Jittery, Nervous Tottenham Dispensed with by Pressing Machine Bayer Leverkusen

WEMBLEY STADIUM, LONDON — For the second time in as many weeks, Tottenham Hotspur failed to overcome Bayer Leverkusen’s press-heavy play, falling 1-0 to Roger Schmidt’s men at Wembley Stadium  on Wednesday. The result consigned the hosts to a second consecutive defeat at their temporary Champions League “home.”

A first-half stalemate finally gave way in the second period, with Kevin Kampl netting a composed, close-range finish. The goal itself was a product of some fortune—a ricochet helped a poor initial shot into Kampl’s path, who gratefully slotted home—but the portion of play leading up to it epitomised Spurs’ struggles throughout the game.

Good pressure from Leverkusen off the ball, borne out of a man-oriented pressing scheme which matched all six of the visitors’ forwards and midfielders up one-on-one with Spurs’ deeper players, forced error after error throughout the game. Inside the first minute, Jan Vertonghen shanked a pass on the edge of his own box directly to his right under duress, piling the press on his defensive colleagues from the off and allowing jitters to seep into their game.

Javier Hernandez, Admir Mehmedi, Kevin Kampl and Julian Brandt continually barrelled forward, preventing Spurs from playing out from the back and forcing them to clear in a panic. Hugo Lloris’ poor distribution was put under a magnifying glass as a result, with his attempt to continue to play out admirable, but ultimately ill-advised.

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Once the front four had committed, Julian Baumgartlinger and Charles Aranguiz expertly pushed forward to mark the Spurs midfielders who had dropped in to support. It created a trap from which the hosts could not escape, and they ended up continually punting it to the flanks in the direction of Moussa Sissoko.

Sissoko, ever the energetic, direct runner but hardly a technician by any measure, failed to bring the ball down appropriately and act as a relief mechanic against Leverkusen’s press. Mauricio Pochettino decided to bring Vincent Janssen on early in the first half to try to give his team a cleaner focal point (as a replacement for the injured Mousa Dembele), but he wasn’t used that often and still balls were sent the way of Sissoko.

As Spurs’ play got sloppier and sloppier in the second half, it felt inevitable that a Leverkusen goal would come. Second balls were being won by the visitors, the movement of Kampl too good to track, and Brandt continually found himself in space on the left and able to cut in—it was he who instigated the move for the goal.

"I am very happy we have come here for a difficult away game and won," Schmidt told journalists in the post-match press conference. "We wanted to play good football and we did that. From the start, we were courageous and bold; we pressed well going forwards."

"In the first half we created a number of chances we could have converted, but we didn’t. In the second half we remain solid, good going forward, and scored to make it 1-0. After that we were strong in defence—and that involved keeping Tottenham away from our own goal, which we succeeded in doing."

Spurs’ winless run now stretches to six, but this game perhaps deserves an asterisk over it. Whatever problems Pochettino has had over the last month or so—be it the iffy form of Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli, or the lack of goals throughout the side—they weren’t particularly fatal in this matchup.

Simply put, Spurs were out-pressed by a team better versed in the mechanics of their manager’s tactics. The hosts, with Eric Dier at centre-back, Ben Davies at left-back and Sissoko on the right, were unable to overcome the pressure and couldn’t offer the individual quality to bail themselves out; they represented a team banging their heads against a brick wall for 90 minutes, and the cement never budged.

*All quotes obtained firsthand.

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