- 5/28/2025
It looks like time might be drawing to a close on Ange Postecoglu's time as Spurs' manager. A 0-1 defeat to Chelsea has seen the pressure mount further as the away fans vented their frustrations at another defeat. In any other season, relegation would be a serious consideration.Adam Clery looks at Tottenham's season to explain why, even when they've had players fit, something still hasn't been right.
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00:00Right, hello there everybody, Adam Peer here, where is it, two seconds, ACFC, that's still absolutely mind-bending to me, and Tottenham Hotspur, that's all quite bad at the minute, the performances on the pitch, they are bad, the position in the league table is bad, the relationship between the manager and the fans, that is very bad, and that's pretty much all the introduction you need, so this is why Tottenham are bad right now.
00:30Alright, so to start, super basic, before we start getting into the team and the formation and what's not working on the pitch, a cursory look at the league table should have alarm bells ringing, and in fact if we get slightly more specific with the league table, this was a little hunch I had before, if you go back to where they beat Manchester City 4-0, the last time I can remember them looking really good, the league table since then is horrible, like it is quite literally just the fact there is a freakishly bad,
00:59that crop a promoted side to this season that is keeping them out of relegation form, now we're getting an extra Champions League place this season, so if the championship were getting an extra Premier League place, I think Tottenham would be sweating in that spinal fluid over the form of Wolves right now.
01:18But what is absolutely mad, right, to me, a complete nerd, admittedly, is that from a purely statistical sense, bear with me, Angeball, as we've all stopped calling it, does look like it's working brilliantly.
01:32Now yes, it doesn't look like that with your eyes, which is obviously quite important, but if you look at their numbers this season, it starts making it very difficult to put your finger on exactly what's wrong.
01:44So just a really quick refresher for you on their play style, right, Tottenham, under penalty of death, mate, play out from the back.
01:52As they progress further up the pitch, they get this nice attacking line of five, the two fullbacks both invert into the middle of the pitch, usually at the same time, and they end up in this sort of two, three, five situation.
02:05And one of the main things that's supposed to encourage in the final third, right, is that the fullbacks have the freedom to push up even further,
02:12and you get these nice little rotations and combination play between one of the eights, who's playing as 10, the wide forward, and the fullback.
02:20Now I'll just safely assume you understand what the word rotation means, but just to give you an example, you can end up with Son, Madison, and Udogi here,
02:27but it allows Son to drive a goal while the fullback takes the whip, and Madison drops a little deeper to get on the ball. That's one way it can work.
02:34Or again, you've seen this a bunch of times, as Son sits a little deeper, that allows Madison to drag a defender out of the centre,
02:39and then the fullbacks make these underlapping runs into the number 10 position. It's supposed to be incredibly difficult for other teams to pick up the right player in the right situation.
02:49But also, the other side of this is because the two fullbacks are expected to push up and join in with forward play,
02:55it gives you a really, really aggressive high press. Tottenham always have the numbers to squeeze the opposition in their own third.
03:04Now yes, that is like a massive oversimplification, and they've had to make loads of small little adjustments to it as the injuries have piled up.
03:11But the reason I said before, that if you look at their numbers, you wouldn't think they were this bad,
03:15is because this is exactly what they're trying to do, and you can see that working in the numbers.
03:21You'd like to put the second highest number of goals this season from fast breaks, meaning taking it off an opponent,
03:27bursting at the other end of the field, and putting it in the net.
03:29They're second in the league for the number of progressive carries, which just means literally running with the ball at least 10 yards towards the goal.
03:36Tackles won in the middle third of the pitch, they're fourth, that's really good.
03:39Tackles won in the opposition's third of the pitch, they're fourth again, that's really good.
03:43And despite how bad the form has been, they're still fifth in the league, only recently down from third for the total number of goals scored.
03:52Like, if you're in any way arsed about XG, which I know a lot of people aren't, but if you are, they've got a higher XG this season than Arsenal and Newcastle.
04:02So clearly, what they're doing looks like it's working.
04:06Like, I cannot stress this enough, if you did not look at the league table or watch them with your actual eyes,
04:13you would assume that they were an amazing team to watch who are flying in the league.
04:19So, what the f***?
04:22And she has obviously said repeatedly this season, the only real problem they've got is the number of injuries they get.
04:28And I think he's right to an extent.
04:31Like, what he's trying to say is that it's not really fair to judge them when they're constantly without all of their best players.
04:36But for me, it's more that this sort of, like, dynamic, rotational attack in football lives and dies by the sort of synergy,
04:44the coordination and the understanding you have between the players involved.
04:49And you simply can't get that if you're being forced to change the XI every single week.
04:55If someone comes in, plays well, gets five games in, then gets injured again, and you've got to spot them out, it's like starting all over again.
05:01And as a result, for all the numbers that do look really encouraging and say they're actually playing quite well,
05:06there are a number of other stats which are alarming.
05:09It's gotten so religiously committed to this very short, neat build-up structure that when teams stop it working, they kind of get stuck.
05:17So, as a result, they're now fifth in the league for touches in their own defensive third,
05:22like the waves between Ipswich, Southampton and Leicester,
05:25while they just sort of magically wait for something to open up or one player to do something individually brilliant.
05:31So, what most teams do when they play Spurs now, just dome up that middle of the pitch without even being that aggressive with it.
05:37Because they know they're never going to give in to the temptation to mix it up and go long.
05:41Like, there's third bomb this season for long passes and rock bomb for the number of long goal kicks.
05:46Like, literally 4%, 4% of their goal kicks, least in their half.
05:52But if you look at Vicario's total passing numbers this season, only like 14% of them are considered not short.
06:00So, basically, the point I'm trying to make is that every team they come up against in the Premier League now knows two things.
06:06A, you can't just sit in a solid block and defend deep because they lack the connectivity, their dynamism, the understanding with each other to really break you down.
06:15But also, you're quite free to press the pie because they will never give in to the temptation to go long for fear of an Australian man loudly berating them from the touchline.
06:25And the only way you can square what I have just said there with the fact that so many of their stats look very promising and very encouraging
06:32is that Spurs' way of playing is not bad. It's actually really good. It's just become incredibly predictable.
06:40And I'm sure you'll let me hear, right? Romero's options there can kind of be limited, but instead of putting Bernadette Vaal in trouble here with his facing his own goal and somebody up his arse,
06:50he completely splits the entire Chelsea press and fires it into Solanqui's feet.
06:55Which, if you recall, what I said to me a minute ago, is not the system getting them out of that situation.
07:00It's an individual doing something really good.
07:03And now Solanqui's got it, and he is great at this. He drops deep in between the opposition to hold it up and help them play forwards.
07:09And what you're seeing here is two really good individual bits of play.
07:14He holds up to Marker, he plays it into Malison, and this should be a wave.
07:17Like, this is everything the Spurs' system is supposed to do.
07:20Like, it invites the pressure on, it suckers the opposition in,
07:23though with brave, courageous forward play, you get through them and you're behind.
07:28Like, this right here is the whole point.
07:30They want to get out wide, they start committing men forwards, and what you're seeing here
07:34is the beginnings of what these rotations are supposed to be.
07:38You've got your follow-back, you've got your number eight, and you've got your wide forward.
07:41The defenders aren't supposed to be able to know who's going to do what.
07:45That's what makes it effective.
07:47Any of them could go to the byline, any of them could go towards goal,
07:50any of them could get into half-space.
07:52They should unpick the defence from here.
07:54But what happens next is what we have kept seeing this Tottenham side do this season,
07:59and it's the reason why this system isn't working.
08:02The link-up, the understanding, everything, just is not there.
08:07Like you can see, the space to get into, the thing that will cause Chelsea problems,
08:11is this inside channel, and all of them apparently expect one of the other two to do it.
08:17Son wants to stay wide, but Adobe wants to overlap them,
08:20despite there being no real space to overlap,
08:23and Madison decides to sit deep.
08:25Oh, but instead, none of them do any of that.
08:27Son just cuts back away from goal to see what options there actually are.
08:31Chelsea get back in, and like eight or nine seconds later,
08:35it's back with Vicario.
08:37And if you watch the game, you see this happen time and time again.
08:40Like, this is like seven or eight minutes later.
08:43They beat Chelsea's press.
08:44Again, they drive down to the right this time,
08:46and Bergvall and Spence literally end up running into each other
08:51because they both want that inside channel.
08:53Even though I went a few seconds earlier,
08:55where they could possibly have just slipped Spence in,
08:57but there's just no instinct for that to happen.
09:00There's no understanding of who's going to be doing what.
09:02And in the end, of all the options that were available to them here,
09:05Bergvall wanted to overrunning the literal run Spence was making.
09:10But the real problem, the real, real, real problem,
09:12is that when they do commit all these players forwards,
09:15and they do get some of these rotations starting to work,
09:18it's what it means for them trying to defend when they lose the ball.
09:23Like, ball camera now.
09:24Like, this high line, all of these rotations,
09:26like, when Tottenham are playing well,
09:28these are huge strengths to have.
09:30But the predictability of it all means that when they're playing badly,
09:33they become so easy to hit on a counter-attack.
09:37Like, the obvious example is literally in the first minute of the game,
09:39like, their press is slightly off.
09:41But they don't close down, so Chelsea just go over the top with pace
09:44and should very obviously score that.
09:47But the really important bit to note comes later in the first half.
09:51They're on the front foot.
09:51That's good.
09:52They're camped in Chelsea's half.
09:53That's good.
09:54Both full-backs commit to the attack.
09:56That's good.
09:56Madison's dropped deep because they're doing the rotations.
09:59That's good.
09:59And then they give the ball away.
10:03Chelsea break, and this is the position they're in.
10:06They are way overstretched.
10:07And their third best defensive option in this situation
10:10is now James Madison because he's rotated with the full-back.
10:15Every player I personally really like, James Madison,
10:18but he's not renowned for his lung-busting defensive recovery runs,
10:22but he simply has to make it because he's in that position.
10:25So now every single player has to sprint back at their absolute maximum
10:29to try and recover this situation.
10:32And stuff like this happens several times every single game.
10:36The physical demands on their body when they get caught
10:40and they've got to all get back,
10:41regardless of whether that's supposed to be their job or not,
10:44is enormous.
10:46The human hamstring, my friend,
10:48can simply not be expected to deal with this level of panic
10:52every single time you go to work.
10:56And then you combine all this with the small stuff,
10:58and they're making bad individual decisions as well,
11:01like the goal comes from having a 3v3 defending across into the box,
11:06but getting who's picking up who mixed up in the moment
11:09and allowing the smallest player in that scenario to score a header.
11:13Like fundamentally, the system with these players right now is not working
11:18and you are relying on great moments of individual play to pull it together.
11:23So when that doesn't happen,
11:25and instead you actually get individual mistakes,
11:28you have no chance.
11:31Like, cards completely on the table here, right?
11:34I really like Ange Foster-Colview.
11:37I interviewed him last year,
11:38and he's probably the smartest, nicest man I've ever sat down with.
11:42And I really like this brand of football.
11:44I love it when it works.
11:45Well, I suppose I've got some fantastic players.
11:48Like, they should be at the top end of the league somewhere.
11:51But the reality of it all is when you've got a system that lives and dies
11:54by the cohesion and the familiarity of the players involved with it,
11:58and you can't get that cohesion and familiarity
12:00because everybody's getting injured,
12:02trying to make recovery runs for the mistakes you're making
12:05because they don't have the familiarity and the cohesion,
12:09you're in a vicious cycle.
12:11And I don't see how you get out of that.
12:13So yeah, I'm not going to mess about with this.
12:16Tom and fans, should he stay or should he go?
12:19Like, is he wholly responsible for this mess you're in
12:22and thus the only solution is to make a managerial change?
12:24Do you think he deserves until the end of the season
12:26to see if he can keep players fit and watch what happens
12:28when they get that familiarity?
12:30Or is this the club's fault?
12:32Has he been let down at board level
12:33and he deserves next season to try and make it work?
12:37All thoughts, all feelings, all poetry, all verse.
12:39This true song of your heart.
12:41Please get that in the comments about this.
12:43Ideally, you do enjoy reading every single one of them.
12:46And again, me across all the social medias, that's Adam Cleary,
12:49C-L-E-R-Y, nice fancy graphics and backgrounds and whatnot.
12:51They're being worked on.
12:52It seems amazing to look absolutely incredible.
12:55But in the meantime, yeah, that's why Tottenham isn't working.
13:00And this is ACFC.
13:01And I am Adam Cleary.
13:03Have a nice weekend.
13:04I've been really into going outside lately,
13:06so maybe check that out.
13:09Goodbye.
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