Great article on our tactics...

[dudu]

I don’t feel negatively about this at all

Poch is trying to get the best out of our team as a whole and is more or less succeeding. Not only that but he is also showing this year that he is working hard to counter teams counter of us and even last season, despite our xG we managed to score plenty.

We don’t have as many offensive game changers as the teams above us do so there is nothing wrong with shooting form distance and unsettling goalkeepers with a little bit of unpredictability.

I also think it would be interesting to know how many teams our xG is better than in head to heads......
Surely its less important, (for example) to have a better xG against Swansea than Arsenal do…. Its more important to have a better xG than the team we are playing when we play them.

 

[cliff jones]

Interesting article about Poch's tactics and our inability to score goals.

http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnatio...io-pochettino-defensive-manager-diego-simeone

(I've removed all the images)

When Spurs first hired Mauricio Pochettino I argued that this was basically Daniel Levy saying that Andre Villas-Boas’s ideas were right; AVB just wasn’t the one to actually execute those ideas at White Hart Lane. Pochettino was a manager who would again try to develop a distinctive tactical system that allowed Tottenham to punch above its financial weight and compete with richer domestic rivals. That had been the plan under AVB and it would continue to be the plan under Pochettino.

The funny thing in year three of the Poche era, it looks more and more like we did more than just find a manager to, like AVB, develop a distinct tactical system that allows us to compete with wealthier rivals.

We may have actually found a manager who is developing AVB’s tactical system that allows us to compete with our richer domestic rivals. Specifically, we have found a defense-first manager who sees football in essentially attritional terms and sets up his team to grind out 1-0 results.

This is still perhaps a bit counter-intuitive with Pochettino. His reputation in England, as best I can tell, has always been more Guardiola than Mourinho. Certainly his Southampton teams were praised for being entertaining, as was last year’s Tottenham team. Moreover, Guardiola himself has raved about Pochettino on multiple occasions.

But here’s the funny thing: When you take another look at the actual evidence, Poche doesn’t look like a Guardiola disciple, despite the Catalan’s high praise of him. Instead, he looks more like a Mourinho-style defense-first manager with some limited Guardiola influences.

Put another way, Poche looks a whole lot like AVB.

What was AVB’s style?

Here are some numbers on AVB (NOTE: It’s hard to get super great advanced stats going back this far):

• In his lone season at Porto, his team conceded 16 goals in 30 games.
• In his 27 games at Chelsea, his team conceded an average of 1.2 goals per game. However, if you remove the extremely derpy 5-3 defeat to Arsenal and the two matches in which they conceded three to Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United, you’re left with an average of .875 goals per game. So the system was not actually failing as badly as some think; they just didn’t adapt to elite opposition. But that specific failure in those three games is more about AVB’s judgment as a manager than his system, I think.
• In his last season at Spurs, his team averaged .8 goals scored per match prior to the City game and conceded .54 goals per game prior to the City game. (After the 6-0 set back against City all hell basically broke loose for a month under AVB and then continued in much the same way for another five months under He Who Shall Not Be Named so I am not going to worry too much about those stats.)
• The one big outlier is here: In his full season at Spurs, we averaged 1.7 goals scored per match and conceded 1.2 goals per match. These are much more “decent-ish Europa League EPL team” numbers than the others, which are much more obviously what you expect from a manager who values defensive shape and system.

Despite the “exotic foreign wunderkind who plays romantic attacking football”reputation AVB had when he first arrived, it quickly became apparent that he was more like his former friend and mentor Jose Mourinho: He valued a team that is defensively sturdy, hard to break down, and that can grind out 1-0 wins over a team that provides thrilling, progressive football. What doomed AVB wasn’t necessarily his system; it was his inability to make changes and generally alienating management style.

Pochettino has always been a defense-first manager.

We’re now in the fifth season of Mauricio Pochettino managing in England. And here’s what we know: Poche is a lot more like AVB or Mourinho than he is Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp.




To demonstrate this, let’s begin by working backward to Pochettino’s Southampton days. Upon arrival in January of 2013, Pochettino inherited a Southampton team that knew how to attack, but... well, defending wasn’t a priority for them.

Here’s how they did in the first 22 games of their first season back in the Premier League played under Nigel Adkins:

• They averaged 1.36 goals per game.
• They conceded 1.82 goals per game.

While it’s not quite Ian Holloway Blackpool territory it’s still extremely bad. Over a full season that equals 69 goals conceded. Since 2000, only two teams have conceded that many goals without being relegated: Aston Villa in 2012-13 and Wigan in 2009-10. In both cases, those teams were one of three in the Premier League that season to concede 69+ goals and in both cases the other two to do so were relegated. (The third teams to go down in both seasons were historically bad teams—Portsmouth in 2009-10 laboring under the enormous financial issues at the club dating back to their time being managed by Harry Redknapp and QPR in 2012-13 struggling due to issues connected to their time being managed by Harry Redknapp.)

Teams that defend like Adkins’ Southampton did don’t last long in England’s top flight.

In 16 games under Pochettino and with the exact same players, those numbers transformed dramatically:

• Southampton scored 1.2 goals per game, which represents a slight drop.
• However, they conceded only 1.25 goals per game—slashing their goals conceded per match by ~33%.

The second season was much the same. They finished the year 8th in the Premier League, their highest finish in the Premier League era. According to Michael Caley’s xG system, they finished with 50 expected goals scored and 40 expected goals conceded.

Here’s the impressive thing: The only teams in 2013-14 with better defensive records in England were Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea and eventual champions Manchester City.

When you look back at his normal XI during that season, that defensive record makes more sense. Pochettino played a 4-2-3-1 system that typically looked like this:

Boruc
Shaw, Fonte, Lovren, Clyne
Wanyama, Schneiderlin
Lallana, Davis, Rodriguez
Lambert

A few things should stand out about that lineup:

• Like his Spurs teams, this Southampton leaned on its attacking fullbacks to support the relatively limited attack.
• Morgan Schneiderlin, who has been used in a purely destroying, deep role when he can even get a game at Man United, is the most progressive midfield player.
• Steven Davis is part of the attacking four rather than more attacking players like Gaston Ramirez or Dani Osvaldo, both of whom Poche banished to Siberia after only a few appearances for the club.

While Pochettino might have had a reputation for “high pressing” and progressive football upon arrival at Spurs, the reality even at Southampton was that he was a much more defensive coach whose use of pressing was far more selective than that of his mentor Marcelo Bielsa or that of trendy German managers like Jurgen Klopp or Roger Schmidt.




Indeed, we can push the point further: His record at Southampton showed that Pochettino’s system requires a great deal of running and work, but that this running and work is closer to the work demanded by Diego Simeone than Klopp.

In an interview I did with him at Just Football, Into the Calderon editor Robbie Dunne said that Simeone believes in running and a high work rate because he sees football as being basically attritional in nature. That, of course, sounds an awful lot like both AVB and Pochettino.

How does Pochettino’s style explain results this season?

As at Southampton, Pochettino’s style at Spurs has been to generally play a more conservative midfield two with one player used in an almost exclusively defensive role. The first priority is to be defensively solid and to not concede bad goals. The attack must be built on this platform.

For this reason, Pochettino does not typically attack with numbers in the way that Klopp, Schmidt, Guardiola, or Thomas Tuchel do. Recall the numbers highlighted in this piece by Ricardo Tavares. Amongst the top teams in England last season, Spurs were the only ones whose main passing combinations were between defenders.

Rather than slow, patient possession, there are three main ways that Pochettino teams create chances:

• They rely on long, direct passing from the back.
• They use transition sequences in the attacking third which are often created when those long balls are not completed and the ball pings around a bit before Spurs win control and can attack an out-of-position defense.
• They grind teams down and score goals late in the game on the counter when they are still fresh and the opponent has been worn down. (Like, you known, the winner we scored just this past weekend against Burnley. But this description also fits many of the late goals scored in Pochettino’s first two seasons at Tottenham.)

Here’s the problem: When you don’t attack with the numbers that, for example, Klopp’s Liverpool or Schmidt’s Leverkusen do, those long direct attacks are not as likely to end successfully because your attackers are almost certainly going to be out-numbered.

Moreover, once teams get wise to this style and begin sitting back themselves, you typically end up being badly out numbered. Long ball attacks from Spurs often begin with four Tottenham attacking players going up against five or six opposition defenders but against teams like West Bromwich Albion earlier this season it was more like seven, eight, or even nine defenders.

Those numbers begin to change a bit once the fullbacks get forward, but as we saw in the Champions League, if you can keep Spurs’ fullbacks pinned deep, the attack sputters.

What happens when teams eliminate Tottenham’s primary attacking outlets?

This brings us back to AVB. When you play defense first and rely on direct attacks and counters to create scoring chances, it is relatively easy for opponents to say, “Fine. We’ll sit in a low block ourselves and then you can’t create chances.”

The result of this is that Tottenham games against weaker opposition begin to all look more-or-less the same: Spurs have a high amount of possession, but they have no ability to break down a packed defense because their players either don’t know how to open up such a defense or lack the ability to do so.

As a result, they end up taking lots of shots from distance and other lower quality chances. This is, in fact, a common problem with defense-first managers.

Here are a few sample xG maps from just this season for Poche and other defense-first managers:

Simeone’s Atletico earlier this season: 16 shots against Las Palmas, only one xG.



xG map for Atletico Madrid - Las Palmas.

8:34 PM - 17 Dec 2016




Here is Mourinho’s United against Watford earlier this season. 15 shots, 1.3 xG:



xG map for Watford - Manchester United. I've been expecting something like this to happen to United all season.

3:54 PM - 18 Sep 2016




That brings us to this season’s Tottenham. To be honest, the number of examples I could choose from is kind of terrifying. But here’s a small sample.

This is last weekend’s clash with Burnley. 30 shots, 1.7 xG:

xG map for Tottenham - Burnley. Spurs do it with volume. It's not pretty, and it's pretty risky.



Here is Bournemouth almost two months ago. Note that Erik Lamela played in this game so don’t think this is necessarily a “we-miss-Lamela” problem. 16 shots, .7 xG:



xG map for Bournemouth - Tottenham. Excellent defensive performance by Bournemouth, and they were unlucky this ended 11 v 11.

It’s a problem in Europe too. Here is the win against CSKA in Moscow. 23 shots, 1.3 xG

xG map for CSKA - Tottenham.

Another very Poche Spurs performance. Control midfield and take your time to unlock a set defense.

Aggregate xG Data for 2016-17

To make the point a bit more clearly, I went through and reviewed xG maps for all six top English teams so far this season. I took a very, very basic approach to the question: Let’s find out each team’s average xG/match, average shots/match, and average xG value/shot.

This is using only results from this season (and only results that I could find on Caley’s Twitter timeline). So the data is not perfect. Even so, the results are interesting:

Shot Quality Data

Team


xG / Match


Shots / Match


Avg. xG / Shot


Arsenal


1.7125


13.75


0.12

Chelsea


1.67


14.9


0.11

Liverpool


1.7


16.9


0.1

Man City


1.86


15.6


0.12

Man United


1.5


16.19


0.09

Tottenham


1.57


18.9


0.08

As you can see, our xG value per shot is the worst amongst the six sides with Champions League aspirations. Indeed, Tottenham’s xG value of any one shot is, on average, 50% lower than the xG value of Arsenal or City’s average shot.

One way of breaking down this data would be to identify two separate groups. I’m listing the members of each group in order from the most extreme example to the least extreme, though that is admittedly defined in somewhat subjective terms. (I’m looking for a way to do a chart like this one, but am having no luck—if someone can help me out in the comments, I can update the post with a chart.)

Higher Shot Quantity, Lower Shot Quality

• Tottenham: 18.9 shots/match, .08 xG/shot
• Manchester United: 16.19 shots/match, .09 xG/shot
• Liverpool: 16.9 shots/match, .1 xG/shot

Lower Shot Quantity, Higher Shot Quality

• Arsenal: 13.75 shots/match, .12 xG/match
• Manchester City: 15.6 shots/match, .12 xG/match
• Chelsea: 14.9 shots/match, .11 xG/shot

If you want to know why Chelsea is looking likely to run away with the league, that basically sums it up. Typically, defense-first managers like Mourinho or Pochettino are going to have sides that produce fewer high-quality chances because the nature of their system makes it easier to defend. That’s the point of this whole post, after all. So you have both Mourinho’s United and Pochettino’s Tottenham in that first group alongside the chaotic Klopperpool.

At the other end of things, more attack-minded managers like Arsene Wenger and Pep Guardiola will generally produce higher quality chances because their teams are more comfortable attacking packed defenses and are better at opening them up.

Conte’s Chelsea, meanwhile, is sitting in the sweet spot between these two poles. On the one hand, they actually defend better than either Mourinho’s United or Pochettino’s Tottenham. But they do this without sacrificing shot quality: Their xG/shot is almost the same as Arsenal’s and City’s and is actually better than Liverpool’s, which has the most goals in the league so far this season. That is how you win a title.

It’s also worth noting that the team with the best chance at challenging Chelsea is probably Klopp’s Liverpool. They have also found a way to buck the trend by having a high shot quantity number and better shot quality than United or Spurs.

What can Spurs do to fix this?

This is the key question, of course. And, unfortunately, there aren’t easy answers. Conte’s Chelsea seems to have figured out how to retain a robust defensive structure without compromising shot quality, but then Conte’s Chelsea has N’Golo Kante in midfield, Eden Hazard in attack, and an on-fire Diego Costa leading the line.

So while Conte deserves major credit for his transformation of Chelsea, I am not sure how much Chelsea can be a template for other teams since most teams lack Chelsea’s financial muscle and consequent ability to recruit world-class players.

The more likely reality is that this sort of attack is probably more or less what we should expect from Pochettino teams and the best way to improve results is not necessarily by increasing shot quality, which may not be possible without compromising defensive soundness, but instead looking to eliminate mistakes that lead to high-quality chances for the opposition.

This past weekend’s fixture is probably as good a place as any to begin on that point: We weren’t bad, necessarily. In addition to our two goals, Dele Alli wasted a good chance in the opening minutes and came very close to scoring a curler from the edge of the box in the second half. Christian Eriksen also nearly scored from distance but for great work from Burnley keeper Tom Heaton and nearly got on the edge of a Harry Kane cross in the first half. None of these were great chances, but you also wouldn’t have been shocked to see any of those four chances find their way into the net.

What killed us is that we allowed Burnley two extremely good chances in the first half, both of which were totally unnecessary. In both cases, we had multiple chances to clear and we simply failed to do so. The second chance, which is the one that produced Burnley’s goal, also involved a couple lucky deflections for Sean Dyche’s team, but if Kyle Walker clears the ball when he has the chance to do so, those deflections never happen.

To put it another way, we probably shouldn’t expect Pochettino teams to consistently produce more than what this team is currently averaging, which is 1.57 xG/match. Pochettino teams are never going to create chances like an Arsene Wenger or Pep Guardiola team. However, the examples of Mourinho, Conte, and Simeone provide all the proof needed of how effective a defense-first system can be.

Indeed, Simeone’s example is particularly compelling as his Atletico have been competing for La Liga and Champions League titles for most of the past five seasons despite enormous financial disadvantages relative to their main rivals thanks to the fact that they are so absurdly difficult to beat.

To be sure, there are some structural things Spurs can do to improve results. If Victor Wanyama could get better at splitting the center backs that would go a long way. If Pochettino could be more flexible in-game and figure out ways to support his front four when his fullbacks can’t get forward, that would be significant.

But ultimately the attack we’re seeing this season is probably more-or-less what we should expect from Pochettino teams. The big question, then, is not “how can we improve the attack?” but “how can we eliminate unforced errors when defending?”

Thanks for posting mate. Glad I wasn't imagining all this.

Its a bit obscure in places, football is a simple game after all. Wanyama just needs to pass it a little better if you ask me.

What sometimes annoys me is we basically play the same way even when it's not working wasting too much time passing between defenders. But I'll take and keep Poch for as long as he wants us thank you very much. I remember the bad times, the roller coasters, too vividly. Be careful what you wish for was coined especially for Spurs.

 

[OPModric]

"Higher Shot Quantity, Lower Shot Quality"
I also read that as poor decisionmaking, mainly Kane and Alli taking shots from hard positions.

I bet Eriksens shots has a pretty high xG-ratio, being one of the few intelligent players we got.

 

[Johnny J]

"Higher Shot Quantity, Lower Shot Quality"
I also read that as poor decisionmaking, mainly Kane and Alli taking shots from hard positions.

I bet Eriksens shots has a pretty high xG-ratio, being one of the few intelligent players we got.

My only frustration with Kane is that he will literally shoot from anywhere, usually even when the better option is to play in a teammate.

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

The tactics and philosophy of both AVB and Poch are, to my mind, almost identical. I said before we even got Poch in that I didn't want him as I believed he was ABV2 and AVB1 was an unmitigated disaster.

However, there's a hige difference. Poch is a proper football man. He had a decent career as a player at a highish level. He learned his trade under a tactician.

AVB was just a prick. He had no managment skills. If a player didn't do what his position dictated he'd be dropped/told off. He didn't have the respect of the players and eventually no one wanted to play for him.

You don't have to have been an elite player to succeed as a coach but it helps get the respect of your squad if you've done it.
This, in my opinion, is why Mourinho will never last more than 3 years in a job.

 

[thinktank]

Our players haven't got a clue in the final third. That's all. Fix it.

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

As for our style and "xG"

If Andros Townsend hits 30 shots into row Z you have no chance of scoring.
If Kane, Eriksen, Dele, Lamela, Son, Walker, Rose, etc are stinging the keepers fingers regularly then there are plenty of 2nd balls to get better "xG's" from.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

Really good read. I said when we hired Pochettino that he was more like AVB than many people wanted to admit, that ultimately their philosophies were very similar, and at various times in the last three seasons I've been castigated for repeating the same observation. Both have the collective ethos and both are quite risk averse.

Also echoes what I was saying all last year and most of this about Poch's risk averse CM choices. And I've also referenced Klopp/Guardiola and compared how Poch seems to prefer trying to get defensive players to play offensive football, where Klopp and Guardiola would rather get offensive footballers doing defensive things - so we get Klopp playing a CM3 of Couthino, Lallana and Wyjnaldum away at Chelsea, or Guardiola playing a CM3 of Silva, DeBruyne and Fernandiho away at OT etc.

That's not to say Klopp and Guardiola are always totally right and Pochettino is always wrong, I like much of what I see, just as I liked a lot of what I saw with AVB. And Poch (and AVB) are/were working within tighter financial constraints than Klopp and Guardiola are.

So much is also effected by existential factors and serendipity. Poch's philosophy and approach was more readily embraced and backed by Levy - and this is vital for any philosophy to succeed, there has to be a unified, unilateral approach with joined up thinking from the top, through the head coach and to the recruitment and youth development and where Poch has received this backing, AVB did not. He had to contend with meddlesome back room thorns up his arse like Sherwood and Freund and was also not backed with regards to troublesome players like Adebayor.

Then there is the serendipity of the quality of individuals you inherit or become available to you and the condition of your principal rivals at any given time. Last season Pochettino had the type of, if not perfect, then pretty damn good "storm" of circumstances - he was given cart blanche to clear out unwanted, even at a financial loss, others that were brought in on or just before AVB's watch hitting peak having bedded in (Lamela, Eriksen e.g.) Kane turning from a bumbly catapilar into an uber striker, Alli hitting the ground running, and all our major rivals in total transitional flux.

The stuff about how we would be defensively better if Wanyama could learn how to split the CB's as well as Dier did is fucking bollocks though. For a start, we are - fact - defensively better this season than we were last season - averaging 0.7 goals conceded per game this season, averaged 0.92 per game last season. And anyway, you don't credit Dier or criticise Wanyama for doing/not doing this, you credit or criticise Pochettino, because having worked with Wanyama previously and clearly wanting to sign him, he must know that he can get him to do such a basic tactical function if he wants him to, and I find it hard to believe that Wanyama could not perform such a function (I've seen him do it in games). So either Poch is giving him a slightly different remit, or he's continually picking him over Dier despite him not carrying out his instructed remit.

Despite my quibbles with some facets of his approach and application of that approach, Pochettino is still my favourite manager/head coach in my time supporting Spurs. I still think he's the best all round "package" as a coach we've had in the last 40 or so years. I love that he actually has clear ideas and ideals, even if the reality doesn't always quite match those ideas it invariably matches the ideals.

I think this season, to his credit, he has shown tactical variation and, again, as much as we (me) can pick holes in it, the truth is, I know how rare and difficult to get right tactical variation actually is, even at the very highest levels of football. Wenger is a brilliant coach but tactically he's a pigmy, just watch the ManC v Arse game at the weekend to see how Guardiola completely out tactic'd him by making changes that Wenger had no idea how to cope with. And Pochettino is still a very young coach at the beginning of the learning curve.

Just to add to this as well, I also think it's wrong to try and place Poch (and AVB) in the Mourinho family tree. For me he (they) still belongs more to the Guardiola/Bielsa/Klopp/Tuchel etc family of philosophy (all different of course but theirs is all about being pro-active). Pochetinno's over arching ethos is still more about pro-active measures than reactive ones. There is risk aversion there but there is no more risk averse football than Guardiola's, it's just that that school of philosophy generally prefers a possession based methodology of risk aversion, where as the Mourinho ethos is a far more pragmatic school of thought, based around activity without the ball first and foremost. Conte and Simeone are other great exponents of the Mourinho school of risk aversion.

The very best coaches are always about risk aversion, but they often come at it from different ends of the footballing spectrum.

 

[Shea]

The tactics and philosophy of both AVB and Poch are, to my mind, almost identical. I said before we even got Poch in that I didn't want him as I believed he was ABV2 and AVB1 was an unmitigated disaster.

However, there's a hige difference. Poch is a proper football man. He had a decent career as a player at a highish level. He learned his trade under a tactician.

AVB was just a prick. He had no managment skills. If a player didn't do what his position dictated he'd be dropped/told off. He didn't have the respect of the players and eventually no one wanted to play for him.

You don't have to have been an elite player to succeed as a coach but it helps get the respect of your squad if you've done it.
This, in my opinion, is why Mourinho will never last more than 3 years in a job.

I pretty much agree with this

I think AVB had some right ideas he'd learned from observing actually football people but he was just never good enough as a manager to be able to implement them or even truly understand them

I'd add to your comment about his personal skills that he always shifted blame away from himself and even had the nerve to aim criticism at the Spurs fans (even if he had cause to he should have had more sense than to say it)

He was a great salesman though so managed to secure himself jobs at Chelsea, US (somehow after the Chelsea mess), Zenit and now a no doubt huge salary in China

So I think he has similarities to Poch in the same way Lee Trundle has similarities to Gazza - there are levels and I hope when Poch finally leaves the club everyone agrees Poch was on a far higher level than AVB even if they had similar ideas

Everyone loves JJ as an ITK - I think his best piece of ITK ever was when he said "AVB was a fraud" days before he was sacked.

 

[Bus-Conductor]

The tactics and philosophy of both AVB and Poch are, to my mind, almost identical. I said before we even got Poch in that I didn't want him as I believed he was ABV2 and AVB1 was an unmitigated disaster.

However, there's a hige difference. Poch is a proper football man. He had a decent career as a player at a highish level. He learned his trade under a tactician.

AVB was just a prick. He had no managment skills. If a player didn't do what his position dictated he'd be dropped/told off. He didn't have the respect of the players and eventually no one wanted to play for him.

You don't have to have been an elite player to succeed as a coach but it helps get the respect of your squad if you've done it.
This, in my opinion, is why Mourinho will never last more than 3 years in a job.

I pretty much agree with this

I think AVB had some right ideas he'd learned from observing actually football people but he was just never good enough as a manager to be able to implement them or even truly understand them

I'd add to your comment about his personal skills that he always shifted blame away from himself and even had the nerve to aim criticism at the Spurs fans (even if he had cause to he should have had more sense than to say it)

He was a great salesman though so managed to secure himself jobs at Chelsea, US (somehow after the Chelsea mess), Zenit and now a no doubt huge salary in China

So I think he has similarities to Poch in the same way Lee Trundle has similarities to Gazza - there are levels and I hope when Poch finally leaves the club everyone agrees Poch was on a far higher level than AVB even if they had similar ideas

Everyone loves JJ as an ITK - I think his best piece of ITK ever was when he said "AVB was a fraud" days before he was sacked.

Sorry guys but this "proper football man" stuff is bunkum.

"why Mourinho will never last longer than three years" ? Who does ? Look what he invariably achieves in those three years, they bloke has won titles and CL's in 4 countries, and not always with the best teams in those leagues or CL's.

Pochettino has fallen out with far more players than AVB did (not only have we seen so called Kabul 3 jettisoned but we've also seen very promising young players like Pritchard and Bentaleb discarded mainly for non football reasons). Difference being that Pochettino has been given the backing to fuck off everyone who doesn't toe the line, AVB wasn't. AVB also had pricks like Freund and Sherwood stirring it up behind the scenes, Pochettino has no such problems.

This proper football man notion has been disproved over and over again. AVB won the Portuguese league and the UEFA Cup, not bad for a guy who'd never played the game properly. One of the game's best coaches, Arigo Saachi was never a pro footballer, Mourinho, one of the best coaches in Germany this season - 29yo Nagglesman at Hoffenheim - had two season as a pro.

And football is absolutely awash with "proper football men" with distinguished careers who have been utterly fucking hopeless managers and coaches.

http://www.football365.com/news/proper-football-men-can-be-sht-too

 

[Shea]

Sorry guys but this "proper football man" stuff is bunkum.

"why Mourinho will never last longer than three years" ? Who does ? Look what he invariably achieves in those three years, they bloke has won titles and CL's in 4 countries, and not always with the best teams in those leagues or CL's.

Pochettino has fallen out with far more players than AVB did (not only have we seen so called Kabul 3 jettisoned but we've also seen very promising young players like Pritchard and Bentaleb discarded mainly for non football reasons). Difference being that Pochettino has been given the backing to fuck off everyone who doesn't toe the line, AVB wasn't. AVB also had pricks like Freund and Sherwood stirring it up behind the scenes, Pochettino has no such problems.

This proper football man notion has been disproved over and over again. AVB won the Portuguese league and the UEFA Cup, not bad for a guy who'd never played the game properly. One of the game's best coaches, Arigo Saachi was never a pro footballer, Mourinho, one of the best coaches in Germany this season - 29yo Nagglesman at Hoffenheim - had two season as a pro.

And football is absolutely awash with "proper football men" with distinguished careers who have been utterly fucking hopeless managers and coaches.

http://www.football365.com/news/proper-football-men-can-be-sht-too

I mostly just wanted to fuck all the little AVB fan boys off again

 

[Shea]

One thing this article makes me think of is the time before we appointed Poch

Van Gaal and Frank De Boer seemed to be the major potential alternative managers we pointed to on here

Van Gaal went on to fail at Man U (I think most would agree he failed despite his fa cup win)

And FDB had a terrible time at Inter

 

[SandroClegane]

One thing this article makes me think of is the time before we appointed Poch

Van Gaal and Frank De Boer seemed to be the major potential alternative managers we pointed to on here

Van Gaal went on to fail at Man U (I think most would agree he failed despite his fa cup win)

And FDB had a terrible time at Inter

Eh, I don't think FDB really got a chance to implement anything at Inter considering he got fired so quick. Still think he'd be a success with the proper support.

 

[ebzrascal]

Interesting article about Poch's tactics and our inability to score goals.

http://cartilagefreecaptain.sbnatio...io-pochettino-defensive-manager-diego-simeone

(I've removed all the images)

When Spurs first hired Mauricio Pochettino I argued that this was basically Daniel Levy saying that Andre Villas-Boas’s ideas were right; AVB just wasn’t the one to actually execute those ideas at White Hart Lane. Pochettino was a manager who would again try to develop a distinctive tactical system that allowed Tottenham to punch above its financial weight and compete with richer domestic rivals. That had been the plan under AVB and it would continue to be the plan under Pochettino.

The funny thing in year three of the Poche era, it looks more and more like we did more than just find a manager to, like AVB, develop a distinct tactical system that allows us to compete with wealthier rivals.

We may have actually found a manager who is developing AVB’s tactical system that allows us to compete with our richer domestic rivals. Specifically, we have found a defense-first manager who sees football in essentially attritional terms and sets up his team to grind out 1-0 results.

This is still perhaps a bit counter-intuitive with Pochettino. His reputation in England, as best I can tell, has always been more Guardiola than Mourinho. Certainly his Southampton teams were praised for being entertaining, as was last year’s Tottenham team. Moreover, Guardiola himself has raved about Pochettino on multiple occasions.

But here’s the funny thing: When you take another look at the actual evidence, Poche doesn’t look like a Guardiola disciple, despite the Catalan’s high praise of him. Instead, he looks more like a Mourinho-style defense-first manager with some limited Guardiola influences.

Put another way, Poche looks a whole lot like AVB.

What was AVB’s style?

Here are some numbers on AVB (NOTE: It’s hard to get super great advanced stats going back this far):

• In his lone season at Porto, his team conceded 16 goals in 30 games.
• In his 27 games at Chelsea, his team conceded an average of 1.2 goals per game. However, if you remove the extremely derpy 5-3 defeat to Arsenal and the two matches in which they conceded three to Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United, you’re left with an average of .875 goals per game. So the system was not actually failing as badly as some think; they just didn’t adapt to elite opposition. But that specific failure in those three games is more about AVB’s judgment as a manager than his system, I think.
• In his last season at Spurs, his team averaged .8 goals scored per match prior to the City game and conceded .54 goals per game prior to the City game. (After the 6-0 set back against City all hell basically broke loose for a month under AVB and then continued in much the same way for another five months under He Who Shall Not Be Named so I am not going to worry too much about those stats.)
• The one big outlier is here: In his full season at Spurs, we averaged 1.7 goals scored per match and conceded 1.2 goals per match. These are much more “decent-ish Europa League EPL team” numbers than the others, which are much more obviously what you expect from a manager who values defensive shape and system.

Despite the “exotic foreign wunderkind who plays romantic attacking football”reputation AVB had when he first arrived, it quickly became apparent that he was more like his former friend and mentor Jose Mourinho: He valued a team that is defensively sturdy, hard to break down, and that can grind out 1-0 wins over a team that provides thrilling, progressive football. What doomed AVB wasn’t necessarily his system; it was his inability to make changes and generally alienating management style.

Pochettino has always been a defense-first manager.

We’re now in the fifth season of Mauricio Pochettino managing in England. And here’s what we know: Poche is a lot more like AVB or Mourinho than he is Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp.




To demonstrate this, let’s begin by working backward to Pochettino’s Southampton days. Upon arrival in January of 2013, Pochettino inherited a Southampton team that knew how to attack, but... well, defending wasn’t a priority for them.

Here’s how they did in the first 22 games of their first season back in the Premier League played under Nigel Adkins:

• They averaged 1.36 goals per game.
• They conceded 1.82 goals per game.

While it’s not quite Ian Holloway Blackpool territory it’s still extremely bad. Over a full season that equals 69 goals conceded. Since 2000, only two teams have conceded that many goals without being relegated: Aston Villa in 2012-13 and Wigan in 2009-10. In both cases, those teams were one of three in the Premier League that season to concede 69+ goals and in both cases the other two to do so were relegated. (The third teams to go down in both seasons were historically bad teams—Portsmouth in 2009-10 laboring under the enormous financial issues at the club dating back to their time being managed by Harry Redknapp and QPR in 2012-13 struggling due to issues connected to their time being managed by Harry Redknapp.)

Teams that defend like Adkins’ Southampton did don’t last long in England’s top flight.

In 16 games under Pochettino and with the exact same players, those numbers transformed dramatically:

• Southampton scored 1.2 goals per game, which represents a slight drop.
• However, they conceded only 1.25 goals per game—slashing their goals conceded per match by ~33%.

The second season was much the same. They finished the year 8th in the Premier League, their highest finish in the Premier League era. According to Michael Caley’s xG system, they finished with 50 expected goals scored and 40 expected goals conceded.

Here’s the impressive thing: The only teams in 2013-14 with better defensive records in England were Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea and eventual champions Manchester City.

When you look back at his normal XI during that season, that defensive record makes more sense. Pochettino played a 4-2-3-1 system that typically looked like this:

Boruc
Shaw, Fonte, Lovren, Clyne
Wanyama, Schneiderlin
Lallana, Davis, Rodriguez
Lambert

A few things should stand out about that lineup:

• Like his Spurs teams, this Southampton leaned on its attacking fullbacks to support the relatively limited attack.
• Morgan Schneiderlin, who has been used in a purely destroying, deep role when he can even get a game at Man United, is the most progressive midfield player.
• Steven Davis is part of the attacking four rather than more attacking players like Gaston Ramirez or Dani Osvaldo, both of whom Poche banished to Siberia after only a few appearances for the club.

While Pochettino might have had a reputation for “high pressing” and progressive football upon arrival at Spurs, the reality even at Southampton was that he was a much more defensive coach whose use of pressing was far more selective than that of his mentor Marcelo Bielsa or that of trendy German managers like Jurgen Klopp or Roger Schmidt.




Indeed, we can push the point further: His record at Southampton showed that Pochettino’s system requires a great deal of running and work, but that this running and work is closer to the work demanded by Diego Simeone than Klopp.

In an interview I did with him at Just Football, Into the Calderon editor Robbie Dunne said that Simeone believes in running and a high work rate because he sees football as being basically attritional in nature. That, of course, sounds an awful lot like both AVB and Pochettino.

How does Pochettino’s style explain results this season?

As at Southampton, Pochettino’s style at Spurs has been to generally play a more conservative midfield two with one player used in an almost exclusively defensive role. The first priority is to be defensively solid and to not concede bad goals. The attack must be built on this platform.

For this reason, Pochettino does not typically attack with numbers in the way that Klopp, Schmidt, Guardiola, or Thomas Tuchel do. Recall the numbers highlighted in this piece by Ricardo Tavares. Amongst the top teams in England last season, Spurs were the only ones whose main passing combinations were between defenders.

Rather than slow, patient possession, there are three main ways that Pochettino teams create chances:

• They rely on long, direct passing from the back.
• They use transition sequences in the attacking third which are often created when those long balls are not completed and the ball pings around a bit before Spurs win control and can attack an out-of-position defense.
• They grind teams down and score goals late in the game on the counter when they are still fresh and the opponent has been worn down. (Like, you known, the winner we scored just this past weekend against Burnley. But this description also fits many of the late goals scored in Pochettino’s first two seasons at Tottenham.)

Here’s the problem: When you don’t attack with the numbers that, for example, Klopp’s Liverpool or Schmidt’s Leverkusen do, those long direct attacks are not as likely to end successfully because your attackers are almost certainly going to be out-numbered.

Moreover, once teams get wise to this style and begin sitting back themselves, you typically end up being badly out numbered. Long ball attacks from Spurs often begin with four Tottenham attacking players going up against five or six opposition defenders but against teams like West Bromwich Albion earlier this season it was more like seven, eight, or even nine defenders.

Those numbers begin to change a bit once the fullbacks get forward, but as we saw in the Champions League, if you can keep Spurs’ fullbacks pinned deep, the attack sputters.

What happens when teams eliminate Tottenham’s primary attacking outlets?

This brings us back to AVB. When you play defense first and rely on direct attacks and counters to create scoring chances, it is relatively easy for opponents to say, “Fine. We’ll sit in a low block ourselves and then you can’t create chances.”

The result of this is that Tottenham games against weaker opposition begin to all look more-or-less the same: Spurs have a high amount of possession, but they have no ability to break down a packed defense because their players either don’t know how to open up such a defense or lack the ability to do so.

As a result, they end up taking lots of shots from distance and other lower quality chances. This is, in fact, a common problem with defense-first managers.

Here are a few sample xG maps from just this season for Poche and other defense-first managers:

Simeone’s Atletico earlier this season: 16 shots against Las Palmas, only one xG.



xG map for Atletico Madrid - Las Palmas.

8:34 PM - 17 Dec 2016




Here is Mourinho’s United against Watford earlier this season. 15 shots, 1.3 xG:



xG map for Watford - Manchester United. I've been expecting something like this to happen to United all season.

3:54 PM - 18 Sep 2016




That brings us to this season’s Tottenham. To be honest, the number of examples I could choose from is kind of terrifying. But here’s a small sample.

This is last weekend’s clash with Burnley. 30 shots, 1.7 xG:

xG map for Tottenham - Burnley. Spurs do it with volume. It's not pretty, and it's pretty risky.



Here is Bournemouth almost two months ago. Note that Erik Lamela played in this game so don’t think this is necessarily a “we-miss-Lamela” problem. 16 shots, .7 xG:



xG map for Bournemouth - Tottenham. Excellent defensive performance by Bournemouth, and they were unlucky this ended 11 v 11.

It’s a problem in Europe too. Here is the win against CSKA in Moscow. 23 shots, 1.3 xG

xG map for CSKA - Tottenham.

Another very Poche Spurs performance. Control midfield and take your time to unlock a set defense.

Aggregate xG Data for 2016-17

To make the point a bit more clearly, I went through and reviewed xG maps for all six top English teams so far this season. I took a very, very basic approach to the question: Let’s find out each team’s average xG/match, average shots/match, and average xG value/shot.

This is using only results from this season (and only results that I could find on Caley’s Twitter timeline). So the data is not perfect. Even so, the results are interesting:

Shot Quality Data

Team


xG / Match


Shots / Match


Avg. xG / Shot


Arsenal


1.7125


13.75


0.12

Chelsea


1.67


14.9


0.11

Liverpool


1.7


16.9


0.1

Man City


1.86


15.6


0.12

Man United


1.5


16.19


0.09

Tottenham


1.57


18.9


0.08

As you can see, our xG value per shot is the worst amongst the six sides with Champions League aspirations. Indeed, Tottenham’s xG value of any one shot is, on average, 50% lower than the xG value of Arsenal or City’s average shot.

One way of breaking down this data would be to identify two separate groups. I’m listing the members of each group in order from the most extreme example to the least extreme, though that is admittedly defined in somewhat subjective terms. (I’m looking for a way to do a chart like this one, but am having no luck—if someone can help me out in the comments, I can update the post with a chart.)

Higher Shot Quantity, Lower Shot Quality

• Tottenham: 18.9 shots/match, .08 xG/shot
• Manchester United: 16.19 shots/match, .09 xG/shot
• Liverpool: 16.9 shots/match, .1 xG/shot

Lower Shot Quantity, Higher Shot Quality

• Arsenal: 13.75 shots/match, .12 xG/match
• Manchester City: 15.6 shots/match, .12 xG/match
• Chelsea: 14.9 shots/match, .11 xG/shot

If you want to know why Chelsea is looking likely to run away with the league, that basically sums it up. Typically, defense-first managers like Mourinho or Pochettino are going to have sides that produce fewer high-quality chances because the nature of their system makes it easier to defend. That’s the point of this whole post, after all. So you have both Mourinho’s United and Pochettino’s Tottenham in that first group alongside the chaotic Klopperpool.

At the other end of things, more attack-minded managers like Arsene Wenger and Pep Guardiola will generally produce higher quality chances because their teams are more comfortable attacking packed defenses and are better at opening them up.

Conte’s Chelsea, meanwhile, is sitting in the sweet spot between these two poles. On the one hand, they actually defend better than either Mourinho’s United or Pochettino’s Tottenham. But they do this without sacrificing shot quality: Their xG/shot is almost the same as Arsenal’s and City’s and is actually better than Liverpool’s, which has the most goals in the league so far this season. That is how you win a title.

It’s also worth noting that the team with the best chance at challenging Chelsea is probably Klopp’s Liverpool. They have also found a way to buck the trend by having a high shot quantity number and better shot quality than United or Spurs.

What can Spurs do to fix this?

This is the key question, of course. And, unfortunately, there aren’t easy answers. Conte’s Chelsea seems to have figured out how to retain a robust defensive structure without compromising shot quality, but then Conte’s Chelsea has N’Golo Kante in midfield, Eden Hazard in attack, and an on-fire Diego Costa leading the line.

So while Conte deserves major credit for his transformation of Chelsea, I am not sure how much Chelsea can be a template for other teams since most teams lack Chelsea’s financial muscle and consequent ability to recruit world-class players.

The more likely reality is that this sort of attack is probably more or less what we should expect from Pochettino teams and the best way to improve results is not necessarily by increasing shot quality, which may not be possible without compromising defensive soundness, but instead looking to eliminate mistakes that lead to high-quality chances for the opposition.

This past weekend’s fixture is probably as good a place as any to begin on that point: We weren’t bad, necessarily. In addition to our two goals, Dele Alli wasted a good chance in the opening minutes and came very close to scoring a curler from the edge of the box in the second half. Christian Eriksen also nearly scored from distance but for great work from Burnley keeper Tom Heaton and nearly got on the edge of a Harry Kane cross in the first half. None of these were great chances, but you also wouldn’t have been shocked to see any of those four chances find their way into the net.

What killed us is that we allowed Burnley two extremely good chances in the first half, both of which were totally unnecessary. In both cases, we had multiple chances to clear and we simply failed to do so. The second chance, which is the one that produced Burnley’s goal, also involved a couple lucky deflections for Sean Dyche’s team, but if Kyle Walker clears the ball when he has the chance to do so, those deflections never happen.

To put it another way, we probably shouldn’t expect Pochettino teams to consistently produce more than what this team is currently averaging, which is 1.57 xG/match. Pochettino teams are never going to create chances like an Arsene Wenger or Pep Guardiola team. However, the examples of Mourinho, Conte, and Simeone provide all the proof needed of how effective a defense-first system can be.

Indeed, Simeone’s example is particularly compelling as his Atletico have been competing for La Liga and Champions League titles for most of the past five seasons despite enormous financial disadvantages relative to their main rivals thanks to the fact that they are so absurdly difficult to beat.

To be sure, there are some structural things Spurs can do to improve results. If Victor Wanyama could get better at splitting the center backs that would go a long way. If Pochettino could be more flexible in-game and figure out ways to support his front four when his fullbacks can’t get forward, that would be significant.

But ultimately the attack we’re seeing this season is probably more-or-less what we should expect from Pochettino teams. The big question, then, is not “how can we improve the attack?” but “how can we eliminate unforced errors when defending?”

I don't fully agree with this in my view if our front four were more creative and ruthless we would score more goals.. we have the defensive platform and possession we just execute in the final third. Last season we were second top scorers and I think it was because we were a little more direct and played with a bit more intensity. Liverpool have 2/3 players who can create chances out of nothing on their own. last season Kane Alli Eriksen were all more threatening. We should have added real quality to push these guys during the last window..

 

[Shea]

Eh, I don't think FDB really got a chance to implement anything at Inter considering he got fired so quick. Still think he'd be a success with the proper support.

I don't know anything about his time there - other than he was sacked in the blink of an eye

 

[TottenhamMattSpur]

Sorry guys but this "proper football man" stuff is bunkum.

"why Mourinho will never last longer than three years" ? Who does ? Look what he invariably achieves in those three years, they bloke has won titles and CL's in 4 countries, and not always with the best teams in those leagues or CL's.

Pochettino has fallen out with far more players than AVB did (not only have we seen so called Kabul 3 jettisoned but we've also seen very promising young players like Pritchard and Bentaleb discarded mainly for non football reasons). Difference being that Pochettino has been given the backing to fuck off everyone who doesn't toe the line, AVB wasn't. AVB also had pricks like Freund and Sherwood stirring it up behind the scenes, Pochettino has no such problems.

This proper football man notion has been disproved over and over again. AVB won the Portuguese league and the UEFA Cup, not bad for a guy who'd never played the game properly. One of the game's best coaches, Arigo Saachi was never a pro footballer, Mourinho, one of the best coaches in Germany this season - 29yo Nagglesman at Hoffenheim - had two season as a pro.

And football is absolutely awash with "proper football men" with distinguished careers who have been utterly fucking hopeless managers and coaches.

http://www.football365.com/news/proper-football-men-can-be-sht-too

Nonsense.
Moureen had a squad full of stars on top of their game at Porto, squillions to spend at Chelsea, Madrid - not exactly a hard job winning. Inter is possibly the anomaly as they went downhill so quickly.
Incase it's escaped your attention he's also left each of those jobs bar Porto under a cloud. He comes in, buys a load of players, wins something, fucks everyone off and leaves.

 

[kitchen]

This past weekend’s fixture is probably as good a place as any to begin on that point: We weren’t bad, necessarily. In addition to our two goals, Dele Alli wasted a good chance in the opening minutes and came very close to scoring a curler from the edge of the box in the second half. Christian Eriksen also nearly scored from distance but for great work from Burnley keeper Tom Heaton and nearly got on the edge of a Harry Kane cross in the first half. None of these were great chances, but you also wouldn’t have been shocked to see any of those four chances find their way into the net.

But we had two better chances than those listed, Harry Kane through on goal, one defender to beat, greedy and doesn't pass to Eriksen who is free for a virtual tap-in.

Son through on goal, greedy again, and doesn't pass to teammate (can't remember who now) again for a gimme.

That is the difference between Chelsea, Pool and us IMO. We make enough chances. We make enough good chances, but we pick the wrong options. Liverpool have become very good, and this is typical of Klopp teams, at picking the right options. As for Chelsea, they just have little more class than us, as mentioned in the article, and as was visible in our match against them at the Bridge, where we matched them but they had 2 moments of individual class to our 1.

There isn't that much that needs changing but another creative technician in the final 3rd (like Isco) or a quality speedster (like Mane)

Let's not forget that neither of those teams mentioned have midweek games this year. That makes a difference too...

 

[lukespurs7]

But we had two better chances than those listed, Harry Kane through on goal, one defender to beat, greedy and doesn't pass to Eriksen who is free for a virtual tap-in.

Son through on goal, greedy again, and doesn't pass to teammate (can't remember who now) again for a gimme.

That is the difference between Chelsea, Pool and us IMO. We make enough chances. We make enough good chances, but we pick the wrong options. Liverpool have become very good, and this is typical of Klopp teams, at picking the right options. As for Chelsea, they just have little more class than us, as mentioned in the article, and as was visible in our match against them at the Bridge, where we matched them but they had 2 moments of individual class to our 1.

There isn't that much that needs changing but another creative technician in the final 3rd (like Isco) or a quality speedster (like Mane)

Let's not forget that neither of those teams mentioned have midweek games this year. That makes a difference too...

It's fairly simple really like you say we need a top class game changing AM on the scale of Hazard,Sanchez etc but that's easier said than done. We then need a back up striker if janssen isn't going to cut it, id still throw a few million at Berahino if we can afford it.

 

[aliyid]

Personally (and looks like I'm in the minority) I think Poch & AVB have very different tactical approaches. While the stats may suggest similar levels of possession and chances created I think the way those chances are created are very different. Should caveat that the two had vastly different players while at Spurs and it would be impossible to predict what could have been if time/places had been reversed.

• AVB - Retention of the ball is key, short sideways passes rotating the ball from left to right and back again. No high risk balls, retain possession, keep probing and eventually they'll leave a gap. This works well against poorer teams as they tire and start to make mistakes late in the game (no suprise that we had a lot of late winners in AVB's best season)
• Poch - Two main styles with and without the ball:
  • Without the ball - Press high and win the ball in opposition half via interceptions and break at speed while they're out of position. If they get into our half then drop back and close down spaces.
  • With the ball - Movement off the ball is key having runners from midfield (Son, Alli, Walker, Rose) breaking through the defensive line being found by balls from Eriksen or Lamella. Higher risk balls designed to move defense out of position and create space for Kane.

Poch has changed a bit this year due to Lamella not being available thus cutting down our distribution options (far easier to shut down Eriksen on his own than Eriksen & Lamella together). Also Wanyama while being defenisvely solid does tend to go for the safe option when in possession allowing opposition defenses to reset back into shape (once a prem defence has reset their shape they're generally quite hard to break down).

I would say Poch is like Simeone while AVB was more like Wenger. Klopp is all about movement and unpredictability while Pep appears to be mainly focused on intricate combinations 1-2's and triangles around the area with lots of pull-backs to players in space on the edge of the area.