Tottenham Tactical Preview: The Humble Knight

LONDON, ENGLAND – JANUARY 23: Dele Alli (obscured) of Tottenham Hotspur celebrates scoring his team’s second goal with his team mates and Mauricio Pochettino (1st L) during the Barclays Premier League match between Crystal Palace and Tottenham Hotspur at Selhurst Park on January 23, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Ian Walton/Getty Images) /

Bear with us as we set up a slightly too clunky, slightly too long metaphor to describe Tottenham and the upcoming 2016/17 season.

Imagine for a moment that Tottenham are a humble knight — let’s call him Sir Hotspur — journeying to a tournament and, of all events available to him, has decided to enter the melee.

Sir Hotspur isn’t the most well off knight out there. He’s wealthy enough, but not quite in the top rung of knights and lords who he will be fighting against. As such, his gear doesn’t have the brilliant luster of the competition. It’s mostly homemade, with some of the iron mined on his own property. What he didn’t craft himself he threw together relatively cheaply.

Despite that, it’s effective. It being his own design, he’s comfortable in it, knows the weak points and knows how and when to swing the sword to devastating effect.

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Walking on to the mud-drowned field, though, he might feel a pang of doubt. His competition step out in the finest armor and weapons that money can buy — not just dazzling in the sunlight but inches thick and razor-edged.

Our hero has fought these men before, even bested them. And they did not take it lightly. They saw what the man from Tottenham could do, as well as that upstart from Leicester, and they did the only thing they know how to do in the face of such adversity: they doubled down. They bought bigger and better armor, swords with longer reaches, maces that could break through stone walls.

Suddenly, the prospect of going toe-to-toe with these guys seems more frightening than it did the last time out for Sir Hotspur. Then, he could come at them, even push them around. He could absorb their blows and deliver his own in equal measure. He could fight they way they do and expect a result.

Now though, attempting to do the same might be suicide. The tools at his disposal are impressive, but he needs more time to refine, retool, resharpen — time that is not afforded to him. So what can he do? Does he charge into them? Does he fight the way he’s fought before? Does he try to beat them on their own terms?

The same skills and tactics that earned Sir Hotspur such acclaim last melee will continue to work on much of the fight’s lesser competition, but against the ones who will actually last the longest he’ll need something different.

His armor and weapons, thankfully, are flexible. He can adapt them to fit into another role, one that prioritizes deflection and speed over brute force. When they charge him, he can drop back and contain their fury, waiting out their inevitably mistakes and picking the right moment to strike. Sir Hotspur’s competition will scoff dismissively and some of his own retinue will worry about his chances, but he’s got good reason to think he can wear these lumbering, jewel-clad beasts down enough to meet or exceed his own expectations.

MILAN, ITALY – MAY 27: Diego Simeone head coach of Atletico Madrid looks on during an Atletico de Madrid training session on the eve of the UEFA Champions League Final against Real Madrid at Stadio Giuseppe Meazza on May 27, 2016 in Milan, Italy. (Photo by Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images) /

This Premier League season will be that melee. Tottenham’s competition beefed up, spent hundreds of millions of pounds on players and coaches that should, on paper, take the field. Even some of the league’s lesser lights will, once again, prove stronger than they looked last year.

For the club to again challenge for the title this term, Mauricio Pochettino will need to make adjustments. He can confidently field the same 4-2-3-1, high press machine that did so well last season a majority of the time, but to beat the Manchester clubs, Chelsea, Arsenal and even Liverpool he’ll need to find a new gear.

Thankfully, there is a clear template available to Pochettino and Tottenham on how to succeed even against behemoths. Leicester City pulled off perhaps the most stunning upset in modern sports history by combining pressing that would be familiar to Tottenham with a defense-first, counter-attacking approach. Claudio Ranieri’s team gave the ball away often, let the opposition do what they wanted and simply waited until the right instant came for Riyad Mahrez or Jamie Vardy to strike.