How Not To Play The Possession Game: Tottenham Hotspur

It's the same story time and again. Against Newcastle, against Villa, against Liverpool in the Champions League. Tottenham are the masters of keeping absurd amounts of possession, and doing absolutely nothing with it.

The signs were there going into the season. 4 wins in the PL since February, and our main creative outlet haggling for a move away. Pochettino decided to drop Eriksen for the opening match against Villa, and that's where the issue presented itself yet again.

Tottenham always struggle to break down defensive teams.

The gameplan of recent times, it seems, has been to pass it around the back and keep possession until an opening manifests itself somehow or someway in the opposing defence. To which Eriksen or even Toby Alderweireld would hoof the ball hopefully towards goal, and pray that one of Kane/Lucas/Son/Alli would latch onto it, and score.

And that's exactly what happened against Newcastle last week. We already saw this problem against Villa on the opening day. When Spurs are up against banks of four and five, there's no plan B. The ball circles around the midfield three of Winks, Sissoko, and Ndombele like a vulture circling its prey, waiting for the right moment to pounce. Except of course, the right moment eventually comes for the vulture, unlike the passmasters of Tottenham's midfield. We got lucky against Villa; a long shot from Ndombele sparked the comeback, before a lucky rebound fell to Kane for the second, and a Sissoko counterattack gave Kane the third goal. Worringly, none of these goals came from actual creativity or ability to break down the Mourinho-esque bus parking of the lower league teams, and it showed against Newcastle.

Newcastle's 5-3-2 or more latterly 5-4-1 saw the defensive trio of Dummett, Lascelles, and Schar compressed and packed in the box, with the fullbacks covering the wings. The game was already so narrow, what with the flurry of orange bodies in the centre, and Spurs somehow still wanted to go through the centre. When you're up against low, narrow blocks, the path to goal is very rarely through a silky dribble or pass in between the lines, but more of your ability to force those blocks to open up and create space. More often than not, this would mean either forcing the narrow block to move forwards away from their goal, or out wide.

The title chasers Liverpool and City are experts at this. When they come up against narrow blocks, they are able to create space for their forwards by forcing movement from the defenders. Teams who play against Liverpool know that they'll be coming up against arguably the two best wingbacks in the league - Trent and Robertson - and so wouldn't play as narrow a block for fear of the wingbacks getting on the ball and sending dangerous crosses into the box. With Salah and Mane cutting inside, space is left on the wings for the wingbacks to push up, forcing defenders to move out wide, which in turn creates space in the centre for the front three to wreak havoc.

On the other hand, City do the reverse - their fullbacks tuck inside a la Pep's inverted wingbacks, where Walker and Delph/Zinchenko would take their place alongside the defensive pivot, while the attacking midfielders of De Bruyne and Silva push up. Against Spurs, City did this to great effect. De Bruyne constantly found himself on the right wing interchanging with Bernardo Silva, and both City goals were from De Bruyne crosses on the right - one from the edge of the box, and one nearer the byline. In addition, City's midfielders are blessed with quality from range - defenders know that De Bruyne, Silva, Gundogan and even Fernandinho have a long shot in them, and so cannot risk giving them time on the ball. This kind of Plan B threat from long range would force defenders to move out to cover the midfielders on the ball, leaving space in behind the narrow block.

For Tottenham though, there was little of this. We are looking increasingly one-dimensional, relying on a quick counter-attack, or a pin-point finish from Kane, or a silky dribble and shot from Son, or a long shot from Eriksen, and when those chances don't present themselves like against Newcastle, there's no plan B. The days of prime Rose and Walker are long gone - Rose himself is 29 and not getting any younger, Davies and Aurier don't strike fear into the hearts of defenders, and Walker-Peters is still relatively inexperienced at this level.

The midfield too severely lacks creativity. Without the playmaking of Eriksen or Dele, the midfield becomes a competition for who can make the most sideways passes in 90 minutes. Harry Winks is one of the biggest culprits; in recent times he's looked like a poor impersonation of a pre-Klopp Henderson, rather than the man who lofts through balls into dangerous positions against the likes of Real Madrid. Winks made the most passes on Sunday, but any sane fan watching the match could tell that his passes were so sideways that it was almost as if there was a force-field in front of him, repelling any vertical or forward passes. But this was not entirely his fault; Kane, Lucas and Lamela seemed to be playing hide-and-seek among the Newcastle defenders, and the box was as crowded as a London subway during peak hours. Even Son tried to pick up the ball from the left and run at the defense, but as mentioned earlier, that isn't the best way to break down a low block unless your name is Lionel Messi. To make matters worse, the three forwards of Lucas, Son and Lamela all play extremely narrow and prefer to cut inside, leaving Spurs with little to no width, and filling up the already crowded-out box even more.

And so this leaves us where we are right now. Decent against teams that play an open game, but put two banks of four or five in front of them and the team is about as creative as a blank sheet of paper. Credit to Newcastle though - their back five were solid, and Atsu's pass was on a plate for Joelinton. But these kinds of performances will make smaller teams sit up; if a team tipped for relegation even by their own fans can beat Tottenham, then surely everyone else can come to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with blocks of five and watch as Spurs just pass it around the back. Hopefully the new signings of Lo Celso and Sessegnon can at least provide more creativity and variation in attack, or Pochettino comes up with a change of tactic to combat low blocks. With City and Liverpool easily thrashing smaller opposition, it's baffling how Spurs still struggle to do so, which makes the dream of a potential title challenge ever more impossible.