The Moonlit Knight
Banned
No, I'm not talking about the life story of Imogen Thomas........
I've watched Barca a fair bit over the last month and the way we play is very similar....up until that final third. We are patient, keep the ball and keep it moving. I think it's pretty obvious that this is what we are currently trying to emulate (whether that comes from the Management or the players taking it upon themselves who knows, although Redknapp's West Ham sides also tended to use very short passing on the deck) but it's pretty obvious that any sort of Spurs/Barca comparison ends the moment we hit the final third.
Playing possession football obviously has many benefits. One massive benefit is that if your team is good at it, you can actually get away with having quite a weak defence but also have a good defensive record. It simply isn't tested that often because the opposition has less of the ball to attack with and that means you can actually have ball playing defenders in the side that maybe aren't as good as solid defensive specialists. The second benefit is that teams tend to tire out quicker chasing the ball, then when their team is in possession. Apparently Spurs score the majority of their goals between the 61st to 75th minute (indeed we are apparently way ahead of any other Premiership side scoring during that time period in a game) and that is probably down to the opposition tiring.
So why are we so toothless in attack? Why can Barca be so patient in the middle and then all of sudden up the tempo in the final third with quick one touch passing? Well obviously Barca have a higher quality player. No doubt about that! But are they more creative? Yes they are, but I don't think the gulf is as big as would first appear.
What Barca have over us in spades is confidence and bravey in the final third. How many times do you watch our approach play with our players drifting all over the pitch.....and only have one player in the box with four or five of our players standing on the end of the box? All the bloody time. Who are the guilty parties?
Ade loves to pull wide left, irrespective of how many of our players are in the box. If we have no players in the area, but players all around the area Ade STILL goes wide leaving no one there.
VDV just does what he wants. He likes to start high, drop deep and then arrive late. Which simply doesn't work when we are just knocking the ball around in front of the opposition defence.
Bale is probably the one player we have who will sometimes run into space into the box but for the last few weeks he has started roaming around too much in midfield instead of coming into the box from an inside forward position (and is it co-incidence that since Bale has started to roam we seem to be scoring less?)
Lennon simply for me doesn't do enough period. When we are counter attacking he is superb, as he can use his pace and when defenders are backing off of him he scares the brick out of them. But when we are knocking the ball about in front of the opposition defence Lennon is another who is too static or comes infield narrowing us up.
Modric just doesn't get forward enough. Doesn't matter what formation we play. Modric will give, and then be in a position to receive back. He rarely gambles by giving and then running into the box to receive a return pass.
It strikes me that we have too many players trying to create an opening, as opposed to running into space to receive a ball. In fact the only midfielder that we have who I see take up excellent potential goalscoring positions on a regular basis is Kranjcar. Kranjcar gets himself into the box a lot.
And that for me is our biggest issue. Our players simply don't get into the box enough. They are all pulling wide or just outside the box to receive the ball. Everytime Barca get the ball and are knocking it about it's not uncommon for two or three or even four of them to be in the box to receive a pass. It's not uncommon for us to have absolutely no one or just one player.
We aren't doing much wrong. We are so close to going from a good side to a great one. But to do that we need confidence and belief, and more importantly when we are pushing hard in the final third we need a couple of our midfielders to get into that box, draw defenders out of the way and make ourselves harder to defend against.
Personally for the next game I'd drop Ekotto, move Bale to left back and play Kranky wide left. And tell Bale to stay wide but get forward as much as he wants. Parker can then hold and sweep either side to cover our attacking full backs.
We can still get 4th. We just need to have belief.
I've watched Barca a fair bit over the last month and the way we play is very similar....up until that final third. We are patient, keep the ball and keep it moving. I think it's pretty obvious that this is what we are currently trying to emulate (whether that comes from the Management or the players taking it upon themselves who knows, although Redknapp's West Ham sides also tended to use very short passing on the deck) but it's pretty obvious that any sort of Spurs/Barca comparison ends the moment we hit the final third.
Playing possession football obviously has many benefits. One massive benefit is that if your team is good at it, you can actually get away with having quite a weak defence but also have a good defensive record. It simply isn't tested that often because the opposition has less of the ball to attack with and that means you can actually have ball playing defenders in the side that maybe aren't as good as solid defensive specialists. The second benefit is that teams tend to tire out quicker chasing the ball, then when their team is in possession. Apparently Spurs score the majority of their goals between the 61st to 75th minute (indeed we are apparently way ahead of any other Premiership side scoring during that time period in a game) and that is probably down to the opposition tiring.
So why are we so toothless in attack? Why can Barca be so patient in the middle and then all of sudden up the tempo in the final third with quick one touch passing? Well obviously Barca have a higher quality player. No doubt about that! But are they more creative? Yes they are, but I don't think the gulf is as big as would first appear.
What Barca have over us in spades is confidence and bravey in the final third. How many times do you watch our approach play with our players drifting all over the pitch.....and only have one player in the box with four or five of our players standing on the end of the box? All the bloody time. Who are the guilty parties?
Ade loves to pull wide left, irrespective of how many of our players are in the box. If we have no players in the area, but players all around the area Ade STILL goes wide leaving no one there.
VDV just does what he wants. He likes to start high, drop deep and then arrive late. Which simply doesn't work when we are just knocking the ball around in front of the opposition defence.
Bale is probably the one player we have who will sometimes run into space into the box but for the last few weeks he has started roaming around too much in midfield instead of coming into the box from an inside forward position (and is it co-incidence that since Bale has started to roam we seem to be scoring less?)
Lennon simply for me doesn't do enough period. When we are counter attacking he is superb, as he can use his pace and when defenders are backing off of him he scares the brick out of them. But when we are knocking the ball about in front of the opposition defence Lennon is another who is too static or comes infield narrowing us up.
Modric just doesn't get forward enough. Doesn't matter what formation we play. Modric will give, and then be in a position to receive back. He rarely gambles by giving and then running into the box to receive a return pass.
It strikes me that we have too many players trying to create an opening, as opposed to running into space to receive a ball. In fact the only midfielder that we have who I see take up excellent potential goalscoring positions on a regular basis is Kranjcar. Kranjcar gets himself into the box a lot.
And that for me is our biggest issue. Our players simply don't get into the box enough. They are all pulling wide or just outside the box to receive the ball. Everytime Barca get the ball and are knocking it about it's not uncommon for two or three or even four of them to be in the box to receive a pass. It's not uncommon for us to have absolutely no one or just one player.
We aren't doing much wrong. We are so close to going from a good side to a great one. But to do that we need confidence and belief, and more importantly when we are pushing hard in the final third we need a couple of our midfielders to get into that box, draw defenders out of the way and make ourselves harder to defend against.
Personally for the next game I'd drop Ekotto, move Bale to left back and play Kranky wide left. And tell Bale to stay wide but get forward as much as he wants. Parker can then hold and sweep either side to cover our attacking full backs.
We can still get 4th. We just need to have belief.
