After the fascinating tactical battle that was the first leg of this Champions League semi-final at Tottenham Hotspur’s new stadium, we know a lot more about what we might expect from the two sides going into the second leg.
Tottenham will be heading to the Johan Cruyff Arena knowing that they must score if they are to have any chance of progressing, though if they do get off the mark then the away goals rule could come into play in their favour.
This tactical preview will assess how both teams might approach the tie and highlight some of the tactical battles to look out for in Wednesday’s big game.
Tottenham’s different options in attack
In the first leg, Mauricio Pochettino opted to play with two up front, as he has done for a lot of this season. Though with Harry Kane, Heung-Min Son and Vincent Janssen unavailable he had no option but to partner Fernando Llorente up top with Lucas Moura.
For the second leg, however, Pochettino will have Heung-Min Son available once more, and the South Korean’s positional flexibility means that he could either be used to partner one of Llorente or Moura in attack, or cut in from the left wing in a 4-2-3-1 formation as he did in Saturday’s game against Bournemouth.
Pochettino’s possible formations
One tactical set-up we can probably rule out is the 5-3-2 formation used for the first 21 minutes against Ajax in which Spurs found themselves overrun in midfield. Pochettino changed this by bringing Danny Rose into midfield as he switched to a back four when he saw it was not working. He has since admitted to his mistake in an interview with BT Sport:
“Watching now of course I can accept it was a mistake the shape we used…
What sort of shape can we then expect from the Argentinian coach? This season his two favoured formations have been the 4-2-3-1 and the 4-3-1-2, also known as the 4-4-2 diamond. We should expect Spurs to start with one of these two formations, though with the flexibility of players like Son, Pochettino could easily change the shape mid-game as he is known to do.
The 4-2-3-1
This is the set-up Pochettino went with in Sunday’s defeat to Bournemouth. If they were to play this way again then they would mirror Ajax’s system. One of the potential benefits of playing this way is that the double pivot of Wanyama or Dier with Sissoko would allow them to better cope with the threat posed by both Dušan Tadić and Donny van de Beek operating in the spaces between the lines. In addition to this, the wide attacking players would be able to get back and offer protection to the full-backs in defensive phases.
However, when Spurs are in possession they tend to play very narrow with the wide players drifting inside. In the image below from the Bournemouth game, playmaker Christian Eriksen drifts over to the left to create an overload, much in the same way as Hakim Ziyech (who plays the same role for Ajax) did in the first leg when he set up Ajax’s goal.
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