Press Baiting, Recruitment and Why Patience Matters

There’s understandably a lot of frustration at the moment. Four league games, no win, no goals, and after spending serious money in the summer nobody wants to hear excuses.

But I think there’s an important difference between making excuses and understanding what is actually being built.

I took a look at Roberto De Zerbi’s start at Brighton and in case you’re interested he didn’t win any of his first five games.

Then game six arrived and Brighton beat Chelsea 4–1. I actually remember that day as the score line was most surprising and of course we all love to see Chelski get battered.

It wasn’t because De Zerbi suddenly discovered how to manage. It was because the players were beginning to understand what he was asking them to do.

And make no mistake what he asks his players to do is difficult.

At the heart of it is De Zerbi ball AKA press baiting.

The goalkeeper and defenders hold the ball. They play short. They deliberately encourage the opposition to press them.

Watching it can be scary and pretty uncomfortable, but that discomfort is the point.

De Zerbi wants the opposition to commit players forward. Once they do, Spurs have to have the confidence and technical ability to play through that first line. Get it right and suddenly there is space everywhere.

Get one pass wrong and it looks suicidal and I’m sure we’re going to have some heart issues over the next couple of weeks, perhaps pack a defibrillator

Now look at the players Spurs have bought.

Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes weren’t random midfield purchases. Between them you have technical quality, intelligence, press resistance, energy and the ability to receive the ball under pressure and move it forward.

Then you have Jan Paul van Hecke, a defender De Zerbi already knows from Brighton, alongside Mickey VDV throw in the experience of Andy Robertson and back up of Marcos Senesi. The rebuilding started from the back because that is where De Zerbi’s football starts.

Further forward we’ve added Sávio, one of the best one-v-one wide players around, and Omar Marmoush, who gives pace, movement and hopefully goals along with the ability to play across several attacking positions. De Zerbi has specifically talked about needing attackers who can beat players and create something individually and let’s hope Mudryk surprises a few people, he certainly has the pace.

Put it together and there is a fairly obvious plan.

Tonali and Fernandes help Spurs beat the press.

Van Hecke and VDV have to be brave enough to invite it.

Sávio and Marmoush are then supposed to exploit the space created once Spurs have played through it. That sounds straightforward written down, but doing it at Premier League speed with a new team is completely different.

As we’re all aware we have effectively rebuilt significant parts of the side in one summer and as we’re constantly reminded more than £300m has gone into the squad and several of the most important players have barely played together.

Notwithstanding, we have Kulu to return (hoping he can come back the same player) and Xavi who’s mates with Savio, so I’m looking forward to see what that brings.

But for sure this project requires some perspective and patience and more importantly, to block out the negative, clueless comments.

I’ve already heard some say the entire projects a failure WTF it’s only been four league games. As I stated in my previous post, there really are some clueless fans and pundits, especially ones like, Gabby Acluelessbor

We spent years complaining there was no coherent football strategy or proper investment, now there clearly is one and has been.

We’ve appointed a manager with a very specific way of playing and he’s bought in players specifically suited to that way of playing. So perhaps we should actually give them enough time to learn it.

There will be misplaced passes, there will be misunderstandings and there will be times when we ask ourselves WTF are they doing.

There will be moments when the stadium collectively screams “GET RID OF IT!” The ball that is. There will probably be goals conceded because somebody gets the press baiting wrong. That is the risk attached to this football.

What matters over the next few weeks or month is whether we start seeing progression: quicker combinations, players becoming more comfortable under pressure, Tonali and Fernandes controlling games, and our attacking players receiving the ball in better positions.

If that starts happening, the goals will come.

The recruitment suggests Spurs haven’t spent £300m trying to patch up last season. Actually they’re trying to build something completely different. And if we genuinely want something different, we have to accept that four games probably isn’t enough time to judge it.

All I’d say is: let’s buckle up and enjoy the ride