Tottenham's tactics too cautious to win title, says Robbie Savage

[dagraham]

I dunno, at some point (preferably after we have seen the likes of Eriksen, Lamela et al get a proper run of games) I think two strikers has to be looked at if our struggles in front of goal continue.

I'm not saying it will be the answer, I don't particularly like the formation myself, but it shouldn't be open lottery football like previous times, Dembele and Sandro/Capoue is a solid, disciplined pairing that allows the others to go and play.

Wide players would be a problem, given they all like cutting inside. Maybe a diamond midfield with fullbacks pushing on.

Nah, let's keep ploughing on regardless without even thinking of adapting the system. If only the opposition stopped being so defensive, the pitch stopped being so small and the fans sung a bit more, all our problems in front of goal would disappear.

 

[JUSTINSIGNAL]

Nah, let's keep ploughing on regardless without even thinking of adapting the system. If only the opposition stopped being so defensive, the pitch stopped being so small and the fans sung a bit more, all our problems in front of goal would disappear.

Well, I won't be complaining if we keep averaging 2 points per game.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

Well, I won't be complaining if we keep averaging 2 points per game.

I will if there are 4 teams above us averaging 4.1

 

[parklane1]

Well, I won't be complaining if we keep averaging 2 points per game.

Neither will i, but you can bet some will.

 

[sloth]

I don't think they do at all, I think it's more to do with making the right decision. Which we are not doing well at the moment. Hopefully our players are adaptable to not always make the same move?

I'm banging the same drum again, but the whole concept of 'gelling' is non existant. Nobody is saying it about City, they are blaming Pellegrini for playing what is effectively a 442. I think AVB needs to show his adaptability a bit more, probably a bit like Pellegrini does.

I did a post at the top of the page before last (which everyone ignored except BC ) which appeared to show that there are many unifying factors across Europe's best teams, the result being we couldn't say it's the system which is at fault, that attempting to dominate the opposition in terms of possession and possession in opponents half, playing inverted wingers, playing a lone striker are not correlated with scoring few goals. The stat which jumped out was that almost every other top team attempted a high frequency of through-balls, we however didn't.

If lack of through-balls are indeed an issue for us in terms of scoring goals then the question becomes why don't we play more through-balls? Possibilities include:

1. Poor movement off the ball
2. Poor decision-making on the ball
3. Lack of technical skill on the ball.


If we ignore 3. for now (I'll post something about that in a sec) and concetrate on the first two then I think they can be summarised as team cohesion. Surely time to gel could be a factor here? Some of these players have come from different leagues, playing different styles, against different styles. Just consider Eriksen at Ajax, Lamela at Roma, Soldado at Valencia, even think Townsend at QPR, into that mix we can also think about Gylfi with us and the different players he was playing with last season, if he even played. You talked about City also having a high turnover of players this summer, however their most used front five this season are Toure, Aguero, Silva, Milner, and Negredo, and when they switch formations it's to accommodate either Nasri or Navas. The point being there's a core of players there from last season. Our front five have been Paulinho, Townsend, Eriksen, Gylfi, and Soldado, last season it was Dembele, Lennon, Bale, Dempsey, and Defoe

 

[sloth]

On another tack it can also be argued that AVB is picking the wrong players for his formation. I'm not sure I entirely buy into it, but here's an interesting article which makes exactly that point:

1) AVB and the Crazy Contradictions

I was talking to Mike Goodman this weekend, and we both noted that we’ve never encountered a manager with such a strong tactical system, who seems to be so adept at choosing the wrong personnel like AVB.

At this point, Spurs tactical system is a fairly easy read. They run a high line and two destructive midfielders to break up opponent play and recycle the ball back into the offense. They need their fullbacks to overlap and create width so their wide forwards/attacking midfielders can flood the box. They counterattack whenever possible. And they can definitely have problems creating good chances from open play. This is especially true now that opponents understand what is going on.

This last one is kind of a big deal, because as good as they look in defense (and they are outstanding), Spurs still need to score goals to win games. Last season, they averaged 1.73 goals per game on the offensive end, all of which came from open play. Spurs probably should have had 3-4 penalties last season, but those were converted into yellow cards for Gareth Bale via the magic combination of reputation + diving.

This season, sans only Gareth Bale, but plus Roberto Soldado, Christian Eriksen, Erik Lamela, Nacer Chadli, and Andros Townsend, they average… 1 goal per game. But three of the nine goals they have scored so far this season came via penalty. So in reality, they are averaging .66 non-penalty goals per game, or over one goal per game fewer than last season.

Knowing that they have some systemic creativity difficulties, and going into a match against Hull, a team whose only definable footballing trait is “organized defense,” who did AVB choose for his front 6?

• Sandro, destroyer.
• Paulinho, runner.
• Roberto Soldado, potential penalty-box goal converter, but equally likely Spanish olive tree.
• Andros Townsend, Captain of the Dibbles Well and Shoots from Range All-Stars.
• Aaron Lennon… on the left. (Wait, what?)
• And Lewis Holtby, who might be good, might be shit, and has been in England since January, yet somehow we still don’t know which is which.

On the bench were

• Moussa Dembele, Spurs glue midfielder and their most important transitional player.
• Christian Eriksen, a wildly creative passer and one of the top 10 assist men in Europe over the last three seasons.
• Gylffi Sigurdsson, Icelander. Another attacking midfielder and one of the few creative bright spots for Spurs so far.
• And Erik Lamela, £30M man, and one of the best young wide forwards in Europe. A guy who is best played as an inverted wing (on the right) because his left-footed dribbling brings him into better central shooting positions, and also helps link up with his teammates. He goes central, leaving space for the always important Kyle Walker overlaps. But who was played on the left in Europe midweek because… um… yeah.

Thus it came as little surprise to anyone that pays attention that Spurs had real problems breaking down Hull. They escaped with yet another narrow 1-0 victory, courtesy of a sketchy penalty call. Sound familiar? (Chorus: Yes!) Hull can just barely mount an attack – why not replace either Paulinho or Sandro with another good passer centrally? Why not put Sig on the left wing instead of putting Lennon out of position, especially since Lennon NEVER SCORES GOALS? Why not… well, I could do this all day. Regardless of what I think, AVB did his own thing and Spurs scrapped out another scintillating win.

It did, however, come as quite a surprise that AVB chose the press conference after this game to take shots at the White Hart Lane support. “We looked like the away team. We played in a difficult atmosphere with almost no support.” I see…

It’s not that he’s wrong – fan support at home when your team is winning consistently should be tremendous. England would certainly benefit from having more German-style fans. Then again, English fans would certainly benefit from paying more German-style prices… The problem comes with the timing, and realization among Spurs fans that, hey our team DOES have problems creating, and double hey, that lineup was fucking terrible.

Questioning AVB’s lineups isn’t a new thing, it’s a constant. Last year, he kept playing old dudes in defense to start the season and Spurs kept giving up late goals. Huh. This year, it’s a different angle. I personally would suggest playing your most creative players away in Europe midweek in a meaningless match was stupid.

I would also suggest that leaving them out of a match where they were definitely needed in the Premier League was just asinine. Yet it keeps happening. And fans keep noticing.

AVB has a great system. Spurs have a number of quite impressive players. At some point he’ll figure out how to use them all correctly, right? Maybe?

I think the point someone else made about playing direct wingers against withdrawn defences is also pertinent, although I would probably stick with Townsend as I do think he's got a bit of the head-up about him even if he's not quite showing it yet.

 

[only1waddle]

I did a post at the top of the previous page (which everyone ignored except BC ) which appeared to show that there are many unifying factors across Europe's best teams, the result being we couldn't say it's the system which is at fault, that attempting to dominate the opposition in terms of possession and possession in opponents half, playing inverted wingers, playing a lone striker are not correlated with scoring few goals. The stat which jumped out was that almost every other top team attempted a high frequency of through-balls, we however didn't.

If lack of through-balls are indeed an issue for us in terms of scoring goals then the question becomes why don't we play more through-balls? Possibilities include:

1. Poor movement off the ball
2. Poor decision-making on the ball
3. Lack of technical skill on the ball.


If we ignore 3. for now (I'll post something about that in a sec) and concetrate on the first twoI think they can be summarised as team cohesion and surely time to gel could be a factor here? Some of these players have come from different leagues, playing different styles, against different styles. Just consider Eriksen at Ajax, Lamela at Roma, Soldado at Valencia, even think Townsend at QPR, into that mix we can also think about Gylfi with us and the different players he was playing with last season, if he even played. You talked about City also having a high turnover of players this summer, however there must used front five this season are Toure, Aguero, Silva, Milner, and Negredo, and when they switch formations it's to accommodate either Nasri or Navas. The point being there's a core of players there from last season. Our front five have been Paulinho, Townsend, Eriksen, Gylfi, and Soldado, last season it was Dembele, Lennon, Bale, Dempsey, and Defoe

Or not playing it unless it is a clear cut through ball , with the result of us not wanting to lose possession #justatheory..

 

[sloth]

Or not playing it unless it is a clear cut through ball , with the result of us not wanting to lose possession #justatheory..

Lack of bravery in other words...

 

[only1waddle]

Lack of bravery in other words...

Which is why Soldado has no joy,lots of his runs require a quick pass from deep.
I also think the lack of movement and passing is linked with players trying to stay in a rough formation, which would tie in with a previous article about players playing like robots until it becomes second nature, or as Mourinho likened it to people learning to drive.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Thank god.

At least he admits Bale was playing in a 442.

But he didn't say that at all. We know almost entirely under Redknapp we played 442. And initially under AVb we played some games like that, but once we started playing Bale on the right with only one recognised striker there is no way on earth that was a traditional 442.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

I did a post at the top of the page before last (which everyone ignored except BC ) which appeared to show that there are many unifying factors across Europe's best teams, the result being we couldn't say it's the system which is at fault, that attempting to dominate the opposition in terms of possession and possession in opponents half, playing inverted wingers, playing a lone striker are not correlated with scoring few goals. The stat which jumped out was that almost every other top team attempted a high frequency of through-balls, we however didn't.

If lack of through-balls are indeed an issue for us in terms of scoring goals then the question becomes why don't we play more through-balls? Possibilities include:

1. Poor movement off the ball
2. Poor decision-making on the ball
3. Lack of technical skill on the ball.


If we ignore 3. for now (I'll post something about that in a sec) and concetrate on the first two then I think they can be summarised as team cohesion. Surely time to gel could be a factor here? Some of these players have come from different leagues, playing different styles, against different styles. Just consider Eriksen at Ajax, Lamela at Roma, Soldado at Valencia, even think Townsend at QPR, into that mix we can also think about Gylfi with us and the different players he was playing with last season, if he even played. You talked about City also having a high turnover of players this summer, however their most used front five this season are Toure, Aguero, Silva, Milner, and Negredo, and when they switch formations it's to accommodate either Nasri or Navas. The point being there's a core of players there from last season. Our front five have been Paulinho, Townsend, Eriksen, Gylfi, and Soldado, last season it was Dembele, Lennon, Bale, Dempsey, and Defoe

I can remember seeing Townsend play one successful through ball in 9 games so far (to Paulinho against Chelsea I think). There's a big chunk of the problem there.

Lamela has more assists in about 20 minutes than Townsend does in about 800 minutes.

 

[davidmatzdorf]

It's a very, very long discussion about tactics, but still no one has mentioned what to me are the three key words: 'change of pace'.

I have no problem with our lengthy periods of safe possession, gradually approaching the box and applying pressure with the ball. It's what our current defensive success is based upon and it's an effective way of winning football matches.

The difference between what we are doing and what Man City, Arsenal and even Liverpool are doing, plus Man Utd in earlier seasons, is that there's no sudden, incisive change of pace when there's a gap. Instead, there's hesitation and a sense of uncertainty ... and then the gap is gone, because at this level, especially when we are playing defensively-minded opposition at home, gaps last less than one second.

That's why attempted through balls don't get attempted and, when they do get attempted, they routinely bounce off the arse or knee of a covering defender: because there's no instantaneous change of pace from the players who form the attacking block.

That's why our crosses, when we manage, laboriously, to get a player behind the defence, keep getting blocked or put out for corner kicks: because no one is making the change of pace from our slow build-up to a swift, one-touch attack.

Slow build-up is good; slow attacking moves are bad. You have to have a collective, well-coordinated change of pace. Some of that is plainly related to players still not being on the same wavelength: as someone wrote above, a remarkable percentage of the through balls that do get through go in the opposite direction to the run chosen by their target.

But that isn't the only problem. We're usually not even trying to make a change of pace. Attacking players are just hesitating. Either they aren't seeing the gaps or they are not reacting quickly enough or they are just choosing the conservative option because they haven't enough confidence to risk being the one who loses the ball.

If we can inject a sudden change of pace into our attacking play, then we will score goals.

 

[Spurger King]

It's a very, very long discussion about tactics, but still no one has mentioned what to me are the three key words: 'change of pace'.

I have no problem with our lengthy periods of safe possession, gradually approaching the box and applying pressure with the ball. It's what our current defensive success is based upon and it's an effective way of winning football matches.

The difference between what we are doing and what Man City, Arsenal and even Liverpool are doing, plus Man Utd in earlier seasons, is that there's no sudden, incisive change of pace when there's a gap. Instead, there's hesitation and a sense of uncertainty ... and then the gap is gone, because at this level, especially when we are playing defensively-minded opposition at home, gaps last less than one second.

That's why attempted through balls don't get attempted and, when they do get attempted, they routinely bounce off the arse or knee of a covering defender: because there's no instantaneous change of pace from the players who form the attacking block.

That's why our crosses, when we manage, laboriously, to get a player behind the defence, keep getting blocked or put out for corner kicks: because no one is making the change of pace from our slow build-up to a swift, one-touch attack.

Slow build-up is good; slow attacking moves are bad. You have to have a collective, well-coordinated change of pace. Some of that is plainly related to players still not being on the same wavelength: as someone wrote above, a remarkable percentage of the through balls that do get through go in the opposite direction to the run chosen by their target.

But that isn't the only problem. We're usually not even trying to make a change of pace. Attacking players are just hesitating. Either they aren't seeing the gaps or they are not reacting quickly enough or they are just choosing the conservative option because they haven't enough confidence to risk being the one who loses the ball.

If we can inject a sudden change of pace into our attacking play, then we will score goals.

I agree. I've mentioned elsewhere that our decision making always seems to happen in slow motion, as if our players are trying to recall the latest powerpoint presentation on who to pass to in a given situation.

This isn't American Football where plays can be rigorously planned and executed. There needs to be an element of natural and instinctive thinking in our approach too.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

But he didn't say that at all. We know almost entirely under Redknapp we played 442. And initially under AVb we played some games like that, but once we started playing Bale on the right with only one recognised striker there is no way on earth that was a traditional 442.

Bale on the right?

Oh do stop it you windbag. Bale was the number 10. Deal with it. It's fine. AVB is still more sexy than Redknapp don't worry.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

I can remember seeing Townsend play one successful through ball in 9 games so far (to Paulinho against Chelsea I think). There's a big chunk of the problem there.

Lamela has more assists in about 20 minutes than Townsend does in about 800 minutes.

This is true and I've harped on for far too long already that Townsend is as much the problem in our system as he is the answer.

 

[Misfit]

Sounds nice. More worryingly accurate is that we're not playing a negative style of football. We've just been absolute fucking cack in making space for ourselves in the final third. We either need to go into the transfer market again in a big way this Jan, especially at FB position, to get his system to function more efficiently or AVB needs to adjust his tactics to accommodate the players we already have who are being somewhat hamstrung by playing in this stuttering system at present. LW on the LW and stay out wide in the main to create width/stretch the oppo defence and open up space, tell the FBs to play more conventionally.

All very simple stuff but then I am a football genius.

 

[JUSTINSIGNAL]

This is true and I've harped on for far too long already that Townsend is as much the problem in our system as he is the answer.

As much as I want him to succeed he really needs to sit on the bench for a couple of games. He was awful against Everton.

 

[WiganSpur]

As for being more positive we were against a bunch of nobodies but arguably the best football we've played this season was the 3-0 home win over Tblisi when both Carroll and Holtby featured with Sandro holding.

I'm annoyed we loaned out Tommy, it's worse than Townsend last season because he's in the Championship.

Lloris
Walker Chiriches Vertonghen Rose
Sandro
Carroll Holtby
Lamela----------Eriksen
Soldado
​

or:

Lloris
Walker Chiriches Vertonghen Rose
Sandro/Paulinho Carroll/Dembele
Lamela--Holtby--Eriksen
Soldado

​

It'd be pretty much impossible to play shit football with this lineup. I'd also bring Falque and Chadli back into the fold because they're intelligent players that are needed to help break teams down.

Townsend and Soldado just doesn't work for me so i'd only encourage Andros as a regular starter if we had a striker that wanted to get more involved in all round play.

​

​

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Here's something

Bale on the right?

Oh do stop it you windbag. Bale was the number 10. Deal with it. It's fine. AVB is still more sexy than Redknapp don't worry.

That still isn't 442 then is it. It was 4231.

 

[Spurs_Bear]

Here's something



That still isn't 442 then is it. It was 4231.

It's brilliant you can't stand the fact AVB went all Redknapp. It's also quite cute. 4-4-faaaacking-2.