The tactics Tottenham Hotspur attack is missing this season

Tottenham Hotspur is a conundrum this season in the Premier League. On the one hand, you have the team that has scored the 4th most goals, conceded the 4th fewest, and has the 3rd best goal difference. On the other hand, you have a team that has dropped an astounding 15 points from winning positions and has lost nine matches, tied for sixth in the table.

So on the one hand you have a team statistically sound and on the other, that sound team cannot close the deal and finish what they start. Clearly, something is missing and we at HotspurHQ went digging for it.

Defense or offense, chicken or egg

Look with 15 dropped points there is no doubt Tottenham Hotspur should be in a better position in the league. Keeping less than half those points, 7, would have the Spurs tied with Leicester City on 56 points for third. Given Tottenham ARE tied with Leicester on goal difference at +19, it is safe to assume that the Lilywhites would be ahead on that tiebreaker, simply holding onto less than half those points.

However, the ball bounced differently for Tottenham thus far this season and those leads turned into ties and some of those ties even became losses. Add in a couple of clunkers every team has – City did lose 2-5 to Leicester – and suddenly you get to where Tottenham is this year with nine losses.

At this point, those 15 points cannot be re-won, so it is about avoiding any more dropped points moving forward. Defensively, it is hard to say what the team can do. Early in the season, it was bad luck, then it was bad fouls, more recently it has been bad play. Having played for more than a decade and been on teams good and bad, that psyche at the end of matches can be hard to overcome once it hits.

Given the limitations in changing the defense, the conventional wisdom for most is that Tottenham simply needs to have a more potent or maybe more consistent and fluid attack. If the Spurs can simply score more goals and finish more of the chances they create, they can put teams away. Given the team has more talent in attack, trying to tinker with the offense to create something more is probably the best bet to change the momentum through these last eight matches and score enough to finish the games.

Tottenham create chances under José Mourinho

Clearly, Tottenham has been scoring this season as evidenced by 51 goals in the league and over 100 across all competitions. To get those 51 league goals, the Spurs have been creating a lot of chances. In fact, this team has created 56 big chances through 30 matches.

Those 56 big chances are more than last season when the Spurs had 48 big chances in 38 matches. Further, those 56 chances are more than the 53 created in 38 games during Spurs’ best ever 2016-17 season where the team scored 86 goals and earned 86 points.

At 1.68 big chances created per match, only the 2017-18 Spurs which created 2 per game generated more in the last seven seasons. Given this team creates chances and does score a decent amount but not enough to finish off teams they should, clearly something is missing.

Two things missing for Tottenham

Having scoured the data on the team over the last several seasons two things do really stand out about this team that is clearly different. And maybe, just maybe bringing these two things back will help get Tottenham over the hump in the next eight matches and the Carabao Cup Final.

Tottenham has stopped crossing the ball

While those big chances may be up for Tottenham there are two things down and not just a little but a lot. First, Tottenham has really cut back on crosses. Looking back from the 2014 season to last, Tottenham averaged 19 crosses per match during those six seasons. This season, the Spurs are averaging only 13 per game.

The Lilywhites reached a high of 21.7 attempts per match in 2017-18 and has dropped each year since. And before anyone just goes blaming Mourinho for this, Tottenham averaged the same 16.9 crosses per match last season as in Pochettino’s last full season in charge in 2018-19.

The point is this incremental drop in crosses was already underway when Mourinho came and factor in Tottenham lost first Kyle Walker and then Kieran Trippier over three seasons, a drop in crosses should not be surprising.

What is surprising is that given how much Tottenham has relied upon and used the fullbacks as wings this season to not be getting service seems just plain off. Harry Kane is a poacher among other things and he just hasn’t had enough of those goals this season. Remember his 200th goal? That was a beautiful cross back when Matt Doherty seemed to know how to play football. Remember Sergio Reguilon cutting back and crossing with his right foot for the assist? Where have those plays gone?

Tottenham needs more service and should look to increase it on the flanks to create more opportunities, which leads us to the second problem.

Spurs have kind of stopped shooting the ball

We previously wrote about how Tottenham has really failed to replace the 100 or so shots per season Christian Eriksen used to take. The problem, however, goes beyond just the loss of one player to really the entire team, which simply no longer really shoots. At just 11 shots per match, that is a full 6.5 shots less than the 2016-17 Spurs.

So while Tottenham has been creating more chances this season, taking a lot more shots back then paid dividends with a lot more goals. During Mauricio Pochettino’s five full seasons in charge, Tottenham took on average 603 shots per season. That is 15.87 shots per match. This season, Tottenham has taken 331 shots through 30 games, which is only 11.03 per match.

Spurs are getting 40% of their shots on target, which is higher than any Pochettino team, however, Tottenham is on pace for 419 shots, which is 107 less than any team under the Argentine. This difference of more than 4.5 shots per match makes a difference over time. Across 30 games at that is 145 shots and at a 40% on goal rate, that would be 58 more shots on target.

Really think Tottenham would not have scored a few more goals with 58 more shots on target?

Yes, the styles of Mourinho and Pochettino are different but Mourinho and Tottenham must realize you cannot win a race if the horse does not enter. If Tottenham can simply up the attempts they take, maybe the goals they have needed to hold onto leads will be there moving forward.

Bottom line, if people are looking for a bit more dynamics from the Spurs offense, maybe a few more crosses and a few more shots will do the trick.