Attacking midfielders hold the to key to our defence
4 min read
Seventh placed Tottenham take on first placed Chelsea today after meeting just a month ago.
There are previews galore of the game so I'll take a look into the rivals strengths and weaknesses to see if that will shed any light on the way the game may pan out.
We'll start by listing the strengths and weaknesses of each side from the game at the beginning of December.
The Pochettino style is high-energy high-pressing from a high back line base. That is conformed by the fact we stole the ball often from Chelsea and that they were given offside a lot. The clinical finishing I have long been suggesting we need to practice when we are 2-0, 3-0 up was missing as our finishing was poor, Chelsea on the other hand were strong in that department, hence a comfortable 3-0 win.
The fact that we dominated possession with short passes culminating in long shots and Chelsea created a high number of chances from the possession they had suggests they were more creative with the ball than we were, which anyone who watched the game would have to agree with.
Our tactics differed slightly because we played with more width than usual and used less of the inverted wingers play. Instead of a Lamela or Townsend cutting in from the right we had Aaron Lennon using a more traditional wing play and our best chances came through him early on. Having started fast and created the chances to go ahead by getting round the back and crossing, you have to ask if we will be trying the same tactics again today.
An area of weakness Tottenham would do well to exploit today is the tendency for Chelsea to commit a high number of fouls around the area. We need to be drawing free-kicks and hope Christian Eriksen can take advantage
Both sides prefer to play through balls so movement off the ball is crucial, especially movement off the ball ahead of the ball. The striker and midfield runners need to be pulling defenders, team mates need to be reading where they are pulling them to anticipate gaps opening and then be in a position ready to make the run to exploit the gap from the subsequent through ball.
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These gaps don't appear magically as we saw when we were playing football with no movement, we had nowhere to play a through ball, thus created very little. Also simply reacting to an opportunity (reactive) isn't good enough as the defender is nearer the goal so has less distance to cover and is therefore favourite. If however you can engineer a situation where a player knows what is going to happen in advance or creates something with an off the ball run (proactive) towards a gap behind defenders then the attacker has the advantage.
It's this area where we lacked last time and something we'll have to put right if we are not to create from open play. It's an area Chelsea proved stronger so Tottenham will need to remain as compact as possible. Leaving space between the lines will allow Chelsea to play through balls, crushing the play gives less opportunity but also sees us prone to one long ball opening us up.
There are swings and roundabouts with any system and that is our achilles heel but we haven't conceded too many goals from it, somehow we have managed to survive.
For me the game will hinge on how much room we give Chelsea in front of the defensive midfielders, between them and the attacking three. Give them too much room and they'll work out two defensive midfielders around to create gaps for through balls, limit that space and we'll limit how much they can move us around.
Defending starts from the front and in this case our three most important defenders may well be our three attacking midfielders.
There are previews galore of the game so I'll take a look into the rivals strengths and weaknesses to see if that will shed any light on the way the game may pan out.
We'll start by listing the strengths and weaknesses of each side from the game at the beginning of December.
Strengths & Weaknesses
| Chelsea | Tottenham | ||
| Strengths | |||
| Weaknesses | |||
| Styles | |||
|
| |||
The Pochettino style is high-energy high-pressing from a high back line base. That is conformed by the fact we stole the ball often from Chelsea and that they were given offside a lot. The clinical finishing I have long been suggesting we need to practice when we are 2-0, 3-0 up was missing as our finishing was poor, Chelsea on the other hand were strong in that department, hence a comfortable 3-0 win.
The fact that we dominated possession with short passes culminating in long shots and Chelsea created a high number of chances from the possession they had suggests they were more creative with the ball than we were, which anyone who watched the game would have to agree with.
Our tactics differed slightly because we played with more width than usual and used less of the inverted wingers play. Instead of a Lamela or Townsend cutting in from the right we had Aaron Lennon using a more traditional wing play and our best chances came through him early on. Having started fast and created the chances to go ahead by getting round the back and crossing, you have to ask if we will be trying the same tactics again today.
An area of weakness Tottenham would do well to exploit today is the tendency for Chelsea to commit a high number of fouls around the area. We need to be drawing free-kicks and hope Christian Eriksen can take advantage
Both sides prefer to play through balls so movement off the ball is crucial, especially movement off the ball ahead of the ball. The striker and midfield runners need to be pulling defenders, team mates need to be reading where they are pulling them to anticipate gaps opening and then be in a position ready to make the run to exploit the gap from the subsequent through ball.
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These gaps don't appear magically as we saw when we were playing football with no movement, we had nowhere to play a through ball, thus created very little. Also simply reacting to an opportunity (reactive) isn't good enough as the defender is nearer the goal so has less distance to cover and is therefore favourite. If however you can engineer a situation where a player knows what is going to happen in advance or creates something with an off the ball run (proactive) towards a gap behind defenders then the attacker has the advantage.
It's this area where we lacked last time and something we'll have to put right if we are not to create from open play. It's an area Chelsea proved stronger so Tottenham will need to remain as compact as possible. Leaving space between the lines will allow Chelsea to play through balls, crushing the play gives less opportunity but also sees us prone to one long ball opening us up.
There are swings and roundabouts with any system and that is our achilles heel but we haven't conceded too many goals from it, somehow we have managed to survive.
For me the game will hinge on how much room we give Chelsea in front of the defensive midfielders, between them and the attacking three. Give them too much room and they'll work out two defensive midfielders around to create gaps for through balls, limit that space and we'll limit how much they can move us around.
Defending starts from the front and in this case our three most important defenders may well be our three attacking midfielders.
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