In football, goals are always a problem. Whether it’s goals for or goals against, devising plans to dictate which goal line the ball crosses is an everyday equation that managers are required to solve. For Tottenham Hotspur, the solutions on both sides of the ball aren’t quite adding up.
While Spurs’ lackadaisical approach on offense is being overanalyzed to no end, their ragged technique on defense has only just begun to receive the lashing it deserves.
A common thread I’ve noticed over the past several matches is that Spurs are allowing an unusually high number of goals from outside or right at the top of the box. Although scoring from outside of the box has been a declining trend in the EPL, this hasn’t seemed to stop Thomas Frank’s foot soldiers from proving that they can buck trends in all the wrong places.
Since the November International Break, Spurs have conceded 16 goals across seven games. A terrible stat in and of itself. Of those goals, 10 came from outside the box or within five yards of the top of the box.
Is this a problem with defenders not coming up to the ball to pressure the shooter? Should Spurs midfielders take the blame for not pinching back to disrupt the offense? Or is Vicario’s vision and position during these shots allowing for more open opportunities despite the added distance?
Let’s take a look at these 10 goals to see if we can find out, starting with the North London Derby.
Arsenal
Eze 46’ – Over-aggressiveness by Micky Van De Ven
This goal is painful on every re-watch. With the action initially shifted down the right channel, Arsenal finds a way to navigate the ball back to the top right of the box. After a cross by Justin Timber that was redirected right back to him, Micky, already in aggressive pursuit of the ball, continued his tackle into Timber, leaving open a huge spot at the top of the box. Cristian Romero, forced to cover a streaking Declan Rice, makes the gap in front of the net even wider. Realizing that Timber is leading a pass towards Eberechi Eze, Romero is forced to scramble back to the center, but it’s too late. Eze whips a shot from 19 yards out, and everyone is left wondering, How in the hell did he get that wide open?
Eze 76’ – Laziness by Djed Spence
These two frames are roughly one second apart. The first picture shows Djed Spence roughly a yard ahead of Leandro Trossard as the ball is lobbed back into the Spurs’ defensive third. Djed’s first instinct is to hold up for a beat to see if his mates can quickly win the ball. When he realizes that Trossard is streaking into open space with Romero coming up to attack the ball, he tries to make up time, but it’s already too late. Trossard collects a perfectly placed pass and starts to drive hard, forcing this next unfortunate still frame.
In a desperate attempt to contain Trossard’s run, João Palhinha, Micky, and Spence all converge towards his location, leaving Eze all alone at the top of the box. Many things could have been done better here. If Spence tracks Trossard properly, the initial pass may not occur, and Micky may not feel forced to sprint back to stop a wide-open run, leaving his own man unmarked. João also needs to dissect the play a bit better and realize that two men are wide open once he sees Micky streaking in front of him.
PSG
Vitinha 45’ – Fool me once…
While Vitinha’s howitzer shot off a short corner play snapped Spurs back to reality seconds ahead of the halftime whistle, they really should have seen it coming. The corner that led to the goal came from a shot where Vitinha realized that Richy and Muani were going to allow him to dribble into a spot 29 feet from the net to launch an uncontested shot. You can’t give a sniper like Vitinha two bites at the apple and expect him to miss both times.
As you can see above, on the corner, Muani failed to react at all to the ball being passed in front of him, or to the fact that Vitinha was lurking behind him in the wide-open area, where he almost slipped a ball past Vicario seconds earlier. Richy, also playing way too deep considering the numbers Spurs already had in the box, should have also been keeping an eye on the sharp shooter. Romero is the first person to actually get to Vitinha, but by then it was already too late.
Vitinha 53’ – Bad Positioning by Lucas Bergvall
Lucas Bergvall’s intensity and aggression when out of possession are the qualities that make him a great prospect and one most Spurs fans are excited about. However, it’s the over-committing in the box, as in the screenshot above, that shows the kid is still quite a bit away from being the everyday EPL player we all yearn for him to be. Spence, already engaged with Vitinha one-on-one, didn’t need Bergvall to come so deep into the box. Bergvall needed to just hang out at the top of the box, either waiting for Vitinha and Spence to come to him or, if Spence steals the ball, waiting for a pass to start the counter. Neither happened, and Vitinha proved again why he can’t be trusted with even a sliver of space at the top of the box.
Ruiz 59’ – Poor playing out the back by Cristian Romero
Rewatching Fabián Ruiz Peña’s goal will quickly bring back a more recent memory of Vicario forcing in a pass to Archie Gray against Nottingham Forest that also led to a goal. This time, it was Romero playing it from the back, but just as poorly. First off, his options are limited. Palhinia and Micky are well covered and too far off to be options from his position. Bentancur, instead of drifting towards the open space to give Cuti an extra option, drifts with his mark, giving Romero really only one passing option. One he should not have taken. Lucas Hernández is already running with a full head of steam towards Muani, reading Romero’s eyes and only option. The steal was too easy, and the wide-open Ruiz at the top of the box, who no one ever marked once the ball turned over, didn’t hesitate to put PSG ahead for good.
Fulham
Tete 4’ – Another out-of-position moment by Bergvall
On this play, poor positioning by Bergvall catches the eye once again. The young Swede comes into the box looking to support the three defenders and Palhinia, while Archie Gray and Pedro Porro double-teamed Samuel Chukwueze, who is weaving his way into the left side with the ball. As Bergvall settles oddly close to João, Chukwueze sets up a pass played right into Bergvall’s aggressive tackling style. Bergvall overcommits on the tackle, thinking Chukwueze is cycling it out of the box, but instead, he laces a pass through a very tight corridor between Bergvall and Palhinha that sets Tete up for an easy shot into the lower right corner. A shot Vicario really had no chance at.
Wilson 6’ – What in the hell just happened???
There isn’t much to say about this goal that hasn’t already been said. Yes, Vicario made a colossal mistake. Yes, the shot was absolutely amazing. However, my question is, what the heck is Kevin Danso doing on this play? He sees Vicario way out of position and Harry Wilson winding up to fire at the open net. Why isn’t he already heading back to the net to try and head out any ball he possibly could? Instead, he is hanging around 5 yards above the penalty box, looking like he’s waiting for a train. So many things are wrong here that it could take an entire article to dissect.
Newcastle
Guimarães 71’ – Going Too Deep by Sarr
This is a case where two midfielders are taken out of the play, leaving the defenders to figure out how to handle a wide-open shot from 17 yards out. Alex Gordon does an excellent job taking Porro and Rodrigo Bentancur with him deep down the left channel, essentially taking Bentancur completely out of the play. Why Bentancur didn’t hand off Gordon to Porro is the first concerning sequence in this play. The next is why Pape Matar Sarr decided to drop so deep when there were plenty of Magpies to defend at the top of the box. The result was Bruno Guimarães collecting a nice one-time pass from Nick Woltemade that he stroked home with a low shot into a tight space between Vicario and the left post.
Nottingham Forest
Hudson-Odoi 50’ – A misread by Vicario?
This cross/shot by Callum Hudson-Odoi was an unfortunate occurrence. Especially since their defense setup here actually looks well-structured. Vicario’s read on the ball is the biggest problem, but the angle of the launch was so perfect that I’m not quite sure Vicario gets that ball unless he is a couple of inches taller. Definitely not the worst goal of this bunch, but one that is equally hard to stomach.
Sangaré 79’ – Hanging around by Palhinha
Here is another one for Palhinha and Bergvall’s naughty list. As Porro and Romero take turns steering Hudson-Odoi towards the top of the box, 18 yards of open space is willingly offered by Spurs’ defense at the top of the box, allowing Ibrahim Sangaré to mosey his way into this area with little-to-no pressure on him. While Bergvall is assumingly staying deep to overlap Romero’s take-on, rather than diagnosing that Sangaré is coming in and Hudson-Odoi will be looking to him to whallop a shot towards the net, Palhinha seems stuck at the top waiting to see if someone will meet him there. Sangaré doesn’t waste anytime after his first touch, torching a shot that killed any minuscule amount of hope Spurs had left in the match.
Tottenham Hotspur’s tendency to concede long-distance goals is a worrisome trend, one that most of its opponents have likely noticed. Of the 89 shots that Spurs faced since the end of November, 53.9% of those came from 17 yards out or further. Of those 48, 20.8% of those shots converted into goals. If there is one thing I’ve learned from this exercise, it is that the Spurs’ defense is almost as unorganized as its offense. And while an offensive fix is probably still the first order of business, defensive strategies and assignments also need to be revamped and rewired if Tottenham Hotspur have any chance of surviving this season without a relegation battle.
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