Che Pochettino’s Revolutionary Insurgency Advancing ?

It’s been quite a revolutionary couple of years at Spurs. Recent dissenters have been put in front of the firing squad (or worse, sent to Sunderland) but one of the most curious turnarounds is how a  team that had one of the worst defenses in the league has miraculously turned into one of the best?

Last season only four teams conceded more goals than his Spurs; in fact two of the teams relegated actually conceded less goals than Pochettino’s team.

The turn around so far this season has been radical. This season only three teams have conceded less – and Spurs have played Man City (home), Arsenal (away) and Man Utd (away). Somehow Pochettino has turned a side that last season was shipping an average 1.4 goals a game into one that is currently now conceding an average of 0.8 goals a game. That’s an improvement of 0.6 goals a game. More impressively, using Paul Riley’s “expected goals” or “xG” model which rates the likelihood of a chance conceded leading to a goal (based on the quality of that chance (link):

https://public.tableau.com/profile/paul.riley#!/vizhome/PremierLeague201516xGMap/PremierLeague201516ShotonTargetxGDashboard

Spurs are now the third most frugal in the EPL.

In a team sport involving so many variables – eleven individual playing components, various nuances in tactical approach, varying formations etc – there is often rarely one simple answer to improved team performance questions. In most cases it is an accumulation of events.

We can rule out formation in Spurs case because both last season and this Pochettino has steadfastly stuck to his beloved 4231.

In terms of defensive personnel they have only really added Toby Alderweireld to the first team. Clearly Alderweireld is a very capable addition, which has no doubt helped, but even if he was the world’s best central defender it seems highly unlikely that he alone could account for  the drastic defensive improvement.

The next theory could be that Spurs this season are playing with a more defensive central midfielder in Eric Dier. A statistical analysis of the tackles and interceptions of the Premier League’s most frequently paired CM2 for each club (see table below) shows Spurs central midfield is performing well and sitting a very healthy fourth:

TT PG = CM2 Total Tackles per game / TI PG = CM2 Total Interceptions per game / AT PP = Average Tackles per person (per cm)/ AI PP = Average Interceptions per person (per cm) / TCTI PG = CM2 Total Combined Tackles & Interceptions per game / TAPP PG = Total Average Combined Tackles & Interceptions per person (per cm).

So those stats are good, but at 10.6 combined CM2 tackles and interceptions per game they are only marginally better than the 10.2 Spurs most frequently used CM2 pairing managed last year. Both figures very respectable considering in both seasons the most frequently used CM2 pairing (Dier/Alli this year and mason/Bentaleb last year) were novices having their first full seasons in the Premier League.

So we have the addition of Alderweireld and a 0.4 increase in tackles and interceptions from central midfield; good incremental factors but enough for a 43% bump in defensive improvement ?

When Pochettino was parachuted into the Premier League by Nicola Cortese the Southampton Director of Football, it was to much derision by the PFM (Proper Football Men – See John Nicholson’s superb article on football365 – http://www.football365.com/news/proper-football-men-can-be-sht-too)

Adkins was a PFM, doing a “Proper good job” as Pearly King of all PFM’s Harry Redknapp would say and they’ve replaced him with some johnny foreigner who come in uttering filthy words like “Philosophy”.

The most visible feature of Pochettino’s philosophy (believed to be heavily influenced by his time working/playing under Marcelo Bielsa) was the desire to play a high line defensively, advance the full backs and press the ball higher up the pitch.

Last year was Pochettino’s first season in charge at White Hart Lane and he inherited players bought by previous regimes, some of which clearly didn’t seem to have gotten the revolutionary philosophy memo. It was clear to many observers that spurs lax pressing up top was incompatible with the high line and Spurs gaols against column was the stark evidence of a philosophical discord.

So I decided to do the same analytics I ran for the CM’s for the most used front four players for each Premier League team this season to see whether a season to assess and a pre season to properly prepare may have remedied some of Spurs ills.

The results were staggering, both in terms of the improvement in performance of tackles and interceptions the front four are making this season compared to last season’s Spurs, but also in comparison to the rest of the league. Quite simply Spurs Front four (most used Kane, Lamela, Eriksen & Dembele) are now in a league of their own. Whereas with the CM stats there is a spread of just 2 combined tackles/intercepts for best performing 7 teams, and the table moves in small incremental advantages throughout the league pretty much, when it comes to the tackles and interceptions the front fours are making, the Spurs quartet are way out in front as the following table shows:

TT PG = Front Four (F4) Total Tackles per game / TI PG = F4 Total Interceptions per game / AT PP = Average Tackles per person (per F4 player)/ AI PP = Average Interceptions per person (per F4 player) / TCTI PG = F4 Total Combined Tackles & Interceptions per game / TAPP PG = Total Average Combined Tackles & Interceptions per person (per F4 player).

Compare this to last season’s stats for Spurs most frequently used front four:

I think this holds the biggest key to Spurs improved defensive performance. The central midfielders are no longer being exposed and continually pulled left and right to protect the advanced full backs, or up the pitch leaving huge empty lines of pitch behind them in which opposition midfielders can use to put balls past the advanced (high line holding) CB’s exposing them to runs in behind.

It would appear that Pochettino’s ideology is catching on, and his young revolutionaries have at last read the manifesto.

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