Wow, zweites Spiel mit Tor in Folge und dann so ein Artikel:
Hier der kritische Teil:
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With Palhinha and Bentancur sitting in front of their defence, Spurs struggle to progress the ball through the centre of the pitch. It feels as if those two players are there for other reasons: to foil attacks, to keep a structure out of possession, even to attract opponents to create space for team-mates. But it leaves Tottenham unable, or unwilling, to play through the middle.
This is not to criticise Palhinha, who has brought a lot to the team since joining on a season’s loan from Bayern Munich. He is one of the league’s best midfielders against the ball, as he showed in the 2-0 away defeat of Manchester City a month ago. Spurs would not be able to win games like that without him. He can be an exceptional game-manager, as he showed when they held on to beat Villarreal 1-0 last week in the Champions League. He brings a sense of focused protection that this team desperately lacked last season.
But that does not mean that Palhinha is always right for every game. Especially not at home, alongside Bentancur, in a match when Tottenham have to take the ball and do something with it. That is a game for Bergvall, for Sarr and, when they get fit again, for James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski. But it is not a game for Palhinha, who just looked, not for the first time, a bit imprecise and one-dimensional in the heart of Saturday’s midfield battle.
Sometimes, the ball came to him and he lost it. Sometimes, Spurs just bypassed him and went wide instead.
We are still in the very early days of the Frank era and the overall picture is good, but it feels as if this season will stand or fall by these home league games against non-elite sides.
Frank was brought in from Brentford to raise Tottenham’s floor, rather than their ceiling. But if they struggle to convince in a match like this, fans will ask what the plan is for such games, and how Spurs can better impose their will upon them. And whether Palhinha, the indispensable man for the harder games, the man who rescued a point against Wolves, is always the right answer on a night like this.
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Nix wirklich Neues natürlich für uns hier, aber in so ner Erfolgswelle dann doch überraschend…