http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24577694 BBC Sport's Pat Nevin examines the way Tottenham goalkeeper Hugo Lloris patrols his penalty area, often advancing long distances out of his goal to close down attackers. Nevin believes this unusual 'sweeper-keeper' tactic is a high-risk strategy, but one which often pays off for Spurs and allows Andre Villas-Boas's team to play high up the pitch. France international Lloris moved to White Hart Lane from Lyon during the 2012 summer transfer window.
The main problem that I can see with playing in this style is that we don't have particularly pacy centre-backs and we've got no suitable back-up for Lloris in this role. It's worked well for us so far, but we might want to look at bringing in another keeper in January, especially as both Friedel and Gomes have been linked with moves and aren't going to be at WHL long.
I posted this on bill nich but i think that thread might be broken. I can't see any updates after mine despite the main page saying there are some. I like the system, i think he was right when he said if it works 19 times out of 20 you'll forgive him that one.
On Twitter BRB (Supermod apparently) said changing your view to 30 posts a page sorts a problem with viewing threads they have at the moment. Control Panel>General Settings>Number of Posts per Page For those who haven't done this before.
It's the other way around surely. Playing high up the pitch is a consequence of pressing/closing down which means the keeper has to play in a different way. I firmly believe that the strategy has a whole saves us a lot of goals being conceded by denying the opposition the ball. But when it doesn't work people only notice the failure so think it is high risk.
He's not the best shot stopper but, as I've said loads of times, he's very well suited to our style of play and so he's probably one of the most effective 'keepers in the league.
"It's the other way around surely." For every 10 times the high line is breached and Lloris has to bomb out to be the last man, how many times has the opposition scored ?? That is the measure of the risk for how Lloris plays.
I can only think of the Liverpool game where it hasn't worked but that was mostly Walker's fault for that suicidal backpass and I suppose the Cardiff one should count too as he was really pushing his luck there, although that was a Naughton suicidal backpass, wasn't it?
Exactly. The number of times that high line breaches occur were Lloris is put in that situation is probabably not that high. And when it happens, the number of times where it results in a goal (he is rounded or the scorer lifts the ball over him) is lower still.
As I said in the Bill Nick (or not, however this works...) I'm amazed more pundits aren't up in arms about Lloris playing as a sweeper keeper as it's too "foreign" for their tastes. The thing is, it's pretty common elsewhere - Angelo Peruzzi was playing in a similar style for Juventus when they were dominating Italian and European football, for example.
Exactly. The front foot is by its nature the better one. I'd much rather have keepers aggressively smothering threats, and defenders passing and dribbling out instead of kicking it right back to the other team. People play negatively because they're afraid, either lacking confidence at the moment, or frightened of being blamed for the occasional failures of a more aggressive strategy.
