Why Tottenham Hotspur struggle

The sale of your best player for around about £100m and the immediate re-investment of the funds to get some of the best attacking players around, should allow you to play as one of the best teams in the league, shouldn’t it?

You would expect your team to have some fluency and mesmerising football to show for with the likes of Roberto Soldado, Christian Eriksen and Erik Lamela at your disposal. Yes, that is what you might expect and perhaps that is what Tottenham Chairman Daniel Levy and manager Andre Villas-Boas expected when sanctioning this vast outlay. But that isn’t how it has panned out for them, has it?

15 games into the league, they have only 8 wins and 15 goals to show for their efforts. Having invested close to a £110m in the last two transfer windows, albeit with the loss of their star man Gareth Bale, one would have expected them to have a much better goal scoring record than what they are currently showing. However, it hasn’t come out that way. Even last week, it took an 82nd minute wonder strike from Lewis Holtby for AVB’s men to complete a come-from-behind victory at Craven Cottage against Fulham. Let us look at what the reasons could be for their struggles in attack.

Gareth Bale

Any team would miss a player who scored 26 goals in a season for them, and Spurs are no exception. His reported as a world record move to Spanish giants Real Madrid came on the back of the best season of his career so far, scoring a total of 30 goals and assisting another 11 last season for club and country. In the league, he contributed close to 32% of Spurs’ goals, scoring a total of 21 out of the total 66 that Spurs managed.

To put things into perspective, Gareth Bale has gone on and scored 7 goals for Madrid in the league this season while Spurs have managed a meagre 8 goals from open play. The signs are clear; the team is missing their star man.

All Andre Villas-Boas can do for this, is hope. Hope that someone from the team can step up and be counted. That is what they are in need of.

Incoming Players

Spurs brought in a total of 9 players in the last two transfer windows and 7 of them, in the last summer window alone. Amongst them, are Christian Eriksen, Roberto Soldado, Erik Lamela, Lewis Holtby, Paulinho, Etienne Capoue, Nacer Chadli – players who are now integral to Andre Villas-Boas’ team plans.

As good as these players are individually, they need time to get to know each other and gel together into a team. The 9 players that have been brought in, have come in from 8 different leagues and countries. They will need time to get used to the English culture, the football in the English league individually and as a team.

They haven’t managed a major impact on the league for a team put together for a 110-odd million pounds, but we need to give them the benefit of the doubt and give them time to settle in.

Tactics

Now the main part, the tactics.

Andre Villas-Boas at the start of the season employed essentially a 4-2-3-1 system. He used inverted wingers to give them the freedom to come inside and get involved in the build-up play with the attacking midfielder.

He might have hoped for some mesmerising and beautiful football from the team, and fair enough, the players are individually capable of that.

But, the team as a whole, having not gelled together came up short on ideas and had to rely on old fashioned wing play to try and get the goals. They basically tried flinging crosses into the box in the hope that someone in there can finish off these chances. This was a problem on two accounts.

One, them playing with the lone striker meant that the only man to aim the crosses was Roberto Soldado who was mostly left isolated in the box. Being the lone man in the box however, it was always going to be difficult for him to find the space and time he requires to finish off those chances. There was an occasional dart forward from Dembele or Paulinho, as and when they played, but a late runner from midfield to support the lone striker when your primary tactics is flinging crosses into the box, is not as effective.

Employing old-fashioned wing play, they weren’t able to fulfil the primary requirements of the system – to crowd the box with players who can attack the ball in the air.

Their second flaw was employing inverted wingers, which basically means the right footed Lennon was used on the left and the left footed Lamela/Townsend on the right. This placed Spurs at a disadvantage for old fashioned wingplay. For the wingers to put in accurate crosses, they would need to come back onto their strong foot, after they have beaten their side back. Doing this required them to come back onto their stronger foot and this gave the opposition defence time to re-organise themselves and get ready to clear a cross. This also, puts your team at a massive disadvantage allowing the opposition to take your striker out of the game and easily clear the crosses put into the box.

The Alternative

Unfortunately for them, AVB can’t do much with regards to helping his players settle into the English culture, but what he can do it solve the problems related to the management side of things.

He should try and look to change his system to suit to the actual style of play. Playing a lone striker in this system is not the way to go. And its not as if he doesn’t have good enough options. Defoe and Adebayor are both decent options when your team employs wingplay.

In addition, Townsend and Lamela are very good options on the left as well and the same can be said for Chadli and Lennon on the right. Give them a chance to get beyond the opposition full back and put in the crosses first time. With Defoe and Soldado present to finish the chances (in addition to the late arriving Paulinho!), the probability of the chance being converted is increased significantly.

Until the team looks capable of pulling off the beautiful and mesmerizing football that Daniel Levy and Andre Villas-Boas crave for, this system can probably be the safer and surer way to ascendancy for the team.

- By Dheeraj Khandelwal