Are Tottenham Hotspur good?

You’ve probably seen the famous Gennaro Gattuso press conference from when he was managing OFI Crete in Greece. Media asked him if the club’s poor finances were affecting him, and he went on a passionate tirade where he talked about how hard he and his players were working, belting out the now famous phrase: “SOMETIMES MAYBE GOOD, SOMETIMES MAYBE SHIT.”

It’s fitting that former Tottenham Hotspur managing director Fabio Paratici reportedly wanted to hire Gattuso at the club before he was forced to resign due to a FIFA ban. I think about Gattuso’s famous line a lot, mostly because it’s the perfect way to describe Spurs. Save for a couple years of Mauricio Pochettino (good!) and the short tenure of Nuno Espírito Santo (shit!), Gattuso’s outburst has summarized my feelings about the club.

Unfortunately for me, as someone who enjoys unhinged manager press conferences, Gattuso is quite an average manager and unlikely to land in the Premier League anytime soon. Instead, Spurs’ manager is Ange Postecoglu, who has carried on the sometimes maybe good, sometimes maybe shit ethos that has defined Tottenham for the last 20 years.

Postecoglu is an indirect Pep Guardiola disciple, having turned Brisbane Roar into Roarcelona before starting his rise towards a Premier League gig. Like many managers who got really into 2008-09 Barca but do not have Lionel Messi, Postecoglu’s teams can get sucked into possession without purpose in the final third and getting absolutely done on the break after committing too many men forward.

But I think (said with zero confidence) there’s quite a bit more good than bad going on with Tottenham at the moment, and I’m very excited to see them take their current form and style of play to Old Trafford against Manchester United this weekend.

Press machine go brrrrrr

Independent of anything else, Tottenham’s press is unequivocally awesome. Their 5.99 PPDA is the lowest in the league by a lot, with Brighton coming in 2nd with 7.72. They’re also top of the league in StatsBomb’s aggression metric, which is defined as the proportion of opponent pass receipts that are pressured within 2 seconds.

And they’re doing this really, really high up the pitch.

The main criticism of Tottenham’s defense has been that what happens when the press is broken has been not great. That black spot where you’d expect to see your defensive midfielder winning a lot of tackles and interceptions is mildly alarming. This is a big component to why Spurs’ xG per shot conceded is a league-worst 0.13, but their 1.05 non-penalty xG against per 90 is 7th, so hardly disastrous. There’s obvious room for improvement, but I’d call what Tottenham is doing without the ball way more good than bad.

James Maddison rocks

For most of his career, James Maddison has been a pure No. 10 who has been categorized as a bit of a luxury player. He produces goals and assists, but he hasn’t done much more than that, so he needed a team built around him to carry him when he’s not scoring and assisting.

This season, Maddison has moved into a deeper role, which makes sense. Lots of former No. 10s do this as injuries and age take away their pace, but they evolve into smarter footballers.

He still has 1 open play goal and 1 open play assist through 5 games this season, with 0.49 xG + open play xA, but Maddison is slowly but surely evolving into much more of a pass before the assist type of guy. He’s 3rd among Premier League midfielders in StatsBomb’s Pass OBV metric, just behind some guy named Kevin De Bruyne and, hilariously, Spurs academy graduate Harry Winks.

Maddison has also been extremely left-leaning, which is creating a lot of problems for opposing defenses. He’s developing some great chemistry with left winger Son Hueng-Min and left back Destiny Udogie, regularly attracting their defenders towards him and opening space up for them to run into.

This move against Bournemouth didn’t result in a goal, but it was one of the best moves of the game and an excellent illustration of what Maddison drifting left in early buildup can create.

Sensible adjustments

Earlier I made a joke about Guardiola disciples valuing possession über alles, and Spurs took that to its greatest possible extreme in their EFL Cup match against Coventry. In the first half, Ange’s boys completed 304 passes for 73% possession and ZERO shots. Spurs continued to play like this until about the 80th minute, when they decided to kick the ball towards the goal, and ended up winning 2-1.

Given how many of Spurs’ league games featured them passing the ball around the box for 90 minutes without getting into it very often, this felt like an alarming step backwards and a sign that maybe Postecoglu’s ideas weren’t working. But they made a great adjustment against Brentford, a team that is extremely comfortable with allowing opponents to pass circles around them without ever playing into the box early.

A passing map of a bad and dull Tottenham performance features center back circles the size of Jupiter, but they actually got the ball forward early in this game and didn’t allow Brentford to settle into shape. Turns out Ange isn’t an ideologue and can make some adjustments!

Postecoglu also made a change to his midfield personnel and shape after an opening round 1-1 draw against Leicester. Pape Sarr started that game and played as a traditional box-to-box midfielder, but Dejan Kulusevski has been first choice since, and he’s playing way higher up the pitch. His average position in the graphic above is typical; he’s dropping deep to get the ball even less than the center forward. This creates some defensive concerns, but it’s helped Spurs’ attack a lot.

Why they might screw it up

So that’s all the sometimes maybe good. What about the sometimes maybe shit?

Well, a few of those problems are ones that I think will get fixed. Goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario has had few wobbles, including two really bad ones against Brentford that didn’t get punished. Center back Christian Romero’s aerial win rate has dropped from 71% to 55%, and he’s been individually responsible for a couple goals. Neither of those players are old, injured, or in new roles. I think it’s more likely they will revert to last season’s form than it is that they’re just bad now.

I also think it’s more likely than not Dominic Solanke starts playing well soon. He’s had some noticeable moments of lacking chemistry with his teammates, but he’s also averaging 0.62 xG per 90 and finished a big chance last week. He’s fine, he should start scoring more goals.

The biggest issue — the one that I am not confident will simply work itself out with time — is the defensive midfielder one. Yves Bissouma has had his time limited by a combination of injury and off-the-field problems, and Rodrigo Bentancur doesn’t bring a lot to the team besides work rate.

Bentancur certainly making the most of that one skill with 6.6 tackles + interceptions per 90 minutes and a 71% won tackles rate, but he’s not great at slowing down counters and stopping the ball when he’s isolated in a lot of space. Spurs’ super high-pressing system with two ambitious attacking midfielders puts their DM in that situation frequently.

Spurs’ 0.32 set piece xG against per 90 isn’t great either. Gabriel’s goal for Arsenal isn’t the only good chance they’ve conceded — opponents have 1.62 spxG against them this year from 17 shots, including 7 headers on target. I don’t think this is an inherent personnel problem; a good coach and analyst could theoretically sort this out. But it is a problem that needs addressing.

The combination of a lack of athleticism in defensive midfield and below average set piece defending means Spurs are likely to get themselves into more situations where they’re dominating the game but go behind. It takes some serious psychological strength to keep playing the same way and Trust The Process when this happens to you like twice a month.

So to answer the question: Yes, Spurs are good. But they’re also extremely Spursy. I like their chances of mounting a serious challenge for 4th, and also dropping points in increasingly infuriating ways.

—KM

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