Why Mason has been a Pochettino first choice
2 min read
There is an excellent video breakdown of the Spurs goal against Sunderland where you get an even better view of the Ryan Mason run.
The previous posts show the triangles very well, but this view highlights what a superb run it was. Last season, we were not getting ahead of Harry Kane, we are doing so a lot more with midfield runners already this season.
Spurs Video
Much has been written about him, many Spurs fans don't or didn't see last season what he does. His Sunderland performance was a step up on his previous games, he was more in the playmaker role, getting the ball off Dier and playing it around,
His key attribute may sound simple, may sound as if anyone can do it, but that's just the point they don't. He key attribute is that he speeds our play up. We have plenty of players who slow us down, who believe in the possession game and roll slow passes to each other or fail to attempt a ball that might create something, instead content for an easy pass.
The football experts tell us the way to beat a massed defence is to move the ball fro one side to the other quickly, thus giving that player a little space with which to produce a telling ball or pass into a dangerous area. The defence then have to shuffle across and recover position, but if you are starting to make inroads through an overlap or a ball into feet in the box you give yourself the possibility the defence will panic. You are placing pressure on them and that causes mistakes.
Mason is our player who switches the play. A wide player plays the ball central to Mason, Mason plays it out to the other wing, all very simple in theory. The trouble arises when the central player is not playing the ball wide at pace. Then it totally negates the object of the exercise as the defence have time to shuffle across and stay in formation, you want to upset that formation, speed of passing aids that.
It takes vision, you know where you are going to play it so you save yourself fractions of time by not having to stop, wait, look, think, decide, pass. A central player must know where he teammates are at all times, Pirlo is a master at it as we have seen over the years, it is all down to him looking around more than others.
Naturally there is plenty more to his game and countless times when other skills are required, but speed of passing is unseen by most. Passing success stats don't quantify forward, backwards or difficulty, adding a pace metric might be very revealing and go to explain why some managers prefer certain players.
The previous posts show the triangles very well, but this view highlights what a superb run it was. Last season, we were not getting ahead of Harry Kane, we are doing so a lot more with midfield runners already this season.
Spurs Video
His key attribute may sound simple, may sound as if anyone can do it, but that's just the point they don't. He key attribute is that he speeds our play up. We have plenty of players who slow us down, who believe in the possession game and roll slow passes to each other or fail to attempt a ball that might create something, instead content for an easy pass.
The football experts tell us the way to beat a massed defence is to move the ball fro one side to the other quickly, thus giving that player a little space with which to produce a telling ball or pass into a dangerous area. The defence then have to shuffle across and recover position, but if you are starting to make inroads through an overlap or a ball into feet in the box you give yourself the possibility the defence will panic. You are placing pressure on them and that causes mistakes.
Mason is our player who switches the play. A wide player plays the ball central to Mason, Mason plays it out to the other wing, all very simple in theory. The trouble arises when the central player is not playing the ball wide at pace. Then it totally negates the object of the exercise as the defence have time to shuffle across and stay in formation, you want to upset that formation, speed of passing aids that.
It takes vision, you know where you are going to play it so you save yourself fractions of time by not having to stop, wait, look, think, decide, pass. A central player must know where he teammates are at all times, Pirlo is a master at it as we have seen over the years, it is all down to him looking around more than others.
Naturally there is plenty more to his game and countless times when other skills are required, but speed of passing is unseen by most. Passing success stats don't quantify forward, backwards or difficulty, adding a pace metric might be very revealing and go to explain why some managers prefer certain players.
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