Football should be a simple game. Play your best players in their best positions and you will be in with a chance. To that end, it is frustrating to see Harry Redknapp keep playing players out of position. After the first two games of the season, Tottenham went on a long unbeaten run playing some of the best football in the league. This was achieved by playing a system that worked, with Bale providing width on the left, Lennon on the right (when fit) and Van Der Vaart playing just off Adebayor in the majority of games. In recent weeks, Redknapp has opted for a 4-4-2 formation after seeing this work to devastating effect in the 5-0 demolition of Newcastle. This formation was however their downfall in the North London derby where Arsenal were able to outnumber us in midfield and dominate the game. Redknapp continued to persist with the 4-4-2 against Manchester United and again in the weekend’s game against Everton. All 3 of these games have resulted in defeats and seen us lose our grip on 3rd place.
The line-up against Everton seemed surprised me. Although I would have argued that Defoe deserved to start after his recent goal scoring exploits, the team looked unbalanced. Going back to my opening of this article, you should play your best players in their best positions. For me this means that Modric has to play in the centre and Bale has to play on the left. Tottenham lined up with Bale playing on the right with Modric on the left. Sandro and Parker played central midfield.
Playing Modric on the left is a waste of his talent. From there he is unable to dictate play and we lose a great deal of creativity. Moving him from the centre left us with two defensive minded midfielders and lost a great deal of creativity and spark from central areas. Modric has been instrumental to the tempo that we play but having him wide on the left minimises his influence over the game. Similarly, playing Bale on the right negates his threat. There is no better sight for me than Bale running at full pace down the left hand side, terrorising right backs and whipping in inviting balls. Indeed, this is where he has been most effective for Spurs and when he moved to the left late in the game he looked a lot more dangerous. Playing Bale on the right means that he continually has to cut inside to get the ball on his left foot. Each time he did manage to get in advanced positions on the right he opted to cross with the outside of his left foot and not use his right foot. This led to Bale having a poor crossing accuracy. Of the 13 crosses that were attempted he only had 15% accuracy – his poorest crossing accuracy of the season.
In his post-match press conference Redknapp said that he played Bale right as he did not have an alternative whereas he has players at his disposal who are able to play on the left – Modric in this instance. I think we had the right personnel to be able to play a 4-2-3-1 formation on this occasion to allow avoid moving players unnecessarily out of position. Parker and Sandro would have been able to sit in front of the back four and bring their defensive qualities to the midfield battle with a well organised Everton side. Then Bale, Modric and VDV could have played in the more advanced three offering support to Adebayor. This would have allowed Bale to play on the left of the three where he is most dangerous and allow Modric to dictate play from a central position with VDV on the right of the three. This would also allow for the front three to change positions to mix up play and get forward to support the lone striker.
More on Page 2: Sandro, Parker, Modric & Adebayor passing comparison…
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Categories: EPL, EPL Index Featured Article, EPL Index Statistical Comparisons, EPL Opta Stats, Tottenham Hotspur
Tags: adebayor, Bale, Creativity, efc, english Premier league, EPL, epl opta stats, EPL Stats, Everton, Modric, Opta Stats, Parker, Passing, premier league, Premier League Stats, Redknapp, Sandro, Spurs, THFC, Van Der Vaart
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couldn’t agree more, why unbalance the whole team by playing people out of position instead of just the right of midfield. Are we seriously saying that Kranky couldn’t be put on the right..or GDS or Livermore…anybody really…lets keep square pegs in square holes..unless Arry is trying to manage like an England manager now….
Maybe he opened up with the Junde Ramos tactical manual. When Harry started, his decisions were simple and just made sense. Every time we have a little injury now, we actually end up with 3 changes, rather than looking for like for like (in this case replace a right winger with a right winger). If Lennon was injured, then dos Santos should have played
Agree totally as everyone else in the world does – someone pls pass the message to Harry before we lose 3rd spot
Luckily our next 2 games (obv 1 in cup) are at home so gives us the chance to get some confidence and teamplay back before the big Chelsea game
I fully agree with what you wrote: Play your best players in their best positions! No need to play Bale as right side winger and it’s completedly foulish not to use Modric’s capacity as a playing, attacking midfielder.
I’ve been a Spurs’ fan since the days of, among others, Danny Blanchflower, The Great Dave Mackay, Bobby Smith and of course Bill Nicholson! But I have never ever got a chance to visit WHL. Once I walked into the support shop in summer 1973 and bought me a towel.
Whilst I did not agree with the formation played in the Arsenal & Everton games (outnumbered in midfield as you say), being on the verge of a 3rd successive defeat is not the time to experiment with an exotic formation given that a tried and tested 4-4-1-1 was what was predominantly used during our great run earlier on in the season. The simple decision (if you are going to change) is to return to that. Modric in the centre is ideal, but if you are going to play vs Everton and their Baines, Colemam, Drenthe, Osman wing attack – then you need 2 hard working & quick wide men to counter it. Vdv, Kranjcar, ain’t that. So we were in a pickle – Modders goes wide. Our problem stemming from never ever getting back-up/competition for Lennon – for several years now. Bentley was an attempt that failed – but it does not mean than we should not try again. The acquisition of Saha was a double-edged soword – he is more of an option than Defoe because he is multi-faceted. Harry’s preferred 4-4-2 becomes more of an option, but against a midfield 5, and without our 2 flying wingers it generally will not work – away from home at least. The problem we have now is that Stoke at home IS probably a 4-4-2 game. So if we WERE to win that, then I guess 4-4-2 will be seen to be working again… Harry has done great this season, and we have only lost 7 of our hardest games of the season. I just would like him to look back to what was working earlier on in the season.
totally agree. bale NEEDS to stay on the left. for the last 10 mins against everton we looked alot better. if we played with him on the left to start with im sure we would of converted atleast one chance over the course of 90+5 minutes.
Yes Bale is missed when not on left BUT it isn’t that easy when we had no right midfielder. Everton’s goal came down the our right. Harry was at least correct to see where the danger was. In fact all Everton’s good attacks came down that side. If Bale played on left, and say Niko played right, we may have conceded more. At least we only conceded one goal and had chances to score ourselves…
I’m not sure shifting Bale to the right is a mistake in general, but it wasn’t wise against an Everton team who was going to have a holding midfielder inside of him.
The good thing about shifting Bale is allowing him to cut inside and go across the middle, to shoot or to dribble/pass against the center of an opponent’s defense. Playing inverted wingers has worked a charm at many teams (Bayern being one, with Robben). Maybe Harry thought he’d get a new looks from slotting Bale over there.