Sterile in possession: Late pen saves wayward Spurs against plucky Hull
Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 Hull City
Roberto Soldado converted a late controversial penalty to hand Andre Villas-Boas’ side a narrow yet crucial win over Steve Bruce’s Tigers.
The pass completion rates of both sides are interesting - Tottenham dominated the game and were successful in 84% of their passes. Hull, on the other hand, completed just 66% of their balls, and this meant they were unable to take advantage of the limited periods they were in possession and also gave the ball back to a gleeful Spurs side.
The amount of shots also tells a significant story. These two sides are the lowest scorers in the Premier League’s top half, and this was reflected in the statistics of today’s game. Spurs had 12 shots and Hull 10, yet the game’s only goal was a penalty; the two teams need to become more ruthless if they hope to have successful seasons
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Kyle Walker had an outstanding game in both defence and attack. The right-back proved a perpetual attacking threat through his bombing runs down the flank to support Andros Townsend, and it is no surprise that the man ahead of him attained the second highest Performance Score in the game.
The 23-year-old racked up a 91% pass completion rate, and this topped off an excellent performance which helped Spurs dominate proceedings despite the narrow score line.
In the run up to half-time, neither side dominated and this is reflected in the Performance Score graph. However, Spurs soon got the upper hand and were able to batter Steve Bruce’s Hull side; the widening gap in the graph exhibits this and the withdrawn state which the Tigers took up.
The late penalty which Hull conceded took Spurs further out of reach and was a deserved winner; it plunged Bruce’s men into the negative Performance Score and confirmed what the overall performances of the two side’s had shown throughout the game.
Kyle Walker‘s Man of the Match performance was helped by George Boyd‘s failure to track back; as you can see from his heat map, he spent a limited amount of time in his own half, which allowed Walker masses of space to exploit and gave Maynor Figueroa, who was already occupied with Andros Townsend, even more problems.
The introduction of Mousa Dembele in place of Sandro at half-time proved crucial in Spurs’ control of the game. The Belgian was able to grab hold of the middle of the pitch and dictate the game; he used his range of passing to spread the ball to the wings, where the likes of Walker and Townsend were able to take advantage of Hull’s exposed flanks. It was a big improvement on the performance of Sandro, who completed just 82% of his passes in comparison to Dembele’s 95%.
