Tottenham need to see advantage in width against Everton

Glancing over Everton’s team sheet ahead of Tottenham’s visit on Saturday, it’s easy to imagine history repeating itself.

We spoke a bit about how Everton’s situation looks similar to what it did during Tottenham’s last visit, but Mauricio Pochettino might recall a much more recent match.

Chelsea arrived at Wembley for the second match of the 2017/18 season determined to stop any quality Spurs could muster through the middle of the pitch.

Centre-back David Luiz pushed up into midfield, and the rest of the team played especially narrow and deep. The result was a lot of Spurs possession and a lot of Spurs chances, but only one fortuitous goal scored by Chelsea striker Michy Batshuayi off a Christian Eriksen free-kick.

These represented a sharp change in Chelsea’s usual tactics, but it worked fabulously. Other teams — Everton included — will attempt to emulate that success when and if possible.

Ronald Koeman’s roster offers plenty of opportunities to mimic Chelsea’s methods on that day. He’s got three capable centre-backs in Phil Jagielka, Ashley Williams and Michael Keane. Most importantly, he’s got two combative central midfielders in Idrissa Gueye and Morgan Schneiderlin.

Those five players could conceivably keep Tottenham quiet for much of — or all — of Saturday’s match. So how do Spurs overcome it?

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Pochettino understood the risks of opponents defending narrowly well before Chelsea did it, of course, and had a plan in place to hopefully combat it.

That plan was embodied in the person of Kieran Trippier. The right-back is less than competent in defense, but he’s got a way with getting forward and, in particularly, staying wide.

With Trippier theoretically on the end of long cross-field balls and Harry Kane waiting for crosses through the middle, the thought was clearly that Spurs could punish Chelsea’s narrow play in the space they ceded on the edges.

Chelsea never worried much about Trippier though, and instead Antonio Conte kept his own right-back Marcos Alonso well up field to take advantage of his team’s occasion forays forward.

With Trippier unable to deliver precise-enough crosses, he essentially became a wasted man. He was inefficient on the day and not enough of a threat on goal himself for Chelsea to worry much about him otherwise.

With Serge Aurier perhaps not quite ready for his first start, it’s possible Trippier gets another start here. Pochettino shouldn’t attempt to set such an easily avoided trap this time however.

Instead, he should make room in his starting XI for Heung-min Son. The attacking midfielder can create width on the left, delivering his own crosses in hopes of finding Kane or Dele Alli through the middle.

Next: Tottenham face Everton work-in-progress

The South Korean enjoys the added advantage of also being a massive threat on goal himself, meaning that Everton would not dare leave him unmarked within their own third. Son can therefore drag apart any Everton attempt at a narrow defense, and also keep his opposing wing-back pinned back.

Even if Son doesn’t score, his presence on the pitch alone adds another dimension to Spurs’ play and nullifies any Everton attempt to duplicate Chelsea. There’s simply no reason to not start him.