Tottenham fell to another defeat. Liverpool the latest to pile the misery on Spurs after Arsenal, Chelsea, and Newcastle had all taken 3 points against them. But with murmurings of discontent starting to form against both the players and the manager, Adam Clery examines their last 4 games to see precisely what the problem is and if they can fix it.
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00:00 Good day mate, and people who have no idea who I am and just found this in their recommendations
00:08 feed, Adam Cleary from 442, yes that is me, and Tottenham now seemingly are bad.
00:15 While they did salvage some pride at the end of the Liverpool game, it was mostly bad,
00:19 and losing the North London derby is bad, and the Chelsea game was bad, and the Newcastle
00:23 game was bad.
00:24 So now, understandably, people are starting to ask questions about the team, about the
00:30 individuals, about the system, about the manager, and the main question amongst those is, what
00:34 the f*** has gone wrong?
00:36 And well, I'll show you.
00:39 Okay, so, mate ball.
00:43 It was brilliant in 2023, it's been less good in 2024, but there was a little section in
00:49 that Liverpool game, a run of a few minutes, where I think you saw every single little
00:53 reason why it's not been as effective.
00:55 And just really quickly, before I start, I want to lay this out for you, right, it is
00:59 a rainy, miserable, bank holiday Monday here in London.
01:04 I want nothing more than to be sprawled out on my sofa, reading a book with something
01:09 simmering away deliciously on the hob.
01:11 So if this video feels slightly phoned in, maybe even a little bit rushed, that's why.
01:17 We should still subscribe anyway, because you know, normally the effort is levels.
01:21 Right, anyway, yes, Tottenham, this is a 4-3-3, and I know they normally don't play that,
01:26 they normally play a 4-2-3-1, because especially when James Madison is fit, you want to be
01:31 able to get him nearer the goal, but the principles of what they're trying to do are slightly
01:35 easier to explain with a 4-3-3, so just bear with me.
01:38 What they're looking to do is play out from the back, have two centre-backs and a goalkeeper
01:42 who are very accomplished on the ball, then the two full-backs, either at the same time
01:45 or they may get the change, they both come centrally into the middle of the pitch, the
01:50 two eights get right up alongside the centre-forward, and the wide players, there they go, they
01:56 get chalk on their boots, they attempt to stretch the defence.
01:59 And from there, everybody pushes all the way up the pitch, and you get these really clever,
02:04 inventive little triangles between the number eight, the wide forward and the full-back,
02:08 where they can all sort of rotate, they can all interchange, they can all just basically
02:12 try and exploit the space and find numerous different ways to goal.
02:16 And if you can be brave enough to cast your mind all the way back to the start of the
02:19 season, you will remember that most teams in the league just did not have a sh*tting
02:24 clue what to do with this.
02:25 Now the Bournemouth game was a million years ago, but you can see it working so perfectly.
02:29 Here Son and Kulishevsky, they are miles apart, they are both so wide, and you can see here
02:34 Bournemouth's defence, as a result, really stretched, like you could park something really
02:41 big.
02:42 I can't think of a joke for that actually.
02:43 What could you park in that?
02:45 Jurgen Klopp's teeth.
02:46 Anyway, yes, as you can see, they've got one of these little interchangeable triangles
02:50 here.
02:51 Basuma, who is the six, has come across to help, and there's just, everybody is marked,
02:55 but there's so much room, so if you can be brave with the ball, if you can slip your
02:59 man, anything can happen.
03:00 And that's what happens, Basuma drops his shoulder, and that is the activation for everyone
03:04 else to get out of their marked positions and into the space that is available.
03:08 And from there, it's all just movement and running, and Bournemouth don't know whether
03:11 to stick to their man and get pulled out of position, or try and stay in the defensive
03:15 block and hope they can't be passed through.
03:16 And James Madison, who was on the other side of this equation, nobody paying attention
03:20 to him, now ghosts into the gap that has, of course, been left, because Son is still
03:25 really wide, and he scores.
03:27 And of course, the very important point about that clip is while it does start here, out
03:31 wide, it very quickly allows Tottenham to do the thing they're trying to do, and that's
03:36 play through the middle.
03:38 So why is that not working?
03:40 Why have we not seen that kind of goal from Spurs in quite a while?
03:44 Well, because this was the scene at Anfield.
03:48 This was the shape they found themselves up against.
03:50 Liverpool are paying not a blind bit of attention to the players who are out wide.
03:55 They are instead staying nice and compact in the middle.
03:58 If Tottenham want to go long and hit either of the wide players, that's up to them.
04:03 They can do that, and then they'll shuffle across, but at no stage will they be allowing
04:06 players to drift out wide to mark them and thus open up the space in the middle.
04:12 And the problem, of course, is that this is the shape they found themselves up against
04:15 in the Arsenal game.
04:17 This is the shape they found themselves up against in the Chelsea game, and this is the
04:21 shape they found themselves up again in the Newcastle game.
04:24 In every single one of those matches, Tottenham dominated the possession.
04:30 Home or away, didn't matter.
04:31 Quality of opposition, didn't matter.
04:33 Tottenham found themselves with more of the ball than their opponents, but got roundly,
04:38 roundly beaten.
04:39 This gives us this frankly bewilderingly insane graphical overlay.
04:44 This is Tottenham's average positions across the full game against Liverpool.
04:49 Now this isn't necessarily always the case, but it tends to be the more possession you
04:53 have, the more territory you have.
04:55 So if you look at these graphs a lot, you'll tend to see the teams that have loads of the
04:57 ball tend to be pushed further and further up.
05:00 So just keep that in mind.
05:02 Tottenham had way more of the ball than Liverpool did, and yet all five of these players, their
05:07 entire central midfield block, plus Porrow, plus Kulishevsky, could not really contribute
05:15 much beyond the halfway line.
05:16 Now the two exceptions here are obviously Brennan Johnson, who did a good job running
05:20 in behind, that's kind of his thing, and Son, who played most of the game as the centre
05:24 forward, so that's fairly to be expected.
05:26 But everybody else, just there's no incision, there's no penetration in Liverpool at all.
05:32 And the truly just hog-wild thing about this is, this is Liverpool.
05:36 They had less of the ball, and yet still Alexander-Arnold, Robertson, McAllister, Gakpo, Diaz, Elliott,
05:42 Salah, they're all doing most of their work in Tottenham's half.
05:46 Tottenham just spent so much of that first half especially, just looking at Liverpool's
05:51 compact two banks of four, and just not really knowing what to do.
05:55 So passing it from left to right, moving the ball around, hoping some space was going to
05:59 open up, but just having nothing.
06:02 No real idea how to go through it, how to go around it, how to get in behind it.
06:07 And probably the best way to illustrate just how sort of flat and anemic that play's been
06:12 the last couple of weeks, right, is this is Son's heat map from the game as a whole, right.
06:16 So it looks quite exciting because on this left-hand side you can see he was trying to
06:21 get in the space behind Alexander-Arnold, he was trying to get a Quante, he was getting
06:24 on the ball, he was running, he was making stuff happen here.
06:27 But this was 90 minutes, right, so I'm just going to overlay this with every single touch
06:33 of the ball he had, full stop, in the first half.
06:37 Like there were only two touches, full stop, anywhere near Liverpool's goal, right.
06:41 And one of these was him rolling the ball back after a counter-attack slowed down, and
06:45 the other was a miscontrol.
06:47 And the thing is, I can remember earlier in the season where that was still his job, like
06:51 he was playing as the centre forward but he was dropping out of the area, into the space,
06:55 allowing people to run beyond him and playing them in.
06:57 Like he set up a brilliant chance against Arsenal doing this exact thing.
07:01 But if I show you as well, get rid of the touches, these are all his passes from the
07:05 Liverpool match, and there are literally two, in that entire first 45 minutes, two that
07:11 go forward in an even remotely dangerous area.
07:13 And both of those are again out to the flank as Tottenham are just horseshoeing it round
07:18 Liverpool's defensive block.
07:20 So yeah, this is concerning that teams seem to have figured out how to stop Tottenham
07:25 and it's becoming so predictably and consistently effective.
07:29 But what should be more worrying, something that shouldn't be happening, is that they
07:33 appear to have figured out how to really get at Tottenham on the ball as well, and that's
07:38 a bad combination.
07:40 So this is every single time Liverpool regained the ball in Tottenham's own third.
07:48 So every time they turned the ball over high, and that is a Premier League record.
07:55 There was a little spell in that first half that showed you just this entire problem all
08:00 coalescing together.
08:01 Like Spurs are facing Liverpool's low block, they cannot get through it.
08:05 Liverpool start to press out a little bit, get a bit more aggressive.
08:07 Spurs don't have the confidence to then play through the space that gives, because it's
08:12 still very tight, it's very difficult.
08:13 That's not a criticism, that's understandable.
08:15 So they turn around and they go back to their centre backs and their goalkeeper, and then
08:20 Liverpool pounce.
08:21 And the anxiety, the apprehension, the lack of belief in what they're trying to do is
08:27 so visible.
08:28 And these passes are loose, they are a stray, they put their teammates in trouble.
08:31 And time and time again, Liverpool would then take the ball off Spurs, and I think they
08:36 got like four or five chances out of that.
08:39 This is it in the second half, there's no confidence to what Spurs are doing, and Harvey
08:42 Elliott takes the ball off Emerson Royale, puts the cross in, and Gakpo basically kills
08:47 the game at 3-0.
08:48 The real issue they've got though, is that this clearly is not working, and looks really
08:53 bad when you start to unpick it.
08:54 But it is also 100% the plan.
08:58 Like they keep getting caught out in these situations, trying to sort of delicately play
09:03 out from the back, because it is in their DNA to always try and play out from the back,
09:08 and never to just hump it long and lose the ball that way.
09:11 And then sure enough, if you look at the numbers, they are behind only enormous passing nerds
09:15 Brighton and Man City for the number of completed short passes, and they are bottom of the entire
09:21 league for the number of completed long passes.
09:24 And they also want games to be really transitional, don't they?
09:28 Like it's all about how they react when they lose the ball, and how they react when they
09:32 win the ball, and then sure enough, you look at the numbers for that, they have the lowest
09:36 passes per defensive action in the Premier League.
09:39 Which if that is a new bit of terminology to you, it is like how much on average will
09:44 you let the opposition do before you challenge them for it?
09:47 Spurs will let you do the least.
09:50 And this has been really effective for them, like they've turned the ball over in the final
09:54 third, the fourth most in the league, and they've got the third highest number of goals
09:59 from doing it.
10:00 But also, at the same time, when you invite this level of chaos, ehhhhhh, like this is
10:05 not an uncommon sight.
10:07 Like Spurs are second in the league this season for the number of high turnovers they've conceded.
10:12 So they're really bad at not giving the ball away in the area they don't want to give the
10:18 ball away.
10:19 So Poglu is kind of right in what he's been saying about them not needing a plan B or
10:22 to make major changes, it's just that they need to do plan A better.
10:27 And I think, like the point I want to make with this video, right, is that this is an
10:32 insane way to play your football.
10:34 Like it's a massive risk for potentially massive rewards, right?
10:38 And Posta Koglu has been playing it all season with what is effectively just a bunch of lads
10:45 he's inherited.
10:46 Like I know it sucks getting like beat off Chelsea and humped off Newcastle and thumped
10:49 by Liverpool and just losing the North London Derby under any circumstances.
10:53 And it can feel in that situation like your season is imploding a little bit, but just
10:58 take a little step back, right?
11:00 The expectation for Tottenham this season was really low and doing this in imperfect
11:06 circumstances has them fifth.
11:09 But this is purely a personal take and if you're a Spurs fan, you'll probably watch
11:12 them more than I have.
11:13 If you don't share it, that's absolutely fine.
11:15 But I look at this Tottenham team being unable to play through these really deep, compact
11:20 blocks of players and I see this Tottenham team getting caught out trying to pass the
11:24 ball around the back.
11:25 And I just think that's a transfer market issue.
11:27 Surely, like Arjen hasn't really been able to go and get the kind of profiles in he really
11:31 wants.
11:32 And surely if you get players who are better in these situations, you will be better in
11:38 these situations.
11:39 That will be more able to break these things down and will be less likely to give it away.
11:44 Surely.
11:45 Right, look, just think about it this way, right?
11:47 You have a choice of how you choose to perceive this season.
11:49 Okay.
11:50 And it's quite neatly summed up by two stats I saw on the internet yesterday.
11:54 Okay.
11:55 First of all, someone at Sky Sports posted this thing saying that if Tottenham don't
11:59 beat Burnley, then Posta Kogli will have a worse win percentage than Nuno Espirito Santo.
12:04 And that sounds really bad.
12:07 But also during the actual match itself, Sky showed this statistic, which is how Jurgen
12:11 Klopp did in his first full season, you know, big personality manager with a big sort of
12:15 footballing philosophy and trying to get players to buy into it and play it.
12:19 And this is Arteta, big personality, big footballing philosophy.
12:23 This is how he got on.
12:24 It is first season trying to implement it.
12:26 And Posta Kogli, who let us not forget, is the only one of those managers to lose his
12:31 best player right as he takes the job and have to completely rebuild everything about
12:36 how they play, is almost certainly going to get more points than the pair of them and
12:40 has already scored more goals than the pair of them.
12:43 So, you know, feels bad now.
12:46 Occasionally looks even worse than it feels.
12:48 But first season trying to do something this big and this clever with some of these fucking
12:53 idiots.
12:55 I don't think fits bad, man.
12:57 I think fits fun.
12:58 Anyway, I'm just going to leave it there now because I'm absolutely desperate to go home
13:01 and stick a Spag ball on.
13:02 When was the last time you had Spag ball?
13:04 I can't wait.
13:05 Anyway, if you've enjoyed this video, nice low bar you've got there, but please do consider
13:09 subscribing to us here on 442.
13:11 It gets better and less unhinged.
13:13 I promise we would also really like to know, Spurs fans, how are you feeling about the
13:17 season?
13:18 How are you feeling about Posta Kogli?
13:19 Shows of support and shows of derision both welcome in the comments.
13:22 And if you think you're too good for down there, you can get me on social media at Adam
13:25 Cleary.
13:26 There it is.
13:27 CLERY and the 442 socials are in the corner of the video.
13:30 We do have, there is a new issue of the magazine, which is out now and you can get, but I haven't
13:35 brought it downstairs yet.
13:37 I'm not going to show you the old one Tottenham fans because it's a big Arsenal cover and
13:41 you've suffered enough this weekend.
13:43 So that's, that's the end of my messaging and the end of the video.
13:47 Goodbye.
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