Tottenham's Aggressive Instincts Are at Risk of Being Stifled by Sly Opponents
"You know, when you fight for the Premier League you want to win, and sometimes you feel disappointed, and sometimes you cross the line. I think for us it was a big experience. Our first experience to fight to win the league, and I think there are a lot of things to learn from that."
Tottenham Hotspur manager Mauricio Pochettino could not hide from the aftermath of his side's brutal, controversial 2-2 draw with Chelsea in May.
With a win vital to keeping their Premier League title challenge alive, the north Londoners had let the night's importance and their capital rival's provocations get to them. The result was a costly loss of discipline and focus that saw them blow the two-goal lead earned by Harry Kane and Heung-Min Son.
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As Pochettino repeatedly put it a few days after, they had crossed a line.
On the biggest night of the 2015-16 season, with the country and plenty in the footballing world witnessing Leicester City's unexpected crowning as English champions, Tottenham may also have crossed another line: Rivals throughout the division and perhaps beyond cottoned on to the aggressive, physical playing style so well-implemented by Pochettino's players during the campaign.
The fallout from Moussa Sissoko's clash with Harry Arter during Tottenham's 0-0 draw with Bournemouth was reminiscent of the furore that followed the aforementioned match.
Back in the spring, a more blatant and indefensible eye-gouge by Mousa Dembele on Chelsea's effectively irritating Diego Costa received much of the backlash. On this occasion, Arter was caught by Sissoko's elbow, which prompted similarly hysterical outrage, both on the pitch and since.
Both went unrecorded by officials and were thus subject to retroactive punishment from the Football Association (see above). Sissoko may only receive a three-game ban compared to Dembele's six, but the greater takeaway could be the threat of Tottenham getting a reputation as a dirty side.
There have already been signs since Chelsea that opponents are following suit and using Spurs' hunter mentality against them. The Sissoko incident was part of a Bournemouth display that, while mostly heralded for their unsettling the capital club by closing down well, was also marked by such cunning.
Spurs could barely challenge the home players without referee Craig Pawson intervening.
Some decisions were warranted, such as the yellow card Erik Lamela received. But others saw the Cherries take advantage of the soft, hypersensitive aversion to any form of contact that plagues modern football and which spineless officials are so content to perpetuate.
The Dean Court faithful called for Lamela to be sent off after he was penalised for a tackle in which he fairly got enough on the ball but in the process firmly upended his man (had the balance shifted the other way, they would have a point). In another instance Danny Rose won the ball with a textbook dispossessing of Joshua King but was also whistled up.
Bournemouth's willingness to react and go down stifled Spurs' attempts to pressure them in unwanted areas. Their ability to generate intensity that can sometimes help force their way into matches they are otherwise struggling to impose themselves in (here, as a partial result of the south-coast club's off-ball pressure) was taken away.
Even the Sissoko elbow was emblematic of this.
He stood his ground as Arter tried to waste time retrieving the ball for what was clearly a Spurs throw. Ideally, that part of his arm would not have been used, but it was hardly the violent thrust to which the hypocritical Republic of Ireland international reacted (there's been no comment on a bad tackle of his own earlier in the game). Besides, if you try to mess around and cheat in a competitive environment, you better be prepared for the consequences.
The Bournemouth game is not the only one in which Spurs' penchant for harrying and tackling has been turned against them.
In the 0-0 Champions League Group E draw with Leverkusen they had also been frustrated, albeit in earlier phases of play. Rose again was the unfortunate victim of former Manchester United striker Javier Hernandez's theatrical behaviour, such decisions after half-time contributing to the Bundesliga club's success in pinning their visitors back.
Tottenham are not purely innocent, by any means.
Dembele got himself booked for a stupid dive attempt away at West Bromwich Albion. Against Bournemouth, Lamela went down in their penalty area when he would have been better off trying to make something of the run that got him there in the first place.
For the most part, though, it is something Spurs are suffering from rather than strategically looking to use themselves.
Pochettino certainly appears to be disgruntled with the characterisation of his team as dirty.
Speaking after their midweek EFL Cup loss to Liverpool, Pochettino criticised the attempts of the Reds' coaching staff to sway officials against them. He found it especially rich given that he believed Reds defender Trent Alexander-Arnold should have been sent off for an earlier challenge on Ben Davies, per Sky Sports' Gerard Brand:
"It was a little bit strange at the end of the game. The (Liverpool) bench started to complain about us. That was very strange.
You should stay calm. It is the referee who is the authority to say it was or it wasn't, it was or was not a penalty.
You need to focus on the game. At the end of the game they started to complain about one action that was a normal foul.
"
All this has not developed into a full-blown trend. Different teams have their own tactics for stopping and getting at Tottenham.
West Brom set up to defend for much of a meeting that was well-fought rather than scrappy. Having successfully absorbed the away side's attacks—although only thanks to goalkeeper Ben Foster—they then got out at a fatigued Spurs and eventually punished them with the opening goal in the 1-1 tie.
In their Premier League fixture in August, Liverpool showed Spurs can be susceptible to a high-octane pressing game being used against them, too. In that 1-1 draw, they ended up committing more fouls than the Lilywhites, per BBC Sport.
Given Pochettino's men sit fifth in the table ahead of the latest domestic weekend, just one point off first-placed Manchester City, the Argentinian's philosophy is clearly continuing to work. Indeed, City were the most notable victim of Spurs' front-foot attitude, finding themselves completely overwhelmed in a 2-0 defeat at the beginning of October.
Looking at the numbers, Tottenham are not suffering more notably at the referee's whistle, either.
Compared to their first 13 games of 2015-16 (see below), there is a similar mix of games in which they have been giving away free-kicks. But there are also several where their work in possession has proved sufficient in getting the job done.
| 2015-16 Fixture | Fouls committed/Yellow Cards/Red Cards | 2016-17 Fixture | Fouls committed/Yellow Cards/Red Cards |
| Premier League, August 8: Manchester United (A)—Loss: 1-0 | 12/3/0 | Premier League, August 13: Everton (A)—Draw: 1-1 | 14/0/0 |
| Premier League, August 15: Stoke City (H)—Draw: 2-2 | 15/2/0 | Premier League, August 20: Crystal Palace (A)—Win: 1-0 | 19/3/0 |
| Premier League, August 22: Leicester City (A)—Draw: 1-1 | 14/4/0 | Premier League, August 27: Liverpool (A)—Draw: 0-0 | 11/3/0 |
| Premier League, August 29: Everton (H)—Draw: 0-0 | 20/4/0 | Premier League, September 10: Stoke City (A)—Win: 0-4 | 18/2/0 |
| Premier League, September 13: Sunderland (A)—Win: 0-1 | 12/1/0 | Champions League, September 14: Monaco (H*)—Loss: 1-2 | 11/1/0 |
| Europa League, September 17: Qarabag (H)—Win: 3-1 | 5/1/0 | Premier League, September 18: Sunderland (H)—Win: 1-0 | 7/1/0 |
| Premier League, September 20: Crystal Palace (H)—Win: 1-0 | 9/1/0 | EFL Cup, September 21: Gillingham (H)—Win: 5-0 | 7/1/0 |
| League Cup, September 23: Arsenal (H)—Loss: 1-2 | 10/1/0 | Premier League, September 24: Middlesbrough (A)—Win: 1-2 | 9/1/0 |
| Premier League, September 26: Manchester City (H)—Win: 4-1 | 17/5/0 | Champions League, September 27: CSKA Moscow (A)—Win: 0-1 | 6/1/0 |
| Europa League, October 1: Monaco (A)—Draw: 1-1 | 18/0/0 | Premier League, October 2: Manchester City (H)—Win: 2-0 | 20/2/0 |
| Premier League, October 4: Swansea City (A)—Draw: 2-2 | 19/4/0 | Premier League, October 15: West Bromwich Albion (A)—Draw: 1-1 | 10/2/0 |
| Premier League, October 17: Liverpool (H)—Draw: 0-0 | 15/1/0 | Champions League, October 18: Leverkusen (A)—Draw: 0-0 | 20/1/0 |
| Europa League, October 22: Anderlecht (A)—Lose: 2-1 | 18/1/0 | Premier League, October 22: Bournemouth (A)—Draw: 0-0 | 15/4/0 |
They are only currently ninth in the FA's overall disciplinary table, down at 13th in the league-only standings.
Free-kicks and yellow cards are far from the only measure of a team's proclivity for combative engagement, of course.
The pressing Pochettino demands encourages collective funnelling of opponents into uncomfortable areas where they might lose possession unchallenged. This won't necessarily happen just through pass interceptions (Spurs have the fewest of the division's current best sides, per WhoScored.com), but also from overrunning it or kicking the ball out of play.
Indeed, Spurs' failure to get the desired results in their last three games with Leverkusen, Bournemouth and Liverpool had as much to do with other aspects of their play.
Their struggle in creating chances to put teams away has especially undermined them during this period. Leverkusen upped their own game considerably in the second half, while Liverpool's greater experience and class in attack (i.e. Daniel Sturridge) made the difference in the EFL Cup.
Still, the blunting of this Tottenham team's aggressive edge could prove problematic.
It is such a big part of the well-rounded games of players like Dele Alli, Lamela, Rose, Vincent Janssen and Victor Wanyama. It has undoubtedly turned the team into one of the Premier League's hardest sides to beat, and literally the toughest.
Heading into a big run of games against capital and Premier League title rivals, we are set for a fascinating look into Pochettino's thinking.
Can he sharpen his side's instincts up just enough that they won't be caught out? If not, what is now a relatively minor issue may turn into something more troubling.
Quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
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