What we learned from Tottenham’s victory over Brentford: A tactical analysis

Following our 3-1 victory at home to Brentford, it’s hard to say that Tottenham didn’t look much better than they did against Arsenal.

With a much-improved performance, that included a debut goal for Dominic Solanke, and a goal from two of our most criticised players, what exactly were the changes Ange made that had the side firing?

James Maddison: Midfield Maestro

Tottenham fans may have noticed that James Maddison played a significant role in Spurs’ 3-1 victory on Saturday against Brentford, with the English midfielder bagging himself a goal, while also playing a crucial role in the build-up to Dominic Solanke’s goal. But some Spurs fans may not have noticed the one small change that Ange Postecoglou made that had the midfielder back to his best.

If you look at Maddison’s average position across the 90 minutes, you’ll notice that he’s playing much deeper than the attacking line, with four players ahead of him.

Not only did these four attacking players in Solanke, Kulusevski, Son and Johnson give the English midfielder a plethora of attacking options to choose from with his passing, but they also opened up the game, dragging three defenders onto them, allowing Maddison to dribble from deep, completing 7 dribbles, a record for the season!

Speaking of Maddison’s passing, it also looked significantly better this game with the front 4 ahead of him, as he boasted an 88% successful passing rate, creating 3 chances, even if Dejan Kulusevski couldn’t get a goal involvement himself, his midfield role allowed to thrive.

Tottenham’s Pressing.

With Tottenham’s first goal coming as a result of pressure from Maddison, we can’t exactly talk about yesterday’s game without talking about Tottenham’s pressing system. And yesterday’s game, which was won through pressing, actually had a deeper statistical game going on behind the scenes.

Taking a look at the data, you can see that Brentford have the slowest buildup in the Premier League. But what exactly does this have to do with pressing? These statistics mean that Brentford spend the most time on the ball compared to any other team, preferring to play out from the back slowly and move forward, and with the amount of time they spend on the ball, they’re extremely susceptible to turnovers.

Taking a look at Tottenham’s press, you can see that they actually have the most aggressive press in the Premier League, and by a mile! This meant that Tottenham were able to disrupt Thomas Frank’s side trying to build up from the back, ruining their offensive game while also creating chances for ours!

Less Possesion, More Efficiency

Tottenham actually had fewer passes and possession than Brentford in Saturday’s game, which is unusual for a Postecoglou side, with his principles being to dominate the ball and keep a hold of it, but what Tottenham lacked in possession, they made up for in efficiency and chances created, making the tradeoff for possession in favour of creating chances and scoring goals.

Comparing that to the Arsenal game, where Tottenham dominated possession completely, with over 65% of it, you can see that Spurs were much less efficient in that game, making more passes while also generating significantly lower xG, to look further into it, Spurs allowing their opponents more of the ball, maybe a better option for the attack, despite going against all of Ange’s principles, something to think about for the Australian.

Youngsters Ready For Thursday

Following Maddison’s late goal, Ange decided the game was won, which resulted in him bringing on 3 youngsters in the closing stages, with Mikey Moore, Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray entering the field, while the Spurs youth ultimately only saw a few minutes of the game, this could indicate that Ange is saving them to prepare them for Thursday’s Europa League opener.

Will we perhaps finally get to see Mikey Moore in action? Despite Postecoglu indicating at the start of the season that the 17-year old has a role to play in the senior squad, Saturday was the English youngster’s first appearance of the season, while both Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray saw action during the Carabao Cup game against Coventry.

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