How Did West Brom Outshoot Spurs?

Saturday’s Spurs match against West Brom was exceptional in at least one respect: the Baggies outshot Tottenham in total shots and shots on target.

For a team that is dead bottom of the Premier League in total shots per match and second from bottom in shots on target per match, this is a pretty remarkable feat for West Brom. They were able to exceed both of those averages on Saturday while also limiting the chances in one of the better teams in both those metrics.

Two weeks ago, West Brom managed a 2-1 win over Arsenal in part by also limiting the quantity and quality of chances the Gunners’ had throughout the game. Like Spurs, Arsenal is among the leaders of the Premier League in total shots and shots on target. On the day, West Brom’s tightly packed defense conceded 11 shots in total, only three of which were on target.

The difference between that win and the draw against Spurs on Saturday is beyond evident. West Brom scored two goals on one shot on target – Arsenal’s Mikel Arteta scored an own-goal – and managed a mere four shots in total.

So if we can surmise – as we did yesterday – that West Brom’s defensive advantage is in crowding the area in front of goal and cutting off routes from midfield, what can we rightly say about how much better they performed on offense against Spurs? How is it that Mauricio Pochettino’s boys gave away so many chances?

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The only teams West Brom has put up similar or better offensive numbers are Aston Villa, Chelsea, Leicester and Stoke City. The former two are both in the bottom half of the Premier League, Leicester are tied for worst defensive record in the top half, and Stoke suffered two red cards in the first half of their match against West Brom. These are not the kind of teams or matches you’d expect Tottenham to be lumped in with in terms of defense.

It’s likely that the answer lies in a bit of pragmatism on Tony Pulis’ part. In much of our analysis of West Brom – both before and after the match – we emphasized their relatively lack of sophistication, a conclusion that wasn’t exactly meant to be complimentary.

Pulis deserves some credit for what he did against Spurs though. He recognized two key weaknesses in Pochettino’s team: a preference for narrow play in attack and an overreliance on Eric Dier.

Exploiting the former was easy. James McClean and Stéphane Sessegnon pressed high up the pitch and kept their respective full-backs Kyle Walker and Danny Rose from venturing too far forward. These efforts were made considerably more simple by Christian Eriksen and Érik Lamela being bogged down in midfield too often to track back, especially in the first half.

In addition to keeping the full-backs occupied, Pulis had his midfield pay close attention to Eric Dier, cutting him off from the ball and playing around rather than through him. He recorded one tackle and no interceptions in the match while putting up his standard passing numbers, though few were much more than lateral passes to his midfield teammate Mousa Dembélé.

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The end result was that midfield runners like Darren Fletcher – who assisted McClean’s first half goal – and James Morrison were able to get into Spurs’ box and connect with both wingers and striker Salomón Rondón. The Venezuelan was actually responsible for five of West Brom’s 11 shots in the game, though only one was on target.

It was vaguely reminiscent of some of the problems Spurs had all of last season in defense. The midfield was left too open to runners and passes both to and from wide areas. The opposition found opportunities for shots in dangerous central areas. These are problems that could have been remedied by having the wider attacking players track back when out of possession and by having Dier sit deeper, perhaps with someone like Nabil Bentaleb alongside him to distribute the ball as well as help cover.

As it stands, Saturday’s 1-1 draw could have been worse. It was a precision dismantling of one of the Premier League’s best defensive units. Spurs’ efforts to contain West Brom improved slightly in the second half, but that doesn’t necessarily excuse the relative naivety that left them so exposed in the first half. Pochettino’s team has been troubled by aggressive wingplay before, and will be more frequently if they can’t find a way to deal with it soon.