Tottenham Falls Flat versus Liverpool
By Aaron Coe
Spurs in Defense
Instead of our three backs, with wing-backs to give us more width up the pitch with a depleted front four available, Mauricio Pochettino decided to go with a back four. With no real width and hardly any attack from our midfield, see below, as Danny Rose and Kieran Trippier pushed up, it left Liverpool in a perpetual state of 3 v 2 against Jan Vertongen and Toby Alderwiereld, making any Spurs’ loss of the ball, again see below, potentially dangerous.
Everyone in football knows Liverpool roll with a front three under Jurgen Klopp and given our depleted midfield options Poch knowingly set Spurs up to be imbalanced in the back all day, thus relying on the press and at least one likely exhausted wing to do more than they should have too.
The Red’s didn’t have the bulk of the possession and they didn’t have too, because with every give-away they were attacking with odd numbers, where Vertongen and Alderwiereld just had too much ground to cover. Davison Sanchez made the bench, but not the pitch, on a day where we knew we were facing a front three. Not sure about this part of the set-up as David Silva scores a second for City.
