Tottenham Hotspur vs. Manchester United: Fosu-Mensah Sub Changes the Game
Tottenham Hotspur kept their faint Premier League title hopes alive with a hard-fought 3-0 victory over Manchester United on Sunday afternoon.
The first half was an untidy, scrappy battle, as both sides pressed and harassed one another, but an injury to Timothy Fosu-Mensah in the second half paved the way for three Spurs goals, as Dele Alli, Toby Alderweireld and Erik Lamela all netted in the space of six minutes.
Here, we analyse the game and take a look at how the action unfolded.
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Formations & XIs
Spurs began in their usual 4-2-3-1 formation with two changes—one expected, one not. Son Heung-Min, who was poor at Anfield last weekend, made way for Erik Lamela, while fit-again Jan Vertonghen came in for Kevin Wimmer in central defence.
United also operated out of a 4-2-3-1 to begin with but sprung a surprise by not dropping Marcos Rojo (left-back) and also playing Timothy Fosu-Mensah on the right side.
Move it fast
United settled quickly and dominated the opening 15 minutes of the game. Despite Tottenham’s attempt to press and harass, the visitors took full control early on and moved the ball around remarkably well.
That was, largely, because a) the Red Devils knew to move the ball from player to player fast to stymie the effects of the press, rarely taking more than three touches each before sending it along, and b) because when Spurs did get a tackle in, United swarmed the area themselves and recovered it quickly.
It was the sort of high-energy start you’d expect to see from Spurs, not United. With the visitors pushing their full-backs up and their wingers inside, they flooded the central areas in the same way the hosts usually do. It was actually quite eerie.
Pressure dies off
Unfortunately, playing at that speed isn’t suitable for a 90-minute game plan, and United eventually and inevitably slowed down. That was when the game really opened up. First, it turned scrappy—with both sides giving the ball away loads and plenty of rogue first touches resulting in throw-ins or fouls—and then, eventually, Spurs emerged on top.
With United no longer able to sustain higher pressure on Spurs’ deeper ball-players, the hosts began switching play to the opposite side of the pitch to find the run of the full-back. Kyle Walker soon became a key threat pushing into the space Rojo would leave, and one move saw him take a cross-field pass down and blitz past the Argentinian only to fire straight at David De Gea.
Fosu-Mensah’s role
Following the subsiding of United’s frantic pressure, it became clear that, in parts, United manager Louis van Gaal had instructed some of his players to man-mark some of Spurs’. The Dutchman has a tendency to employ this type of system against skilled opponents; he did it in both games vs. Arsenal, for example.
Three players in particular were clearly given man-marking jobs: Fosu-Mensah (on Christian Eriksen), Morgan Schneiderlin (on Mousa Dembele) and Juan Mata (on Danny Rose). The pairs clashed plenty of times in the latter portion of the first half and, as natural movement to evade pressure began to occur, an interesting nuance appeared.
Eriksen moved centrally—very centrally—to try to a) escape the marking of Fosu-Mensah and b) open space for Rose to take Mata up and down the touchline one-on-one. Rose is the epitome of athletic and holds an obvious physical advantage over the Spaniard, while Fosu-Mensah could not run past Chris Smalling (laterally) to follow Eriksen all the way inside.
The result was an extremely stunted United formation, which at times looked like Fosu-Mensah was playing as a third centre-back, when in fact he was not. Whenever he was taken inside, Rose galloped forward to test Mata’s defensive aptitude in the space left.
Amazingly, Spurs were not able to spring an advantage for themselves, largely because Fosu-Mensah’s positional and anticipatory skills on the day were incredible. Time and again, he judged his angles correctly, got back in place to cover, met Eriksen infield for a tackle and never left Mata too exposed against Rose.
The substitution
It’s a remarkable sentence to write, but things started to unravel for Man Utd as soon as their 18-year-old full debutant went off injured.
Fosu-Mensah, a teenage centre-back playing out of position on the right, was the tactical glue preventing Spurs from gaining steam. He was substituted in the 68th minute, and in the 70th minute, Spurs went ahead after creating a goal from his former area.
Eriksen, the man Fosu-Mensah was man-marking when required, slipped in behind the defence after a scramble, beat Matteo Darmian to the ball and fired a brilliant pass into the box for Alli to tap home. It was the first time Eriksen had escaped into a position where he had room to run, breathe or make a decision.
From there, the house of cards collapsed from within. Minutes later, Darmian gave away a foul in the exact sort of areas Fosu-Mensah had been cleaning up with precision, and that led to Toby Alderweireld’s headed goal for 2-0. Another two minutes later, Spurs attacked the same flank and Rose slammed a cross in for Lamela to finish. That made it 3-0.
Quick hits
- Lamela missed a glaring chance early on but recovered to put in a marvellous performance. His energy and bite set the tempo for Spurs; his goal and assist were well deserved.
- Fosu-Mensah played an incredibly important tactical role for United in the strangest of circumstances, excelling on his full debut.
- Alli struggled up until his goal. He was poor against Liverpool last week, too, though these facts will likely be ignored because of his vital impact.
- Wimmer was pitied pre-match for losing his spot to Vertonghen after such a good performance against Liverpool, but the latter was excellent here and provided no avenues for social media snipers.
- For the second week running, Spurs faced a war zone in the middle and struggled to find a rhythm, but they eventually broke free and ran riot.
