Tottenham was easy now? Easy? People have said here that Milan would be relegated in the EPL. How often did we hear "let's beat an EPL team first before we talk," hm?
The reason why Spurs was an easy tie was because... Pioli didn't stumble into the simplistic traps that Conte wanted him to. Those stupid 352/343 bullshit formations (particularly those deployed by Conte) are centered around one team taking initiative and then using the fact you don't have relegation-quality attackers to punish the other team in transition.
If Pioli played Spurs like he did against Inter, I think we would have seen a similar outcome.
I think looking at Tottenham as "easy" is revisionism. Genuinely. The solution for the 352/343 with us is having either a truly physical presence in the center, to disrupt their build-up and source of their transitions (like Krunic or Pobega [against Juve]--or even the hardwork [and respect Inter gave the threat of] CDK did in the first derby this season) or you have a CAM that is so threatening, attacking-wise that it forces their midfield out of it's shape.
Pioli used this strategy to great effect against Juve, won comfortably, and then went back to a 424 against Juve when playing them the second time. Why?
Pioli didn't learn his lesson against Spurs when he played Inter. Which is maddening.
Hand-waiving away the challenge of Napoli due to... "match ups" means that... if we played against stronger sides, that played domineering football like Napoli does... we'd be... "matched up well" against them... so was Tottenham really the easiest team for us to face? Because it seems that when teams attack us, we tend to slap the shit out of them.
Napoli isn't about "match-ups" it's about tactics. Pioli wants to use his "fastball" no matter what. Even when he knows the curveball will work better, he insists on using a fastball.
The weird thing is... he figured it out against Juve, without prompting, by playing Pobega there the first time. Without warning. So he's capable of figuring things out, without needing some accident, like using a 343 in response to a 343 being the best approach for us, which only happened because of the January crisis.... so why does he do the things that he does?
), Kamada for 0 is smart business. Also adds a different look to our team. I would like a more established midfielder perhaps able to give Pioli a hand and lift the teammates tactically, but even if our budget is 70-100m, we have lots of holes to fill so can't really complain.
