Formed by Hammers supporters Jack Elderton and Callum Goodall to offer their fellow fans in-depth but accessible analysis of their team and its players, Analytics United use performance analysis and data to examine how Spurs’ visit to London Stadium could play out...
Sat 16th in the Premier League table and on course to record their most losses in a single Premier League season after defeat at Anfield saw them draw level with their previous all-time low of 19 (achieved in 1993/94 and 2003/04), Tottenham Hotspur are suffering a catastrophic league campaign under Australian manager Ange Postecoglou.
After finishing fifth last season and missing out on Champions League football by just two points, there was a feeling that Postecoglou was on his way to bringing Spurs back to days like those they enjoyed under former boss Mauricio Pochettino, combining exciting football with good results to shock other sides and produce impressive league seasons and deep European challenges. Adding Dominic Solanke, Archie Gray, Wilson Odobert and Lucas Bergvall to their squad, whilst only suffering two real first-team losses with Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and Emerson Royal leaving for Marseille and Real Betis, Spurs seemed well positioned to convert on the promise of the previous season and mount a serious challenge to requalify for the Champions League in 2025.
It comes as quite a shock then that, if not for the poor form of the three promoted sides this season, the Lilywhites would instead be facing down the challenge of a serious relegation battle with fixtures against Aston Villa, Brighton and a buoyant Crystal Palace still to come. Yet, even if it seems almost certain that Spurs will finish this campaign with a record number of league defeats, they could still come out with silverware and the Champions League qualification they so desire via the Europa League.
This fixture comes between the two legs of their semi-final against northern Norwegian outfit Bodø/Glimt, taking Postecoglou’s team from the depths of Premier League football to the icy tip of European competition in a whirlwind week where their season could ultimately be defined. Despite Tottenham being 3-1 up at half-time in the tie, Kjetil Knutsen’s team are sure to present a stern challenge, having already dispatched Lazio and Olympiacos in the previous rounds, and Postecoglou could rotate heavily on Sunday to protect his most important players for the second leg. As such, we’ve focused on team-wide issues rather than player-specific challenges and the first of those is simply the number of goals that Spurs have conceded this season.
Whilst injuries have been a key factor throughout, Spurs have still given up countless goals due to the level of risk they take on the ball under Postecoglou. Where the Australian’s tactics brought success at Celtic with a qualitative advantage over the rest of the division, things have been more boom and bust in the Premier League where such risks with the ball can equal great success but can also lead to simple goals for opposition teams with well-coached high-intensity pressing approaches or high quality counter-attacking talent.
Spurs have made 1.06 errors leading to shots per game, the joint-fourth most in the league and level with Ipswich, and we saw yet another for Liverpool’s fifth last weekend as Destiny Udogie and Pape Matar Sarr conspired to lose possession on halfway with Trent Alexander-Arnold and Mohamed Salah able to combine to force an Udogie own-goal as punishment.
In that game, another issue that was particularly apparent for Liverpool’s first and second goals was their inability to successfully track runners into the channels when their full-backs are forced to step out and defend on the flanks. Midfielders Archie Gray and James Maddison both attempted to cover runs from Dominik Szoboszlai and Ryan Gravenberch into these spaces but were unable to stop dangerous attacking situations from developing.
In the first of those examples, Gray did manage to get back to protect Ben Davies but was caught on the wrong side with Szoboszlai able to maraud through the channel behind him, receiving Salah’s through ball and cutting back across the face of goal for Luis Díaz to tap in. And in the second example, Maddison initially lost Gravenberch making a similar run before recovering and intercepting to prevent the attack developing. Critically though, those risk-taking traits immediately popped up to produce another key error as Mathys Tel attempted a reverse pass under pressure for Gray but lost it to Gravenberch who was able to protect the ball for Alexis Mac Allister to rifle home from range.
This second goal was a perfect example of several issues layering to create real fault lines in Spurs’ defensive efforts. Even if they are able to prevent serious initial areas of weakness from being exploited, follow-on issues always seem to appear, overwhelming sound base ideas designed to help them be one of the more dominant attacking sides in the division.
They remain a dangerous attacking team, but Graham Potter’s West Ham side might find more joy focusing intently on areas of weakness rather than attempting to mitigate strengths like they might against other opposition. With late-arriving goalscoring midfielders in both Carlos Soler and Tomáš Souček, especially with the former’s propensity for runs exploiting the spaces mentioned, Potter does have players capable of finding and attacking some of the more vulnerable spots currently on show for Spurs.
Encouraging the wingers to sit wider, as Arne Slot did, is congruent with an approach that looks to repeatedly probe in these areas and Jarrod Bowen’s two assists in the previous match show the England international’s ability when creating from the touchline. If Potter is able to combine this wide creative talent with incisive central runs and adequate pinning of the centre-backs, something Niclas Füllkrug excels at, then there will almost certainly be opportunities to produce the cutbacks and low crosses the manager favours, hopefully helping the team secure a much-needed positive result at home.
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Analytics United and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of West Ham United.