Should We Be Worried About Xavi Simons? [PLAYER RATINGS]

From yesterday, obviously one nil loss against Chelsea, starting off with the man in the match, Vicario, nines all round for Big Vic. And ever since people have been starting questioning and being in the starting lineup, he's just like, turned into beast mode, saving us week in week out. Top performers, I think the last three ratings we've given him, I think we've agreed on all three, which is a 10 and eight and a nine. So the guy is performing completely out of his skin. If it wasn't for him, if we had Kinski and goal yesterday, we'd probably lose that game four nil. So I can't commend Vicario enough for the way he's handling himself at the moment. Yeah, big saves. Big one on one saves as well. And the end of the game, it seemed as though it was like three Chelsea attackers up against Vicario. Yeah, because Romero was up front. It was crazy. He somehow kept the score. He kept the score kind of respectable. Obviously, he did nothing to do with the how bad the performance was. But yeah, Vicario brilliant. It wasn't for him. The amount of goals we would have conceded in recent weeks is actually laughable. I think in the end, it was seven saves against Monaco is eight saves. It's crazy. That's 15 saves in those two games. Mad, mad, mad. Next up Pedro Porro threes around for Pedro. This is one of the worst displays I've seen from Pedro in a while. There was that one mistake wasn't there in the first half, which Chelsea nearly scored from. That was absolutely tragic. His passing yesterday, man. Oh, my days. I've never like I've actually noticed it quite a bit this season about his passing is nowhere near as good as it has been in previous seasons. But yesterday was Oh, my God, it was so bad ban light. He just couldn't make a pass. I didn't know what was going on with him yesterday. Like his performances seem to be getting worse at the moment. And you know, he's got all these metrics behind him this season, defensive metrics, but where he earns his money in terms of what his biggest selling point is, is attacking displays, and his passing. That just seems to all gone to ---- this season. I still think he gets forward. Well, in terms of when he gets into the four lines, I think where he's laying himself down is in build up. I think his build up used to be really effective. I think when he was playing like a bit of was a big player in build up for us. But recently, that that element to his game is really struggling. Now, why is it struggling? I don't know. But we know he's a good passer. But he's being so reckless on the ball. He's given the ball away in such poor situations. And his long range passing is not being good as well. Yeah, I think on the ball at the moment, especially in his own half. There's something that desperately needs to change with him. Yeah. Kevin down to up next, him gives him a five, I gave him a four. I've been full of praise from Kevin Danso pretty much since Kuti Romero's got injured. But I think this has been by far the worst of the lot. To be honest, I think he was under a lot of pressure during the game. Physically, you know, there was one moment I can't remember which Chelsea player it was, but he got completely bodied off the ball, which you don't really associate with Kevin Danso. Big stool, strong defender, usually very physical. And I thought Jal Pedro just gave him the runaround for the majority of the game, to be honest. Yeah, I think he massively struggled again, especially on the ball as well. You just saw the difference between him and Romero when Romero comes on, there's the quality went so significantly higher. But yeah, he was a really poor display for Danso on the downfall tree. I think defensively, he did struggle, but it wasn't like he was making those mistakes. He just was getting caught out. But on the ball, and didn't do anything. Yeah, I mean, the mistakes get the much came from his partner and Micky van de Ven falls all round from Mickey. He was making quite a few uncharacteristic mistakes yesterday at the back with the captain's armband on, you know, since he's had the captain's armband, we've been saying, you know, he's feeling that responsibility. He's playing really well at the top of his game. But yesterday was a shadow of that player. And with the goal that we scored, I do feel from a little bit because the path from Javi was just terrible. It was shocking. But still, a player of Mickey van de Ven's quality, expect him to deal with it and get it away. But look, he was mistake riddled, couldn't impact the game in a positive light at all. And just a really bad day at the office room. Yeah. And then obviously, what happened after the game happened as well. It wasn't a good day for Mickey whatsoever. As much as Javi puts him under will put him under pressure with a really poor pass. He's got to do a lot better. You can't just dribble right into Kaiseido. He's got to either boot it away or make sure he gets out of that situation. He can't put the risk when someone like Kaiseido is near you, you can't risk it. And he did risk it. And if he fell flat on his face, unfortunately, and it costs us a goal near the end, I understand talking about pushing forward and trying to get that equalised will be not even getting close to Chelsea's goal, but uncharacteristically getting caught out not using that van de Ven pace that we know he has. And he was getting caught out time and time again, late in that game and nearly cost us it was just a really bad day for Mickey. Yeah, Jed Spence up next Simgis were five, I gave him a four. I thought from a defensive standpoint, he was probably actually the strongest in the Spurs backline. But it's not saying much because none of them played well. Obviously, it was his mistake in the build up to Chelsea's goal, which put us under pressure. But yeah, I just feel like again, like with Spence, he doesn't offer much going forward. His passing is a bit erratic. But defensively, he did. Okay, he did. Okay. I mean, it was nothing great. Yeah. The fingers of Spence as well, as I keep saying, going forward, it's just such a big problem. There was one point early in the game, we gets the ball, and he strides right through the heart of the Chelsea kind of midfield right through the centre. Okay, that's good. But then you realise like, that's not why he's in the team to do that. He's in the team to hold with and stay wide. Anytime he does that, the move breaks down because he's not able to do it. He's good at getting there. He's good at getting into the position he needs to be. But when once he gets there, nothing happens. Because he can't ever sustain an attack. It always slows down the move because he always has to check back on his right foot. He doesn't trust his left foot. And there were times yesterday, he had the opportunity to cut inside and cross. He's just so hesitant. He doesn't want to do that either. So he's not cutting inside and crossing and he's going down out on the outside. What is he doing? When he gets forward? He's a complete non event going forward. Attacking wise, I mean, defensive wise, don't have too many complaints. I don't think I think Neto gave him some trouble. But by and large, he was okay. One on one. But yeah, just it's just very frustrating on the ball having him there. Joe Polini up next in customer five, I gave him a six. I think Joe was probably one of the only outfield players that started the game that actually held some sort of standards. To be honest, I felt like he was one of the only ones that actually kind of knew what it meant to play in a game like this. I felt like he was putting himself about look like he wanted it. But it's just a shame that that no one else was on that same wavelength because, you know, the challenges, you know, that he was putting is being very aggressive, letting the Chelsea players know he was there and he won the ball back a number of times. But yeah, just no one else next to him performed anywhere near the standard that he was showing. I like Joe Polini. And I didn't think he had a terrible game yesterday. But I think he already showed up yesterday, to be honest, by what Chelsea were having in midfield. Kaiseido is just another level to someone like Joe Polini. Polini is a destroyer, and he's great. And he wins so many tackles. But I think at the level we want to be at, we need more than that. And I think we need more from our sentiments. We need who's a lot more comfortable on the board, you're going to be playing in the middle. And I think he's good to create like a solid base like we're doing at the moment, make us a lot harder to be a lot harder to play against. But I think he came up against someone yesterday in Kaiseido, who really showed the levels. I think that is the level that we're competing against. If you want to be near someone like Chelsea, that is the level we have. We have Kaiseido who essentially can win the ball as much as our yet is another level on the ball. And Joe, it seems as though I know this sounds like very negative, it seems that we're drowning our team. It seems obvious this team always has a ceiling. And it sounds negative. But I think that might be the case when you're comparing it to some of the other players we're facing. And we want to be against. I mean, if you want one of those players in your team, you got to spend the money to get them. You know, Kaiseido spent 100 million on him, Rice 100 million on him, Rodri. I don't know how much money they spent on him. But he's like one of the best midfielders in the world. And if you want to get him, you know, you're spending 100 million, 150 million now. So are you doing what Brian did? Yeah, I didn't spend 100 million on him. Agreed. But Brian always sell their players. So you need for a club like Tottenham. I think we need to spend 100 million on a on a midfielder to get to that level. And I like Jopalini. I think he's been our best player this season. But look, there are clear limitations on the ball with him clear. So I think that he can have a very good role in our team. And I'm happy to have him around. But you need to put players around him that can actually do something on the ball. And that doesn't seem like the case either. So yeah, I thought from the outfield perspective, he was probably one of the only ones that did keep up some sort of standards. His partner in Rodrigo Bentancourt, Simgisma five, I gave him a four. I actually thought Bentancourt was having a decent game up until that moment where he should have got sent off in my opinion, you know, really bad challenge starts up in the ankles. And I just felt like there was a big argument after that with Rhys James, I just felt like he fell apart a bit after that he just offered nothing in the game after that. And we had a gaping hole in midfield, they kept creating chances and he was doing nothing to kind of protect that backline. Yeah, it seems as though he was the one playing a bit further forward. And so I was the one playing in a pivot, which I found quite interesting, because when you saw the pressing, Bentancourt was the one who's always pressing a bit higher than Sarr. So I don't know if that was that was obviously the plan. I thought they switched a little bit. Yeah, in terms of the red card. Yeah, he was lucky. He was definitely lucky because it was a horrible challenge. If he got sent off, he can have no complaints. I think he just about gets away with it because maybe it wasn't like a full blooded challenge. And maybe it wasn't as high as it could have been. It was a bit higher. I think he I think the AR gets involved because it was a little bit lower. And maybe the force was just on the edge. I think it just about gets away with it. But I was an ankle breaker. That could have like really think I think in slow motion, it makes it look like there's a lot more force than it actually was. It was it wasn't as forceful as as the as maybe the the replay the slow mo things. I think it's a bad one. Don't get me wrong. I think if it's a red card, he can't have any complaints be just about gets away with it because it's not as high. And it's just it just was there. It wasn't like he was running into it. I think it was just a bit slower. So he got away with it a bit. But I was certain that that VR was going to intervene and send him off like so lucky. He was lucky. He could have been he could have easily been set off. Yeah. And if he was asked to be a bit further forward, he didn't really do a good job of it. Yeah. Well, next up is popping math to solve threes all round for papi. And he just put in another ghost showing to be honest, like I pretty much didn't see anything positive that he did throughout the 90 minutes. There was nothing to protect the backline. There was nothing going forward. There was just nothing in there from papi. And and these performances from papi are becoming a bit regular now. I don't know what's going on with him. But in the beginning of the season, he was literally everywhere. He was becoming a goal threat. I know he scored last time in against Everton. But when he's starting games, he's just becoming a bit of a ghost and he's not being the path they saw that we know. And it's very concerning to be honest. Yeah, I don't know what's going on with him. He's anonymous displays are coming regular thing. And that is the opposite of self of what we saw him previously. It's like even when he's not playing well, you still notice him. But the like recently, he's just been doing no shows not getting involved in golf action. I don't think I saw him near the box once. Defensively. I don't remember him getting involved anywhere near Enzo or James or Hokkaido. You know, Frank talks about lacking intensity like we did yesterday, which we definitely did. But why when we have saw how linear and ventricle all there? How is that? Like, how is there a lack of intensity? I know, like when I saw the lineup yesterday, I was like, Alright, fine, Frank's going for aggression in the middle of the park. And there was none of it. How can there be none of that? Yeah, like how it's not it shouldn't be possible. Yeah, it was. So yeah, worrying. I think form at the moment facade. Yeah. Next up is Mohammed Kudus fives all round for Kudus. Yeah, I mean, spurs were just praying for a miracle with Kudus getting to him on the right hand side, asking him to beat two or three men every time because they doubled up on him. He couldn't do anything. I thought Cucurella easily dealt with Kudus for the most part yesterday, completely dominated him. He had our only shot on goal, I think where, you know, Sanchez was equal to it. But yeah, I don't remember much else apart from that. Yeah, I mean, he we had three shots and all three were Kudus yesterday. Two of them, I think outside the box over the bar, one of them that Sanchez had to save. So he was clearly literally the only one trying anything quite literally, but by the stats, three shots or Kudus. So I think the stats tell the story of the game really, from his point of view, it was very difficult for him to make an impact when, as you say, he's been doubled up. He wasn't getting much help from anyone else who's quite isolated, I felt. But we did have a couple of moments from corners and, you know, a couple of times to swing in right into Sanchez right under his front and Sanchez was able to easily claim them. So his corners weren't very good. But, you know, we're complaining about not having enough shots, so I can't really complain about Kudus because he was the only one who did. Yeah, that's the that was a big frustration for me yesterday, because like, if you're going to put in that kind of display, at least be a threat from set pieces. And every time it seemed like we got a corner, apart from that Pedro Poro one, which looked like it could have it might have gone in straight from the corner. Apart from that, Kudus is every time Kudus took a corner straight into the keeper's arms. So frustrating. Next up is Javi Simmons. So he came on for Lucas Bergvall's the concussion sub after in inside the first five minutes, threes all round for Javi Simmons, and I'm starting to really worry about Javi, to be honest. I looked at Javi's performance yesterday. And you know, there were a few kind of flashes on the ball where one time he heads it past a man and takes it past him and we're going to start an attack. A few little slight flashes without taking too much away from the game. But what worries me about Javi Simmons is the physicality of the Premier League and is he up to it? Right? I'm looking at him and looking at his performances so far in the Premier League and apart from that half an hour at Brighton, where he looks really good. Every other game, opponents, defenders and midfielders been able to easily brush him off the ball like easily, like literally give me Brian Hill vibes the way how easy he is to get the ball off. And that worries me massively. I didn't understand the tactical setup as well, where every time we had a set piece and they and Roberto Sanchez would catch it and then go up the other end of the pitch really quickly. Why was it always Javi Simmons like one of the last men back and he was the one defending? I didn't understand that. Like he's the smallest man on the pitch. Like why is he the one trying to stop their attacks? Just made no sense to me. But yeah, look, it was a disaster class from Javi yesterday. Again. Yeah, wasn't good concert or anything else. Had his role to play in the goal as well. Horrific, lazy, I'd have to say. Pass back to van de Ven and obviously put van de Ven in trouble and it led to the goal that we did concede. You know, it's such a simple thing. He just again, it's just lack of care on the ball. Really frustrating. I have to say he did put in a few good challenges though. Like I thought defensively he did work hard and he was getting back into his own half and a few times I was I remember sharing yesterday like really good challenge. He did that a few times. I don't think it's necessary. Physically, he's clearly not as physical as obviously some of the midfielders and if once they get near me, they brush them off the ball too easy. And that's something he's got to work on either creating that separation. So he's not allowing them the time to do that, the chance to do that, or obviously, getting that bit more physicality so he can ride some challenges. I don't have a massive concern. I think physically, I've seen him play Champions League. I've seen him play international football. He can handle it. He can handle those methods of physical. But I think it's about getting him in the right positions. And it's about getting him the right opportunity at the moment. Yesterday, he was picking the ball up from so deep. And he has so far to go from from way picks up the ball to the penalty area where I think he's most effective in and around the box. And that's where you where you want it. That's where he becomes effective. And that's where maybe if you've got him doing little tricks, like half 30 yards from goal rather than on the halfway line, because he did some good things. And I agree with you. Like, what would happen is he'll be a man, but then he would have so much distance to still go. By the time he's like, trying to get anywhere near the goal, he's already been caught up with and he's getting tackled. Whereas if he was doing that 30 yards from goal rather than on the halfway line, I think there's less opportunity. You can see he's got a lot of talent. He clearly does. And he and he can do good things. But at the moment, he's got too much to do between getting on the ball and actually being able to create a chance and do something in and around the box. And then he gets caught up by stronger players like Kaiseido and ends on bubble line, he gets bundled off the ball. But if he can beat a man 30 yards from goal and then instantly, you know, create an opportunity or go for a pass, then I think those are the positions you want him in. But he's too far away from the action at the moment. That's a big problem. I think Yeah, physically, he's getting he's getting bullied off the ball. And that's obviously not great. But no, I don't think I'm not worried about it. I think it's all about Kim getting used to the league, him understanding how much time he should have on how much space he has. I think at the moment when he when he was in the Bundesliga, that league is so open. And not only is it so open, but all the teams want to attack in transition. So it's open, there's so much space. So he had more time, and he had more space to play. And he and he didn't and he had players the past two who were in more space as well. In the Premier League, he's got less time. And he's got to be more incisive when he gets the ball. He's got to be more accurate with his passes. And I think that just takes time to get used to that. I'm not worried about it. But at the moment, it's he's struggling. There's no two ways about it. He's definitely struggling. But I still think he's working hard. But it's damning. I have to say Yeah, but it's a bit of a different. It's not like he got brought on on the 60th minute and got taken off on on 80th. I mean, he came on on the fifth minute of the game. I think it's a bit a bit of a different fish. It's true, but it's still embarrassing. Yeah, but I think like it because it is great. It was basically like he started the game. That's how early he came on. I agree with that. But at the end of the day, that is what happened like and players of I think, I think, hopefully, it doesn't affect his confidence. So that happens. It seems like he's low on confidence anyway. But we'll see what happens. Last of the starting 11 Randall Kolo Mawani Simga's before I gave him a five. I thought he was just feeding off scraps for the whole game. I think the one thing where he was causing like one or two problems during the game was his pressing. I think we had one opportunity from good pressing, but I just felt like what we were doing is we were just hitting it long to him every time he had two defenders on him. And he just couldn't do anything like what can I say like, he was just completely isolated. Yeah, he had one moment at the end of the first afternoon where he was running at the Chelsea back line. He somehow got face on some defenders. And we may we managed to create an opportunity from it, which could have obviously had a shot saved. That was literally it from from unfortunately, on the day, not to say it's necessarily his fault. But we saw very little from him. He was not involved. He moved to the left hand side for a bit. Couldn't get any action there. Couldn't get on the ball there. He struggled to impact the game massively. And I think, yeah, it was a difficult day for me. I agree you feeding off scraps. But it was we weren't able to literally see much from him. Yeah. Substitutes Kuti Romero comes on great to see him back sevens all round. I thought, yeah, it was night and day his performance from anyone else. To be honest, on the pitch, he came on straight away, demanded authority was taking it past men was trying to drive us forward. It's a shame that no one was on his wavelength, to be honest. In the latter stages of the game, he goes up front. And in that moment, we've just got a gaping hole at the back. And and they created multiple opportunities and moments in that space of time. But it's great to have him back because he is levels above anyone at this moment in time. Yeah, it was. It was kind of a breath of fresh air when he came on. We I was excited to see him back on the pitch. Really happy to see him kind of resume captain duties. And he saw him come on the authority when he was on. He even himself in the penalty box tried to make something happen on a few occasions and was unlucky that things didn't quite fall into place on a couple of occasions. But yeah, I think good performance. But unfortunately, when you're a defender, there's only so much you can impact the game. Yeah, we might have to start playing them up front the way things are going. Richarlison falls around for rich. I mean, he spent more time on the floor than he did actually on his feet, to be honest, very frustrating performance. Don't remember too many good things that he did. All I remember is keep falling down. Yeah. I don't even touch the ball too many times. There was, again, similar to one a difficult for him to impact the game feeding off scraps, but he just wasn't able to do anything really. So those are the last of the players that we're going to rate. I mean, Oda bear came on with 20 minutes ago. Yeah, I know. It was ridiculous. Apparently, he had one touch in 20 minutes. Wow. He was kept quiet. Yeah. And last but not least, we're going to look at Thomas Frank. He gets a two all round from us here. And look, like I said, in the in the match review, I've been one of Frank's biggest defenders, but I can't defend him after the game yesterday. It was nothing short of shambolic. You're talking about a big London derby. You saw that the Chelsea players knew exactly what it meant to play in that game yesterday. Overly aggressive, putting themselves about. And we just saw nothing from the Tottenham players to believe that we could do anything in the game. Tactically, it was completely all wrong. We were just going for long balls every time. We're trying to find Kudus or Moane, and they were completely isolated, not able to do anything. There was no sort of build up play, no patterns of play, no, no kind of realistic ways that we could hurt Chelsea. And it just felt like all we were doing in the game was waiting to die. And that is all on Thomas Frank and the tactical setup that we had in the game. And I felt for the players, for the most part, because I thought as much as the players put in disaster classes, I thought it was all borne out of Frank's tactical setup. Yeah, and it's weird. Well, I don't look I don't understand the goal came from like loads of mistakes, but I don't think the players as much I didn't play well, it wasn't like a mistake riddled performance where every pass was just completely wrong. And it was like, like, everyone was just constantly making loads of mistakes. And that was the problem. Like, I think a lot of the time it was everyone just playing it safe all the time, constantly playing it safe, playing it backwards, looking to keep possession, a lack of appetite of taking risks, a lack of appetite of going forward, always kind of looking for set pieces rather than looking to create opportunities and looking to create chances. And I think that has to come from the mentality of the manager and how he's got them setting up. And that was kind of his approach in the game. He's got to take responsibility for that. And the problem is, well, I saw what we saw yesterday is a lot of similar of how we've been playing in recent weeks minus goals from set pieces and maybe a bit more threat from Kudos. So I can't sit here and say this was a massive departure from what we have seen so far this season. So it has to be on frank, because this is how we've been playing for a lot of the season. Obviously, this was maybe the worst of the lot, because we literally didn't get near Chelsea's box. But in terms of the approach and how we've been playing in possession, stuff like that, it's very, very similar to a lot of the steps and a lot of the games we have seen. But in the other games, we've just been able to find a moment or or get a goal from a set piece or something like that, which is obviously got some good results. But on this occasion, we weren't able to do the luck dried out. You know, we we ran out of luck in this game that we've maybe been having in some of the other games. And this was the end result. So, yeah, I think as much as the players take responsibility, I think, Frank, ultimately, it comes down from his mentality of how to approach this game. And it was all wrong. Yeah. But it's so weird how it was that bad, because before the Yeah, I know. So it's a massive kick in the teeth, to be honest. But like I keep saying, we've just got to hope and pray that that he sees the problems and he wants to rectify it. And he sees what everyone else is seeing, and it needs to get a lot better. So those are the player ratings. We are