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Tactics TFC's Tactical Autopsy Thread
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Biggest issue I have with this is the last facet - the attacking the box with numbers to get in on the end of crosses. Firstly, crosses are a very low percentile chance creator. Secondly,Palhinha and Bentancur aren’t going to spend all game charging from our box to get into the opponents box they don’t have the vim. Thirdly, most of our forward group.(Odobert, Simon’s, Kudus) on exactly stick their heads on crosses types.
Tottenham embody this season’s Premier League: Set pieces, long throws, and no cohesion
Tottenham's performance against Aston Villa summed up not only where they are at but also where the league overall finds itself
www.nytimes.com
Tottenham embody this season’s Premier League: Set pieces, long throws, and no cohesion
Summarise
Michael Cox
Ultimately, Tottenham Hotspur lost 2-1 to Aston Villa because of two fantastic strikes from outside the box, courtesy of Morgan Rogers and Emi Buendia. No one could have anticipated the quality of those efforts, but the game overall was entirely predictable. It was, as Thomas Frank said afterwards, “everything I expected it to be”.
The 2025-26 Premier League campaign has started with the most concerns about the league’s entertainment value since way back in 2004-05, when football seemed to have taken a particularly defensive turn.
It was Tottenham who accidentally found themselves at the centre of the debate back then, when Jose Mourinho introduced the ‘parking the bus’ phrase to English football when complaining about Tottenham’s successful defensive approach against his Chelsea side in a goalless draw.
Twenty-one years on, Tottenham again feel like the best representation of the sudden shift in this season’s football style.
After two years of Spurs being coached by Ange Postecoglou, with all the obvious strengths and weaknesses of his front-foot philosophy, Frank is a coach renowned for his pragmatism. Under his leadership, his previous side, Brentford, were known for their direct play and emphasis on set pieces.
While it would be unreasonable to expect his Tottenham side to have figured everything out by mid-October, this was a performance that summed everything up: not just where Tottenham are at, but also where the division overall finds itself.
This was a contest between — in the context of European football — two good sides. Tottenham are the Europa League holders, Aston Villa briefly caused European champions Paris Saint-Germain a real scare in the Champions League last season. Both are going well this season in Europe, too. On that basis alone, we should have expected a reasonable amount of quality football.
But, instead, it was overwhelmingly based around set pieces. Tottenham’s opening goal featured two powerful midfielders combining in the box, in the aftermath of a set-piece situation, with Rodrigo Bentancur slamming home Joao Palhinha’s knockdown. That in itself was typical of the season in a different way: deep midfielders have contributed more than their fair share of goals this season, and of Spurs’ starting XI here, Palhinha is Tottenham’s top scorer this campaign.
It’s not just about corners and free kicks, either. The long throw is ultra-fashionable again, and while this is clearly a useful part of any side’s armoury, Kevin Danso’s deliveries constituted Spurs’ main weapon against Villa, which felt particularly odd considering he wasn’t even due to start, only stepping up late on when Cristian Romero pulled out in the warm-up.
Kevin Danso’s throw-ins were a key part of Tottenham’s tactics against Aston VillaJulian Finney/Getty Images
Danso gets great distance on his throws, and one caused Villa serious problems, but by the time he’d hurled the ball into the box for the sixth time, usually after an inevitably long wait while the centre-back jogged over to the touchline and had located the nearest towel, you couldn’t help feeling that this approach was wasting too much time and giving the opposition a breather.
In open play, it’s clear that Tottenham’s attackers don’t offer any cohesive combinations, which you can say about half the league at the moment. That is understandable considering Mohammed Kudus and Xavi Simons are new arrivals, while Wilson Odobert and Mathys Tel arrived last summer and in January respectively. But here they were operating on four different wavelengths, with Tel spending most of the first half making a run, not getting the pass, then gesturing to where he had wanted it.
Of the front four, it is Kudus who has been brightest this season by showing good understanding with his team-mates, most obviously in the opening game of the season when he twice assisted Richarlison in a 3-0 win over Burnley.
Simons, as the No 10, is tasked with connecting everyone around him: two midfielders who rarely pass forward, two wingers who tend to stay wide, and a centre-forward who isn’t involved much in build-up play. That’s a tough task for a 22-year-old who has recently moved to a new league.
Afterwards, Frank acknowledged the limitations of his side’s attack, but indicated that his initial focus was on improving “the four to five good transitional moments, where we could have done more”.
The understanding required to break down deeper defences, you suspect, will take even longer, which is fair enough, but it is also grating considering Tottenham could, until fairly recently, depend on Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, statistically the best partnership the Premier League has seen at creating goals for each other. The man who completed the trio in latter years, Dejan Kulusevski, is missed as much for his club as he is for his country.
Like most Premier League clubs, Tottenham have decent depth. The division’s financial dominance over other leagues isn’t necessarily reflected in the quality of the top players, but in the backups.
Tottenham are able to bring on players such as Richarlison and Randal Kolo Muani. The former scored the best goal at the last World Cup, the latter nearly played a decisive role in the final. Another sub, Brennan Johnson, scored the Europa League winner. Perhaps the most exciting reserve is Lucas Bergvall, who offers badly needed ability to knit things together; without a player in that mould, things were too easy for Aston Villa.
Indeed, Unai Emery’s analysis was succinct and telling. “We adapted to everything tactically,” he said when asked to explain why his side came out on top. “In duels, set pieces, throw-ins.” And they, slightly depressingly, are the main qualities needed to win a Premier League game at the moment.
Attacks around the league haven't looked that threatening in open play. I heard a discussion where it was mentioned that scouting and analytics is becoming so good it is harder to score. Teams don't seem to get put off balance as often. Defenses don't get stretched. And maybe there just aren't enough good strikers to go around.Tottenham embody this season’s Premier League: Set pieces, long throws, and no cohesion
Tottenham's performance against Aston Villa summed up not only where they are at but also where the league overall finds itself
Tottenham embody this season’s Premier League: Set pieces, long throws, and no cohesion
Summarise
Michael Cox
Ultimately, Tottenham Hotspur lost 2-1 to Aston Villa because of two fantastic strikes from outside the box, courtesy of Morgan Rogers and Emi Buendia. No one could have anticipated the quality of those efforts, but the game overall was entirely predictable. It was, as Thomas Frank said afterwards, “everything I expected it to be”.
The 2025-26 Premier League campaign has started with the most concerns about the league’s entertainment value since way back in 2004-05, when football seemed to have taken a particularly defensive turn.
It was Tottenham who accidentally found themselves at the centre of the debate back then, when Jose Mourinho introduced the ‘parking the bus’ phrase to English football when complaining about Tottenham’s successful defensive approach against his Chelsea side in a goalless draw.
Twenty-one years on, Tottenham again feel like the best representation of the sudden shift in this season’s football style.
After two years of Spurs being coached by Ange Postecoglou, with all the obvious strengths and weaknesses of his front-foot philosophy, Frank is a coach renowned for his pragmatism. Under his leadership, his previous side, Brentford, were known for their direct play and emphasis on set pieces.
While it would be unreasonable to expect his Tottenham side to have figured everything out by mid-October, this was a performance that summed everything up: not just where Tottenham are at, but also where the division overall finds itself.
This was a contest between — in the context of European football — two good sides. Tottenham are the Europa League holders, Aston Villa briefly caused European champions Paris Saint-Germain a real scare in the Champions League last season. Both are going well this season in Europe, too. On that basis alone, we should have expected a reasonable amount of quality football.
But, instead, it was overwhelmingly based around set pieces. Tottenham’s opening goal featured two powerful midfielders combining in the box, in the aftermath of a set-piece situation, with Rodrigo Bentancur slamming home Joao Palhinha’s knockdown. That in itself was typical of the season in a different way: deep midfielders have contributed more than their fair share of goals this season, and of Spurs’ starting XI here, Palhinha is Tottenham’s top scorer this campaign.
It’s not just about corners and free kicks, either. The long throw is ultra-fashionable again, and while this is clearly a useful part of any side’s armoury, Kevin Danso’s deliveries constituted Spurs’ main weapon against Villa, which felt particularly odd considering he wasn’t even due to start, only stepping up late on when Cristian Romero pulled out in the warm-up.
Kevin Danso’s throw-ins were a key part of Tottenham’s tactics against Aston VillaJulian Finney/Getty Images
Danso gets great distance on his throws, and one caused Villa serious problems, but by the time he’d hurled the ball into the box for the sixth time, usually after an inevitably long wait while the centre-back jogged over to the touchline and had located the nearest towel, you couldn’t help feeling that this approach was wasting too much time and giving the opposition a breather.
In open play, it’s clear that Tottenham’s attackers don’t offer any cohesive combinations, which you can say about half the league at the moment. That is understandable considering Mohammed Kudus and Xavi Simons are new arrivals, while Wilson Odobert and Mathys Tel arrived last summer and in January respectively. But here they were operating on four different wavelengths, with Tel spending most of the first half making a run, not getting the pass, then gesturing to where he had wanted it.
Of the front four, it is Kudus who has been brightest this season by showing good understanding with his team-mates, most obviously in the opening game of the season when he twice assisted Richarlison in a 3-0 win over Burnley.
Simons, as the No 10, is tasked with connecting everyone around him: two midfielders who rarely pass forward, two wingers who tend to stay wide, and a centre-forward who isn’t involved much in build-up play. That’s a tough task for a 22-year-old who has recently moved to a new league.
Afterwards, Frank acknowledged the limitations of his side’s attack, but indicated that his initial focus was on improving “the four to five good transitional moments, where we could have done more”.
The understanding required to break down deeper defences, you suspect, will take even longer, which is fair enough, but it is also grating considering Tottenham could, until fairly recently, depend on Harry Kane and Son Heung-min, statistically the best partnership the Premier League has seen at creating goals for each other. The man who completed the trio in latter years, Dejan Kulusevski, is missed as much for his club as he is for his country.
Like most Premier League clubs, Tottenham have decent depth. The division’s financial dominance over other leagues isn’t necessarily reflected in the quality of the top players, but in the backups.
Tottenham are able to bring on players such as Richarlison and Randal Kolo Muani. The former scored the best goal at the last World Cup, the latter nearly played a decisive role in the final. Another sub, Brennan Johnson, scored the Europa League winner. Perhaps the most exciting reserve is Lucas Bergvall, who offers badly needed ability to knit things together; without a player in that mould, things were too easy for Aston Villa.
Indeed, Unai Emery’s analysis was succinct and telling. “We adapted to everything tactically,” he said when asked to explain why his side came out on top. “In duels, set pieces, throw-ins.” And they, slightly depressingly, are the main qualities needed to win a Premier League game at the moment.
Frank certainly belongs in to the school of thought that is embodied in the quote attributed to Gianni Brera regarding how the perfect football match would end 0-0: Scoring is inherently more difficult than not conceding, and therefore you should ensure the latter first lest you end up with a house of cards. Call it pragmatic, boring, defensive or whatever; if this is not for you, you'll never fully embrace Frank as the manager of this club.
Under him we'll never have anything resembling the opposite approach where goal scoring is considered child's play if certain conditions are met, and if you happen to concede some in the process so be it.
The bigger issue than lack of goals and flair at the moment is that Frank is getting beaten in his own game: For the last few weeks we haven't even looked solid defensively, Monaco game being the culmination of that trend. That's usually the beginning of the end for managers when they can't even get their teams to do what they themselves consider to be basics.
That's what happened last season during that infamous spell in December-January where we got like 1 point from 7 league games: We weren't conceding at an unusually high rate, but struggling to score in a way that was indeed pretty unusual for an Ange team. We never recovered.
Frank is obviously not on the verge of getting sacked, but if these worrying defensive trends continue during these increasingly difficult upcoming fixtures in the next month or so, he can paint himself into quite a corner. We all of a sudden won't start scoring at a high rate to offset, and results will start to collapse.
Under him we'll never have anything resembling the opposite approach where goal scoring is considered child's play if certain conditions are met, and if you happen to concede some in the process so be it.
The bigger issue than lack of goals and flair at the moment is that Frank is getting beaten in his own game: For the last few weeks we haven't even looked solid defensively, Monaco game being the culmination of that trend. That's usually the beginning of the end for managers when they can't even get their teams to do what they themselves consider to be basics.
That's what happened last season during that infamous spell in December-January where we got like 1 point from 7 league games: We weren't conceding at an unusually high rate, but struggling to score in a way that was indeed pretty unusual for an Ange team. We never recovered.
Frank is obviously not on the verge of getting sacked, but if these worrying defensive trends continue during these increasingly difficult upcoming fixtures in the next month or so, he can paint himself into quite a corner. We all of a sudden won't start scoring at a high rate to offset, and results will start to collapse.
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Results have already started to collapse. Be lucky to be in the top half come Xmas. But that's ok. 11th is better thsn 17th right?
Aside of the complexity of tactics. One thing I'd like us to do more is shoot. From the edge of the box, inside the box. Working the ball side to side will not get us very far without a lock picker who can see and play a killer pass. Xavi isn't that type of player, but he does have a good shot in the bottom corner on him. For some reason never seems to pull the trigger.
I suppose until we have a summer transfer window under the new structure
We Wont truly know
The January window might be busier this season
We Wont truly know
The January window might be busier this season
So is your conclusion that in terms of open play we were not that much better than Everton - but were far more effective at set pieces (2 goals from Van de Ven), and that's the reason we won ?
Pretty much.
Does this metric 'Goalkick progr.: 13.4 - 37.8' suggest that Vicario was a lot more effective in getting our attacks under way than Everton's GK ?
Think he just kicked it longer.
The way set pieces have turned into a cheat code all across the league, I guess a significant reliance on them could be justified on xG grounds: They don't always click but when they do, they offer the kind of chances that you can hardly create from open play. And this hit/miss ratio seems to be as high as it has ever been in the history of the game: Everybody seems genuinely terrified of having to defend one these days. Until defenses come up with an effective counter plan in this arms race, set pieces continue to be exploited to the fullest by every team because why not?
It's a hideous watch, and it will never be a total substitute for going out there and actually playing the game, but I guess it will take some time before pendulum swings back the other direction.
It's a hideous watch, and it will never be a total substitute for going out there and actually playing the game, but I guess it will take some time before pendulum swings back the other direction.
Rating using data of the state of the PL right now:
Overrated or Underrated: A Premier League Quarter Life Crisis
Where every team stands.
www.thetransferflow.com
Overrated or Underrated: A Premier League Quarter Life Crisis
Where every team stands.
www.thetransferflow.com
Tottenham Hotspur
Rated: OverratedStrengths: Defending, Set Pieces, Long Throws
Weaknesses: Passing, Generating Shots, Depth
Likely Finish: Not Europa League?
Spurs have yet to lose away, which feels like a bit of deja vu to Brentford last season. They also have one home win from four, against Burnley. That’s not entirely surprising given who they have hired as their Head Coach, but Spurs should have been a talent upgrade over the Bees, right?
Well, sort of. There are definitely higher ceilings on many of the Spurs players, and maybe the overall squad quality is better, but there are also a lot of holes. And a Champions League campaign to pursue after a season where they finished 17th. As such, I think Spurs are doing remarkably well.
I’m not so much damning with faint praise here as reminding everyone of last season’s baseline. Midtable would be an improvement on last season, but also feel terrible for Spurs fans at this stage.
View: https://bsky.app/profile/kimischilling.bsky.social/post/3m44ggycsxw2k
Not read through it, but figured this might be interesting:
www.hudl.com
Modern Scouting Workflows: 4 Player Archetypes for Scouting with Data and Video Side-by-Side
In this article, we demonstrate the power of the newly-enhanced Hudl Statsbomb platform in making better scouting and recruitment decisions faster.
Is there any data for where we stand for sprints this season? Obviously got talked about a lot during the injury problems last season so would be interesting to compare.