Nothing has been made official yet but more and more signs are pointing toward Italian gaffer Antonio Conte becoming the next manager of Tottenham Hotspur. Conte brings with him both a history of success as well as some tactics, which should help the Spurs improve some shortcomings. Here are three ways, Antonio Conte will almost immediately improve the play of Tottenham Hotspur.
Everything starts with defensive organization
There is no doubt Tottenham needs to bring in some new players at the center back position, if for nothing else to think about the eventual departure of Toby Alderweireld. Even, without bringing in new talent, Tottenham should be better defensively using Conte’s traditional back three.
Tottenham mostly played with a back four last season, with both of the fullbacks playing a hybrid fullback/wingback role. This often left only two defenders back, particularly if the midfielders got sucked up.
With only two defenders back – and none with real speed – Tottenham was easy to counter-attack against and was almost always off balance in transition.
Changing to a back three alleviates a lot of these problems found in the transition of offense to defense. Instead of having two center-backs with a large split between them on the defensive half to combat anything that comes across midfield, Conte’s teams have three players back.
When there are three players back, it is much easier to cover defensively, even when one player is stretched by a runner, there are still two more to cover. Not having to rely on one of the midfielders to constantly trackback to cover because Tottenham have more defensive stability should be a huge plus.
Further, having a third of the pitch to deal with versus half of the pitch may improve the play of the existing defenders as well. While it should be Conte’s call on who to keep and not, some organization and structure is a good thing.
Besides a balanced defensive foundation, Conte uses his wings very differently than most and that should benefit Tottenham as well.
Tottenham taking back the flanks
Under Jose Mourinho, the wings were mostly an afterthought. Tottenham played a formation where any width came from the fullbacks, who were supposed to overlap with the inverted wingers at the top of the pitch.
With the frailties of Tottenham’s defense, rarely did the team get the kind of consistent push-up the flanks that provided the service Harry Kane really needs. As a team, Tottenham managed only 332 crosses for the entire Premier League season, which is only 8.7 crosses per match, one of several deficiencies in the squad.
Further, as with the defense, the flanks were incredibly unbalanced for Tottenham all season long. Sergio Reguilon and Son Heung-Min combined for 113 crosses, which was 34% of the team’s total. WIth both Son and Reguilon playing on the left, it meant little real attack from the right and teams could hedge over toward Son defensively.
Heck, the third most crosses on Tottenham came from Harry Kane himself who had 37 crosses.
On the right, Gareth Bale (29), Matt Doherty (24), and Serge Aurier (21), only had 74 total crosses, which was just 15 more than Reguilon alone.
As a point of comparison, Achraf Hakimi – who played the right wing-back position for Conte and Inter this past season had 105 crosses himself. Ivan Perisic on the left had 79 crosses, and Nicolo Barella managed 50. Hakimi is one of several players we have recommended looking at for the right-back/wing position.
With 481 crosses, Inter had 30% more crosses on the season than did Tottenham, averaging 12.6 crosses per match. Given how poor Tottenham was on the flanks this past season, this should be a huge difference, as should the pressure the opposition will face.
Conte and Tottenham will man you up
With a defensive three ready to run up on the ball or shut down space behind, leaves the Tottenham formation in better shape to defend in the offensive half. As does have the wing-backs with the freedom to go from box-to-box without giving away the farm behind them.
However, maybe the two biggest changes that we will see defensively will be the man-to-man marking Spurs will do in the attacking half and the pressure that is caused by having two strikers. Instead of just Harry Kane trying to cut the pitch and force the defense one way or the other, there will be a second striker to help pressure the ball, with everyone behind picking up men.
The wing-backs can handle the wings on deeper balls or push up and close the space if the opponent tries to play out of the back.
With a single deep pivot in front of the back three and then a four-man box between the midfielders and strikers the team will be ready to pick up runners in the middle and apply pressure almost immediately.
Conte’s Inter had a lot less pressure than Tottenham did last season in the defensive and middle third, with 970 fewer ball pressures in those 2/3s of the pitch. However, Inter had 180 more pressures in the attacking 1/3. As most fans remember from the Pochettino heyday, those turnovers in the attacking third are more likely to lead to goals and that is where we will start to see more pressure.
Again, while the deal is not done, it sure seems likely and if that is the case, we have a lot to look forward to. We can expect our formation to be solid and the defense to be organized. We can expect to get some real action on the wings and some service into the box. And we can expect to see more pressure up top, trying to create havoc in the opponent’s half of the pitch.