Wycombe – first half thoughts

Sometimes when you watch a game like yesterday’s in the flesh, you’re so focussed on the craziness that you don’t get to focus on what specifically went wrong. I’ve re-watched the first half of the match this morning and below are some hastily written thoughts.

Spurs were not as terrible on second viewing as I’d initially thought. Whilst we had some sloppy defensive moments, largely from set pieces, we had control of the midfield and created some good openings. Georges-Kévin N’Koudou got the ball in great areas twice in the first five minutes – once when faced by Wycombe’s right-back, Sido Jombati, and once when Son Heung-min played him into space. In the first instance he telegraphed his take-on and was dispossessed, in the second instance he had a poor touch and ended up winning a corner when he should have driven towards goal and got a shot or a cross away. Ben Davies’ resulting corner was a mishit/scuffed effort. These early moments essentially summed up the whole half.

Nkoudou was wasteful, and reminded me a lot of a very young Aaron Lennon. He shuttled up and down the touchline with speed, but more often than not backed himself into a corner and then failed to get himself out of it with very poor crosses. At one point Nkoudou played a horrendous square pass to Sissoko straight out of touch, and the edit switched to a scowling Pochettino! He also played a loose ball which surrendered possession in the build-up to the Wycombe penalty. He is a young player — he does not turn 22 until mid-February — but the signs, so far, are not great. He was taken off at half-time, and whether that was owing to injury or Pochettino being unimpressed, we’ll probably never know.

The high standard of Wycombe’s set pieces made ours look even poorer. Whomever decided to give the job to Kieran Trippier and Ben Davies need only re-watch the first half to realise that this was a bad decision. Both mishit several and lacked any real quality on their deliveries. The best came when Davies looped up a ball to Trippier just inside the box, but his wild swing sent the ball into the stands.

Trippier was also a bit of a concern defensively — he gave up a big chance to Sam Wood at the back post when he got sucked inside to mark Akinfenwa (despite there being two men on him already), leaving Wood unmarked. Later, after he telegraphed a free-kick straight to a Wycombe player and then, in attempting to recover the situation, he committed himself in the Wycombe half,  allowing them to mount a counter-attack in which Wood charged into the vacated right-back area and ended up looping a shot wide when well-placed.

Moussa Sissoko was hopelessly erratic, the ball often bouncing off his feet as if he were putting up a barrier rather than trying to take it into his control. He did have one fantastic moment, though, where he turned his marker on the edge of the box and set up Son for a good chance. At one point Sissoko had two successive dreadful touches which led to ricochets falling for Josh Onomah — he played in Son then got into the box and nearly got on the end of a Son cross. Sometimes his mis-control causes chaos amongst the opposition.

Onomah was neat and tidy but failed to impose himself on the game and wanted too many touches. If he’s to make a serious play for the first team then he needs to learn to release the ball sooner, to play more instinctively, and to impact the game. On the plus side, he often made good off-the-ball runs to create space for others, and that sort of unselfish work will not get him noticed by fans, but will please his coach. I can’t see Onomah getting too many more minutes this season, so at this point I would be keen for him to go out on loan to a club who will play him deeper in midfield, where he is far better in my opinion (see the clip I link to below).

The back-line looked rickety for much of the first half. We were given a warning of Wycombe’s set piece quality when Anthony Stewart peeled away at the back post and beat Trippier in the air, but Vorm got down well. Kevin Wimmer had a couple of wobbles, and Carter-Vickers showed his immaturity when giving away the penalty — there was no reason for him to lunge in, with Wood running the ball towards the touchline and not the goal.

Harry Winks regularly drove us forward from deep and was our second best player in the opening 45. The best, though, was Son, who put in a live-wire display and was unlucky not to score a couple. Had he buried his big chance from Jamal Blackman’s mistake early on, it might have been a very different tie. He stretched the Wycombe defence well with his movement on the shoulder, creating gaps which our first choice players would have filled with glee. He also did a reasonable job of dropping deep to link play, though those around him did not work off him as well as he might have hoped.

Another positive was the number of impressive diagonal passes from our deeper players. Cameron Carter-Vickers, Kevin Wimmer and Eric Dier all played exceptional passes in the first half, which was encouraging. Carter-Vickers finding Dier’s excellent run only for his knock-down to go inches ahead of Son was one of many ‘nearly’ moments of the first half.

I’ll be back later to give some thoughts on the second half!

Clicked

In Mauricio Pochettino’s first year we lost one in six in the league in December and beat Chelsea 5-3 on New Year’s Day.

In his second we lost one in six in December, and then went on a six game winning run in the league from mid-January.

This season — his third — we’ve started converting draws into wins. We’ve won five in a row, scoring 15 and conceding three. Once again, we’ve clicked around the same time.

Pochettino loves this period, with the hectic schedule allowing his players’ superior (and peaking) fitness to come to the fore, blowing away the early season cobwebs and putting teams to the sword with intensity, power and precision.

Are there reasons for the slow starts in general? Maybe. This season has been slightly different, due to the European Championships, due to Mousa Dembélé’s suspension and then niggling injuries, and due to other injuries in basically every key position — Hugo Lloris, Harry Kane, and a particularly lengthy spell for Toby Alderweireld stand out.

Dele Alli was struggling for form — and, as we saw on Wednesday, he’s so reliant on Christian Eriksen playing well. Eriksen took a while to find his stride too and I think he, in turn, is fairly reliant on Dembélé, and so it’s a bit of a vicious cycle. Dembélé’s not yet back to where he was last season, but his first half against Chelsea showed signs of his getting there and, besides, Spurs are learning to cope without him playing at 9/10 levels every week.

Where Eriksen is now pulling the strings in nearly every match, that wasn’t the case earlier in the season. Kevin Kilbane offered some interesting analysis post-West Ham match on Match of the Day 2 which, if you’re lucky, you can still watch here (from 31:20 on). In the clips he shows, Eriksen’s movement was not allowing others to find him, not dragging defenders away, and not allowing him to influence the game — Kilbane says ‘just because you’re playing as a number 10 doesn’t mean you stand where a number 10 is’. Since then, Eriksen’s confidence has returned and he’s demanding the ball, driving into space, and showing a willingness to take the ball on the half-turn and think about moving forwards first, rather than wanting to take a touch and then decide whether he has the space to do so.

I’ve thought for around three seasons now that Eriksen’s slightly better when he starts ‘off-centre’ (in pockets of space) and works his way into the middle. Somewhat surprisingly, though, it’s been a switch to the right which has seen him find his best form.

From WhoScored.com - Eriksen on the right against Chelsea

From WhoScored.com – Eriksen on the right against Chelsea

The Chelsea game was undoubtedly one of his strongest performances of the season, and his two exquisite crosses came from pretty much the same area, having received passes from Kyle Walker in both cases.

Christian Eriksen's assists vs Chelsea

Christian Eriksen’s assists vs Chelsea

Part of Spurs stepping up their levels might well be the return of Toby Alderweireld. He missed the Southampton match, but played in the other games in this period. In fact, we’ve only lost twice this season (to Monaco and Man United) when he has played a part — P15, W10, D3, L2 — which is no great surprise.

Alderweireld’s return has allowed us to switch to a back three, and he’s played in the middle of that back three in the last three matches. The downside of that is that there’s less scope for him to play his wonderful diagonals, but the upside is that having an extra defender allows him (and the other two) to occasionally join the attack, which all of our centre-backs do well.

Personally, I don’t think this defensive shape change is a huge deal. When we play 4-2-3-1 or 4-1-4-1, we generally have a player drop in between the centre-backs to allow us to play out from the back. Eric Dier in his holding midfield role did this better than Victor Wanyama has so far this season, but Wanyama still made that move regularly. The difference  in the 3-4-3 (or 3-4-2-1, or whatever you feel like calling it) is that the centre-backs take turns to move into midfield (and beyond!) once we’ve progressed the ball forward, rather than a midfielder shuttling backwards and forwards to get things started.

Interestingly, when Dier and Wanyama started together in midfield at the beginning of the season, fans bemoaned our stifled creativity and the defensive nature of that selection. In this formation, though, I’ve heard few complaints, despite the fact that we’re essentially starting with a more defensive player at the expense of another in the band behind Kane. Perception?

From WhoScored.com - Average Positions vs Swansea

From WhoScored.com – Average Positions vs Swansea

From WhoScored.com - Average Positions vs Chelsea

From WhoScored.com – Average Positions vs Chelsea

Pochettino has made it very clear that whether it’s three or four at the back, our philosophy remains the same. The pressing triggers remain the same. The full (or wing)-backs providing the width remains the same. The attacking midfielders playing narrow remains the same.

The perfect storm of Toby’s return, our roaring fitness levels, the formation tweaks, Dembélé/Eriksen/Dele/Kane each going up a notch — probably because each of the others have! — and the all important momentum has led to Spurs’ upturn, and if this continues, it’s difficult to see who can stop the coys-train. Except next up in the league is West Brom, who manage to disrupt us every season (or so it seems). Last year we had two 1-1s, and the year before they beat us 1-0 at White Hart Lane. Pochettino will genuinely see this as a huge test, and getting a(nother) win would set us up nicely for City away. It took Arsenal 75% possession and 26 shots to grind out a 1-0 against the Baggies, so it might require a lot of patience and a moment of magic but, right now, we seem to have the players who can pull that off.

Further reading – some articles I’ve enjoyed this week.
Dan Kilpatrick on Dele for ESPN.
Michael Cox on 3-4-3 for The Guardian.
Michael Cox (again) for ESPN on Christian Eriksen.
Plus here’s something I wrote about the transfer window.

Finally, if you’re interested in Tottenham tactics, you might enjoy The Fighting Cock – The Extra Inch:
Episode 1, with Talking Tottenham Tactics
Episode 2, with Ewan Roberts

What Was Plan A Again?

After the Arsenal match I wrote about Pochettino’s new-found flexibility being a positive. I’m back again to add caveats. Yep, fickle Tottenham fan here, changing my mind within a couple of weeks. Hands up. You got me.

In the last two matches (against West Ham and Monaco) we’ve started with a sort of narrow diamond in midfield with two forwards at the sharp end:

Average Positions vs Monaco

Average Positions vs Monaco – image from WhoScored.com

And you don’t need a tactics board to show you that a team lining up like this can take full advantage — note the width:

Monaco's Average Positions vs Tottenham

Monaco’s Average Positions vs Tottenham – image from WhoScored.com

Monaco’s doubling up on the flanks, with the excellent Bernardo Silva (number 10) and Thomas Lemar (number 27) linking with the talented and athletic full-backs, Benjamin Mendy and Djibril Sidibe caused us the sorts of problems we often caused teams last season, when Erik Lamela and Christian Eriksen/Dele Alli would drift wide to create triangles and help to get our own talented, athletic full-backs into dangerous areas.

The first goal came from Monaco’s system getting the better of ours. Mendy makes a late run — so late that Harry Winks cannot get close to him, with Kieran Trippier tucked in.

Monaco First Goal (1)

Monaco First Goal (1)

Once Silva has fed Mendy he steps inside Winks (who commits himself) and, with Victor Wanyama too slow to come across (having, to be fair, just been to close down Silva), Mendy has ample time to pick out his fellow full-back, Sidibe, who has created an overload at the back post, with Rose choosing to not mark *anyone* rather than to try to get close to at least one of his men.

Monaco First Goal (2)

Monaco First Goal (2)

The second goal is so preventable too. As soon as Monaco kick off, Sidibe gets on his bike down the right, leaving Danny Rose with an instant 2v1 situation. It’s Dele Alli that’s closest to getting back and trying to cover, but I presume in this formation that it should really be either Mousa Dembele or one of the forwards (possibly Son Heung-min) covering that run. We didn’t work out all night who was taking responsibility for that unenviable task.

Monaco Second Goal (1)

Monaco Second Goal (1)

Once into a crossing position, we’ve got similar problems on the other side of the pitch. Trippier has had to tuck in to mark Falcao, and nobody has shifted round to pick up Lemar; again, I presume this is Winks’ job, but who knows (I’m not even sure that Mauricio Pochettino did — and if he did, he clearly did not get his point across, given the regularity of our failings throughout the match).

Monaco Second Goal (2)

Monaco Second Goal (2)

Pochettino should have been fully aware of this threat because he’s been playing the ‘overload’ game himself for the best part of eighteen months, so why did he not change things?

Even with Erik Lamela absent (boy did we miss his tenacity on the flanks last night), we had options. With Moussa Sissoko and the barely seen Georges-Kévin Nkoudou sat on the bench, he had players who could come on and chase the full-backs down the line — many of us had previously warmed to Nkoudou for his apparent ability to track back, and Sissoko is nothing if not a physical barrier to a marauding opponent.

Tottenham were tactically schooled, and it was the second time in a week that this odd formation had been unsuccessful — only a late substitution saves our blushes against West Ham.

It’s time to return to our tried and tested 4-2-3-1 vs Chelsea next week, or we risk getting a real pummeling at the hands of one of the most in-form teams in the league. Hopefully, despite injuries and suspension, we’ll be able to put out a team that looks something like:

Lloris
Walker Dier Wimmer Vertonghen
Wanyama Dembele
Son Eriksen Alli
Kane

The centre-back pairing concerns me — particularly given how susceptible they were to long balls over the top on Tuesday night — but the Wanyama and Dembele pivot should provide plenty of cover. We might have to adopt a deeper defensive line (low block) and play more on the counter for this one. Either way, it’s time to go back to basics, and that means Plan A.

 

For more of this kind of tactical pondering, listen to the first in a special series of extra episodes of The Fighting Cock Podcast where I will be joined by Bardi and Talking Tottenham Tactics — hopefully out on Friday.

Pochettino’s Plan B (And C)

It will seem strange to many Spurs fans for me to suggest that this season has illustrated Mauricio Pochettino’s growth as a manager. Strange due to a number of reasons:

  • We seemingly signed Moussa Sissoko for £30m based on Pochettino’s wishes, with Pochettino having taken on a new role with a wider remit. That signing has not gone well so far (though it is very early days, of course).
  • In fact, Pochettino has taken greater control in signings generally, and we have ended up with a lot of potential, but not a great deal of new players for the ‘here and now’.
  • Whilst last season we finished as the Premier League’s second top scorers, this year we are currently joint 7th (with Watford and Everton. Watford and Everton.).
  • Draws. Lots of draws. All of the draws! We have drawn six matches already; we drew 13 last season, which is near enough one in three. This year we’ve drawn more than half of our Premier League matches.
  • The hapless performance against Bayer Leverkusen, plus disappointing run-outs in several other games.

And yet I think there are mitigating factors for most if not all of those, and that we have notably seen him take strides in something he had been widely criticised for last year: adaptability.

Last season Pochettino rolled out his 4-2-3-1 most weeks. The starting eleven could easily be predicted, and there were very few tactical switches to compensate for other teams — one notable exception being a switch to a back three at Watford to cope with the in-form front two of Odion Ighalo and Troy Deeney.

This season, though, we have already seen numerous changes.

In our second game of the season (vs Crystal Palace) we started with Harry Kane playing off Vincent Janssen.

In Mousa Dembélé’s absence we reverted to a 4-1-4-1 in various fixtures, with Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli (largely) playing ahead of Victor Wanyama.

We started with Son Heung-min as a counter-attacking focal point vs Manchester City.

Average Positions vs Manchester City

Average Positions vs Manchester City – Son Heung-min leading the charge – image from WhoScored.com

And on Sunday, Pochettino made his most surprising tactical change yet — starting the match with a 3-4-1-2.

Average Positions vs Arsenal

Average Positions vs Arsenal – image from WhoScored.com

Shocking though it was, it made sense, at least in hindsight, for many different reasons.

Pochettino stated in his press conference — reported here, by the excellent Dan Kilpatrick — ‘Maybe the problem is not in front. Maybe it’s because we are not building in a very good way from the back and the ball arrives in the last third in different condition.’

With Toby Alderweireld missing, our build-up play has been stifled. This is something that Anthony Lombardi (amongst others) had pointed out previously:

Indeed, I touched on this on The Fighting Cock podcast that week too (great minds and all that).

The extra man at the back — and not least another player comfortable on the ball in Kevin Wimmer — meant that we had bodies back to cope with Arsenal’s fluidity, as well as the possibility for all three centre-backs to care for the ball, and ensure that play started properly from the back.

We must also remember that this was Harry Kane’s first game back. It made sense to have extra legs (in Son) alongside him, and whilst Kane’s 8.66km covered in his 72 minutes compared favourably with the 9.73km in 87 in his previous match (vs Sunderland), his top speed of 29.18km/h against the 31.39km/h in that Sunderland game perhaps shows that he’s not back up to speed yet (quite literally).

Christian Eriksen had a freer role, where he could focus on trying to nick the ball from the wrong-side of Arsenal’s midfield, plus look to free Kane and Son when in possession. Eriksen’s form has been a concern, so perhaps this was an attempt to give him more to aim at or play off.

Or, as I put it somewhat simplistically when responding to another Twitter must-follow, TTTactics… maybe it was just a case of allowing us to go with two up whilst having enough defenders available to stem the flow of Arsenal’s attacks.

And, of course, let’s not forget that the system is not *too* different to what we’re used to, given the propensity for Pochettino’s defensive midfielder to drop between the centre-backs, as well as how high the full-backs play.

Whilst Pochettino’s willingness to experiment with his starting formations this season has been welcome (to me anyway), he still doesn’t make in-game tactical alterations or substitutions early enough if at all. Against Bournemouth we struggled to contain their press, and might have found ourselves behind. We had no answer to their onslaught, and though the second half improved, we never really looked like winning. Pochettino’s substitution — Janssen for Son on 62 minutes — was an odd move (surely it would have been better to leave Son on to run off the target man) and, besides, some kind of switch had been necessary for half an hour at that point.

That match was, in terms of the pressing at least, similar to the West Hame game of last season (where, ironically, they played 3-4-3), though at least this time we had less of a rotated line-up out, and so didn’t totally collapse.

Against Leicester City, Pochettino waited until the 83rd minute to make his first change. Again, too little too late.

Despite this failing of his and some slack performances with an injury-hit team, our comparative results (switching the relegated teams for the promoted teams) are the same last as last year. Plus, after eleven matches last season we had 20 points, whereas this season we have 21. Hell, check this out…

And we really have been injury-hit. As lucky as we were last season, we couldn’t have been much more unlucky this — not just due to the number of injuries, but specifically who has been absent. Key players down our spine.

With Kane coming back into the fold and Dembélé and Alderweireld’s returns, we can look forward to an upturn in results (hopefully). Plus, if Pochettino can add in-game changes to his experimental starting formations, he should also be able to help turn some of these draws into wins.

Know Your Role

Hey, remember when we comprehensively beat The Best Team In The Country™ last week? That was nice.

What staggered me about the City game was not so much the quality or even the aggression with which we played, but how every man stuck to his task impeccably. It’s been a trademark since Mauricio Pochettino’s second season, but rarely so clear.

From our set-up from City’s goal kick (check out Wanyama midway inside the City half)…

…to Son Heung-min’s pressing of Claudio Bravo, knowing full well that Dele Alli and Erik Lamela were backing him up and backing City in. In this match Dele made an incredible 90 sprints, Lamela 76, and Son 73. City’s Aleksandar Kolarov made 78, but nobody else on the pitch cleared 67 — such was our intent to put their goalkeeper and centre-backs under pressure.

But nobody covered more ground than Christian Eriksen (12.72km). Eriksen had an imperfect game, in which he won just one out of his five attempted tackles and dropped 5% lower than his average pass completion of 78.6%. What he did brilliantly, though, was cover huge areas of the midfield, supporting the full-backs in possession and picking up the pieces when City lost the ball.

Whilst Victor Wanyama was throwing his weight around, making six tackles and five fouls to disturb City’s rhythm, Eriksen was latching onto loose balls and retrieving possession. In fact, he gained possession 16 times in the match — the next highest number of ball recoveries for Spurs was Victor Wanyama’s nine.

But Eriksen does have more to do, and he has still not found his best form. He failed to complete a single pass into the box, and notably wasted two or three fantastic counter-attacking opportunities by misplacing passes — one in particular drew groans at a crucial period, and that’s the side of Eriksen’s game that hasn’t quite clicked yet.

And whilst he gained possession 16 times, he lost it 19 times. Put into context, though, that is a net loss of 3 compared to Jan Vertonghen and Erik Lamela’s 10, Dele’s 13, Moussa Sissoko’s 14, Son’s 19 and Danny Rose’s staggering 29. In fact, the only players on the pitch to gain possession more than they lost it were John Stones (2), Eric Dier (3) and Victor Wanyama (1). It was a fast-paced, high-risk game, and so it was natural that the ball would be surrendered frequently.

Of all Spurs players, only Rose had more touches than Eriksen (78 to 70) and Eriksen attempted 15 more passes than any of his teammates. He kept things moving nicely, and that is a role that cannot be understated.

Christian Eriksen's passing vs Man City

Alongside Eriksen, though, was the game’s outstanding player. As I said on this week’s Fighting Cock, Victor Wanyama was not a player who I was particularly excited about signing. It made complete sense, of course, because Eric Dier played too many matches last season, and Pochettino knows exactly what Wanyama is capable of. In fact, the only reason Eric Dier broke through at defensive midfield last season was that Pochettino failed to sign Wanyama.

On Sunday, Wanyama played the archetypal Pochettino defensive-midfield role. Dropping between the centre backs to create a three in possession, covering the full-back area when Kyle Walker and particularly Rose had pushed on, and disrupting City’s flow in the centre of the pitch with tackles and tactical fouls. After an early booking I think we all expected him to be substituted or sent off, but it seemed to add an extra focus to his game, and he put in a nearly perfect defensive midfield display.

Victor Wanyama's Dashboard vs Man City

Wanyama’s control of midfield since Mousa Dembélé was injured has led to Pochettino switching to a 4-1-4-1, and his post-match comments suggested that this is the set-up for the foreseeable future.  “The design to play is not only [for] today. We played against CSKA [Moscow] and against Middlesbrough and different games with only one midfielder holding. I think that the future and the project of the team is to play with only one.”

Dembélé’s return, therefore, will cause an interesting selection dilemma. One would imagine that Sissoko would drop out with Alli moving wide left and Lamela right, but it’s a nice problem to have.

Spurs will need to show similar focus if they want to match City this season, and the early signs are that we are an even meaner machine another season on.