How Will Tottenham Line Up Against Liverpool?

Tottenham welcome Liverpool to White Hart Lane early Saturday in the first game of the Premier League’s return from the international break. It will be a tricky test for both sides, but most of the uncertainly falls on Tottenham’s end of things.

Liverpool, of course, will mark Jürgen Klopp’s first match in charge of the club. His arrival makes Liverpool’s line up and gameplan uncertain from Tottenham’s perspective. Mauricio Pochettino doesn’t tend to adjust his playing style to suit the competition, so it shouldn’t alter Tottenham’s overall approach a tremendous amount. Nevertheless, it will be difficult for the individual players to know what to expect from the players opposite them.

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Tottenham have a more specific problem that could be a bigger cause for concern. Eric Dier’s yellow card in the 2-2 draw against Swansea precludes his involvement in Saturday’s match, the first game he’s missed for Tottenham so far this season in any competition. His reliability in defensive midfield has become a bit of a double-edged sword for the club. On one side, he’s proven that he’s more than up to the task of shield the back four. On the other hand, he’s been so good at that role that the club hasn’t felt the need to find suitable back-ups, either on the transfer market or within the squad itself.

Nabil Bentaleb, the presumptive second in line for the defensive midfield role, is only just returning from injury and could miss Saturday’s game along with Ryan Mason and Heung-Min Son. That leaves Dele Alli or Tom Carroll to fill in for Dier. Both players have featured in matches for far this season, but always with Dier covering alongside or behind them. How they’ll fair on their own in the center of the park is easily the biggest unknown coming into the match.

The rest of Tottenham’s line up is easier to predict.

Tottenham Hotspur - Premier League - 17th October 2015 - Football tactics and formations /

With Son still sidelined with injury, Nacer Chadli should start on wide left as Christian Eriksen and Érik Lamela link up toward the center of the pitch behind Harry Kane. It’s possible we see some involvement from Clinton Njie as well.

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With both Mason and Bentaleb suspect to return, it could end up being that Alli is paired alongside Mousa Dembélé in central midfield. The Belgian was a regular starter in Pochettino’s side before his injury against Everton, though he nominally featured on Lamela’s right wing role. Even if he began a match there though, he often found himself dropping deeper to assist with Tottenham’s pressing game when out of possession. He operated from so deep in those matches that it only seems fitting that he’d end up starting from the center at some point this season.

Were Dembélé to be paired with Alli we can likely expect to see a truer version of the double pivot, with one player covering for the other’s runs forward. Dier’s game is more conservative and he only rarely pushes forward, instead relying on whomever he’s paired with to take the ball up the pitch when the opportunity presents itself.

With that pivot in place, Dembélé and Alli will have to make sure they don’t fall victim to the same mistakes Mason and Bentaleb committed so often when they attempted the pivot last term. Too often Tottenham would be caught out by the opposition taking advantage of the space left behind Mason or Bentaleb as they failed to properly exchange defensive duties. Against a Liverpool side that will likely feature midfield threats like Coutinho and Adam Lallana, vigilantly patrolling the space in front of Tottenham’s defense will be absolutely crucial.

Ben Davies might again earn the start over Danny Rose if only for caution’s sake. While Rose has improved considerably in defense, the club clearly prefers Davies in matches where it’s felt that Tottenham’s defense would be tested.

Tottenham has managed to maintain a seven match unbeaten streak in the Premier League despite a surprising number of injuries. While the absences of Eriksen, Dembélé and Mason have been felt, none have threatened to compromise the side quite as much as Dier’s suspension might. How well whichever pair sets up shop in the center of the pitch Saturday play will go a long way to determining the result.

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