FORMER Manager Watch: Nuno Espírito Santo

[spursfan1991]

I disagree with your comment that we are one of the easiest clubs to manage of the top 6…. Our chairman provides the 6th (at best) highest budget for the playing side of things but then sacks managers who don’t overachieve compared to those resources. If only the chairman was held to the same account by the majority owner (who clearly actually only cares about his net worth).

I dont believe Nuno's remit is to achieve top 4, in the past for other managers it was but clearly for Nuno it isnt.

We finished 7th with a better squad last year. I believe the expectation is to try and finish in top 6 if possible and play attacking football. If the ownership do expect Nuno to challenge top 4 with this squad then they are quite clearly delusional. The squad is a lot weaker than last year. We have signed a load of young players from different leagues that have been bought for the future surely.

 

[AnotherSpursFan]

Second half we tired and Chelsea were so solid it was always going to be tough to chase the game. Lets be honest they scored from a set piece and a huge deflection which killed the game. Until that point there was nothing in it and to be honest despite the scoreline I feel much better about this season than I did before the game. It looks like we may actually see some attacking football and fingers crossed Nuno sticks with the more positive approach.

Its a big mystery for me. The other team can run for 90 mins, our players breakdown after 45 mins...what the fuck is wrong with the squad?

Alonso on the 90th minute, ran and moved up and down the pitch like it was the first minute of the game. The whole Chelsea team hardly broke a sweat.

 

[doctor stefan Freud]

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I don’t harbour any resentment or frustration towards Nuno. This is all on Levy and has been for some time.

This is what happens when you’re not accountable to anyone, when you’re obstinate and incapable of seeing your own flaws, when your methods are obsolete, when you’ve been shooting in the dark for so long you’ve forgotten there’s a light switch, when you’ve built a splendid coliseum but populate it with reluctant gladiators and cannot see why the crowd jeer

 

[Mark_147]

What worries me is the decisions he is making that mere couch managers scratch their head at. The Crystal Palace 11 and tactics, the stubborn perseverance with it when it patently was failing, the thought that we could sustain the high energy press against Chelsea but had no plan for when we inevitably ran out of gas. The first half was encouraging but feel he was too passive in the second half and just let things unfold as Chelsea changed up at half time.

Bearing in mind Son, Ndombele and lo celso didn't look match fit and our best players on the bench were Gil and Skipp what tactical changes would you have made in the 2nd half.

 

[GutBucket]

You don't need super talented team to play good football, see Brighton for example. Only Bissouma would start for us, and Lamptey when healthy. They are winning games with Welbeck playing actual minutes. Nuno needs more time to implement his tactics but you still expect not to be second worst in XG, shots per game, worst in pressing, amongst the worst in almost everything really. He at least changed things up for Chelsea, Arsenal game will be very telling.

 

[DannyNZ]

Bearing in mind Son, Ndombele and lo celso didn't look match fit and our best players on the bench were Gil and Skipp what tactical changes would you have made in the 2nd half.

While sitting on my couch I thought Ndombeles eye issue at the end of the first half was pure exhaustion, he was shagged. I’d have dropped GLC into Ndombele role and brought on Gil at half time, I’d also have flagged the Son / Kane experiment. Would it have made a blind bit of difference, who knows but surely Nuno saw Ndombele hiding and out on his feet long before he subbed him.

 

[Aphex]

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This is the thing, the underlying statistics do not point to us turning this around under Nuno at all. It's relegation metrics.

 

[Monkey boy]

Its a big mystery for me. The other team can run for 90 mins, our players breakdown after 45 mins...what the fuck is wrong with the squad?

Alonso on the 90th minute, ran and moved up and down the pitch like it was the first minute of the game. The whole Chelsea team hardly broke a sweat.

Are you saying that Cheatski are prescribing the Liverpool and Leicester PED's?

 

[Mark_147]

While sitting on my couch I thought Ndombeles eye issue at the end of the first half was pure exhaustion, he was shagged. I’d have dropped GLC into Ndombele role and brought on Gil at half time, I’d also have flagged the Son / Kane experiment. Would it have made a blind bit of difference, who knows but surely Nuno saw Ndombele hiding and out on his feet long before he subbed him.

Tottally agree that Ndombele should of been subbed at half time, but lo celso would of been replaced by Skipp early in the 2nd half anyway.

 

[Jamturk]

Mourinho didn't have a Kane who thought he would be moving on this summer and clearly doesn't want to be here.

In fact, Mourinho had a Kane who was playing for a big move. He also made him central to the team's success.

I feel like for Nuno to do well here, he'll need Kane out of the line up. That front three vs City was much more fluid than its been in any other game since Nuno arrived.

Mourinho is poison and Levy shouldn't have let him near our club.

It was said that Mourinho went and spoke candidly with members of the squad individually after his dismissal.

I don't think it is coincidental that Kane started playing up after this.

 

[freeeki]

The reality is, if we set up and play like we did in the first half against Chelsea for the rest of the season, we will do pretty well especially when the squad has had time to train together more.

Tuchel bringing on Kante totally undid us yesterday, but I'm not sure how much Nuno can be blamed for that. He had to react at that point, and he did so by bringing on Gil and Skipp - arguably the best two options on our bench. The rest of our bench was woefully inadequate thanks to the injuries to Moura, Bergwijn and Sessegnon, but that's not Nuno's fault. Responsibility for our lack of squad depth falls squarely to Levy.

After the Palace game, general consensus on here seemed to be "well, we'll probably lose to Chelsea, but we want to see a positive starting XI and attacking football". For the most part, we got exactly that.

It's concerning how quickly we appeared to fall apart, but at the same time you can argue that the first goal was down to individual clumsiness (Dele), and the second was hugely unlucky with the massive deflection it took. Yes Lo Celso could have done better (although I'd agree with Roy Keane that actually Hojbjerg was more at fault for that one), but it wasn't the disaster many are making it out to be when you consider Chelsea are potentially the best team in the world right now.

 

[shelfboy68]

Its a big mystery for me. The other team can run for 90 mins, our players breakdown after 45 mins...what the fuck is wrong with the squad?

Alonso on the 90th minute, ran and moved up and down the pitch like it was the first minute of the game. The whole Chelsea team hardly broke a sweat.

They have something this club will never have it's called winners mentality from chairman down to players.

 

[RJR1949]

I can’t face reading back through the posts - it’s too depressing - but has anybody worked out why Kane was playing on the left wing and Son at centre forward?

 

[spids]

Tuchel bringing on Kante totally undid us yesterday, but I'm not sure how much Nuno can be blamed for that. He had to react at that point, and he did so by bringing on Gil and Skipp - arguably the best two options on our bench.

Nuno did not make any changes until we were 2-0 down. The game was lost in the first 12 minutes of the 2nd half, before the bench came into play.

 

[spids]

I can’t face reading back through the posts - it’s too depressing - but has anybody worked out why Kane was playing on the left wing and Son at centre forward?

It was to keep Son in a permanent 1 vs 1 with their last man and slowest defender - Silva. And it nearly worked as he could easily have scored first half when we were the better team. Kane was just as anonymous 2nd half when they swapped positions.

 

[rez9000]

I disagree with your comment that we are one of the easiest clubs to manage of the top 6…. Our chairman provides the 6th (at best) highest budget for the playing side of things but then sacks managers who don’t overachieve compared to those resources. If only the chairman was held to the same account by the majority owner (who clearly actually only cares about his net worth).

Unfortunately Stu, our chairman doesn't provide the sixth highest 'budget'. He provides the lowest.

 

[Gassin's finest]

They have something this club will never have it's called winners mentality Siberian oil blood money from chairman down to players.

fyp

 

[sparx100]

Didn't expect anything out of the game and was pleasantly surprised at how we started but half time came and we regressed.

I dont know where the problem is if I am honest.

I think its a combination of poor recruitment and identification of problem areas, a manager who is not showing what his style of play is and a lot of average players not being able to coherently play as a team.

Really shit start to the season and I am not sure how it improves.

 

[freeeki]

Nuno did not make any changes until we were 2-0 down. The game was lost in the first 12 minutes of the 2nd half, before the bench came into play.

He made a double change on the hour.

I'm not sure what more we could realistically have asked given our bench.

 

[shelfboy68]

fyp

Yeah they do have the luxury of oil money good for them but they have that mentality running through the club, their chairman sets the tone you can't say the same about ours.