Tottenham Opposition Primer: CSKA Moscow

Tottenham will make a 3,000 mile round trip to face off against Champions League Group E opponents CSKA Moscow on Tuesday. What can they expect from the Russian Premier League champions?

There’s reason for Mauricio Pochettino and Tottenham to be confident. Generally speaking, the Russian Premier League produces sturdy but mostly unremarkable teams. There’s a reason that in the last ten seasons, only five Russian teams (three from Zenit St. Petersburg, two from CSKA) have made it into the Champions League knockout rounds.

That being said, CSKA have lost only one of their last seven Champions League matches — four of those results were draws though.

Just two weeks ago, CSKA managed to close a two goal deficit away at Bayer Leverkusen to end it 2-2. Even if Leverkusen are having a slow start, there’s clearly a resilience in CSKA. It just might not be anything particularly flashy.

In their domestic matches, CSKA tend to go out and aggressively favor possession. They bully their Russian opponents with 56.8% possession per WhoScored, the third highest in the league. Their midfield is designed to play narrow and feed balls through opposition lines to striker Lacina Traoré.

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Tottenham can expect to come up against a more conservative iteration of CSKA though. If their gameplan against Leverkusen is any hint, they should play a compact game and take their chances when they arise.

Seeing as how that exact gameplan worked so well against Tottenham when Monaco implemented it, some might want to raise the alarm.

The fact is, though, that this CSKA team isn’t Leonardo Jardim’s youthfully vibrant Monaco team. The average age of the presumed starting XI will by just over 28 years old. This is an experienced team, but one that could struggled against Pochettino’s pacey young bucks.

Arguably the place that gulf in age will be most expressed is in the center of CSKA’s defense. The presumed starting pair will be Vasili Berezolski — 34 years old — and Sergei Ignashavich — 37. A player like Tottenham’s Vincent Janssen will be salivating to see just how quick off their line those two are.

CSKA have a bit more of an advantage on the flanks and in midfield, and it’s conceivable that a well-organized system could plaster over an weaknesses in the centre-backs. On the whole, though, there’s no reason for Pochettino not to favor a more aggressive line-up against this team.

Higher up the pitch, Tottenham have less reason to be so optimistic. Finland international playmaker Roman Eremenko is arguably the best player on this team. He’ll operate behind Traoré, and will be looking to break through Tottenham’s lines either through a shot or pass.

Behind him will be once-sensation Alan Dzagoev, operating now as CSKA’s metronome in the center of the park. Pontus Wernbloom and Aleksander Golovin will be looking to frustrate Christian Eriksen’s attempts to operate through the middle should the Dane play there.

As top-heavy as CKSA look based on that description, it’s nothing that Tottenham haven’t faced before. There’s very little of the pace or wide play that Monaco put to such good effect in Tottenham’s prior Champions League tie. At least in open play, Tottenham should have little problem bottling CSKA up.

Next: Predicting Tottenham's XI Against CSKA Moscow

Set pieces are a different matter. All three of Tottenham’s conceded goals in the Premier League have come from either penalties or free-kicks, and three of CSKA’s 10 goals this season have come from such situations.