Tottenham Hotspur’s midfield is a five alarm fire after Champions League draw

I don’t do player rating articles after European matches or cup games. Partly that’s because those ratings articles are HARD and they take great deal of time and creative energy to do every week and who’s got the time to do that 2-3 times every week, much less once? But also because Europe in particular gives me an opportunity to focus on some other areas.

Instead I like to do an “X things we learned” piece especially after we play in Europa, as it gives a chance to drill down a bit into tactics, or individual player performances. And sure, I could come up with a few things to focus on in an article, but after watching Tottenham Hotspur slog their way to a come-from-behind draw against Bodø/Glimt in the Champions League last night there’s really only one thing I want to look at and it’s the same thing everyone saw.

The midfield is a PROBLEM and Thomas Frank needs to find a tactical fix.

OK, I’m being a bit hyperbolic here — we didn’t learn this in Norway last evening, or at least what we saw didn’t teach us something especially new, but if nothing else Spurs’ performance against Bodø/Glimt put a pretty damn fine point on it. This Tottenham team, as currently constructed, either doesn’t know how to formulate an offensive plan that involves passing through the middle of the pitch, or is currently being instructed not to. Take a look at these statistics from the excellent MarkStats:

Actually, I want to call your attention to one graphic in particular, here (with recognition that the stats reflect only up to minute 61):

Yowwwwwwwwwwza. Protip for those of you who aren’t familiar with how to interpret a pass map: the lines show passing connections between various players on the pitch over the course of the match, Tottenham are on the right, and you do NOT want your pass map to look like that. Two things stick out immediately — there is a distinct lack of connection between the midfielders and… well, anywhere, but especially to the wings. Secondly — poor Richarlison is just stuck up there on an island. He doesn’t even have a line!

That suggests, and we all saw this, that there was no midfield ball progression whatsoever. Tottenham’s offense came from the keeper or the central defenders getting the ball wide to a fullback who then passed to a winger, who then invariably lost the ball. That didn’t change much when Spurs starting bringing in players off the bench — Spurs might have played with a bit more intensity, but the overall tactical plan didn’t change, and it’s reflected in Spurs’ goals being scored from a set piece and a lucky deflected own goal.

Now you might expect me to yell at a certain suspect currently on loan from Germany, and I’m not going to — the issue was deeper. Spurs started a midfield three of Rodrigo Bentancur, Pape Sarr, and Lucas Bergvall. Of those three, only Bergvall showed anything close to dynamism with the ball at his feet or a willingness to pass, and only in the first 15 minutes or so — had Richarlison not tripped over his shoelaces in the third minute, he’d have had a goal, Lucas would have had an assist, and Spurs might have had a win. Bentancur and Sarr, however, were awful — black holes of possession with no clear vision of if and when to press or what to do in the rare times they got the ball back in midfield. I lost count of how many times the midfield coughed up the ball, made an errant pass, or just looked as if they had no idea what they were supposed to do with it. And as much as I’ve yelled at and about Joao Palhinha so far this season, I’ve never once said he’s a bad player, simply a limited one who does not fit or mitigate the things this Tottenham midfield already does poorly.

Now to be fair there’s plenty of blame to go around. We could also talk about Wilson Odobert and Brennan Johnson basically serving as passengers, how Richarlison didn’t cover himself in glory despite getting no service, and how even Mohammed Kudus and Xavi Simons looked as though they were trying for individual glory rather than setting up their teammates. But the real crux of the issue was that midfield, and how it is either being set up to fail, or is simply not constructed to do what Thomas Frank wants.

Were Spurs supposed to be absorbing pressure and countering at pace? Was the midfield supposed to be funneling balls out to the wingers and overlapping fullbacks to find spaces in wide areas? Were Spurs supposed to be pressing… at all? None of that happened.

This wasn’t just a bad game. This goes to something deeper — it felt systemic. Take a look at that pass map again. You’re not going to win many football matches playing like that, especially not against what is honestly a decent small European team that is clearly well-drilled and organized, playing at home.

I wasn’t the only ones who noticed, obviously. Frank was asked about the tactical setup in the post-match interview, and while I always appreciate his, well, frankness when he speaks, it wasn’t the most reassuring answer.

Was it the plan in the first half to sit back and try to get them on the counter or was that kind of imposed upon you by the way that they played?

“I think that was what we wanted. Hopefully also you saw that we went high pressure sometimes. It was not that we never went high pressure.

“So the plan was both to go into the high pressure, which we did on several occasions, and also succeed with those situations, and then there were times when we were a little bit more banked in.

“You know, exactly that we were four months ago, because they’re very, very good at what they’re doing. And then I think the counters should have been a little bit better. But I think the main bit was that when we were on the ball, we threw the ball away too quick.

“… I think [Bodø/Glimt] did exactly what I expected them to do in terms of how they wanted to play out, what they wanted to do, how they wanted to put our pressure.

I think the only little tweak was they were a little bit more flexible in the midfield rotation and a little bit more with the wingers coming inside. So that was a little bit more flexible compared to, let’s say, last game. So that was a tweak that maybe created a few problems in the first half, I think a little less in the second half.

Even that they scored the goals, there were various reasons. Because actually the way we wanted to press, we just decided not to do at the 1-0 goal, even if it’s a fantastic finish from Høgh.”

I realize that Thomas Frank is new and still figuring out his team, and he gets a fairly long leash from me for that reason. We also should give Bodø/Glimt credit for playing well at home and putting Spurs into that kind of struggleball match. But it’s a bit baffling that a bunch of nerds on the internet are able to suss out pretty easily that Tottenham is going to struggle to generate offense when the midfield can’t pass the ball, and that simple fact seems to be eluding the manager and the recruitment director. This is as much a roster construction issue as it is a tactical one, but the irony is not lost on me that Rodrigo Bentancur put in an all-time stinker of a performance just hours after news dropped that he’s in final talks with Spurs over a contract extension. That decision does not speak particularly well of Johan Lange, whose job it apparently is to put this team together — if the recruitment team looked at the lack of passing in this Spurs midfield and decided the best thing was to bring in a 30-year-old defensive specialist who also doesn’t have a progressive passing record, that speaks to a problem that goes a little deeper, I’m afraid.

So what can Thomas Frank do? I’m not sure, but whatever he’s doing now isn’t cutting it. Over the past few games, Spurs’ offensive plan has been more or less “1. Get the ball to Kudus, 2. [????], 3. PROFIT”, or more simply “get the ball wide and spam crosses.” And if Tottenham aren’t able to find some midfield passing in the couch cushions (or maybe Archie Gray) then that’s I guess as good of a plan as any I can come up with.

That said, the one thing that can be said about Spurs is that their defense is much improved. Rather than include a defensive shield, it might be time to roll the dice and commit to Xavi Simons centrally, or utilize some lesser-used midfielders with passing in their locker like Archie Gray and let the defense do their job. It feels like a stretch, but just maybe Spurs will discover that [takes off nerd glasses] the passy midfielder they prayed for was right in front of them all along.

But probably not. Spurs need help, and January can’t come soon enough. Back in May, in her Tottenham Hotspur rebuild article in The Transfer Flow newsletter, Carty Free founder Kim McCauley identified several possibilities on the continent to look at in order to address their midfield passing issue. One of them was Royal Charleroi midfielder Adem Zorgane, who was sold to current Champions League club Union Saint-Gilloise this summer for €8m and has emerged as one of their best players. I kinda wish we had this guy now.

You may be skeptical that a 25-year-old who’s still at Royal Charleroi is good enough to play for Tottenham Hotspur. I am too. But if I’m working in the recruitment for a team that needs a passing midfielder and I see this, I start grinding some tape and scrutinizing every moment he’s put into some difficulty.

I watched all the highlights I could find this morning and they’re so awesome. But obviously anyone who’s seriously thinking about signing this guy would have to watch ~5 full games against the most difficult opposition he faces, which I have not done, so I can’t tell you if he’s good enough to play for Spurs or not. I sure am interested, though.

— Kim McCauley, The Transfer Flow newsletter

The midfield is not an un-fixable problem, but it IS a problem. The Champions League is a tough league but on paper Bodø/Glimt away was probably the easiest fixture on the calendar, and they just gave a model for how to play against Thomas Frank’s Tottenham Hotspur.

We should probably consider Spurs fortunate that, despite playing some pretty unwatchable football at times already this season, Spurs have only lost once in all competitions and are fourth in the Premier League table. This is where, if Spurs can’t buy their way to midfield respectability, we need to count on Frank to magick up some offense from somewhere else. It seems like that’s what he’s trying to do, but in the meantime the football might not be the kind we especially want to watch.

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