been the occasional bright spots, Bentancur's addition springs to mind, but even then I don't recall Conte's midfield winning a single midfield battle, we got outplayed in that area EVERY.SINGLE.MATCH. and even in Ange's first season it wasn't a case of quality technical midfielders controlling the gane it was more based on his structuring, positional play and swamping the opposition rather than individual or even team quality and even then like you say play constantly broke down due to the very obvious technical limitations.
 
Dropped into this thread hoping for a picture of JL carrying his personal belongings in a cardboard box to his car with an even-more-glum-than-usual look on his face.

Disappointed.
 
Muttley said:
Did Frank not deal with it though. It's not like Palhinha was an automatic team selection. We saw constant rotation of Palhinha especially in the CL. Let's be honest. Nobody would have had any theories about these other centre mid partnerships if Frank hadn't have been rotating his midfielders.

What I'm sure we can both agree on is that Frank really struggled to get a tune out of any midfield choice. Not sure I've overly root caused it but have seen the Biss exclusion, the pace that Gray was introduced into the setup, the Bents position (to your point) etc. I've also seen Bergval losing the ball in important areas and Sarr flattering to deceive and probably having his best phase as a number 10. I could write an equivalent story about Ange and midfields. Still a mystery to me how Conte won serie A in a 3-5-2, came to a tougher league and chose 3-4-3. I barely saw any midfield with Hojbjerg in it win the midfield battle. Midfield has been a challenge since 2017 when we had Big Vic, Dembele and Dier sharing duties.

I really hope RDZ can change the record with the midfield. It would be nice to be proud of ours again. It's sort of what 50 somethings like you and I were brought up on right?
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I think Frank's lack of courage cost us, particularly in those areas when he opted not to have a passing midfielder. Bergvall is a high-risk player, however I maintain he was worth the gamble as a deep-lying roving carrier/distributor. I actually thought that was the whole point of Pahlinha, that he would offer insurance for such adventure, and in the end, well, Frank was too risk averse. Players learn by doing, and I think Bergy is a smart enough player to learn fast. Similarly, Bents, but yeah, been discussed :) . In fact, I think the whole reason behind Biss being excluded was precisely that Frank could not trust him to be risk-averse. Sadly, I put it on the manager :-(
 
thfcsteff said:
I think Frank's lack of courage cost us, particularly in those areas when he opted not to have a passing midfielder. Bergvall is a high-risk player, however I maintain he was worth the gamble as a deep-lying roving carrier/distributor. I actually thought that was the whole point of Pahlinha, that he would offer insurance for such adventure, and in the end, well, Frank was too risk averse. Players learn by doing, and I think Bergy is a smart enough player to learn fast. Similarly, Bents, but yeah, been discussed :) . In fact, I think the whole reason behind Biss being excluded was precisely that Frank could not trust him to be risk-averse. Sadly, I put it on the manager :-(
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Biss was excluded because eif his lack of time keeping. I know you dislike Frank but you're forgetting the details.

Bergvall might be worth the risk if he were actually a distributor or a good passer, as yet he's neither so is just a risk in terms of losing possession (he gets dispossessed a LOT).
 
Bishop said:
Biss was excluded because eif his lack of time keeping. I know you dislike Frank but you're forgetting the details.

Bergvall might be worth the risk if he were actually a distributor or a good passer, as yet he's neither so is just a risk in terms of losing possession (he gets dispossessed a LOT).
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Bergvall is not a starter for me yet, neither are Muani and Richy. It’s a sign of how poor our offensive options are currently that they are. Biss on his day, can be a decent player but he’s had personal disciplinary under 2 different managers now. Gray is a starter for me, already showing he is a quality player and will be massive for us. If we go down Gray is one of those players we must keep.
 
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