We can revisit this preseason article I think.
Thomas Frank is reportedly on the verge of becoming the new Tottenham manager, but can he replicate the success he had at Brentford on the other side of London?
theanalyst.com
A few bits that I find especially interesting:
1 ) Long Balls
It's no secret that Brentford were always one of the most direct teams in the entire league. The bit above mentions the
percentage of their passes that were long, and data on the total
amount of passes that were long also complement this picture.
21 / 22: 9th in the league
22 / 23 : 2nd in the league
23 / 24: 6th in the league
24 / 25 : 3rd in the league
What about us? I don't have the data on the percentage; but we're tied with Bournemouth for the 2nd place in number of long passes attempted with 1552. None other than Brentford lead the league with 1610.
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2 )
Shot Efficiency
Not all shots on goal are equally threatening; there tends to be a trade-off between eficiency and volume. You can increase the former by being more selective with your attempts. The bit above illustrates this point of emphasis of Frank's with numbers.
What about us? It's a bit complicated.
On the one hand, we certainly cannot be accused of shooting on sight: We're 16th in the league in number of shots on goal with 216. Only Burnley [187], Wolves [191], Sunderland [202] and West Ham [210] have taken less shots.
On the other hand, it so far hasn't led into an increase in the efficiency of each shot attempt: We're 19th in xG per shot. We shoot very little,
and our attempts are of low quality; in other words, we just cannot create chances.
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3 )
Defending
What I've said above regarding the quality of each shot also applies to shots allowed at the other end. You want to maximize the said quality at the attacking end, and to minimize it at the defensive end.
Other things being equal, one of the surest way of achieving the latter is to force opponents to take long shots. The bit above illustrates with numbers how good Brentford were at forcing opponents to take a higher percentage of their shots from outside the box as opposed to inside.
What about us ? Again, it's not very straightforward.
On the one hand, we are also similar to last year's Brentford in that deparment: We're 17th in percentage of shots allowed from inside our box with 65.56; only Brentford [62.64], Wolves [64.29] and Sunderland [65.50] have it lower.
On the other hand, the relationship between this and defensive solidity is hardly that simple.
City for example lead the league in this with 75.13 percent, yet they also have one of the best defenses in the league.
Same goes for Newcastle as well: They are 4th with 71.18 percent despite having a really good defense of their own.
More importantly, eye test tells a quite different story when it comes to these long range attempts that we seem to be encouraging as part of the plan: That teams take them not reluctantly but quite enthusiastically, presumably because they think they've just spotted a glaring weakness. Shots keep going in more often than you'd expect, as exemplified most recently by that Semenyo goal.
Could this be worked on if / when Frank gets more time? Possibly.
When it comes to the overall quality, we're the 8th best / lowest in the league in xG against per shot. Nothing spectacular, but could be interpreted as another sign that those "belters" from opponents might eventually be brought under control.
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I keep going back to my initial conclusion regarding the possibility of things eventually starting to improve somewhat within the current framework of Frank's football, especially on the defensive end. But I still don't think the whole endeavour would be worth it.
