Can Tottenham Take Celtic's Blueprint of How to Stop Man City 1 Step Further?
It is no grandiose statement to suggest this weekend’s visit to White Hart Lane to take on Tottenham Hotspur will be Pep Guardiola’s greatest challenge as Manchester City manager yet. For all the Manchester derby’s hype and excitement, Spurs are a fundamentally better team than Manchester United right now and present a much sterner tactical test.
The clash has all the makings of a goal-filled, "Game of the Season" contender; the nature of both managers involved is to attack, press and create chances, and we’ll see plenty of all three this weekend. It’s also a match not without early twists: Both managers have key players injured and must find solutions, and both teams exerted themselves fully in midweek during UEFA Champions League play.
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With City’s run of wins curtailed at 10 by a spirited Celtic side, Mauricio Pochettino will know that if there is ever a good time to face Man City, it’s now. Can the Argentinian produce the perfect game plan to stymie the Citizens? It isn’t as if he hasn’t flummoxed Guardiola before.
Tottenham
Mauricio Pochettino has, as always, been fairly coy regarding Tottenham’s fitness issues, but none of the players who missed the CSKA Moscow trip injured—Danny Rose, Eric Dier and Mousa Dembele—are expected to return for this one. Harry Kane is a semi-long-term absentee.
With this in mind, the entire XI almost picks itself. Kyle Walker will return, Ben Davies will continue to deputise, Victor Wanyama will keep his place and Vincent Janssen will trundle on. Heung-Min Son, amazingly, is essentially the first name on the teamsheet right now.
Moussa Sissoko (concussion) may return to health, but it’s highly unlikely the Frenchman will be trusted in a game of such magnitude. Erik Lamela has been in and out of the team of late, but his relentless work rate will be a stick on which to lean for Pochettino here.
Injuries to defensive midfield may necessitate Dele Alli pairing Wanyama in front of the defence, though the Kenyan will always be the most southerly point and the formation will tilt from 4-2-3-1 to 4-3-3 at times.
Manchester City
Manchester City’s first game of note sans Kevin De Bruyne did not go to plan, and although the Belgian was hardly perfect in his last game against Swansea City, his absence against Celtic was felt. He has been the best player in the Premier League over the course of six games, unleashed in a "free No. 8 role" and causing defences all sorts of issues with movement and precise passing.
David Silva can carry the creative mantle from one of those No. 8 roles, and he’ll likely be joined by Ilkay Gundogan; Fernandinho, who has also been excellent, will patch things together behind them.
Per James Robson of the Manchester Evening News, John Stones will be recalled to the XI to partner Nicolas Otamendi in central defence. After Aleksandar Kolarov’s awful performance against Celtic, he will either be relocated to left-back or dropped to sit behind Gael Clichy.
Nolito is still suspended, so the battle to replace him and play opposite Raheem Sterling will be fought between Leroy Sane and Jesus Navas. The former’s impact so far has been minimal due to key players’ form and injury constraints, and the fans would love to see a little more of him here.
Pressure point 1: Maintain the aggression
Pochettino has managed against, and beaten, Guardiola before. Even more remarkably, it was with 20th-placed Espanyol in a Catalan derby against Barcelona in 2009; he defeated a team containing Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, Xavi and more.
Sky Sports’ Adam Bate has revisited that game, recounting the aggressive tactics Pochettino utilised in order to unsettle Barca. “There are teams that wait for you and teams that look for you. Espanyol look for you,” remarked Pep after the game.
Fast-forward seven years and Pochettino hasn’t changed; he still suits his team up in an aggressive style, instructing players to push forward and close down the man and space, sending his full-backs so far forward they’re like wingers, and utilising a fairly high defensive line. They never stop; they never falter.
This approach is just what’s required for the visit of Man City, who, it should be noted, will contest their fourth consecutive away game when they arrive in north London on Sunday. They’re fresh off a very difficult evening against Celtic, where Brendan Rodgers instructed his team to press and harass, and dropped their first points of the season and went behind for the first time in competitive play under Pep.
Celtic’s refusal to allow City to set the rhythm was key. Right from the off, Claudio Bravo was being pressed in possession, and that approach rippled throughout the entire team. City began sending passes out of play regularly, with Kolarov in particular struggling. Stones—a defender—was brought on in the 73rd minute in an attempt to enhance the chances of finding a winner. That’s a signal the buildup play for City, usually so smooth, stood broken under duress.
Celtic also favoured a direct route of passing, moving the ball swiftly from line to line in a vertical pattern. They attempted to bypass City’s press by firing it behind the midfield line early, taking between three and six players out of the equation with one ball.
If any team in the Premier League is built to replicate (and improve upon) the template Rodgers set for playing against City, it’s Spurs. Work rate is key to surviving under Pochettino, and Lamela in particular will be of real help here. Christian Eriksen and Son will also do their bit, while every player on the pitch has been inducted into the halls of verticality—it is Pochettino’s favoured style.
Move it forward, move it quickly from line-to-line, utilising the direct, aggressive and workmanlike nature of the team to an advantage.
Pressure point 2: The disconnect
Janssen was purchased this summer, ostensibly, as backup to Kane. Pochettino won’t admit that, but it’s true. He knows he was fortunate to navigate the entirety of last season with just one striker, and he simply had to address the issue in the summer.
Inevitably, Kane has sustained an injury. According to Goal.com’s Harry Sherlock, the Englishman has played 9,630 minutes of football since the beginning of the 2015-16 season. It’s an astonishing amount of tread to pick up on tyres so very young still.
Now Janssen has the chance to make the striking spot his own, but given he was bought as an attempted like-for-like alternative for Kane, Spurs have already had to make serious adjustments to their attacking play to accommodate him.
Janssen’s back-to-goal play is superb; it’s among the best in the Premier League. He’s strong as an ox and holds the ball well, which will, of course, be vital when playing against City, who swarm, press and force longer passes. Janssen will need to bring these balls down and allow his side to move up the pitch; it’s a relief mechanism Zlatan Ibrahimovic failed to provide in the derby.
But Janssen is not doing all the things Kane does, such as run the channels or dart into wider spaces. This is a team built on Kane’s tendencies, and now there’s a different guy leading the line doing different things, compromises are being made.
Son and Lamela are playing vital roles picking up the slack. They’re playing more encompassing roles as goal threats and wide forwards, with Lamela dipping inside an awful lot. There’s a bit of a disconnect between Janssen and the advanced midfield band of three as they learn to play with one another.
That Janssen has only one goal to his name—a penalty against Gillingham—should not yet be of too much concern, but the goalscoring workload has not shifted from Kane to the Dutchman; it has shifted from Kane to the midfield. This is something Pochettino must sort quickly.
