***OMT Tottenham Hotspur v Racist Rent Boys***

[Rorschach]

Too positive.

Absolutely agree. That sort of thing is frowned upon in here.

 

[glorygloryeze]

Our compatriot is having the season of his career and I fear he could rip any of Trippier, Wimmer or Verts to shreads on that flank with his pace and skill

How right you were in the end...


This is an interesting take on how the game ebbed from a tactical point of view and in particular how Son and Victor Moses' gameplay influenced things (at both ends): http://www.footballwhispers.com/blo...s?utm_source=chelsea-hq&utm_medium=affiliates

How Conte Exploited Pochettino’s Tactics to Beat Spurs

BY Sam McGuire Nov 28, 2016

Lover of burgers and football. Sadly there's not really a market for writing about burgers so I've had to settle with writing about football. You can find my work on AnfieldIndex and TheseFootballTimes.

The entire Lord of the Rings trilogy with a few breaks to stock up on snacks. The Dark Knight trilogy and the Superman vs Batman film if you missed the post film scenes.

That’s how long Conte’s new look defensive system managed to go without conceding a goal. When Christian Eriksen fired home after 11 minutes on Saturday Chelsea’s run of six consecutive clean sheets, and 601 minutes without being breached, came to an emphatic end.

Pre-match it was billed as two tactical managers going head-to-head with Conte looking to mastermind Tottenham’s first Premier League loss of the season and a lot of intrigue surrounding whether Pochettino could be the man to bring Chelsea’s clean sheet streak to an end. The neutral wasn’t disappointed.

The onus was on Pochettino to break down the Chelsea defence and he went about deploying tactical tweaks in an attempt to do so. The most noticeable was his use of Heung-Min Son. The wing-back system which Conte deploys usually means the oppositions wide players are pinned back and before you know it the striker is isolated and teams can’t get a foothold in the Chelsea half of the pitch. However, Pochettino had Son hold his attacking position in an attempt to stop the right wing-back, Victor Moses, from influencing the attack. Moses is a key part of the Chelsea system and pushed on to support the attack often leaving Son in attacking areas on his own.

The picture above shows Son receiving the ball. Chelsea are fortunate that the South Korean’s touch is wayward and takes him away from goal because a better one means he’s 1 v 1 with Cesar Azpilicueta with Victor Moses having a lot of ground to make up.

Again we see Son pick the ball up and Moses, who had been supporting the Chelsea attack before the ball was turned over, is nowhere near the Spurs number 7 meaning Ngolo Kante has to get across to cover.

In the first picture Son is 1 vs 1 against Azpilicueta after Spurs turn defence into attack. He’s looking to isolate the Chelsea centre-back and they beat him with trickery as he looks to drive into the penalty area. The Spaniard can’t dive in so just does his best to hold him up so his teammates are able to get back. The second picture is the first time Moses comes into picture during this phase of play. Chelsea eventually clear the ball after getting enough men back to cover but it was clear Pochettino though Son could be a danger down that left side as they looked to exploit the fact Moses, for all of his fine form this season, isn’t a defender.

In a cruel twist of irony it was this tactic/instruction that lead to the eventual Chelsea winner. You would assume this is something Conte and his staff noticed and at half-time he would have told Pedro, the player on the left of the attack, to try to open up as much space down that flank for Moses to exploit because Son wasn’t immediately tracking him.

The Chelsea Winner.

Spurs have possession centrally as Eriksen looks to play the ball forward. Next to him is Dembele with Wanyama to the left and Wimmer, the left-back, to the edge of the picture. Around the ball Chelsea have Matic and Kante with Pedro, Costa and Hazard all in positions to break if they regain the ball.

Chelsea do win possession and the ball is played to Eden Hazard. As you can see in the picture it’s 2 v 2 at the back so Wimmer has to get back to help his centre-backs. You’ll also note how high Kyle Walker is on the opposite flank to Wimmer.

In this picture Hazard has released the ball to Costa, who has pulled away to the left, and the Spurs defence is looking pretty stretched. Just before this picture is taken Jan Vertonghen looks at Wimmer and points at him to cover Pedro. The thought process being Dier has to go out to Costa and Vertonghen has to cover Hazard’s run in behind the Spurs number 15.

Dembele and Dier look to hold up Costa and Spurs look to have the situation covered. They have two men on Costa, Wanyama is close to Hazard, Vertonghen has taken up a position to block a cross and Wimmer is marking Pedro.

Yet somehow Costa manages to not only get past the Spurs men but put a cross into the area for Moses to have the freedom of the area to fire home. Look at the distance between the goal scorer and the man supposed to be keeping him pinned back. Pundits blamed Wimmer because it’s easy to look at that and assume the left-back has gone AWOL but break it down and it’s actually Son who hasn’t tracked Moses. Wimmer actually did well to get back and cover Pedro after the turnover of possession.

Conte used Pochettino’s own tactic against him to get the win. Some managers would have told Moses to stay back and be a little more conservative to combat the Son threat. Others may have even subbed him off and players a more defensively minded player there but Conte took the risk and got his rewards. Whereas Pochettino’s risk backfired. People may claim Costa was fortunate to get the ball into the area from the position he was in, and he probably was, but there was nothing fortunate about Moses being in acres of space.

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

To say Son was at fault for the Chelsea winner shows a complete lack of knowledge in respect of tactics and formations.

I played at least 4 seasons as a wing-back and would never 'expect' the left sided forward midfielder to track me. As a wing back you are usually on your own out wide ( unless the opposition is matching formations) and up against 2 players on your flank. The timing of when or if to 'go' is very difficult as you can leave yourself very exposed. Moses is basically gambling, and in the earlier photo the odds look long, we are stacked with enough numbers. What we allow Costa to do is where it all falls apart.

Once Dembele and Dier are back and Wanyama in place it is then that Verts should shuffle back and push Wimmer back out wide. Maybe the Costa advancement happened too fast for this to be noticed BUT Verts has to trust his fellow defenders to do their job (even if they fail).

 

[Bullet]

Indeed, such fine margins. It started with Eriksen and Dembele fannying about playing 1-2-3-4 in the centre circle, that's where it was lost. Walker was pushed super far forward as he was gambling those guys wouldn't lose it. All about moments and gambles and overloads

 

[ricky2tricky4city]

Indeed, such fine margins. It started with Eriksen and Dembele fannying about playing 1-2-3-4 in the centre circle, that's where it was lost. Walker was pushed super far forward as he was gambling those guys wouldn't lose it. All about moments and gambles and overloads

I know Costa is a physical guy but if you detailed Moose and Dier to deal with him, you'd expect they'd deal with him everytime?

We had the initial mistake covered then that happened.

 

[DubaiSpur]

No. I just think you're being a dire pessimist. First-half we were back to our best and Chelski were exceptionally flat. Second-half, they were far more aggressive/on their game, and rode us like a tired donkey for the first 15 minutes. After that I thought we worked our way back in well, Winks was a good addition and George did better than I expected. Janssen wasn't in it. We had two great chances second-half, and those are the moments we need to take advantage of. As for the tactical switch Conte brought about, given that Poch had to gamble with playing Wimmer at left-back, it was one which made sense on game-day but which normal would not even have an opportunity to be implemented, as even Davies (back-up) would not be vulnerable in that way. So no. It would not have been 'done to us throughout' last season because it would not have worked. Was there a match last season when our entire left-hand side was stripped beyond even the reserves? No Lamela and no Rose/Davies meant it as a minor miracle we didn't get turned over down that side more!!!!
I further think you're negating the effects of Dembele's booking on his second-half; let's face it, the bloke was probably hampered beyond a usual yellow given the ground and recent history.

1) I'm being a dire pessimist - you're very possibly right. Although, I'll defend myself by pointing out that there are a lot of extreme optimists about when it comes to Poch, and in my opinion, a lot of the conclusions those optimists use to reach their state of optimism are as yet unfounded - thus, some balance is necessary. I'm not quite a part of the 'full trust in Poch' school quite yet - I was leaning towards becoming a paid-up member at times last season, but that late collapse raised some doubts that, (again, imo) haven't yet been cleared away, so some caution is justified. And, as I mentioned to @braineclipse in a different thread, until Poch actually wins something, I can't quite surrender all my cautionary stances and go for 'feels' over 'reals'.

2) I don't actually think we worked our way back in - we had Gorgeous George go down the outside a couple of times, Walker do the same on the other side, but the only chance I can remember really feeling encouraged about was George's shot straight at Courtois after some great individual work. Chelsea had the more clear-cut chances to extend their lead, imo - even at the end, with that Oscar breakway. And they never really looked *uncomfortable*, per se.

3) We had two chances in the second half, yes (although the second isn't really coming to my memory as easily as George's one is) - Chelsea had several to extend their lead further. Relying on being more clinical than the opposition is a fraught tactical approach, especially given the inferiority of our players in terms of quality when compared with the sides with more money than us.

4) Yeah, I'll give you that Wimmer at left-back was a forced tactical decision, so it might not have happened quite as often last season.

5) Dembele's booking was, to my mind, coming - it was coming from the first five-six minutes, when he made (iirc) two challenges that he escaped a booking for. Given his recent history and his tendency to make tactical fouls in support of team efforts, though, we should have been prepared for his lowered performances and adjusted accordingly.

Anyway, the weekend's coming up, and the post-mortem's probably coming to its conclusion. Hopefully we start to make amends against Swansea.

 

[thfcsteff]

1) I'm being a dire pessimist - you're very possibly right. Although, I'll defend myself by pointing out that there are a lot of extreme optimists about when it comes to Poch, and in my opinion, a lot of the conclusions those optimists use to reach their state of optimism are as yet unfounded - thus, some balance is necessary. I'm not quite a part of the 'full trust in Poch' school quite yet - I was leaning towards becoming a paid-up member at times last season, but that late collapse raised some doubts that, (again, imo) haven't yet been cleared away, so some caution is justified. And, as I mentioned to @braineclipse in a different thread, until Poch actually wins something, I can't quite surrender all my cautionary stances and go for 'feels' over 'reals'.

2) I don't actually think we worked our way back in - we had Gorgeous George go down the outside a couple of times, Walker do the same on the other side, but the only chance I can remember really feeling encouraged about was George's shot straight at Courtois after some great individual work. Chelsea had the more clear-cut chances to extend their lead, imo - even at the end, with that Oscar breakway. And they never really looked *uncomfortable*, per se.

3) We had two chances in the second half, yes (although the second isn't really coming to my memory as easily as George's one is) - Chelsea had several to extend their lead further. Relying on being more clinical than the opposition is a fraught tactical approach, especially given the inferiority of our players in terms of quality when compared with the sides with more money than us.

4) Yeah, I'll give you that Wimmer at left-back was a forced tactical decision, so it might not have happened quite as often last season.

5) Dembele's booking was, to my mind, coming - it was coming from the first five-six minutes, when he made (iirc) two challenges that he escaped a booking for. Given his recent history and his tendency to make tactical fouls in support of team efforts, though, we should have been prepared for his lowered performances and adjusted accordingly.

Anyway, the weekend's coming up, and the post-mortem's probably coming to its conclusion. Hopefully we start to make amends against Swansea.

Fair play mate.
The other clear chance was the Kane/Eriksen close-quarters one-touch just too tight to body to rap home.


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