Match Day Thread Tottenham Hotspur v Wolverhampton Wanderers

Actually no

Lo Celso hassling Chelsea so high up the pitch is what created the pockets of space for Ndombele to be so effective in the first half - which was nullified by a combination of Chelsea changing their shape by bringing on Kante to counter this, coupled with Lo Celso and Ndombele both flagging during the second half

It's also worth noting that Lo Celso attempted to close down the move that led to Chelsea's second goal, something that neither Ndombele nor Hojbjerg did - the latter being a surprise, to be honest

 

But isn't that the point? We have Skipp and Hojbjerg to hassle the opposition higher up the pitch, which is what they would be doing if they weren't constantly deployed 10 yards away from our back line. We also have Dele whose job description this year clearly includes hassling the opposition higher up the pitch. We also have Lucas doing it and doing it well - a skill he acquired under Maureen in fairness.

Do we need a 5th outfield player doing exactly the same thing?

Which brings me back to the point I made weeks ago: Lo Celso's skill set is covered by roughly 4 or 5 other players. There is nothing uniquely necessary about his presence on the pitch. Tanguy's skill set is covered by no one. Maybe his passing is by Kane if the latter permanently drops into midfield but that's about it.

Which is why it makes so much more sense to take a gamble on working Tanguy into form and fitness than it is doing the same for Lo Celso. Having them both on the pitch is pointless in a 433 system and I fully expect the latter to be back on the bench once Lucas or Bergwijn are back.

 

Hojbjerg and especially Skipp operate in a mid block looking to snuff out attacks in midfield, Lo Celso presses high to hassle defenders trying to transition from defence to attack. It's similar to how Lamela, Eriksen and Dele operated in Poch's system, forcing defenders to make a pass that either goes loose that can be mopped up or funneling attacks into the Wanyama/Dembele mid block

And realistically we do need players hassling teams high up the pitch, partly because we had eighteen months demonstrating what happens when we don't, but the issue is that as things stand we end up using Lo Celso as an ersatz Dembele one way or another
- Lo Celso starts as a CM to knit play together while Ndombele plays further up, which nullifies Lo Celso's chances of goals or assists
- Lo Celso starts as a high-pressing AM, which Poch used Dembele as in his first season, which does create space for Ndombele to move the ball up the pitch but makes Lo Celso a screen for a pass to Kane/Son/Bergwijn

This is an issue as Lo Celso is best deployed in more of a van der Vaart role, which is why he was so effective at Betis as they played 3421 that allowed him to make late breaks forward, which also underlines the issue: at which point since we signed him have we used a system which allows players to make late breaks from midfield? We've either played rhomboid hell that nullified us going forwards, or with a low block that meant players were less likely to make late breaks forward because they were parked in our third of the pitch for 45+ minutes every single game

Realistically it isn't pointless having Lo Celso and Ndombele on the pitch at the same time in a 433 (barring playing one as a winger even though that's not their role), a pointless pairing would be having both Ndombele and Dele on the pitch at the same time as both are clearly lacking things in their game and it's exacerbated when they're both on the pitch because it's incredibly unlikely one will step up to cover the deficiencies of the latter

 

I respect your opinion HBIC but read your post back...the tactical chicanery needed to coax something even remotely resembling a useful performance out of Lo Celso is worrying.

Let me first reiterate: I have no love for our obsession with 433 as I think it instantly negates half our outfield players and also tempts Kane to play as a midfielder instead of his actual position.

But being as it is that we're infatuated with the thing, where does Lo Celso fit in?

RFW? Son's position.
LFW? Useful in the press but can't beat his man and also can't cross. So it's cutting off our nose to spite our face. Also I think Lucas (since last season) can harass just as well as him and while the brazilian's delivery isn't much better, he is definitely better at beating his man.
RCM? Skipp or Hojbjerg surely better in this role.
LCM? Probably where I'd play him tbh but it hasn't really happened much in 2 years.

Either way, I still think our strongest XI using a 433 doesn't include him. I'd use attacking FBs for width, a midfield base of Skipp and Hojbjerg and deploy Tanguy just in front of them, giving him the freedom of the pitch. Then Son, Kane and Lucas in front of that two tiered midfield.

 

You've got it back to front, since deploying Lo Celso as a high-presser is the tactical chicanery required to stop Ndombele sending passes directly to opposition midfielders

And this is the point: most clubs need tactical chicanery to get something out of all their players, look at clubs like Southampton and Swansea who had a few seasons of playing way above expectations and getting promptly dismantled by a handful of clubs (usually Liverpool) and yet the majority of the players never came close to replicating their form elsewhere, all because the system was custom made to get the absolute maximum from those players

In our case there's definitely some alchemy needed to get more out of certain players, for example we need somebody pressing higher up the pitch in order to give Ndombele the time and the space to get a dangerous pass through to a teammate because otherwise he'd either be an exotic-named Harry Winks playing percentage plays because he can't find the space or a liability who tries to force the pass through anyway, just as we need somebody between defence and attack to ping the ball between the lines for Sonny to break into the box, just as we need Hojbjerg to drift out wide so that there's somebody covering when Reguilon heads up field

The issue is that not only are we lacking a Dembele who was so good at creating pockets of space through the centre that several of the team could exploit simultaneously (i.e. opening a channel for Eriksen to send a ball through, creating a pocket for Dele to run into, drawing in defenders allowing Walker or Rose to overlap) but we've also lost our press resistance so our midfield can and often has been overrun, and it's the latter which has been particularly destructive since the back end of the 2018-19 season because since that period we've either seen our midfield get overrun or effectively surrendered for large portions of a match, and as last night demonstrated once we lose momentum in a match we can't regain it

And this is where Ndombele is problematic, because he's the perfect example of a player who can be fantastic when we have momentum behind us, but when we don't he's a liability because he's not tracking back when we don't have the ball and also liable to misplace a pass and give the ball away when we do have it, both of which were on display yesterday evening - and the only way he won't be? If we have an effective screen ahead of him, even if that screen nerfs the player who is having to perform in this role

In terms of where Lo Celso fits into a 433, however, it is readily apparent where: as a RCM

Nuno's system does seem to have been designed around a marauding RW, drawing obvious and/or lazy comment about Adama Traore, and because of this we need a player in midfield who can not only get the ball to them reliably but also get stuck in if we don't have the ball, and Lo Celso is best positioned for that - and that isn't just wild speculation either, considering the one time where Aurier looked absolutely lethal during Mason's time in charge last season was when Lo Celso was the RCM, as he was knitting the play on the right side together not just with passes out to Aurier and up to a deep-lying Kane, but he was also making himself available for the return pass - something which can't be said for Hojbjerg against Rennes last week, as Doherty was often passing inside to nobody as Hojbjerg was flitting between box-to-box one passage of play and a deep-sitting CM the next

The real question is who the LCM would be, because there's three options
Hojbjerg, who combines well with Reguilon - but that means Skipp plays, meaning we have two pragmatic midfielders in the three
Ndombele, who makes the ball move quickly and is direct when passing - but can often be a passenger when we don't have the ball
Dele, who works his bollocks off - but there's no real end product to this at the moment

This is ultimately the issue, as the most balanced midfield three we can play at the moment is Skipp, Hojbjerg and Lo Celso - but there's no denying that trio lacks dynamism going forward while also not having the strength to be a rock solid mid block for when we don't have the ball, and that's something that won't be sorted until 1st July 2022 when Sarr officially joins us, while also explaining why players like Nahitian Nandez and Weston McKennie were so strongly linked late in the window as they're both closer to Hojbjerg than Ndombele

 

I agree with your overall point here, but possibly not the phrasing.
Ndombele is **** defensively, but he closes down well when the play is in front of him.
His goal against Wolves was a demonstration of the second part.
About four of our recently conceded goals are examples of the first part.

 

The cynic in me thinks we've already approached Monster Energy Dusseldorf with a bid to gazump Wolves' attempts to make the loan permanent...

 

Once again I wonder if The Pathetic have this forum open in a separate tab, as they just so happened to publish an article about Lo Celso and his ever-changing position and how, quite coincidentally, he never seems to be settled

Here's an excerpt as I consider once again asking for partial credit for their articles, and the remuneration that would involve...

For Argentina meanwhile, Lo Celso does enjoy a more settled position. He tends to start in a midfield three, with Leandro Paredes just behind him and Rodrigo De Paul to the right. When he was coming through at Rosario Central, though, the expectation was that Lo Celso would be a classic “enganche”, a playmaker.

The metrics above give some indication of how effective Lo Celso is, but to get a better sense we can broaden it out to look at how he compares to other players in his position(s).

Because of how many different roles Lo Celso is given, doing so is not straightforward. But what we can do is compare Lo Celso with those who have played the position where he was given the most amount of minutes in his two seasons at Spurs (central midfield in 2019-20, central attacking midfield in 2020-21).

The sample size is modest (especially for last season) but using data from smarterscout we can get a sense of how Lo Celso compares to his peers. For the uninitiated, smarterscout is a site that gives players a rating from 0-99, relating to either how often they do a given stylistic action (such as shooting volume) compared with others playing in their position, or how effective they are (such as measuring how well they progress the ball upfield).

Starting with Lo Celso’s first season, as a central midfielder he looked to run with the ball frequently (carry and dribble volume 88 out of 99), looked after possession pretty well (ball retention 68 out of 99) and was effective at progressing the ball into dangerous areas (xG from ball progression 84 out of 99). Off the ball, Lo Celso made a high volume of defensive actions (disrupting opposition moves 98 out of 99) and appeared to be good at forcing turnovers (defending impact 71 out of 99).

As a central attacking midfielder in 2020-21 (though with a sample size of only 417 minutes), Lo Celso did contribute well to the attack — perhaps not quite when it came to goals or assists, but more so the pass before the pass, like he produced for Kane’s goal at Wolves on Tuesday night (xG from shot creation 81 out of 99), and he still got the ball into dangerous areas (xG from ball progression 89 out of 99).

Wherever Lo Celso has played at Spurs, he has not been a frequent shooter, or received the ball very often in the box. Playing further forward he was similarly defensively active to when he played deeper (disrupting opposition moves 99 out of 99), but seemingly less effective (defending impact 12 out of 99), at least compared with his attacking midfield peers.

It should be mentioned as well that the small sample size is partly down to how many games Lo Celso has missed through injury since joining. As well as only completing the Premier League 90 minutes seven times, Lo Celso’s injuries (and recent quarantining) have kept him out of 38 matches, which is an extremely high number for just two seasons.

 

Dugout view of the highlights:

Espirito Santo's rather lowkey against his old club, understandably.
Alli seems rather invested in the shoot-out.