How Tottenham and Liverpool Beat the Press

By Ryan Wrenn | Feb 10, 2017

LONDON, ENGLAND - FEBRUARY 04: Mousa Dembele of Tottenham Hotspur battles for the ball with Fabio of Middlesbrough during the Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Middlesbrough at White Hart Lane on February 4, 2017 in London, England. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images) /

As there has been for the last three meetings, Liverpool v Tottenham will prove to be an interesting meeting between two broadly similar tactical schemes.

The press is the current vogue among teams throughout Europe, seconded only perhaps by the embrace of three-at-the-back formations. Liverpool and Tottenham both share a good amount of responsibility for that trend.

In a way, it’s poetic whenever these two teams meet. Jürgen Klopp, after all, is credited with being the first manager to implement a modern high press during his time with Borussia Dortmund. The system owed a lot to Barcelona’s tiki-taka, as well as the Dutch Total Football, but with an important twist.

Gegenpressing, as it’s called in Klopp’s native Germany, centers around a ferocious attempt to reclaim the ball from the opposition. Whereas similarly press-focused teams like Barcelona would then patiently work the ball around the pitch, dominating possession until the goal inevitably came, Klopp’s system favored quick and devastating transitions.

This wasn’t route one stuff though. Klopp specifically wanted his team to engineer the opposition’s mistakes. Close down defenders and deep-lying midfielders, reclaim the ball directly or at least force a wayward pass, then have the means to make the most of the other team’s error.

To pull that off requires a holistic approach to pressing, with everyone — from the strikers on back — focused on retrieving the ball and sending it back forward.

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When Klopp first began using this tactic, it was primarily against teams woefully unequipped to handle it. Dortmund consequently won the Bundesliga two years running and then made it into the Champions League final in 2013.

Success breeds imitators, and to date there probably isn’t a better exemplar than Mauricio Pochettino. His version of the press is broadly similar to Klopp’s — though it perhaps owes more to Marcelo Bielsa’s similar aggressive style.

Klopp’s arrival at Liverpool was, in some ways, a response to the success of Pochettino’s own methods in England. It hasn’t yet bred any meaningful results though — all three meetings between the two sides in the Premier League have resulted in draws.

This speaks to both sides’ difficulty with playing against their own tactics. The pressing style, after all, is primarily reactive rather than the proactive approach of, say, Barcelona. It works only insofar as the other side is trying to play their own game.

Tottenham have fallen victim before to teams who surprise them with high intensity presses. Last season’s 1-0 loss to a compact and devastating West Ham sign is perhaps the best example. When Pochettino believe that his side can play through a press is when their own press works against them, opening up space to counter-attacks in particular.

A match against Liverpool is different however. Both sides expect the press from the other, and as a result the center of the pitch becomes effectively un-navigable. The field of play gets compressed dramatically as both teams attempt to out-press the other. Creators and goalscorers are denied the service they need to decide the game. A draw is always the most likely result.

Bayern Munich figured out a way around this predicament in their matches against Dortmund. Rather than get bogged down in the middle, they would hope to create transitional chances from back to front. The centre-backs would loft balls forward into the path of pacey wingers, freed from the mire of the press. It’s no surprise that Bayern gradually reclaimed an edge in Germany.

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As it happens, Tottenham are uniquely equipped to try something similar. Toby Alderweireld is one of the most proficient long passers in England. With targets like Heung-min Son and Dele Alli to aim for, that could be where Spurs find a victory. Liverpool now has their own pace in attack as well though, particularly with Sadio Mané.

With both teams set to be very unhappy with another draw, attempts to bypass the midfield maelstrom seem set to be the tactic du jour on Saturday. To the untrained high it might look like a return to traditional English route one football. In reality though, it will be the last resort of two teams too equally matched to play to their own strengths.