Tim Sherwood makes claim about Spurs full-backs

Former Tottenham Hotspur manager, now pundit, Tim Sherwood — has claimed that Spurs’ full back pairing of Destiny Udogie and Pedro Porro are like no other. 

Sherwood told the Premier League: “You don’t see full-backs in that position for any other team. Basically what the manager says is if you see grass in front of you, go forward, express yourself and balance it off. And that’s what they do. Udogie and Pedro Porro are fantastic in the final third.”

Whilst inverted full-backs is certainly no new thing in football, having become very popularised over the last decade or so now, particularly after how Pep Guardiola played David Alaba and Phillip Lahm at Bayern Munich.

That said, the extremity of how Ange uses them is certainly stronger than most, if not all, of the other managers to tuck their full-backs inside.

Plenty of other managers like to tuck one full-back into a back three, with the other pushing wide to hold width. Ange, however, uses both full-backs in midfield, emphasising a 2-2 build up with the central defenders and the full-backs.

Guglielmo Vicario also massively helps in build up. The Spurs number one is the only goalkeeper in the Premier League not to have taken a long goal kick this season.

There is some context to that, with Vicario often playing short to a central defender inside the box, before then going long, but it stll emphasises the importance of the keeper in build up play all the same.

It is a testament to the coaching of Ange, as well as the adaptability of Udogie and Porro, that two players who played as wing-backs at their previous clubs, were able to slot in so seamlessly as inverted full-backs.

There are times where Udogie will drift a bit wider, as we saw in particular during the 3-1 win over Brentford in September, and Porro from time to time will get crosses in — and does this when playing for Spain.

As a result, should game state mean that they need to play as more traditional full-backs, they are more than capable of doing so. Whilst this is not frequent under Ange who is so set on his ways, it still happens on occasion and it is useful to have as an alternative.

Just don’t tell this to Real Madrid, who have been linked to Porro quite a bit over the last few weeks.