Pressing

[spids]

Interesting to hear Jose moaning about the lack of pressing on Sunday, especially when he sets the defence up in such a low block and the players are clearly not match fit yet. Pressing is not simple and needs to be coordinated and requires high energy levels. I think there are a number reasons why our highly effective press under Poch tailed off:

1. We moved to a bigger pitch. The old WHL pitch was small, and when we moved to Wembley it was simply too easy for good teams to pass around the press. New WHL is also a bigger pitch making pressing harder.
2. Lack of pace in defence. Collectively our defence has got slower since 2015/16/17. Verts and Toby got older. Walker left. Rose got injured. This resulted in the defence dropping deeper meaning if the forwards pressed there was too much space behind them for teams to pass their way out.
3. Lack of athleticism in CM. Dembele and Wanyama were beasts. When the defence squeezed up it gave them a small area to totally dominate physically and they were happy to search and destroy in support of the press. Winks and Sissoko are just nowhere near the same in terms of proactive athleticism. Hojbjerg showed signs in pre-season that he is willing to do this, but he needs a partner who is also happy to put a shift in.
4. Stale squad. A lack of investment meant Poch had the same players for 4 or 5 consecutive pre-seasons. There are only so many times the players will do the same double running sessions to enable a high-energy press. The likes of Kane and Dele have significantly dropped their work ethic off the ball in the last 18 months. Moura and Son can press all they like in isolation but unless all 5 forward players 'go as one' it will be a waste of effort.

Quite simply we do not have the energy levels or the personnel to press well so we need to keep the ball better. Mourinho has set us up as a low block counter attacking team but without a press or a progressive playmaker I do not see how we can have any success unless teams fall for Toby's long ball over the top to Son or Dele.

 

[Oh Teddy Teddy]

I don’t know why we bother with it under Jose. It’s so ineffective. Like we’re caught between styles - old and new.

 

[Gspurs11]

Pressing (or lack thereof).

I read something quite interesting from Nathan Clark, who's on the Extra Inch. They mentioned in the pre-season friendlies we were using a 'variable-press' where you switch between high-press, low block and a mid block in different phases of the game on a particular trigger. Maybe that is the plan going forward but the Everton game was a shambles.

There are a few players I'm thinking may have been expedited to the knackers yard after the Poch years. A lack of transfers and his preference to work with a small squad in a highly demanding way has possibly meant some players just can't reach that 'maximum' again. I dunno, I'm not a sports scientist

 

[Wsussexspur]

Was Spurs’ pressure lazy? Yes, but that’s not their pressing problem – this is


By Tom Worville 5h ago

51

“I’m disappointed with my team.”
There are few things worse for a manager to say after an opening game of a new season, but that’s exactly what Jose Mourinho told reporters after his side’s defeat by Everton on Sunday.
Spurs lost 1-0, and were outshot (15 to nine) and out xG’d (1.2 to 1.13) in the process. On paper, that says they were slightly unfortunate to come away from the game without any points, given Everton didn’t batter them in terms of the quality of chances that they created.
Matt Doherty had his now-characteristic big chance of the match after floating in from the right, and Dele Alli also had a great opportunity to score (worth 0.36 xG, Spurs’ best chance of the game), although that was arguably a bad outcome, and one reflective of new-season rustiness, given Spurs created this…

…from this…

Nevertheless, this is a team who have top-six aspirations and should be either creating far better chances or limiting those of their opposition.
The main source of Mourinho’s disappointment (despite the result) was how his side attempted to press Everton. “Lazy pressure” was what he labelled his side’s attempts to close down their opponent, especially when Everton were passing out from the back.
So, was Spurs’ pressure lazy?
PPDA, or passes allowed per opponent defensive action, is one such proxy to try and capture the degree to which an opponent is pressuring the opposition. For those unfamiliar, the stat looks to count the number of times that a team attempts a defensive action, such as a tackle or interception, compared to the number of times the opposition attempts a pass.
A low PPDA number indicates higher intensity when trying to win the ball back and a higher figure indicates a team that is more passive without the ball.
Spurs’ PPDA for the game against Everton sat at 11.9, lower than Mourinho’s average of 12.4 since joining last November and slightly lower than the league average too. All models are wrong but some are useful, as the saying goes, and that’s definitely the case here. PPDA tells us that Tottenham tried to press, but it doesn’t give us any indication of the successful execution of that strategy — or the degree of laziness, if we’re talking in Mourinho’s language.
Another perspective is required, one that attempts to understand the quality of a press, not the mere presence of it.
One means of understanding this is to consider how many times a team pressures the ball, and how often that leads to a turnover of possession. Statsbomb pressure data via fbref calculates exactly this and can help to evaluate the quality of a press. Again, no model is perfect, but it’s a good enough proxy.
Spurs pressured Everton 220 times and, of those, won possession of the ball back just 43 times within five seconds. As a percentage, that indicates Tottenham’s pressure was successful 19.5 per cent of the time, the lowest figure in the Premier League so far this season, just a touch below Fulham (19.6 per cent).
Spurs were applying pressure, but it wasn’t leading to turnovers, and also failing to stop Everton from getting into the final third or progressing through to the middle of the field. Lazy pressure indeed.
So does the blame automatically go to the players though? Well, not entirely.
Pressing isn’t a binary tactic. You don’t decide as a manager that you want your team to press, and it suddenly is a successful means of approaching the game when out of possession.
Pressing can be co-ordinated and deadly if employed correctly, something with which Spurs fans are only too familiar, given they were one of the best pressing sides in the league during the early years of Mauricio Pochettino’s reign at the club.
Mourinho succinctly summed up the impact of a bad press to Sky Sports after the game, saying “when you have lazy pressure, you don’t press, you allow opponents to build from the back. Lazy pressure up front creates unbalanced situations for the rest of the team”.
The key part of that first quote is how lazy pressure means you don’t press. That’s an important delineation to bear in mind. Pressure comes from one player, a press is the co-ordination of multiple pressures simultaneously or sequentially.
Think of a time when you’ve played football and you’ve chased down the player on the ball, only for them to fully alleviate all the pressure you applied by making a simple sideways pass to a free team-mate. That was good pressurefrom you (give yourself a pat on the back) but bad pressing (give your team-mates the hairdryer after the match).
The knowledge of when and where to press in a game to form an effective press has to come from training, and that’s on the coaching staff.
Going back to the numbers, Tottenham’s 220 pressures was the most in the Premier League this weekend, and the third-highest in a game under Mourinho. That’s ammunition to suggest that the level of effort was there from the players, but the co-ordination of the press wasn’t.
Here’s one such example of that lack of co-ordination. Everton start with a goal kick in the fourth minute of the game, and Jordan Pickford elects to play it short. Yerry Mina receives the ball from Pickford, which triggers Alli to pressure the Colombian…

…but given the lengths Alli has to go to, Mina has time to coolly play it square to Michael Keane, who is under no pressure from Harry Kane. Kane jogs in Lucas Digne’s general direction with little conviction, and Keane passes the ball out to him.

Lucas Moura is triggered to start pressuring Digne when the Frenchman receives the ball. Digne is still able to get the ball down the line with relative ease. While he makes the pass, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg sprints to close down Andre Gomes, leaving a big gap behind him.

Richarlison receives the ball and is under intense pressure from Doherty. A heavy touch should be pounced on by Spurs, but the ball pops back to Digne…

…who gets a pass off to Abdoulaye Doucoure ahead of Hojbjerg…

…who knocks it back to Gomes despite being under pressure from Harry Winks…

…who sprays it out wide to Seamus Coleman.

From there, Everton manage to get the ball into the box, but a Richarlison air-shot ends the sequence of play. Below is an overhead view of how that sequence unfolded.

There’s another example again in the 28th minute. Jordan Pickford receives the ball and is being closed down by Kane.

Kane’s pressure is fairly poor, however, and Pickford is easily able to step past him and slot the ball through to Gomes in midfield, with Allan moving to the right side of the pitch to make space for Gomes in behind. Hojbjerg again is very aggressive in his movement, following Allan without thinking of what’s happening behind him.
Again, Spurs’ structure in this situation is pretty poor. Kane’s pressing was lazy here, yes, but there’s no player on the left side of the field to close down Gomes or stop Keane — who is stood behind Kane inside the box — from being an easy passing option.

Again, this move progresses upfield fairly quickly from here, reaching the penalty area, as you can see from the pass map below.

These examples point to a clear lack of principles: the when and where aren’t clear, and all of the effort that’s required to turn pressure into pressing is wasted.
There’s also a clear thread in both examples of Hojbjerg’s high-energy approach, which provides a wonderful example of why sprint distance and speed without context is useless. The Dane may need some time to unlearn the high-octane pressing style that he was a part of at Southampton.
Is this a case of paralysis by analysis, and we’re zooming in too much on a single game? Again, the data shows perhaps not. Here’s that successful pressure metric again, for each of Spurs’ games since the start of last season.
There was a clear fluctuation in the effectiveness of the pressing for Spurs under Pochettino and Mourinho before the COVID-19-enforced lockdown. Since the restart, there’s a clear downward trend on Spurs’ inability to apply pressure effectively.

It’s tough to predict which direction this will go in next, but for now, it seems clear that Spurs’ pressing, while present, isn’t all that effective. There are structural issues that need addressing.
So how do Spurs and Mourinho go about mending the press?
One such solution is to forget the press entirely and elect instead to clog the midfield and block the passing lanes that lead to easy ball progression. Spurs have great counter-attacking options and can use the energy they’re preserving from not applying pressure to break from deep instead.
This could either be a longer-term strategy — and that may well be the best option, given Mourinho hasn’t had overly effective pressing sides in the past — or just one to use until the squad is back to match fitness.
The alternative solution would be to use training to better teach the players about the triggers of when and where to apply pressure, turning Tottenham’s individual efforts to win the ball back into a more cohesive, mechanistic method when out of possession. History tells us that this is a big ask: Mourinho’s teams haven’t ever really been lauded for their high-pressing approach, especially not in a way that is comparable to effective high-pressing teams in the modern game.
Mourinho’s attempt to employ a pressing strategy after the shortest (and weirdest) pre-season ever does feel somewhat short-sighted, and also part of a recent trend in Spurs’ inability to turn pressure into pressing.
Of course, Tottenham’s season doesn’t hinge on one game, but how the side bounces back after an opening-day defeat, and either looks to fix or abandon the press, is one of the main themes to pay attention to in their next few games.

 

[GutBucket]

Getting Hojbjerg in was a decent hint we want to do pressing, problem is we don't have a DM to shield the team when other midfielder/s go high up the pitch to recover posession. We need match fit players for it and we are lacking in that department. Maybe we see it around Christmas if our schedule doesn't destroy everyone.

 

[Metalhead]

Pressing (or lack thereof).

I read something quite interesting from Nathan Clark, who's on the Extra Inch. They mentioned in the pre-season friendlies we were using a 'variable-press' where you switch between high-press, low block and a mid block in different phases of the game on a particular trigger. Maybe that is the plan going forward but the Everton game was a shambles.

There are a few players I'm thinking may have been expedited to the knackers yard after the Poch years. A lack of transfers and his preference to work with a small squad in a highly demanding way has possibly meant some players just can't reach that 'maximum' again. I dunno, I'm not a sports scientist

I think that you’ve made a really good point. I think that variable play may well be what the aim is but it clearly isn’t working at the moment.

 

[OpenHeartZoo]

Biggest worry for me is that it’s difficult to work out exactly what our style or philosophy is meant to be at the moment. As much as I’m really behind Mourinho’s “aggression, give everything” etc attitude, the players are only going to run for him if it feels like it’s working. If the football is dull and the results aren’t coming either then heads will drop pretty quickly.

I do get the impression that Jose has genuinely come in to our club with a determination to have a good relationship with the board and be a bit more pragmatic about the types of players we can bring in, but it remains to be seen whether he can actually come up with a system that makes the best of the resources we have. If he had the kind of resources he’s had in the past I’m not sure Dele would be in the team, for example. He’s trying to make use of a high value asset who can be very very effective in the right system, but in my opinion he doesn’t suit the way Jose has tended to play in the past, nor do we have the balance in our team to anymore to replicate the system he used to thrive in.

Jose-ball to me is 4-3-3. Counter attack. 2 quick wingers. Balanced midfield 3 of power, industry and guile. Or it’s 4-2-3-1 with a proper number 10 who runs the show, play off a big centre forward. We are neither.

 

[BringBack_leGin]

I felt, love it or loathe it, that we had a structure in place after the restart that would be successful more than not. Low block, no press, players falling back into formation, attack on the break at pace.

The Everton match seemed devoid of identity, it’s concerning.

 

[Strikeb4ck]

I don't think the squad is fit tbh. The international break did not help whatsoever, too many players probably went from vacation straight to internationals and then had a day or two at the training ground.

We had several first team players on international duty, Everton had Coleman who didn't have to play for Ireland (thanks to Doherty) and Digne who played one match for France. In our starting 11 - Toby, Dier, Doherty, Hojbjerg, Kane all played for their countries.

It's not an excuse, but I do think it makes a difference. Not good for cohesion or fitness.

 

[FibreOpticJesus]

It's not just the pressing when we do not have the ball. My biggest frustration with all our outfield players is the standing still after they have passed the ball. What happened to pass-move-receive -pass-move etc. We are so static.

 

[Erm33]

To me we needed to have dele or whoever was playing the 10 role sit on Allen to take him out of the game. He was getting the ball under no pressure most of the time and starting off all of their attacks. Take him out the game and their link between defence and midfield would have meant they would have had to start to play longer with it being much easier for our two mids to press their two mids, instead we were outnumbered 3-2 all the time and they were just playing triangles around the one or two players who were closing down as Allen was almost always available to receive the ball.

 

[JoaoPereira]

It's not just the pressing when we do not have the ball. My biggest frustration with all our outfield players is the standing still after they have passed the ball. What happened to pass-move-receive -pass-move etc. We are so static.

when the midfield fails to chain movements it is often due to the lack of collective dynamics. they're probably too afraid of being caught out of position making an off the book cut into a foreign space and therefore are cautious in their approach resulting in a stagnant offense. I saw PEH fill the right side of the back 4 multiple times for Doherty. this screams that the midfield is instructed to contain while the front 4 plus Doherty try do their thing with a little bit more of freedom. however we cannot get them the ball in good conditions enough for it to be effective.

 

[Shadydan]

I don't think the squad is fit tbh. The international break did not help whatsoever, too many players probably went from vacation straight to internationals and then had a day or two at the training ground.

We had several first team players on international duty, Everton had Coleman who didn't have to play for Ireland (thanks to Doherty) and Digne who played one match for France. In our starting 11 - Toby, Dier, Doherty, Hojbjerg, Kane all played for their countries.

It's not an excuse, but I do think it makes a difference. Not good for cohesion or fitness.

Pressing is more to do with mentality rather than fitness, you have to want or have the desire to press and close down gaps as a team, if one person goes to press then the next person needs to be smart enough to know where to block the angles or who to push up on. What Mourinho called lazy pressing he means we just didn't press smart enough which suggests that it's a mental block.

 

[spursfan77]

I posted a link to the athletic article this morning in the mourinho thread. I'll repeat it because it is probably more relevant here

There is some good news from the game on Sunday. We pressed more than any other team at the weekend. The bad news is, the wrong pressing was done. Now, that isn’t a real problem. More time on the training ground and more games can hone it and get it better. But maybe the really good news is that the players are listening to the coaches asking them to actually close down the opposition. Something we were crying out for last season and so were the management but the players just weren’t doing it.

 

[double0]

We need better quality players simple

 

[wizgell]

I miss the days where everyone didn't think they were a Tactical Analyst and we could just moan about performances. FIFA/FM has a lot to answer for!

 

[Metalhead]

I miss the days where everyone didn't think they were a Tactical Analyst and we could just moan about performances. FIFA/FM has a lot to answer for!

That is true.

 

[dbspurs]

We need better quality players simple

This. We just haven't effectively replaced the quality players that we had 2 to 3 years ago. Some of them have been replaced by mediocrity and some are still here and nowhere near what they used to be.[/QUOTE]

 

[BringBack_leGin]

I don’t mind pressing. I don’t mind not pressing. What I don’t want is this half arsed in between bollocks.

 

[Metalhead]

I don’t mind pressing. I don’t mind not pressing. What I don’t want is this half arsed in between bollocks.

As someone mentioned earlier, it’s conceivable that the idea is to play high intensity for a set amount of play: I guess to storm the opposition to grab a goal and then sit back and defend. Tbf it must be exhausting to press all game, every game.