How Spurs Won: Home vs Watford

It would seem as if the bulk of the teams in the Premier League simply don’t have an answer for Spurs.

Saturday’s 1-0 win at home over Watford was no where near as narrow as that scoreline would indicate. Spurs had the better of Watford for the bulk of the 90 minutes, besting them in almost every metric that matters. Per WhoScored, Spurs had 65% possession, more than doubled Watford’s accurate pass count and outshot them 26 to 3.

Were it not for some heroics from Heurelho Gomes and the generally stout nature of Watford’s dense defense, this might have been as spectacular a win as Tuesday’s match against Norwich.

As things stood, though, Spurs had to wait until the 63rd minute to earn the lead.

Kieran Trippier’s goal and how it was made actually go a long way to explaining how precisely Tottenham managed to break through and win.

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As predicted, Watford’s defensive efforts were narrow, with Ben Wastson, Étienne Capoue and Mario Suárez resolutely cutting off attempts for Tottenham to play through the center of the pitch.

That wasn’t necessarily a poor decision on Watford coach Quique Sánchez Flores’ part. Spurs play a very narrow game in attack, so it stands to reason that occupying that area of the pitch with as many players as possible would be an effective means to neutralize Harry Kane, et al.

And to an extent this worked. Kane was unable to wield quite as much influence over proceedings as he typically does, and Christian Eriksen was forced to effectively play alongside Eric Dier and Mousa Dembélé in central midfield at times.

This was not unanticipated by Mauricio Pochettino, however. He gave Kieran Trippier another start for very good reason: the ex-Burnley man likes to stay wide when getting forward in attack. Compared to Kyle Walker – the other option on the day – he was much better suited to exploit Watford’s primary weakness.

With so many resources focused on in the center of the pitch, the flanks were often left wide open for both full-backs to push up. Davies initially seemed to have the easier time of it – he managed to find enough room to get off one shot on goal and came close to a second – but as the game wore on Watford winger Almen Abdi tracked back to contain the Welshman.

In theory, Nacer Chadli should have been helping Davies create more overloads on the left. The Belgian proved how effective a wide player he could be in his star turn as a substitute against Crystal Palace two weeks ago. Here, though, he seemed lost between that nominal role and a desire to score.

Jurado – Abdi’s counterpart on Watford’s left – didn’t pay nearly the same respect to Trippier, neither in the first or second half. The result was that the right-back was able to get forward with relative impunity, terrorize Nathan Aké and regularly pepper Watford’s penalty box with crosses.

While only one of those crosses resulted in a shot, Trippier’s threat stretched Watford’s layered defense and midfield, allowing more room for Spurs’ proper attackers to keep the pressure on Watford.

Next: Alli Continues to Help Spurs Title Chances

Most importantly, Trippier’s presence on the right side of attack meant he was there at the right time to receive Dele Alli’s fine pass across the face of goal.

And thus Watford nullifying Spurs’ primary strength led to Spurs exploiting Watford’s primary weakness.