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If we believe in the eye-test, surely we will not captain Spurs player against Newcastle, will we?
... Tottenham won the 2nd game against the Southampton side that plays a very high defensive line and pressing from the front, despite not having a center back capable of making swift recoveries. See the average position map on the game below (left - SOU, right - TOT). ...
... It was very obvious in the game that Southampton's version of gegenpressing did not work as Spurs had Ndombele, Lo Celso, and Moura in the middle of the pitch who are good in breaking the line with passes or dribbles: no Southampton players attempted more take-ons than ...
... those trio bar Djenepo. The Mourinho counter (in hindsight) did not look that complicated system-wise. Put all the midfield in DM/CM position to invite the pressure of SOU's player, then let Kane drop deep in distract one player between the 2 CB. Once Kane gets the ball, ...
... he lofted the ball diagonally upfront to Son. The story is basically a description of the average position map shown above. The question is, could we expect the upcoming TOT's opponent, NEW, to play the same way as SOU? Let's take a look at TOT'S defeat in GW1 first. ...
... In the first GW, Mourinho deployed more or less the same system, shown by the average position map below (left - TOT, right - EVE). Kane dropped deep, while Son played in a more left-advanced position. They lost the game 1-0. Let's try to put our 'eye' to the 'test' here. ...
... There are 2 main differences in EVE (gw1) and SOU (gw2) here. First, the defensive line of EVE was not as high as SOU, leaving Son less space to exploit using his pace. Second, EVE has Allan (no 6) covering the CB. When Kane dropped deep, neither of the CB has to press ...
... as Allan is the one pressing Kane. Kane's lofted diagonal ball has less space to work on (due to the deeper defensive line) and he has less time to pass (due to Allan's passing). While SOU has a more 'rigid' system to play of pressing up from the front, how about NEW? ...
... Now let's see how NEW operated when they won their first game of the season against WHU through the average position map below (left - WHU, right - NEW). Seriously, it is very similar to the EVE's system. The 2 CB played deep (Lascelles no 6 and Fernandez no 18), while ...
... Hayden (no 14) worked the way Allan did for EVE. I do want to examine NEW's 2nd game that also supports the analysis but it seems that will leave this thread too long. That is it then, my first attempt in doing the newbie-level analysis on TOT vs NEW in gameweek 3. ...
