Tottenham missing pieces adding up

Tottenham’s growing injury list is making it difficult to take command of matches such as the 1-0 victory over Bournemouth at Wembley on Saturday.

Danny Rose and Érik Lamela have both missed all or most of Tottenham’s matches in 2017, while Mousa Dembélé and Victor Wanyama have already missed a handful of matches this season. An injury sustained on duty with Wales last week forced Ben Davies onto that unglamorous sideline roster.

Piece by piece, Tottenham can handle missing these players. Mauricio Pochettino has made a point over his years in charge to deepen his options on the bench. Davies and Heung-min Son have capably made up for Rose and Lamela’s absences, while Harry Winks and Eric Dier have midfield capably covered for Spurs’ usual starting pair of Dembélé and Wanyama.

An injury to Davies proves just how shallow that bench still is however. Without the Welsh left-back, Pochettino can either field the likes of Kieran Trippier or Son out of position — or rely on untested youth products like Kyle Walker-Peters and Anthony Georgiou.

All of these options have been tried before at some point in regular or pre-season play so far this year, and none have exactly clicked. Trippier is too strongly right-footed for a left-footed person’s job, Son is too ambitious in attack. Walker-Peters and Georgiou made the most of brief cameos, but even Pochettino won’t want to trust an entire flank to a player with virtually no professional experience.

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So it was, then, that when Pochettino had to make his teamsheet on Saturday, he named Jan Vertonghen in Davies’ stead over all the other options available to him.

Now, this did make a kind of sense. Vertonghen has played at left-back plenty of times for both club and country. He would at least not embarrass himself in the role.

As it happened, Vertonghen was actually Spurs’ surprise package on the day against Bournemouth. Despite being on the wrong side of 30-years-old, Vertonghen put in an energetic performance that came close to embodying just what Pochettino wants from his full-backs. He stayed disciplined at the back and made several swashbuckling runs forward when he got the chance.

Sadly, this one performance doesn’t outweigh the changes required to properly cover Davies’ absence.

With centre-back depth essentially limited to Juan Foyth, in naming Vertonghen to left-back Pochettino had no choice but to change from the very successful 3-4-2-1 formation of recent weeks.

This meant a reversion to the 4-2-3-1 Pochettino once swore by, but now looks woefully out of date. It’s a system that better fits Vertonghen, but it restricts the overall full-back play Spurs so often rely on in attack.

Even with the added space in attacking midfield to accommodate Son, there was a palpable lack of coordination in Bournemouth’s half throughout the match. The 4-2-3-1 puts too many bodies in areas of the pitch where Spurs don’t need bodies, while simultaneously restricting the width often provided by the wing-backs.

Bournemouth declined to challenge Spurs’ backline and thus expose their host’s deficiencies in attack, but the same will not be true against Real Madrid. The reigning Champions league victors will not be patiently whittled down over 90 minutes.

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Pochettino will have decisions to make for Tuesday’s match. Rose is traveling with the team, but Real might not be the best return after nearly nine months on the sidelines.

Perhaps Vertonghen performed well enough Saturday to earn another start here, but it remains to be seen if the Belgian can conjure the same magic when also trying to contain much more dangerous attackers than Bournemouth brought to bear.