1. The New Formation’s Perks
With the infirmary tent now bursting at the seams, Our Glorious Leader had what by his standards was a fully-fledged breakdown, and tweaked his tactics. Out went the 4-3-3, and in came an intriguing get-up that had a 3-4-2-1 sort of look to it.
On paper it actually made perfect sense. Square pegs and whatnot, don’t you know?
Ben Davies has spent half his life on the left of three centre-backs. Any self-respecting taxonomist would take one look at Spence and Porro and classify the pair as wing-backs. Kulusevski and Maddison are both, in theory, the sorts of beans who are happiest honing their sights on the opposition goal. Dragusin has many, many defensive weaknesses and precious few strengths, so why not surround him with as much defensive-minded assistance as possible? And so on.
And actually, if you don’t mind me punctuating the doom and gloom with a spot of sunny, glass-half-full cheer, in an attacking sense it wasn’t too shabby at all. Sonny was presented on a silver platter with a couple of the more straightforward chances we’ve had all season – tips of the cap here to Davies and Porro, for the rather dapper long passes that set these up.
We also might reasonably enough have had a penalty. While AANP, as ever, accepts the referee’s decision with a stiffened upper lip and some stoical resolve, next time I need to submit a video application for the award of a foul, I may well use the clip of Sonny being unceremoniously bundled to terra firma inside the area by that Everton nib. It did appear at first – and indeed second, third and various further glances – to be a fairly straightforward little number.
So on the front-foot, whilst hardly the best we’ve played all season, there was enough in the first half-hour to suggest that the new formation had some shiny attacking components.
2. The New Formation’s Woes
Further back, however, it’s fair to say that our lot fashioned quite the pig’s ear. If you’ve ever drunk at this particular cabinet before you’ll know that the tactical side of things is not really the AANP forte, so take the following with a generous pinch of salt, or splash of bourbon, or just let the mind fog over for a few paragraphs; but it struck me that each of Gray, Dragusin and Sarr were playing their own individual matches, with nary a concern for the roles of those around them. Communications and teamwork was at a minimum.
Take the second goal conceded, for example. Everton were biffing the thing around inside their own half, as was their prerogative. Young Gray, seeing this and not taking too kindly to it, opted to leave his right-of-the-back-three post, and make a few brusque enquiries. Reasonable enough, one might have noted. One of the delights of a back-three, of course, is that any given member of it, at any given time, has the licence to stretch his legs further north, safe in the knowledge that the defensive cupboard will remain well-stocked behind him.
So off Gray toddled; but trouble began to brew when, alongside him, Sarr seemed gripped with a similar idea. Identical in fact. Actually, the pair came close to tinkering with the fabric of the universe by very nearly occupying exactly the same space at exactly the same time.
One could have advised that this would not end well. With Gray having rushed 20 or so yards out of position, our lot really needed someone to drop into the spot he had vacated, or at the very least station themselves within 10 yards of him, to mop up the mess.
The most obvious candidate would have been Sarr – but Sarr, as mentioned, had been gripped by precisely the same idea as Gray. Poor old Dragusin was the next to whom we all looked for a spot of useful input, but he was so far behind play one struggled to pick him out with the naked eye.
The Everton laddie set off around halfway and kept going, utterly unopposed. In fact he made it all the way to the penalty area, and even then young Dragusin was not really in the market for decisive interventions. He hovered in the vicinity, lost his bearings and I think almost fell over, but by then the Everton chap was already unveiling his celebration.
From what I could make out, the underlying problem here was absence of a basic level of communication between the protagonists. Idle chit-chat. Even just a pointed look, and knowing nod. Either way, the constituent members of the back-three seemed not to let each other know what they’d be doing.
3. Bergvall
With three goals having been shipped and Dragusin having been clouted about the loaf, one hardly batted an eyelid when Our Glorious Leader reverted to 4-3-3 type for the second half. One may have wanted to clear the throat and politely mention something about horses bolting, but nevertheless the switch back to the familiar seemed judicious.
Whether it was the formation, the fact that Everton already had three goals in the bag and eased up a tad or any other reason, our lot at least had the decency to look like they cared in the final 20 or so.
Young Bergvall, however, did not seem to mind which formation he was dropped into. He just set about doing one decent thing after another. It’s taken a couple of months, but the chap seems to have found his feet, and by my reckoning was amongst our best-performing squirts yesterday.
There was one fine sliding tackle early on in the piece, the sort that tends to prompt a nostalgic sigh as well as a nod of approval from this quarter; and halfway through the second half he pinged a dreamy 50-yard pass, up the right flank and perfectly weighted inside the full-back, to an onrushing winger.
And beyond these little highlights his overall contribution was neat and tidy as a minimum. Here is a chap fully aware of his responsibilities in chugging back to help out around his own penalty area, whilst also needing not too many invitations to pick up the ball and go wandering beyond halfway to see the sights.
4. Spence, Kinsky, Moore
As mentioned above, Spence was quite the attacking threat. As with Bergvall, one can imagine him impatiently waving away any instruction about formations and the like, preferring instead just to get his head down and gambol forward.
I’d suggest that he did not have his greatest day defensively, although plenty others also wore that particular badge yesterday. Going forward, however, Spence seemed to develop something of an obsession with the concept of weaving his way into the Everton penalty area and making merry.
A slight shame that his delivery for Sonny early on was not quite into the latter’s path, but if one can survey the entirety and conclude that we did not massively miss Udogie’s forward contributions, then there’s a feather for the Spence cap.
Young Kinsky once again did what could reasonably have been expected of him. Experts in the field might suggest that he went to ground a little early for the second goal, but that aside he produced more than his fair share of full-stretch, leaping saves.
This business of insisting on short passing from every goal-kick does, of course, drive to distraction most right-minded lilywhites, but it is presumably a tactic that is here to stay, and on instruction from above. Kinsky did foul up his record book with one particularly ghastly pass from the back, early in the second hlf, but by and large he seemed comfortable enough with the ball at his feet.
Nor is he a cove who sees the ball up beyond halfway and takes the opportunity to indulge in forty winks. Nice and alert throughout, he had to race from his post once or twice, to extinguish a couple of threats caused by those in front of him.
And in the latter stages we were treated to a cheery little cameo from young Mikey Moore. It’s a low bar, but he seemed to cram more into his 20 minutes than Sonny has produced in his last half-dozen games out on the left.
My Spurs-supporting chum Ian did note that Moore’s presence might actually have stifled Spence somewhat, the pair seeming to occupy the same lane if you get my drift, but on a day on which we made Everton look like Barcelona I’m hardly about to chide Moore for that.
He shows a directness of intent that is complemented by the trickery in his size eights, and as he demonstrated at the death, is well capable of delivering a cross of the delicious, convert-me variety.
5. Midfield Bite (Or Lack Thereof)
One can bang on until blue in face and coarse in voice about injuries and fatigue of course. One can find a way in which to voice the sentiment, preferably in a catchy, rhyming verse, that the manager ought to be removed.
However, the AANP gripe de jour is about our midfield. It’s actually a gripe that has bubbled away beneath the surface for a while now, but shot to prominence again yesterday as I observed various Everton bods amble unopposed from midway to our penalty area.
Expressed in the most basic Anglo-Saxon, our midfield desperately lacks a spot of back-door security. This could take the form of a tough tackler, although I’m not convinced we even need to make tackles. Someone who races around harassing and intercepting would suffice. Just to stop opponents waltzing straight through us, you understand.
Now credit where due, it seems that whichever lilywhites are picked in midfield will scurry urgently enough from Player A to Player B. No shortage of willing. The issue is that it’s all to no effect. Opponents simply pass around us and escape, without too many beads of perspiration spraying about the place.
By contrast, when, for example, Maddison takes possession for us, more often than not the opposition will close down the space and force him backwards. When I see such an episode play out, I do shoot a rather covetous glance at the opposition. That sort of thing would help our defence in spades. If our midfield can’t make tackles – and it’s always seemed a big ask at N17 – could they not at least prevent opponents advancing, and force them to pause and go backwards?
Each of Bergvall, Sarr, Maddison and Bentancur have their merits, but none seem particularly well sculpted for the aforementioned defensive roles, and I’m not sure it’s something that Bissouma on his own can carry out. It does seem to need a spot of collective effort.
Just another one for the Postecoglou in-tray I suppose, but this is an issue that has existed throughout his time around these parts, and frankly for most of the decades I’ve been watching our lot. Hoffenheim, Leicester and Elfsborg now become pretty seismic fixtures, which dulls the sense like you wouldn’t believe, but there we go.
24 replies on “Everton 3-2 Spurs: Five Tottenham Talking Points”
I think you’re right to point out again the chronic vulnerability in midfield. Without VdV to ignite the afterburners and intercept, any breakdown in the offensive half is liable to lead to immediate panic. Whether the key to an effective closing down of space is a few positional tweaks or something more tactically radical, it doesn’t seem to be something Ange is working on.
Which make me rather apprehensive about his prospects. Particularly when one casts an eye at Iraola and Hurzeler down on the south coast, who seem to successfully cope with the sale of their best players by … well, how exactly? Could it be by a rather more sophisticated coaching and deployment of the assets available? Hmm.
I note in passing that Hoffenheim got stuffed 5-0 by Bayern the other day. There’s a worrying benchmark for us.
Haha your Hoffenheim observation made me chuckle – a fan of any other team would take that as a positive omen.
By the by, my one Bournemouth-supporting friend has noted that they’re doing swimmingly as long as their settled XI remains in situ. No adequate reserves in place apparently. One empathises I suppose.
A surprising and refreshingly upbeat appraisal on Black Monday, apparently the gloomiest day of the year. We of the Sunny Side Up Brigade salute you, it can’t have been easy. The sun will come out tomorrow and all that. Oh, and big ticks for suggestions of more bite in midfield and Mikey Moore preferred over Son on current form.
Well I had the dubious pleasure of watching the entirety long after the event, already aware of the final score (having had the live version in the background while carrying out familial duties). So by the time I eventually sat down to watch the thing I’d already done all my ranting, raving and venting, and observed it all with a far more dispassionate eye.
4 more players crocked within a week of each other and that change in formation and the arrival of big Ben Davies was meant to solve all ills ? However, Ange has proven that plan B can’t work and plan A is the only way as that’s how we play mate.
It was a 6 pointer too as Everton are now on right on our tails to overtake and they won’t have a points deduction this season either.
I loved Mikey, Spence and Bergvall too – once we get some of our senior players back I feel these guys have earnt their places in the starting 11. I’m not so sure about “turn around and kick it back” Son and Maddison though.
Similarly exasperated with Sonny and Maddison. The latter so often takes possession, pivots half a dozen times whilst gesticulating before shoving it backwards. Absolutely maddening stuff, he so regularly makes the game look so complicated. Re Sonny, would love to see Mikey Moore have a few starts on the left in the coming weeks, as he gets up to speed again.
When I usually post, which I only do sporadically, I tend to get quite detailed and technical, but I am so numbed by defeat after defeat that it now seems pointless to focus on an individual game and why we lost it.
The main fact is that Everton wanted it more, and we didn’t, or just couldn’t, match their intensity. Any Premier League team will beat another Premier League team if they are 5-10% off in their intensity, and in that first half we were way off. Yes, we were further players down, with Solanke being a huge miss, and the bench was full of youngsters bar Richy and Reguilon, but why could Moore not have started on the left to give Son a break, and why couldn’t Reguilon have played LB, moving Spence to his favoured position of RB, where he could genuinely transform us with his energy, physicality, and determination, giving us balance down both flanks with full backs that are able to overlap onto their stronger foot, and giving Porro a rest at the same time, with Spence not eligible (foolishly) for a crucial match at Hoffenheim on Thursday. And why couldn’t Richarlison have started, even if he was only going to play 50-60 minutes? And why couldn’t Archie Gray have been rewarded, upon Davies’ return, with a place at the heart of our midfield in Biss and Bentancur’s absence?
Instead, the players were set up defensively in a weird formation that confused the hell out of them, and the game was lost in the first half. Our pressing was always a second too late, making Everton look like a footballing side, which they definitely are not, and Spence and Bergvall, which seems to be the norm nowadays, were the only two outfield players that comfortably held their own until Mikey Moore entered the fray in the second half.
We have long had this trait of being the club where strikers suffering from barren spells, or clubs in dire need of a win, can turn things around against us, and this season has been the epitome of that.
Yes, we are decimated by injury, and yes, we were set up to fail by the board, with a mass clearcut of players ahead of a season with potentially 20 extra matches to the season before, and only one senior player brought in. I could stop there, but it wouldn’t be fair to say that Ange is blameless. Far from it, in fact. We didn’t learn from the hamstring injuries of last season, as they are even worse this season. We didn’t sign a LB/LCB as cover for VDV/Udogie, or a decent back-up keeper (until Jan), irrespective of the injuries we now have. Ange ignored Spence until he was basically forced to play him, and excluded him from the Europa League in place of Forster, which is looking more and more criminal every time he plays. He risked both Romero and VDV in the same match, and lost them both. Bad luck? Maybe, if it was one of them, but after claiming that every match is of the same importance, why risk our two most irreplaceable players at the same time?
What does Ange actually do? He doesn’t take the coaching sessions, leaving those to his ‘elite’ group of coaches who were surplus to requirements in their previous roles, and Ryan Mason, who is clearly a Levy mole. You never see him animated or shouting on the touchline, although some of our poor finishing recently has sparked some looks of despair.
I may sound like I’m Ange out. I’m not actually, as I don’t see the point of another manager not being backed and another pretend rebuild that doesn’t actually happen. I would rather he was backed and given the squad required to play this high intensity system, but that won’t happen either. It is now January 20th, and we haven’t signed one outfield player, despite losing Solanke, Werner, Bissouma, Bentancur and Johnson on top of the injuries we already had, and Porro, Son and Kulusevski basically running on empty, and Dragusin playing through both illness and injury, etc, etc, etc. We are not run as a football club. We are a business solely focused on revenue streams, with the assets on the pitch treated as an afterthought. Player after player leaves in order to win things, and most of them do, as do the managers that we discard, and this will never change under the current ownership. We are only reactive, and even then we react slowly, to issues, instead of preventing them in the first place, and we have a term ‘Spursy’ created by journalists that never takes too long to re-rear its ugly head, as we will always mess things up.
If we manage to miraculously win a cup this season, I guess it will be a successful season as long as we don’t go down, as we’ll be back in Europe and we’ll have won our first trophy since 2008. But we play both domestic cup matches, which are both very difficult away matches, within three days of each other, with no certainty that we will be anywhere near back to full strength. And god knows what team we’ll field at Hoffenheim on Thursday, which we really need to win in order to qualify without the need for a play off, with Leicester at home on Sunday, which we should really win, but if we don’t, and if we lose, as we did to Ipswich, we could be in serious trouble.
Throughout my lifetime we were predominantly a cup team that hovered around the top 6 in the league, until we stopped prioritising cups to get into the top 4, which we managed to achieve for a while, but we are now so far from that. It just shows how much of a difference that the partnership of Kane and Son made in papering over the cracks. Son now looks lost without that special player on his wavelength, and he’s now expected to be a touchline winger and a back-up number 9 at 32 when he’s lost a yard of pace, and when he was always an inside forward as his strengths are in front of goal, not with his back to it. Udogie and Porro are fine wing backs, yet are expected to invert, even when we have no wingers that are actually able to beat a man! It’s all a mess, and it’s so depressing.
I’ll end with a bit of positivity. Klinsky looks great, and we now have two top keepers with different attributes who will hopefully push each other on. Bergvall now has the fitness and intensity levels to become a star in this team. Mikey Moore will hopefully push on now and be the player we all hope he can be. Spence will hopefully be our right back moving forwards when Udogie is fit, rotating with Porro, who I also rate, but he is more in the TAA mold. Whether Ange gets to stick around to see these players develop remains to be seen, as we can’t go on like this for much longer.
Two weeks of the transfer window left. Man City have shown us what proper clubs do when they need to fix their problems. Let’s see what we do…
Inclined to agree with most of this, Mr P.
Not Ange Out over here either, but consider him far from blameless, for the various reasons you mention.
And as you say, our pressing was always a second too late yesterday – who knows the reasons, eh?
Everything in the article and comments points towards an unequivolcal verdict of ‘Ange Out’, so why the hesitation?
Take out the first ten games of last season (which included daylight robbery victory over Liverpool and added-time larceny against Sheffield United, among other pieces of sheer luck), and the current incumbent’s record is rapidly approaching the 25 points from 24 matches which cost Pochettino his job in 2019, when we were only 14th in the PL table, not 15th and falling.
What’s the point of prolonging the agony, when our 59 yeat-old dog of a manager is clearly too set in his ways even to consider some new tricks?
Because we will never be successful under this board, whether Ange stays or goes. Sacking Ange and replacing him, whether it’s the right thing to do or not, will bring about a brief improvement, get hopes up, and the culpability of the board will be an afterthought again for 18 months until the same thing happens again. If it happens before the window closes, we’ll get a couple of shiny new signings so it looks like the manager is being backed, but the money will have come out of the transfer budget for next summer. It is rinse and repeat.
Every manager has been set up to do well enough to finish anywhere between 3rd and 8th depending on how well they and the players perform, but only if the league was prioritised as CL was vital, and so the domestic cups or the Europa League had to be deprioritised. If they succeeded, they stayed. If they failed, they were gone, and we repeat the cycle. With the cups no longer a priority, winning a trophy was almost impossible. In the last 25 years we nearly won a couple of League Cups, nearly won the league in a year where every top team was utter garbage and we were really good, and lost it to Leicester. And we had the luck of the Irish and an inspired Lucas Moura to somehow get us all the way to the CL Final, which we also lost.
Now, with all the alternate revenue streams, making the CL is no longer a priority either. We slashed £50m off the wage bill in the summer, shipped out a multitude of players, some who would have helped us this season with all the injuries we’ve had, and signed one ready-made experienced player in Solanke when we were back in Europe, now trying to win cups again (apparently), and had potentially 20 more matches to play than last season. Does that give any manager a chance of being successful, especially in Ange’s case, when he likes to play a high intensity system which, without proper rotation, would risk players succumbing to injuries.
Ange had two options. Adapt or go down fighting. He’s never adapted before, so there was no way he was going to do that, as he would most likely fail either way, but he’d have more chance succeeding with what he knows. So this is where we are now. We have a squad decimated by injury, a lot of it because of Ange and his understandable refusal to compromise, and a board that have had 20 days to help him and have signed a keeper, the only player in the team that doesn’t run.
I want to see what might happen if a manager is properly backed. The only way to do that without p*ssing away another couple of years is to make our voices heard and demand that the board either back this current manager or step aside, whether he’s the right man or not. We’ve seen flashes when it’s good, but our record over the last year is horrendous, so I have my doubts, but it would be exciting to find out as we haven’t had a top quality squad for a very long time. We pay the highest ticket prices in Europe, we’re the 8th richest club in the world, and we show no real ambition other than to be competitive. If we did, all those top players we had would have stuck around.
insane that levy has been in this job for 20 years now.
Top post, Pricey, imho. My sentiments entirely.
Thanks Ed. I kicked myself after posting as I forgot to mention so much other stuff! No signings for 18 months, sacking Jose before a final, the many signings we supposedly tried for but didn’t get. All the great players that left, with the saddest being Kane. It’s a very long list of incompetence.
And, on the marketing side, the demise of Son, leading to the next South Korean cash cow coming in. Son’s been amazing, but the club capitalised on his marketing ability in every way possible. We can only hope that Yang goes on to be a good player.
All of the revenue streams are great if they help to finance the team, which Levy promised that they would, but they haven’t, and they won’t.
Superb analysis Pricey, couldn’t agree more.
Have thee an X account sir?
This comment is a bit late so probably will have to ask again at a latter post
I think many of us are still backing Ange because, with a full first team 11 we can be very menacing. Too many games and injuries have dogged his plan. However, we’ve had some very successful managers and they parked the bus which no Spurs fans are keen on.
I’m not overly-fearful that we’ll end up in the Championship as the bottom 3 are so poor this season we may already have a get out of jail free card in place.
One thing though Mr P, Levy’s priority is a top four place and he doesn’t care about the cups (albeit we might get lucky in the Europa League if we get players back). No Europe next season will most likely see Ange go in May and be highly successful at another PL club, without a shadow of a doubt.
Perhaps we need Donald Trump to step in to make Tottenham great again 🙂
see my other post!
i found this whole article delightful. think i might be going insane
The point to firing Ange right now, aside from the obvious fact that he’s lost the team, is to forestall the blame game being currently conducted by fans and pundits on the players. A change of coach and a change of tactics may work miracles in restoring the vitality and confidence of fading players like Son and Maddison. Or perhaps not. Maybe Levy’s cheapness has finally caught up with him; he’ll certainly find his budget constricted and his club’s (as opposed to his stadium’s) value tanking if Spurs become a perennial Championship dweller.
I bet Yang was sitting on the bench yesterday thinking “WTF have I gone and done?” 🙂
???, ????? ?? ?? ???? ?? ???
Tried a Korean translation but it failed badly 🙂
Still likely to be an accurate reflection of what he’s been thinking since he joined
Rather more accurate, I suppose.