So far this season it would be fair to say that things have not gone as planned for Spurs.
Having finished in the top four and reached the final of the Champions League last term there was real optimism around the club heading into the 2019/20 season.
Things, however, did not go to plan and the decision was taken to part company with coach Mauricio Pochettino earlier this term. The club moved quickly to fill the vacancy when appointing the experienced Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho.
AFP or licensors
Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho has had a rough time with his new club
After an initial improvement in form under their new coach things have quickly regressed.
The squad appears to be unbalanced and the football is slow and old-fashioned with no apparent plan whether in or out of possession.
Frustration is growing around the fanbase as they face a very real possibility that they will fail to finish in the top four for Champions League qualification this time around.
With all of this in mind, a trip to Burnley would have been the last fixture that Mourinho would have wanted.
“Tottenham are a mess, they’re about to implode – Jason Cundy reacts to Spurs’ Champions League exit
Burnley are a difficult side to play against at the best of times and Sean Dyche has very much constructed a team around a set of tactical principles and they consistently play to their strengths.
The flip to this is that Burnley are a side that many would still expect Spurs to win. As such, any slip up would be criticised by the fans.
In this tactical analysis, we will examine the key points that saw the two sides draw the match 1-1.
Lineups
Wyscout
Burnley lined-up as expected in their standard 4-4-2 shape.
Chris Wood and Jay Rodriguez led the line and the main creativity would come from the left-sided midfielder Dwight McNeil. Jack Cork and Ashley Westwood played in the centre of the midfield and they would look to shield the defensive unit but then join the attack when in possession.
Spurs, on the other hand, looked to be playing a variant of 3-4-3 but as we would see Dele Alli played more of a withdrawn role and as such the shape was more of a standard 3-5-2 with no genuine fixed striker.
Wyscout
The average positions chart for Burnley over the course of the match is much as expected.
The two wide midfielders played more towards the centre as Burnley tend to look for Chris Wood with direct passes in transition.
The second striker and two wide midfielders will then move inside to try to connect with Wood as the ball travels forward.
Wyscout
As mentioned above Dele Alli would look to play deeper, almost as a traditional 10, while the two wide attackers would look to occupy the highest line.
This meant, however, that Spurs rarely had a focal point to which they could play in possession of the ball.
Wyscout
The above image shows the story of the expected goals of the match, as per Wyscout.
As you can see the shot data suggests that Burnley should have scored 3.57 goals to 1.06 for Spurs.
When you take into account that the Spurs goal came from a penalty, traditionally a very high xG chance, this shows just how dominant Burnley were throughout the match.
Spurs passive midfield
One of the biggest reasons for the dominance that Burnley enjoyed, in the first-half especially was the passive nature of their midfield.
As mentioned above the two central midfielders for the Clarets are adept at both shielding the defence and moving forward to join the attacking unit.
The issue that Spurs had was that their midfield neither applied pressure to prevent the ball from being moved forward nor tracked runners from the midfield as they moved into the final third.
Wyscout
We see an example of this above as a simple one-two sees the ball moving into a dangerous wide position with no defensive cover.
The pass is made initially from the central space out to the full-back who is in a supporting position. Right-sided wing-back for Spurs, Japhet Tanganga moves slowly to engage the ball, again there was no speed or aggression in the press, and the central player makes a run into space behind the wing-back.
This run is not tracked because the central midfielders for Spurs are so incredibly passive.
Wyscout
We see another example here when Spurs are far too passive without the ball as Burnley play easy passes that cut through the defensive line.
Jay Rodriguez would play off of the front line in pockets between the attack and the midfield while the threat of Chris Wood prevented the Spurs defensive line from stepping out.
Here we see a one-touch vertical passing move that led to Chris Wood running behind the defensive line to eventually shoot from the edge of the penalty area.
They failed to track or press effectively throughout the first half. Indeed, their performance was so poor that both central midfielders, Oliver Skipp and Tanguy Ndombele, were replaced at half-time.
Getty Images – Getty
Tanguy Ndombele has shown glimpses of his tremendous potential thus far but has been poor in recent matches
Burnley midfield rotations
After the initial stages of the match, it became quickly apparent that the Burnley midfield had realised that Spurs were struggling technically and physically in their midfield unit.
The Burnley midfielders began to use clever movements when the ball was with the central defenders in order to create and access space.
These movements were, in part, enabled by the fact that there were no Spurs players in position to apply pressure to the central defenders for Burnley when they were in possession of the ball. This allowed the ball to be progressed relatively easily from back to front.
Wyscout
We see an example of these movements and rotations in the image above.
With the ball in the defensive line with Ben Mee he has no Spurs player moving to engage and put pressure on the ball.
The ball near central midfielder moves towards the play and the ball far midfielder moves past the defensive line to access space behind the Spurs midfielder.
These movements are difficult to defend at the best of times but with the Spurs midfielders struggling to form any kind of defensive barrier they were easily bypassed time and time again.
Poor decision making from Spurs
Having found an equaliser just into the second half as Dele Alli converted a penalty we saw Spurs put together some attacking moments that could have led to a second goal.
There were intelligent movements from the likes of Steven Bergwijn and Eric Lamela, while Alli provided a threat from deeper positions.
Unfortunately, time and time again, we would see Spurs get into strong attacking positions only to be let down by poor decision making from their attacking players.
That there were so many poor decisions in these areas was indicative of the lack of an attacking game model from the coaching staff.
Getty Images – Getty
Chris Wood opened the scoring for Burnley
Conclusion
In the end, a point from this match may well be seen as a victory for Spurs.
They were second best throughout the match and struggled to create any real goal scoring opportunities while also struggling to prevent Burnley from easily accessing the final third.
It should come as no surprise that unrest and pressure is starting to grow amongst the Spurs fans.
As things stand at the moment it would not be a shock to see Spurs start next season with a new coach in place.
If you consider yourself a ’thinking football fan’ and want more analytical content in your life, then sign up to Total Football Analysis for free and get access to four free pieces of analysis content a month.
Total Football Analysis
fbq('init', '752905198150451');
fbq('track', "PageView");
Source link
No comments:
Post a Comment