For the past two years, Spurs have favored a 4-4-1-1 attack that used the creativity of Luka Modric and Rafa Van der Vaart in central roles and the pace of Gareth Bale and Aaron Lennon in wide roles to create scoring chances. For all their creative guile and pace, however, those Spurs’ sides often amounted to little more than counter-attacking teams. True, they played the most attractive counter-attacking football in England, but that’s all they did. When Spurs played a team that would play positive and try to win, Spurs would often tear them to ribbons. But when they played a defensive minded team that would play for the draw, Spurs couldn’t break them down and became vulnerable to the counter themselves. Hence their awful record in 2010/11 against bottom half sides and their late season swoon last year. Spurs could fly high, but that was all they could do. They couldn’t grind out wins consistently and they couldn’t get late game equalizers or winners because they couldn’t break down sides that played for the draw or tried a quick smash and grab. In fact, the only time they ever were able to grind out wins during the Redknapp era was during the first half of the 11/12 campaign when a revitalized Ledley King led the defense and a fully-fit Scott Parker prowled midfield. Once King’s form nosedived – which coincided with the late-game penalty he gave away at Man City – and Parker started struggling with injuries, Spurs reverted to their 10/11 form.
These are the things that must be kept in mind in light of Andre Villas Boas’ massive overhaul of the side. Many neutrals have looked in shock at the creative destruction of the past months and asked “Why would you completely dissemble a team that only nine months ago looked prime for a title challenge?” But that question betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of Spurs. Going into last season, Spurs were widely expected to struggle for 5th behind their London rivals. They were considered a top 6 club, but not a bona fide top 4. And after their two early season pastings at the hands of the Manchester sides, that suspicion seemed justified amongst the rest of the league. So teams came at Spurs thinking they could win the full three points. Which, as explained above, amounted to a form of suicide. Attacking Tottenham meant giving Modric and Van der Vaart room to create and Bale and Lennon room to run. Given the talent of those players, it’s no surprise that Spurs looked like title contenders last December. But last year’s Spurs team was never as good as their early season scintillating form suggested. Rather, they were the beneficiaries of other teams adopting the worst possible strategy to stop them. So last year’s side finished about where they should have in the table. They were a top 4 side, but never a top 2 and certainly not a side able to compete this season with a reinvigorated Chelsea, something which was true even before Modric’s departure and even more so after.
The conservative change, of course, would be rather simple: Play a 4-2-3-1 with Parker and Sandro in holding roles and some combination of Bale, Lennon, Van der Vaart, or Sigurddson in the three advanced roles supporting Adebayor. But the first three matches demonstrated the problems with this approach. With two holding mids in a midfield tandem with three advanced creators in front of them, Spurs become utterly bereft of creativity. Whenever the ball goes into midfield, there’s never any doubt where it will go: either Assou-Ekotto or Walker making a run out wide or the shortest, safest pass to one of the three advanced creators (or Adebayor if he comes deep). The result is a very predictable, methodical offensive attack that depends almost entirely upon Bale and Lennon using their pace to get to the edge and cross the ball to the middle.
Look at these heat maps from Parker and Sandro’s performance when they played together as a midfield two last season. Combined, they had 11 touches in the attacking half. And that was in a late season match with QPR where Spurs had to have the full three points and were playing from behind from the 24th minute till the end. Even in such desperate circumstances, Sandro and Parker seldom crossed midfield.
This also means that Van der Vaart was often starved for service. Van der Vaart is a fantastic player but also a frustrating one. Generally, because of his lack of strength and pace, the more touches he takes at one time, the less effective he is. He needs to get the ball in a more advanced central role and then take one or two touches before making his move, whether that’s taking a shot on goal (as in his fantastic goal at Euro 2012) or picking out a pass to one of his fellow attackers (as he often did in his fine link up play with Peter Crouch in his first season at White Hart Lane). But Modric was essential for getting that sort of service to Van der Vaart. Modric created the space Rafa needed with his own jinking runs and, more often than not, was the player to pick out Van der Vaart with a pass. Revisit Van der Vaart’s goal against Inter in the Champions League. Van der Vaart got the plaudits but there were maybe three players in the world who could’ve made the run and pass that Modric made to create that goal. With Modric off and two sturdy but utterly uncreative players in midfield, Rafa becomes far less effective. Consider the contrast in heat maps between his final match at Spurs with Sandro and Livermore in midfield and one of his finest hours with Spurs, the late season 2-0 win over Liverpool during the 10/11 campaign with Modric in midfield.
Against West Brom playing without Modric, Van der Vaart received the ball 11 times in the attacking half. Against Liverpool, Modric was in the squad and in only 53 minutes of play, Van der Vaart received it 28 times in the attacking half. Put another way: Against West Brom 28% of Rafa’s first touches were in the attacking half. Against Liverpool 84% of Van der Vaart’s first touches came in the attacking half.
In short, Modric cannot be replaced by simply adopting a sturdier 4-2-3-1 formation with Bale, Rafa and Lennon across the front three and two defensive midfielders controlling the center of the park. The whole attacking philosophy has to be reimagined to compensate for the loss of the Croatian regista. If it isn’t, Spurs attack will become too predictable, their advanced creators will be marginalized and Spurs will struggle mightily for goals. That is why Van der Vaart suddenly became expendable, despite being Spurs’ best creative talent in a side lacking in creativity. When Hamburg came in with a bid two million higher than what we paid for him two years before… how do you turn that down? Especially given his legendary status at the club, where he’s loved as much as he is at White Hart Lane and given that his wife works as a TV presenter in Hamburg. Even without signing another player, that’s good business.
