Team Focus: Solid Midfield the Base for Improvement at Tottenham

There is a danger, amid the hoohah over Gareth Bale’s probable departure from Tottenham, that the excellent business they have done this summer is overlooked. On Sunday, as they produced a competent if not especially thrilling 1-0 victory over Swansea City, their starting line-up included four players brought in over the summer, and a further two who were away from the club on loan last season.

Perhaps a greater slickness will develop over time, greater mutual understanding leading to greater speed and fluency of attack but what was intriguing was that Andre Villas-Boas praised his new signings for their “intelligence” and insisted they have already added a “winning mentality”. What has certainly been added is a greater physicality in midfield, in which the three central players, Etienne Capoue, Paulinho and Mousa Dembélé average 1.85m in height and are all leanly muscular. 

The formation is intriguing as well. Although most noted Spurs as a 4-2-3-1, that is only part of the story. Rather that central midfield three gives them a flexibility to shift between 4-3-3 and 4-2-3-1. Capoue sits deepest and made 6 tackles on Sunday, disrupting Swansea’s flow and winning back possession early. To his left was Dembélé, perhaps surprisingly sitting slightly deeper than Paulinho. His role is essentially to keep the ball moving, something he achieved with a pass accuracy of 92%, while occasionally breaking forwards. Then to his right, the most advanced player was Paulinho, who got off a remarkable 7 shots as well as making 3 tackles. 

It’s a concern, of course, that he didn’t manage to score with any of those shots, but there were mitigating factors. In the first half he was denied by 2 fine saves from Michel Vorm, the second of which might still have gone in but for a clearance off the line from Ashley Williams, while he also saw a volley loop over the bar after bouncing off the ground. The one really disappointing effort came in the final seconds as Jermain Defoe and Nacer Chadli unlocked Swansea as they pushed out in search of an equaliser. 

Clean through, Paulinho duffed his chip badly into the body of Vorm, but he could perhaps be forgiven his apparent fatigue after making yet another surging run from deep. Given he scored at just under a goal every 4 games for Corinthians and has 5 in 18 matches for Brazil, he clearly is capable of finishing and the likelihood is that he just had an unfortunate day.

Probably more significant at this stage was his contribution to the midfield’s defensive work. In total the five midfielders made 10 tackles – only 4 fewer than the whole Swansea team put together. As Villas-Boas said, this was a win rooted on defensive solidity. Only once, when a left-wing cross reached an unmarked Chico Flores at the back post, did Swansea look like scoring and, although the Spanish defender caught his volley well, Hugo Lloris pulled off a comfortable save.

If there was a concern for Spurs, it was the comparative lack of contribution from Roberto Soldado. Realistically, of course, it’s far too early in his Spurs career really to worry, but neither should his two goals this season – both from penalties – disguise the fact that he was involved only fleetingly against Swansea. He managed only 21 touches in his 81 minutes on the pitch: Jermain Defoe, who replaced him, managed quarter that figure in his nine minutes plus injury-time. His only shot was a penalty and he didn’t challenge for any aerial balls. His movement was generally intelligent, and it may be that against teams who push higher up the pitch than Swansea and Crystal Palace, he is more involved. It’s not entirely fair to make comparison with Defoe given the substitute was playing against a tiring side who were pushing for an equaliser, but it is true that Spurs looked rather more fluent once Soldado had gone off.

It’s extremely early to be passing judgement, but Villas-Boas would surely expect Soldado to be more than a decoy or a foil, which is how he’s appeared so far. Still, the basics seem promising. Other teams will test that Tottenham midfield more than Palace and Swansea, but so far the midfield platform looks good. The next stage is to build something more creative on it.