The gameplan to beat Spurs at home

[clevelandspur]

So I know we are early in Poch's reign as manager but I have seen worrisome signs it is more of the same. That loss to WBA Sunday provokes thoughts of so many previous matches particularly under AVB.

Teams come to White Hart Lane very organized sit deep and we just proceed to pass the ball around outside the edge of their area for 90 minutes. It makes for a dire game of football to watch and rarely do we ever look like scoring. Sunday I don't even recall a good scoring chance being created. When we had Gareth Bale we saw this every match and many times he was able to create a bit of magic from outside the area but now that he is gone what are we to do?

My worry is we just lack the cutting edge in the squad of players who have the ability to create something it these tight spaces to open up defenses. Teams tend to do the same thing against Emirates Marketing Project, **** and Chelski but they always seem to find chances and inevitably a goal.

It seems this slow passing around the area is just ingrained in our players now and they don't seem to have the answer. Dembele for one seems a big culprit of slowing things down. So my question is basically what can we do to chance this? Obviously we can't change any personnel until January it seems no big secret as why we look so much better away because the onus is on the home team more to have a go and gives us space to counter attack.

 

[Gutter Boy]

Yeah it's easy:

1) 9-10 men behind the ball in organised rows

2) Wait about 90 seconds for the crowd to turn hostile

3) Wait till a rattled player then makes a mistake

 

[Pirate55]

One word. Width.

We sorely lack a player that can get down the byline and round the back to open teams up.

Lamely, Lennone and Toesend all have it in their locker but have had it coached out of them.

The centre is far too crowded. No space at all to work in for our players when the oppo sits deep.

 

[Roy1983]

One word. Width.

We sorely lack a player that can get down the byline and round the back to open teams up.

Lamely, Lennone and Toesend all have it in their locker but have had it coached out of them.

The centre is far too crowded. No space at all to work in for our players when the oppo sits deep.

Poor attempt at putting the players down with those nicknames by the way!!

I'm glad however you see width as a problem. Many on here want CE to play left which would nullify his game even further.

I digress though. Counter attack us and we are hopelessly ineffective at defending pace.

 

[clevelandspur]

One word. Width.

We sorely lack a player that can get down the byline and round the back to open teams up.

Lamely, Lennone and Toesend all have it in their locker but have had it coached out of them.

The centre is far too crowded. No space at all to work in for our players when the oppo sits deep.

The problem I see is teams sit so deep it takes width out of the picture, our wingers only have about 20 odd yards to beat their man to the byline and then when/if they do put in a decent cross there is plenty of defenders in the area to clear away

 

[paxtonwolf]

The gameplan to beat Spurs at home


Turn up on time and have 11 players on the pitch, and we will do the rest.

 

[Huddy]

His Southampton side played some lovely stuff at times. Whilst I agree that teams would likely setup differently when facing Spurs and Southampton, I think it's more a case of personnel and their inability to adapt so far.

 

[clevelandspur]

Wow this looks exactly like Sunday should be behind we are dire

 

[Gutter Boy]

One word. Width.

We sorely lack a player that can get down the byline and round the back to open teams up.

We do have about the narrowest pitch in the league, vs City who have one of the widest.

But it's about general space, not byline crosses. No one has scored from crosses since the 90s.

 

[Pirate55]

Lack of width is hurting us again. Rednapp and even (whisper it) TS got us playing fast attacking football.

On the same pitch ffs.

 

[Finney Is Back]

But it's about general space, not byline crosses. No one has scored from crosses since the 90s.

You do post some right nonsense sometimes!

 

[Millsy_Yiddo]

We are a club with the players suited to play counter attacking football, trying to play a possession based game.

Redknapp played a game based on counter attacking and getting the ball to Bale or Lennon as soon as we gained possession back. We were good.

AVB played a game based on pressuring the opposition high up the pitch. When we obtained possession there was no space to play into. We looked sh*te but had Gareth Bale to sort things out for us in the beginning.

Sherwood, by either fluke or on purpose had us playing in a similar way to Redknapp only we looked to get the ball to Ade ASAP rather than Bale. We were entertaining, awful at the back, but entertaining.

Poch plays a game based on pressuring the opposition high up the pitch. When we obtain possession there is still no space to play into. We look sh*te and this time we have no Gareth Bale to save us.


I still have faith in Poch though. The one thing I have noticed that is different from AVB is that as soon as we retain possession we tend to go for the jugular, with AVB it was about retaining possession and building first, attack second.

 

[AdamB]

The more important question is now that everyone knows how to beat, or at worst draw with, Spurs at WHL how do we counter it?

The big problem for me is CM. None of Capoue, Dembele, Paulinho or our new Frenchie are great passers and Bentaleb is too young (and unproven) to heap it all on him. Until we therefore buy a genuine replacement for Modric (in style of play) then we need to find play someone slightly out of position to improve the passing ability in CM. I would therefore play Eriksen in midfield, whether thats in the current 4-2-3-1 or in a 4-3-3. He does have some wirey strength and I dont think you ned to have two bruisers in CM nowadays. Him and Capoue should be fine

 

[AdamB]

I should add that I think Poch will get it right in the end as I believe that he has the intelligence and coaching ability - he just needs some time and also a couple transfer windows to get the squad how he wants it

 

[Spursalot]

One word. Width.

We sorely lack a player that can get down the byline and round the back to open teams up.

Lamely, Lennone and Toesend all have it in their locker but have had it coached out of them.

The centre is far too crowded. No space at all to work in for our players when the oppo sits deep.

I agree with this, but it's not solely width. It's interplay on the wings. We had Davies and Naughton yesterday, both at times added width, but there was nobody out there to support them, to try and play one twos and take the ball around the back of the defence. When you watch your Chelseas and your Citys you notice that the midfielders move out wide to get involved, to try and overload or to try and finesse their way through the defence. we're not going to look any better until we stop isolating our own players on the wings, leaving them with two options. Hoof it in the box, or pass backwards.

 

[Robspur12]

My thoughts from yesterday is that the problem is not a lack of width, although it was lacking on Sunday vs WBA yesterday townsend and bentaleb put in crosses that went to nobody. IMO the Team overoccupies the central áreas of the pitch and do not get enough players in the opposition Box to support the lone striker, and similarly did not get enough numbers back to defend.

 

[billyiddo]

My thoughts from yesterday is that the problem is not a lack of width, although it was lacking on Sunday vs WBA yesterday townsend and bentaleb put in crosses that went to nobody. IMO the Team overoccupies the central áreas of the pitch and do not get enough players in the opposition Box to support the lone striker, and similarly did not get enough numbers back to defend.

The problem is our lone striker drifts from his position more than he is in it - if a midfielder isn't filling the gap he leaves then there's no one up there giving the opposition defence anything to think about.

 

[Crab.C.Nesbitt]

The problem is our lone striker drifts from his position more than he is in it - if a midfielder isn't filling the gap he leaves then there's no one up there giving the opposition defence anything to think about.

Our biggest problem is not simply width, it's an almost total lack of movement on the ball. Seriously you'd think over the last few games that some of our players were playing musical statues rather than football.

Very few players making runs to provide the player in possession with multiple passing options, and none did so consistently. It's one of the trueisms of the game that when successful teams are on the ball they always have at least 3 players moving into space to receive the ball. I can't think of more than a handful of times when any Spurs player had more than 2 feasible passing options.

Then of course there is the lack of creativity aka out of those 2 options the safest one was nearly always chosen and so we became predictable and easy to close down. In any instance when this was not the case the ball was given away cheaply.

IMO the movement/options issue is one of the areas I am expecting Pochettinho to specifically improve through coaching and tactics. Then again I had the same expectations of AVB and look how that turned out!!

 

[SteveAWOL]

We do have about the narrowest pitch in the league, vs City who have one of the widest.

But it's about general space, not byline crosses. No one has scored from crosses since the 90s.

According to http://m.premierleague.com/en-gb/about/handbook-2014-15.html the pitch at WHL is 100 metres long by 67 metres wide.

Most rivals have pitches which meet the new 105m x 68m UEFA standard, so perhaps it's a lack of length rather than width that is behind why visitors don't open up as readily as desired :-k

 

[Kandi1977]

We are a club with the players suited to play counter attacking football, trying to play a possession based game.

^This! We don't have any attacking players with the "x-factor" anymore. Before we had Modric, Bale and VdV, who were capable of making the difference. Hell, even Defoe could come up with something on his own! We have no such players anymore.