If you were made boss of Tottenham Hotspur, after touching Daniel Levy's forehead and running across White Hart Lane and kicking the ball in the net, would would you do? Tbonepremier from the forum gets all serious and drops some tactics. Boom.
If I was Mauricio Pochettino
If somebody made me the boss of Tottenham Hotspur, if someone gave me the power and responsibility that Mauricio Pochettino has there are quite a few things I would do….
The first thing I would do is scrap 4-2-3-1. In my opinion that formation, as with most of the most popular formations at any given time, work best for teams trying to maintain their position, and for top class teams with top class players. If two 4-2-3-1 teams meet, in the long run the bigger team will come out on top.
We have to face the fact that we are the sixth biggest team in England, in terms of budgets. To compete we have to be daring, adventurous, inventive. We can’t copy the bigger teams and hope to beat them while playing like they do.
To me, 4-2-3-1 has negatives. It has worked well for us against weaker teams, but against strong opposition we got crushed. The formation requires excellent individual and collective defending, and last season proved we lack both.
We also had problems with our midfield. If we tried to dominate games, we couldn’t give proper striker support and lacked creativity, while we were too open in midfield when we tried a more offensive approach.
[linequote]I think a 3-4-3 would also make our central defenders look better. Vertonghen could get a freer role, where he could use his football brain and his abilities on the ball[/linequote]
With an offensive 3-4-3 approach, I believe our individual defensive issues would be harder to exploit, and we would not start our games against the top teams in a negative way – like when Sherwood picked Sigurdsson as a winger against City because he was supposed to be a good defender.
In my opinion, if the opponent has a right back that is good offensively, you don’t put a defensively decent winger to defend against him, you use an offensively good winger against him and force their fullback to defend, so he can’t use his offensive abilities.
I think a 3-4-3 would also make our central defenders look better. Vertonghen could get a freer role, where he could use his football brain and his abilities on the ball more than as a 4-2-3-1 central defender. Kaboul and Chiriches are mobile defenders who would fit into roles as RCB and LCB, and from what I’ve read that would fit Davies too. I also think Walker could do a good job as RCB for games where pace is needed back there.
A three man central defence would also be more ‘forgiving’ in terms of including youngsters such as Veljkovic or players from other positions (Davies, Walker, and we remember the disasters that were Sandro and Capoue CB last season). Hell, I’m sure even Captain Dawson could do decently. Three centre backs would fit our squad a lot better than 2 with 2 fullbacks.
One of our biggest squad issues are wide men, defensively and offensively . A fullback needs to be a good crosser, good offensively and good defensively. Ours are decent but they all are lack important traits. Our wingers are worse. I feel that with our current squad, Lennon and Rose would be a lot better as right and left midfielders/defensive wingers/wing backs than they are in their current roles.
Rose is ok offensively and has great energy, work rate, pace and acceleration, but lacks defensive awareness and positioning. Lennon took huge steps defensively last season, but has at the same time become less of a threat offensively. Both would be excellent wing backs.
[linequote]I feel that with our current squad, Lennon and Rose would be a lot better as right and left midfielders/defensive wingers/wing backs than they are in their current roles[/linequote]
The central midfielders would not have to carry as much responsibility. The defence behind them should be more solid, and the offensive trio ahead of them would do the creative work. That would allow for different configurations, a Paulinho when you want a runner to support offensively by coming into the box, a Bentaleb when you want a passer who can do a decent defensive job, next to a Capoue, Sandro or Dembele as ball winning midfielder.
Offensively we’ve had problems getting proper support for our striker, who will need it. Our three front men shouldn’t have that problem. Holtby, Eriksen, Lamela, Soldado, Chadli could all do a great support job with less defensive responsibility than they have as wide men in 4-2-3-1. Different combinations of the aforementioned would provide us with possible variations in our play. Kane, Adebayor and Soldado would all look better as front men with better support and a more offensive team behind them.
I think a 3-4-3 would get us better football, make our footballers look and perform better, and bring better results. From what I’ve read Poch is inspired by Bielsa. Bielsa often played 3-4-3. Poch should try that with this Spurs team, and reap the rewards. It is what i would do if I were boss.
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11 Comments
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01/08/2014 @ 10:06 am
With our CB’s spreading wide and the DM dropping into the space between them, our shape becomes a 3-4-3 naturally.
Pochettino’s formation’s are very fluid.
01/08/2014 @ 10:26 am
A good post, but I can’t see Rose playing in any ist team I would select. Rose is too hot headed and makes too many poor decisions. I like the 3 up front, but would not play 3 at the back. I would imagine you need 3 mobile defenders who are comfortable on the ball. We have just Vertongen and maybe Chirches who fits that profile. Walker is best as an attacking FB so I would not want to prevent him getting forward. Davies looks more solid than Rose and would provide better defensive stability. My only challenge with Chirches is he did not seem great in the air.
I am confident Poch will come up with a defensive solution to make us more solid than last year. Hopefully, we will have less injuries as well. I thought we did ok while Dawson and Vertongen played as the CB pair for the ist part of the year. The defence started to fall apart when that partnership was broken up due to injuries. Note to Poch please don’t ever pair Kaboul with Dawson it just does not work.
I would play 4-3-3 , with Walker, Vertongen, Chirches or his replacement and Davies at the back. I would prioritise getting a great CB like Musacchio to replace Chirches and not Vertongen as some papers suggest. With Capoue, Paulinho and Townsend instead of Lennon in midfield Lennon has been going backwards for several years and has poor end product. Townsend given good coaching has better potential, has more going forward. I think Lamela and Eriksen with Ade could be a very powerful trio interchanging and sharing the goals with Paulinho also breaking forward knowing Capoue has his back.
Up front I would play Lamela, Eriksen and Soldado. I think with the interchanging I saw on the trip to the USA and faster passes played forward we should get into better scoring positions and get more goals.
I would really prefer Bony in the team to boost our goals record if we can shift out either Soldado or Ade.
I would also invest time in getting the players minds right. The squad continually under performs due to poor attitude and lack of a good team strategy. In too many games last year the players started matches too slow or with a really poor attitude. Hence the team got blow away quickly in a few matched. Even against WBA we got blow away until we fought back. Both Mourinho and Rogers at Chelsea and Liverpool have shown the value in creating a winning mindset.
I would also ask Ledley to personally coach our up and coming CB’s Dier and Veljkovic to fast track their progress.
That’s what I would do if I were boss.
01/08/2014 @ 11:26 am
Neither Vertongen nor Chirches can head it very well. As a pair this has disaster written all over it. Both have concentration issues, mark poorly and neither has pace. For me it can be either or not both. We need a commanding centre half that can play with any of our current crop and need to sell Dawson.
01/08/2014 @ 11:32 am
We will probably finish behind city united chelsea liverpool arsenal and probably everton so we are now down to seventh. All of the above have better squads and are offensive minded. Pochettino must improve our record against the above teams and i hope he gets the time to do it. He is quietly strengthening the required positions defensively and must now ship out Dawson Kaboul Rose (shocked he got contract) and even Chiriches as they are not up to it We have an absolute glut of midfielders who are average and I would move Carroll and Sandro on as well. Love the beast but injuries prevent him.Capoue might just turn up as a good player and if a club offerred 20 mill for Paulinho take it. The team will really progress if we can secure both Bony and Schneirderlin who are gamechangers. Lamela has made a good start but we cannot depend on Ade or Soldado so at the minute we are not an offensive threat. I dont see us getting hammered 5 -0 at home again but we will lose consistently away against top 6 and probably narrowly unless we get forward threat. Oh for Lukaku,! I think we will be harder to beat this year but anyprogress into top 6 depends on a potent goalscorer.Champions league is a dream. Mopo will solidify the team but there is much to do. As an aside what is Baldini doing ?
01/08/2014 @ 12:27 pm
I am not a Dawson fan, but Spurs have to be mindful of the need to have enough home based players. This maybe why Rose has a new contract. If Dawson goes we need another home based CB.
01/08/2014 @ 12:54 pm
Everton do not have a superior squad.we need a centre back and left sided attacking forward and we will be in the mix for the top 5. If we improve our results against the top four teams then we can improve on 6th place.lamela will be flying this season and chadli,soldado,capoue,paulinho can only improve after a year to settle in the perm.with a solid and injury free start to the season we will compete!also Europa league is a way in to champ league!id take winning that and finish in top six playing attacking,pressing football!COYS!
01/08/2014 @ 11:28 pm
Interesting article. Everyone else seems to be talking about the players themselves, but I wanted to mention the formation.
Playing some form of 4-5-1 (4-2-3-1…) allows for more possession, which is nice, but it’s not something Spurs usually struggle with, so it seems like a luxury we don’t need.
Bielsa, who you mentioned, does often play 3-4-3, but you have to remember why. He is always trying to create a favorable match-up of numbers. He always wanted 1 more defender than attackers — and the reverse — more (or at least equal) attackers to their defenders.
Most teams in the EPL seem to go for a 4-5-1 — with only 1 forward. If we have 3 defenders then one of them is redundant — basically triple marking the sole forward. A 4-4-2 would give you 2 defenders against 1 forward (good) and 2 v 2 at Spurs’ attacking end — not bad odds since each attacker would only have 1 CB to get past. Also, we don’t have a good “lone man” striker (Benteke, Lukaku, Bony) and the ones we do have would probably perform better with a partner (suits their style more).
Lastly, 3 defenders takes away the full-backs as attacking options. 4-4-2 can transform into 2-4-4 on the attack, with everyone sliding forward.
I love your idea of revising our formation, but I’d want to see a modern 4-4-2 with the fluidity ala ’70s Ajax. We’ve tried possession-based football for a while now, and while we get that, fairly easily, we’ve been fairly toothless. I’d gladly give up some amount of the possession in exchange for much more bite in our attack. With the players we have — and how good they looked seamlessly interchanging positions (Lamela, Eriksen, Lennon, Holtby) that would be exciting.
To dare is to do… and keep-away ball (possession-based) is hardly daring.
04/08/2014 @ 8:16 am
An interesting reply, Daniel.
You say that 3 CBs isn’t a good fit in the PL at the moment because most teams play 4-2-3-1 – having only one striker. You also point to the fact that 4-4-2 can become 2-4-4 on the offensive.
Don’t you agree that the 4-2-3-1 also becomes 2-4-4. And wouldn’t a 3-4-3, that can become somewhat of a 5-2-2-1 defensively, giving you a favorable 5 def vs 4 att in defence?
And a lot of the teams playing 4-2-3-1 has at least one of the 3 in a offensive position even when they are on the defensive?
04/08/2014 @ 8:37 am
Also, just as you can send your full backs up in a 4 man back line, you can push up the extra CB a bit in a 3 man back line. As far as I know, Kaboul, Chiriches, Vertonghen and Musacchio (who I hope will be at Spurs soon) all have some DM experience, and should be more than fine to play a free’ish CB/DM hybrid role.
We wouldn’t lose the full backs as attacking options, we would have the left and right midfielders doing the same job offensively with a little less defensive responsibility.
What we would lose is a central midfielder, but the extra CB could push up into DM when needed.
In a 4-4-2 you have to much man power stuck to the sides of the pitch, with two men on each side. With the athletisism and mobility of the modern footballer I think that’s a bit of a waste.
A fluid 3-4-3 remains, in my opinion, a better formation for intelligent, athletic, offensive teams, and it’s better suited for our squad than any 4 defenders teams.
05/08/2014 @ 12:57 am
Thanks for the detailed reply. You’ve obviously put a lot of thought into this.
The formations are so fluid (as we’ve been talking about how easily a 4-2-3-1 can transpose into a 2-4-4 offensively, for example) so it’s hard to break it down.
What I like about the 4 defenders is attacking full-backs that rely on modern athleticism and mobility, as you say. A fast break (which, in part, Pochettino, likes) relies on the initial shape. It’s when you’ve had offensive possession for a bit that you can change into your offensive shape (with defenders finally running into position). 4-4-2 has 2 forwards always threatening the defenders and keeping them from joining the attack. The outside mids would (in my mind) be coming inside on the attack with the fullbacks overlapping and providing width.
I’ll have to think about the 3-4-3 some more, but again, interesting article.
04/08/2014 @ 2:31 pm
A good read, great job tbone! I like the idea of a 3-4-3 but as mentioned, we definitely need some pace. I wouldn’t really use Walker in a RCB role as I don’t think he would be able to handle the likes of Aguero or Costa running straight at him!
I wished we would have signed At. Madrids Toby Alderweireld who would have fitted nicely into this formation at the RCB with Kaboul CB and his Belgium counterpart Vertonghen at LCB.