Tottenham must be aggressive to beat Liverpool
Tottenham take on Liverpool in one of the young season’s early title defining matches.
Both Tottenham and Liverpool are challenging Manchester City for the title. For the romantics who love to see the title be a competition rather than procession it’s a wonderful thing to have two teams so well built, well coached and supported going up against the super-powered Manchester City.
In order for Tottenham to win in their match against Liverpool, they’ll need to bully them. Tottenham should play aggressive and powerful football. The North Westerner’s are missing the self-proclaimed best defender in the world in Dejan Lovren and will be relying on Virgil Van Djik. The massive Dutchman will have his hands full with Harry Kane and if it is either Lucas Moura or Dele Alli playing off him the makeshift Liverpool defence will have trouble dealing with that.
Keeping Kane as far forward as possible and forcing Liverpool into there own half will be important. They’ll need to do that in order to isolate Liverpool’s wide players who then won’t be able to offer the same interchanges and maneuvers that often give them enough distance to shoot off the defender’s shoulder.
A game in which Alderweireld is able to mark Firmino then gives Vertonghen the ability to move around his partner and put out fires and close down space offering doubles and traps to either Danny Rose or Kieran Trippier who will have to mark Salah and Mane into submission. The best way in which those two can do this is to stay on the shoulder behind both and deny them the ball into feet while allowing enough of a buffer that the ball over the top always means a three-step advantage to the defending player. It will take a gross amount of concentration but isn’t something that Tottenham should be scared of. They will need to play with bravery.
If everything is going well that will leave the full-backs more than busy enough simply with their defending duties and that should come first. If and when Trippier slides off in order to provide crosses it should be minimal and conservative and covered by Vertonghen. The creative impetus should come from the midfield who will need to win their battle. They often are allowed to relax due to the creative genius of Trippier. On this day they’ll have to fully carry their weight.
The battle for the midfield is not going to be very easy but the truth is this is where it seems Tottenham have the upper hand. Liverpool don’t have a player as good as Christian Eriksen. They simply don’t. Naby Keita is a good all action midfielder but that will be a straight battle between Dembele or Dier for the role and either is fine. Eriksen possesses more craft and guile than Henderson and if he is able to get his passes flowing into Harry Kane that will open up the more creative players in any of Lamela, Alli or Moura at the top of the formation.
Tottenham will need to be driven, punchy and strong in order to win this game but they possess every bit the talent necessary to do so.
Tottenham should win at home against their title rivals and that will make a good piece of work fr them.