It’s been a frustrating time to be a Tottenham Hotspur fan. An injury crisis and a poor run of results have fan morale at a low point, and a number of columns and comments from various pundits and commentators have only added fuel to the fire. After Ange Postecoglou started his Spurs career with a hiss and a roar, results since have been mixed, with a definite downturn in recent weeks accompanying repeated assertions on the suitability of “Ange-ball” (or lack thereof) for the Premier League. These talking points have started to infiltrate fan discussions as well, including the commentariat on this site, so why don’t we take a deep dive together on some of these so-called “facts” that keep getting thrown at us?
This began as a single piece, but as I wrote, I thought it may make more sense as a bit of a mini-series: a deep dive into some of the regular narratives we see permeate any critique of Spurs’ approach. This is not a pro-Ange (or anti-Ange) series; rather, it’s an attempt to address falsehoods that have become a regular part of the #discourse, and to try and understand whether they have any bearing in reality.
So here is Part One: a talking point that was especially grating during the Liverpool match, and that came up multiple times (in my broadcast at least):
The fullback positioning is too aggressive / Inverted fullbacks don’t work
This is the critique that perhaps annoys me the most, and I think is the most misplaced: a regular point of contention for pundits this season has been Ange Postecoglou’s positioning of his fullbacks. The use of “inverted fullbacks” (a term I hate, by the way) seems to make pundits twitch, and conveniently ignores the fact that Pep Guardiola has regularly used his fullbacks in the same way many times over the past few seasons.
In the Liverpool match, it was regularly highlighted as a problem in Spurs’ setup by the commentators, with them asserting that it was far too aggressive and just doesn’t work. Efficacy aside, it’s a tactic that Ange Postecoglou is in fact now only using sparingly and in specific situations, and largely wasn’t even being utilized in the fixture against the Reds. Here’s some examples from that match:
In this screenshot, the Spurs press had been triggered as Liverpool went back to their goalkeeper Allison. He hit a long pass out to Dominik Szoboszlai dropping deep, who then lays the ball back to Trent Alexander-Arnold. You can see the Tottenham front six engaging the Liverpool players, but where are the fullbacks? They are back in the defensive line; a high defensive line admittedly, but a pretty standard back four setup nonetheless.
You see the same above in buildup. Djed Spence has the ball on Spurs’ left at the bottom of the shot in a pretty classical fullback position. You can see Pedro Porro at the top left of screen, but he is likewise in a relatively conservative position: not far advanced of the defensive line and holding a reasonable amount of width. This of course didn’t stay the same throughout the course of the match: as Spurs began to chase the game the fullbacks’ positioning became more and more aggressive in Tottenham’s search for goals.
The thing is... this more standard fullback positioning is not exactly a new tactical tweak. Here’s an example from Spurs’ loss earlier in the season against Brighton:
There is some game state impact here, but if you look through any of the matches around this time you will see a similar pattern in buildup, where the fullbacks were often conservative but the midfielders took up more aggressive positions. Contrast this to the opening match against Leicester:
This is more what you expect from Ange-ball, right? And this is more what you would think is happening week-in, week-out, if you listened to the criticism from the matchday commentators. You can see how Ange has adjusted tactically around their positioning through the season by checking out some examples of average positioning in matches, with some examples below:
The first set of images above are the Leicester draw and Newcastle loss at the start of the season; the second the losses to Brighton and Crystal Palace a couple months on. The differences are subtle, but notable. In the first few rounds of matches, the fullbacks were often narrower, and typically higher - you’ll see the fullbacks in line or ahead of not just the player operating in the #6 role, but one of the #8’s as well. That means a huge amount of space in behind in the wide areas, with Ange largely focusing on locking down the middle of the pitch.
This began to change partway through the season, the loss to Newcastle being one of the catalysts. Ange started to use the fullbacks in more reserved positions in buildup, and when in the attacking phase would often hold one back to allow the other to attack and give more of a back four covering pattern:
I’ve laid this out above. The left represents our setup at the beginning of the season (and large swathes of the previous), with the right being a better reflection of Spurs’ formation in transition in recent months. You can see how this gives Spurs more coverage across the defensive line, but it does highlight two potential issues.
The first is the need for the left center back (or occasionally your right center back, though Spurs have generally held Porro deeper) to operate as a pseudo-fullback - which to be clear, is a slightly larger problem with the first setup, and is probably in large part why Ange especially favored the second structure after the injury to Micky van de Ven. This is fine when Micky van de Ven (or Ben Davies) is available but becomes problematic when Radu Dragusin (or even Archie Gray or Cristian Romero to some extent) are in that position.
Secondly, it means more space in the middle and really requires your press in those central areas to be extremely cohesive. There is a big onus especially on the #6 to make the right decisions as to when to press and when to sit, whereas in the first setup that decision is made much easier: you hold the middle and shuttle left and right depending on how your defenders are covering. We have seen the midfield cadre become more and more tired through the season, and Yves Bissouma is a player who is playing a lot of minutes and especially prone to mental lapses when exhausted. This means he has really struggled with the increased responsibility in the role, often getting dragged out of position or failing to cover the areas required (unfortunately, Rodrigo Bentancur when available has not been much better in that respect). Wouldn’t a Rodri be nice on this Spurs side? It also means if the #6 does get pulled out of position, your additional fullback needs to drop and compress the backline (as seen in the first screenshot in this piece); but that again requires a level of cohesion and decision-making that has not always been present this season with Destiny Udogie especially having struggles of his own following his return from his long-term injury.
So are Spurs’ fullbacks being too aggressive?
This is an image that could potentially be used to bash Spurs for how aggressive their fullbacks are: soon after this screenshot, Dejan Kulusevski gave the ball away, and Liverpool countered for their fourth. I would argue though that having your fullback attack the acres of space above is a requirement of most modern football tactical systems, NOT a feature/bug unique to Ange-ball. Kulusevski unfortunately took too long on the ball, and Bissouma and Dragusin then exacerbated the situation by being especially poor in covering the transition.
The criticism of Ange Postecoglou’s use of inverted fullbacks is thus largely unfounded, and a narrative built on the tactics of last season. That’s not to say Ange isn’t blameless - I have highlighted above some of his struggles in finding the right balance between midfield structure and covering width, but I would also argue that is in part of symptom of an unbalanced squad construction with limited tools with which to work.
Next time you hear the likes of Jamie Carragher going off about inverted fullbacks, feel free to hit the mute button, and check in next time for part two, where we’ll talk about another ridiculous punditry claim.
