sloth
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- Mar 7, 2005
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Andros Townsend maintained his place in the starting XI as his direct running and “heels-on-the-touchline” wing-play were necessary to stretch Chelsea’s back three of Nemanja Matic, John Terry and Gary Cahill and create more space for Nacer Chadli, Christian Eriksen and Harry Kane. Danny Rose’s pace and tough tackling style would hopefully counter the tricks and speed of Chelsea’s playmakers, who frequently roam from one side of the pitch to the other.
Chelsea’s initial game plan involved Cesc Fabregas, Willian and Oscar occupying and interchanging in central areas of the pitch, giving Diego Costa freedom of movement so he could make his penetrating and bending runs into the spaces between our centre backs and full backs. Costa’s interchange with Chelsea’s advanced midfield three who overloaded centrally at times, placed Federico Fazio and Jan Vertonghen up against quicker and more agile playmakers, and Kyle Walker and Rose up against the stronger and more aggressive Costa.
This made it impossible for us to implement a man-marking strategy and played against our defence’s strengths, as Willian and Oscar could potentially exploit Fazio’s lack of pace and agility and Costa could physically dominate our full backs.
Eden Hazard stuck to the left hand side of the pitch in order to create room for Chelsea’s playmakers and isolate himself against Walker, who he would be confident of beating in a 1-on-1 situation. Immense credit, however, must be given to Rose especially, who showed his strength and did not allow himself to be bullied by the larger Costa or Branislav Ivanovic. Walker and Roses’ attacking nature helped Spurs to limit the attacking threats of Ivanovic and Cesar Azpilicueta as the pace of both our full backs forced their opposite numbers to be more cautious when venturing forward, thus preventing Chelsea from creating 3-on-2 overloads down Spurs’ flanks. When Costa made his runs into our outside wide channels he was very short on support and therefore most of Chelsea’s attacks through the striker ended without a chance being created.
Spurs attacked with a 3-4-3 formation, looking to use Chadli, Eriksen and Kane in the build up play. As Bentaleb dropped deeper, Walker and Rose advanced forward, allowing Chadli to drfit inside and link up with Kane and Eriksen, as the Belgian did for our fifth goal. The 3-4-3 meant Eriksen was able to drop into the space left by Bentaleb, forcing either Matic or Fabregas to pick him up, thus opening up passing lanes to one of our attacking three. This allowed us to get the ball to our attacking three time and again, giving our forward players plenty of time in possession.
Eriksen’s movement off the ball caused Chelsea plenty of issues as it usually resulted in Matic being drawn away from the centre of the pitch. The absence the screen player in front of Terry and Cahill gave Kane and Chadli space in front of Chelsea’s goal and we probably could have exploited this gap further, had it not been for Ryan Mason’s injury on 11 minutes.
Mousa Dembele, who replaced Mason, was usually left as a free man in our build up as none of the Chelsea midfield was able to mark him. Fabregas, Matic and Oscar were tied up with the movement of Chadli, Eriksen and Kane, whilst Hazard was unable to pressure Dembele because Townsend and Walker stayed wide, in order to threaten Chelsea with 2-on-1 situations against Azpilicueta.
Dembele often found himself in space in Chelsea’s half but, as usual, he did not utilise this with either late runs into the box or by demanding the ball in order to work a shot or pass. Instead, the frustrating Belgian remained deep, offering himself as a safe backward or sideways option. Had Mason been on the pitch, we could have made life even more uncomfortable for Chelsea in the first half. Luckily, this wasn’t necessary and Dembele’s forced introduction proved to be a blessing in disguise after the break.
Now let’s look at Kane’s opening goal:
1. Eriksen and Chadli made dummy runs wide, drawing Matic away from his central position and pulling Cahill left, opening up a gap between him and Terry for Kane to shoot at. Ivanovic is lost; he does not know who to track, he doesn’t want to be sucked inside by the run of Kane so he stays put and ends up taking himself out of the game.
2. Kane only has to get past Fabregas and Oscar, two players he can easily outmuscle and who are unable to stop him running into the dangerous central area. As Matic has been pulled away by Eriksen, this space is unoccupied by a physical Chelsea presence. From here, Kane can use his deadly long range shooting ability in order to create a chance.
3. Terry is the only Chelsea player who can stop Kane at this point but he is slow in anticipating the situation and he is unsure whether or not he should abandon his position. If he steps up, he leaves a great deal of space behind him for Townsend or Chadli to make runs into. If he stays put, Kane has space and time to make a shot or pass.
4. Townsend positions himself as wide as possible to stretch Chelsea’s defence and create gaps between the visitors’ back four, which Kane, Chadli or Eriksen could either use for a pass or shot.
I believe that most of the criticism for this goal should fall upon Fabregas, Oscar and Mourinho. If there is only one defensive player in the midfield, he should not be assigned a man-marking duty which will involve him having to track wide runs. This results in the side losing their central defensive figure, forcing the more creative players to fill in.
In this case, two of Chelsea’s attacking and creative forces are having to defend against a very strong and direct attacking threat in the form of Kane. Oscar and Fabregas were not strong enough in challenging or jockeying Kane, leaving him free to enter the space directly in front of Chelsea’s goal. This was a rare tactical mistake by Mourinho and one which was expertly exploited by an energetic Spurs side.
With Spurs 3-1 up heading into the second half (due to Chadli’s direct running, Rose’s supporting runs and a clinical penalty from Townsend), Mourinho introduced Ramires for Oscar. Ramires was able to provide more defensive cover than Oscar and this gave Fabregas complete freedom of the centre of the pitch in order to hurt Spurs with his passing.
The second half presented a different issue for Spurs: now they had to preserve their lead. This is where Dembele came in handy. What we needed to kill the game, ideally by passing Chelsea to death and keeping possession. For this objective, Dembele was very useful. He continued to pick up the ball in deep areas and simply move it from side to side. As he was one of the fresher players on the pitch and one of the strongest, Chelsea struggled to take the ball off him and with some composure Spurs could have easily seen this game out at 3-1 or 4-1.
For the first part of the second half, Mousa helped the team control the game and therefore prevent Chelsea from gaining any foothold. However, this is Spurs and still a side which harbours a shaky, if improving, mentality. There were several times when Chadli, for example, continued to seek another goal and lost possession through shooting on goal and poor decision making. Fazio’s decision to provoke the Chelsea midfield by dribbling with the ball along our halfway line resulted in the Blues’ second. 4-2.
Though we brought the score back to 5-2, we continued to hand Chelsea the initiative, with Spurs stuck between attack and defence, not sure if to continue for another goal or break up the flow of the game. Perhaps the crowd’s chants of “We Want Six!” genuinely had an effect on the players, who should have seen out this match when the three goal advantage was restored.
Chelsea’s third goal was disastrous and shows why this particular squad might never realise its full potential. After giving away a foul in a dangerous wide angle our players instantly turned their back on play, a rookie mistake that was certain to be punished. Paulinho, Dembele and Bentaleb all had their backs to the ball when it was passed to Hazard on the edge of our box, while Vertonghen was at sea and in no rush to get back into position. What’s more, no one took responsibility for picking up Terry on the back post. The goal suggested the weak mentality in our squad is still present. If this remains, our goal difference will remain below that of our competitors. The naivety of some of our players was quite incredible and I refuse to let it go unnoticed, even though the attacking performance was superb.
Overall this was a very good performance, although, as a perfectionist, I felt it was rather blemished by the lack of maturity in certain areas of our game. While, I am delighted with the win, I again feel the need to stress that this squad needs reconstruction. Some bright lights from our academy in Mason, Bentaleb and Kane have forced themselves into the spine of this team, which is hugely pleasing but many of the foreign imports remain below the required standard. Halfway through this season, Pochettino has proved that he deserves complete faith in the transfer market so he can create a complete squad which will apply all of his teachings and dedicate themselves to his philosophy. COYS!
Link to site: http://www.thetottenhamway.com/2015/01/03/tottenham-5-3-chelsea-detailed-tactical-analysis/
Above was my latest piece for thetottenhamway.com and my pieces have come under criticism quite often. While I stress I only do these pieces for my own enjoyment and for the enjoyment of others and that I know I don't know everything about tactics in football as I am rather inexperienced, I would like to know if my pieces are correct and thought provoking.
So I was wondering if anyone on here could give me any tips on writing style, things that I'm missing both in terms of tactics and communication, what people like and don't like reading etc? Be as critical as you like but please don't insult me. I'm not looking for an ego-boost I just want to know what I can do better and how I could improve my pieces.
Thank you for any responses.
10/10 for the analysis, 2/10 for the thread title, I almost missed it, because it was so cryptic
