Takeaways from Tottenham Hotspur opening day win over Manchester City
By Aaron Coe
After a long summer of speculation, Tottenham Hotspur put in the kind of performance that warms the hearts of fans versus Manchester City, what can we take away from the win?
It was an emotional day for Tottenham Hotspur and its followers. As the ongoing speculation over Harry Kane was put aside for 90 minutes Nuno Espirito Santo’s Spurs stepped up and gave the kind of performance needed to beat a good Manchester City team. One game – no matter how important – does not make a trend, however, we can still take a few things away from the match and the Tottenham Hotspur performance.
Santo’s Spurs are Organized
We saw the 4-3-3 in the preseason and for the most part, the Spurs kept to that formation on Sunday. What was particularly interesting about the shape of the formation was how narrow both Lucas Moura and Steven Bergwijn were to Heung-Min Son.
As Son worked to cut angles and force Ruben Dias and Nathan Ake to pick one side, where Bergwijn and Lucas cut the passing angles for the entry pass.
The effort by the front three meant the ball spent a lot more time at the feet of fullbacks Joao Cancelo and Benjamin Mendy than it did Ilkay Gundogan and Jack Grealish. Keeping the ball out of the middle of the park made it more difficult for City to break between the lines defensively.
Tottenham defense organization ran throughout
It was not just the disciplined, compact nature of the front three and that stood out for Tottenham defensively. The interchange that occurred among the midfielders and fullbacks kept Spurs’ shape intact.
Instead of running after the ball and leaving holes, the team communicated defensively, maintained their positioning, and worked hard to win the ball back. The plan and organization were clear, the effort to do it was even better.
Besides the organization here are four more things that stood out about the Tottenham performance.