TOTTENHAM TALK
Twitter is full of people shouting for a pacey winger to give us that speed we lack in attack and width, especially now that Fernando Llorente has arrived and he is excellent in the air.
Serge Aurier, Kieran Trippier, Danny Rose and Ben Davies provide our width though, we don't play with traditional British wingers who cross the ball, few clubs do now. The trend is inverted wingers, wingers who do not stay wide but cut in to shoot themselves, leaving the full-back or wing-back to do the overlapping, provide the width and the crosses.
In that respect we have arguably one of the best crossing right-backs in the Premier League in Kieran Trippier and new recruit Serge Aurier, who can surely cross a ball better than Walker. On the other side Rose has pace and he and Davies have improved their delivery.
The fastest method to get a ball from one end to the other, apart from the long ball, which takes the control element out of a move, is to pass the ball, not run with it. Pace does no harm, don't get me wrong, but you don't simply go out and buy any fast player simply because he has pace. Andros Townsend had pace, Aaron Lennon had pace, you wouldn't be happy if we brought a player of their alledged poor crossing ability. I say alledged because Lennon's statistics are better than most realise and a cross is only any good if there is someone who can get on the end of it.
Traditionally a cross has been into an area and it is the strikers job to get on the end of it, rsather than a winger pinpoint a forward every time. They thus often get bad press from fans when, quite frankly, they have done nothing wrong.
If we have a pacey winger storming down the line, Fernando Llorente isn't going to keep up in the middle, besides, it is the wing-backs role in our system. Georges-Kevin N'Koudou has pace, Clinton N'Jie had pace, neither can or could break into the side, pace simply isn't enough.
We would be better served speeding up the pace with which we move the ball, again England showed us pedestrian passing last night, players having to wait for the ball to arrive from another player. No urgency in the pass.
You look at Spain for instance and their passing at the back is quicker, by qiuicker, I mean the speed the ball travels between players. It is so so simple, yet players mentality doesn't have urgency it should.
Think about it, one signifies you are alert, have intent, whereas a slow pass indicates I'm comfortable, I don't want to put myself out, it signifies a sleepy, lazy mindset.
If you are changing play from one side to the other it should be done in the shortest possible time, to give the recipient as much free time without a marker as possible, it gives more space to exploit. Slow passing allows a defence to shuffle across in formation and you haven't improved your situation, just moved it from one side to the other, which isn't that tiring for a defensive unit.
You have to break the unit up, shifting a ball at speed means individual players from that defensive unit have to respond before others, thus changing the tight defensive unit and creating holes, which we then want to find our creative players in.
Turning from slow to quick is a tactic, but even when playing slow, the passing should still be crisp, the slowness is the delasy on the ball, not slowing the pass down. England are hopeless at it and it something Spurs fall into the trap of, especially at the back.
Before we simply call for pace, we need to sort out our slow passing so any pacey player gets the ball quickly with space in front of them to run into. Our pacey men usually get the ball marked by a defender and look to go backwards, thus our style doesn't help pacey players. We need to solve our passing problem first.
COYS
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