Who next for Spurs if Nuno goes? Send your thoughts on that or anything else to theeditor@football365.com…
Who would want the Tottenham job?
Levy may not want to work with Nuno, but what top manager would want to work with him?
I realize there are only 20 jobs available in the english top flight and thousands of people that would kill for that job.
But out of the 20 jobs, the expectations are more outsized compared ot reality than nearly any other.
Consider that you may not get the players you want, and if you do, it will be after pissing off some other chairman and at the very last minute.
The current squad is full of players who feel they are underpaid, and/or want out, and/or are not top 6 material, with a few delightful exceptions (Son!)
For all the grief Nuno gets, the overlap of managers that would do a better job AND be willing to work with Levy feels like a small list indeed. If you look at the talent level of the back 4, you might also decide you need to shield them with two CDMs also. Then since you’re short up top let Kane and Son try to perform magic every week, which feels like the plan for the last three seasons anyway across multiple managers.
In any case, Nuno may or may not have to go, but it’s hard to imagine whoever being willing to take the job will do much better with the talent on hand and the wages and future transfer budgets on offer.
Dan, New Jersey Neutral
Kane’s slump
Listening to the Sunday supplement and Jamie O’hara (I know, I know) he was saying that Harry Kane’s head has gone and ‘who can blame him’.
Also ‘what do you expect from the man’
Are people just accepting this, without any sort of criticism? Just because he is England captain?
If he was a foerin the knives would be out.
J (Belfast)
F365 Says: Spurs must face up to the reality of how badly they’re being managed
Still #Oleout
Oh good, Ole has now changed his system and chucked in 5 defenders and 2 midfielders doing their worst impression of DMs, just to save his job. Smart right? No, not so much. Where was this ability to change systems when it wasn’t working before. When was the last time he even used this formation (RB Leipzig 3-2 Loss in the UCL Group Stage). Now that he’s changed systems, what happens to the players he bought and don’t fit into this system? Well Donny fits anywhere in midfield but Fred the Fake Brazilian is obviously better than a ballon d’or nominee so that’s out the window. What about Sancho? Mhh how do you fit a winger here. Mhh, you tell me. Maybe you can convert him into a LWB or RWB and start telling the young lad he has to track back now cause that’s his job. Well looks like he’ll be warming the bench too for a while, at least he has a bench buddy. Lets go deeper into other young signings whose careers we’re about to ruin, Amad Diallo and Facundo Pellistri. Oh wow, 2 more young wingers. But, but Ole promotes and gives youth a chance? Oh wait, what was the average age of the team that won? Around 28? Nah, get this Joker out of our club, beating a Spurs who have a manager who is just as clueless is nothing to celebrate. Willy Wonka fans will say support him and yet they were among the thousands that walked out last week. Make up your mind, you either back him or don’t. #OleOut
Anon
A week in football
1 week ago
We tonked Man U and pundits were acclaiming us as odds-on favorites to clinch the (E)PL title. Ole was being metaphorically frogmarched out, and numerous successors were listed.
1 week on
We gained 1 point on Man U over 2 games, dropped another 2 points from a winning position (to add to the 4 we dropped against Brentford and City), and Chelski methodically finish their business yet again.
Race status
In a game between fragile Man U / Arsenal and inept Spurs / Leicester, the inept win and are now just 3 points out of a UCL place.
It’s a season where City schooled Chelski but inexplicably lost to Spurs and Palace. LFC haven’t lost but have trouble winning (welp). Chelski continue to methodically pick up points whilst looking impregnable at the back.
We weren’t favorites for the title last week, and we aren’t this week either.
It’s going to be a long smashing season with lots of drama ahead.
But one thing’s for sure, this will NOT be Man U’s year. Or Arsenal’s. Or Spurs’.
Gab YNWA
#Olein: an ester of glycerol and oleic acid; the liquid portion of a fat.
Sounds… decidedly oily.
Smith out
The ref did us. But Smith will lose his job.
2-0 up to Wolves a few weeks back and probably out of a job now. Football eh.
Paul
The Moyesiah
If David Moyes keeps Man Utd out of the Champions League spots this season, will that be the greatest act of revenge in the history of football?
Robert, Birmingham.
…Simple question for fans of Citeh, Chelsea, and liverpool since we are seeing a resurgence of love for Moyes with West Ham doing so well at the moment:
If Pep, Klopp, or Tuchel were forced to leave suddenly would you have Moyes in as a replacement?
Israel (MUFC since 1977)
City with a sibling who won’t share
Football as escapism is a bit of a cliche but I’m sure most people will understand that Saturday’s result was a ray of sunshine after a long week in which my son has been suffering with the Rona.
*The last 51 Premier League games at the Etihad have seen just two wins for the away team, and on both occasions, it was Crystal Palace. What’s even more remarkable is how different those two Palace teams are: just five players appeared in both fixtures, under two managers with widely different preferred tactics.
That said, Patrick Vieira’s main changes to his team were with defensive focus in mind. Cheikhou Kouyate came into midfield, presumably because of his previous experience of playing centre-back, while a front three that didn’t include Christian Benteke hinted at intense pressing of the opposition defenders.
*Playing Wilfried Zaha in the middle of the forward line, with two more experienced centre-forwards either side of him, was probably a surprise, but the opportunity was there to torment Ruben Dias and Aymeric Laporte.
If it was a gamble, it was one that paid off spectacularly. Laporte was dispossessed by Conor Gallagher, whose interplay with Zaha created a scoring chance for the Ivorian. His shot was underhit but placed beyond Ederson’s reach.
*Laporte’s afternoon went from bad to worse later on. Unable to cope with Zaha’s trickery, the Basque defender hauled him down and received a red card for his troubles. Given that Laporte used his arms, he wasn’t attempting to win the ball fairly, and if he hadn’t committed the foul, Zaha would have had a reasonable chance to score, so it’s understandable why the referee decided to end Laporte’s participation.
*Pep Guardiola may not have been the first manager in English football to preach high pressing, but he and his team did not like being beaten at their own game. This made it all the funnier that Palace, and Vicente Guaita in particular, began time wasting early on, to compound the misery. Guardiola’s discussions with the fourth official increasingly took on the air of a small child complaining that their sibling is not sharing their toys.
This approach certainly translated to his players. Following the red card, Manchester City’s remaining players lost their cool completely, queuing up to have a go at Zaha. Bernardo Silva’s foul was amusingly gratuitous, and Ederson shoving him in the face while looking for all the world like he was peacekeeping was precisely the sort of snide play many of Guardiola’s critics hold up as justification for their dislike.
*Once they’d calmed down and decided to have a go at playing football, Manchester City took hold of the game, and had an equaliser ruled out for offside. There was some poetic justice that it was Gabriel Jesus, one of the main instigators of needless trouble with Zaha.
*For most of the game, despite not having a lot of possession, Palace did a great job of keeping their opponents at bay. Tyrick Mitchell and Joel Ward, an academy graduate and a veteran, were masterful against players such as Jack Grealish, signed for more than 200 times what Palace paid for Ward. In a similar situation against the Arsenal, Vieira sought to protect the lead by bringing on an extra centre-back, James Tomkins. This time, he did almost the complete opposite, replacing Kouyate with Michael Olise. It was a risk, but one worth taking provided the defence held firm – had Manchester City equalised, they would have been favourites to win; the more they pushed, the more likely there would be opportunities to counter.
*When it came, the goal was wonderful. Gallagher won the ball on the edge of his own area and passed to Olise, who set off up field before combining with Zaha. He held the ball in the penalty area unchallenged for 5.63 seconds waiting for Gallagher to arrive, before passing to Olise, who teed the ball up so the Chelsea loanee could put the result beyond doubt.
*A fantastic afternoon of football, three fully-deserved points, earned through the manager’s tactics and the players’ performances. Non-elite teams attempting possession football leads to lots of draws, often dropping points from winning positions, which can lead to frustration. For Palace fans, however, this has been mediated by the evidence that we are developing something, that we are making progress, and results like Saturday are the perfect evidence of it.
*Crystal Palace’s abilities to slip up in games when they’re favourites and beat underdogs is unrivalled in the Premier League, and is one of the main things keeping the competition interesting. No wonder the ESL lot don’t want to have to play them anymore.
Ed Quoththeraven
Evans and VAR
I’m sorry, but I can’t have it that VAR was right in not overturning that Evans suplex against Arsenal. Here’s the thing about “clear and obvious” – if Evans was the last man and it was a foul then it was a red card. If Michael Oliver didn’t see he was the last man then it’s a clear and obvious error as he wasn’t aware of all the facts. If Oliver did see that he was the last man and still gave a yellow card then it’s a clear and obvious error because one of the best referees in England does not know the rules of football. There is very little room for interpretation in a professional foul.
VAR exists, it’s part of the officiating team. To say that “the match official officiated the match” is ignorant of the fact that the referee has never solely officiated a game since 1898. Would we be OK if a linesman didn’t raise his flag because the referee already decided a goal was onside? We should take no comfort from this bizarre concept that it’s a good thing that referees should be protected from immediate appraisal and correction during a match. It isn’t to protect the interests of the fans, teams or the integrity of the game, it’s purely to protect the PGMOL and the subpar referees it employs. Saying “the match official officiated the match” sounds like a reasonable thing to say, a reasonable compromise to make but it’s what it’s a compromise against that’s the issue. It’s saying that we’re happy for the referees to be incompetent because we don’t want to damage their integrity, that somehow it’s the correcting of a mistake that’s the issue and not the mistake itself, that the most important thing about a game of football is the referee. We need to get rid of this “right on”, fence sitting acceptance of really, really poor officiating.
If you made a mistake in your job and a colleague saw you make it but let the work go ahead, what would the outcome be? Would your boss give you a pat on the back? Would your colleague get praised for seeing the mistake but not reporting it to protect your integrity? Could your colleague say “I saw it was a mistake but I thought it wasn’t obvious enough to draw his attention to”? Would anyone say “I’m glad his mistake wasn’t corrected because at least he did the work himself”? Nonsense.
SC, Belfast
Chelsea and Football Focus
Reading the morning Mailbox i caught my eye on Brian Morrissey. Waterford. Ireland mail about Football Focus, now maybe it is nostalgia but it truly was better back in the day, by day i mean the 00’s as i was growing up, it was never more at its peak of a show than when hosted by Manish Bhasin during 2004 through to 2009 when Dan Walker took over, Manish aside from being a truly lovely person just had a fantastic way of holding the show together, his flow and charisma worked, it kept you interested and his voice was a joy to listen to, but recently it just sadly feels like the show has lost its focus no pun intended and its way, it does indeed feel like everyone is trying to be amusing or almost create some fake banter and chemistry, the one shining highlight of each week is when Mark Clemmit does his piece focusing on the Football League, be it a club, a player or an upcoming game, i will always record the show each week to skip just to his bit, but i suppose similar to how Soccer AM and now Soccer Saturday, these shows of days gone by eventually lose their shine and instead of going out with a bang go out with a whimper.
Now Chelsea had a game over the weekend against Newcastle and well what i can say about Reece James, i guess that is why they call it St James Park, dreadful pun intended, two lovely strikes and in a weekend where two title rivals dropped points it was not a bad game week at all, especially when we have the injuries that we do.
The Admin @ At The Bridge Pod
Burnley bouncing back
Is there anything more Burnley than having a terrible start to the season, everyone wondering if Dyche’s time has possibly, maybe, perhaps finally run out and then they say f**k that and go and win well? They’ll probably go unbeaten for ten games and finish the season in the exact same position as last year.
Alan.
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