- 1 week ago
Spurs are coming off of a summer transfer window that has seen them spend over £400m, but with two very underwhelming losses in their opening Premier League games, we arrive at a very familiar question. What is going on with Tottenham?Adam Clery explores how Sandro Tonali's struggles in the side epitomise the issues the squad is currently experiencing, as well as the underlying reason that mean Spurs need to be better this season, than they were last.
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00:00Right, hello everybody, welcome to the Adam McCleary Football Channel, and I knew it, I'd had this feeling I was
00:06going to have to do a video about Tottenham early in the season, but I genuinely thought that would be
00:13in a good way.
00:14But after two pretty bad opening defeats, like £400m spent, and now Tosin and Mudrick arriving to complete this holy
00:23trinity with Savio of transfers where I cannot possibly understand how anybody's arrived at those valuations, we must look at
00:32what is going on at Tottenham.
00:35Brackets in a bad way.
00:40Okay, so, to be clear, it's two games. That's it. They could easily beat Forrest at the weekend and all
00:47of a sudden things aren't so bad, but the reason we're looking at this now is the manner of those
00:51two defeats coupled with what they're currently doing in the transfer market.
00:56So first up, Sandro Tonali, right, because I think he quite neatly encapsulates what has been going wrong in these
01:03opening weeks.
01:04£100m, arguably the marquee signing of the window, a central midfielder that Roberto Di Zerbi will want to build the
01:13entire team's approach, both on and off the ball around, and yet, you've already got Tottenham fans asking what it
01:21is he actually does.
01:22And he's had a bit of a kicking since the Newcastle game for just how easily players were running off
01:29the back of him.
01:30Like, you can see it in the first goal. Robertson does not want to stay with Alanga because of how
01:34high Dedic is up the pitch, so Tonali has to pick him up instead.
01:38And every time Newcastle went direct, they were winning those match-ups. They were winning those races.
01:44And way before that happens, before Di Zerbi has Tonali sitting that deep, he was pushing forward, marking Nico Gonzalez,
01:53which should, in theory, stop Newcastle playing this ball into him.
01:58And this is the most, like, basic sort of high press that you see teams do.
02:01You're trying to shut off this central progression here, forcing the goalkeeper to spray it wide when you can jump
02:08on the receiver or long so you can win the header.
02:10But it's just the most basic little movement from Gonzalez here, completely throws Tonali, and then he goes out to
02:17the ball, he can play it wide, and now they're progressing it forwards.
02:21And the reason I'm pointing this out is because this is a player you have signed specifically because he is
02:26a machine out of possession.
02:29And while he's not very creative with the ball, he does still progress it up the field really, really well
02:35just with short, simple passing or ball-carrying directly, running it through opposition lines.
02:42And yet in this game, he wins two duels in the entire match, the same as Archie Gray, who was
02:48out on the right wing, and he gave the ball away eight times.
02:53He also didn't successfully carry the ball once or make one single tackle.
02:58And the Brentford game was exactly the same as that.
03:01Like here, Tottenham are really, really deep, and he reacts a little bit too slowly to Atara's movement, can't put
03:08any pressure on him, and then instead of reading the danger in the box, he just sort of watches the
03:13ball.
03:13So when that back line has to drop to chase Sangare, nobody is just in front of them to even
03:19try and challenge Lewis Potter when the chance comes.
03:22And I know this is maybe sounding a bit harsh, right, but just bear with me for another second.
03:27I think he could personally get here a little bit quicker, or he could just stay where he is originally
03:34and maybe stop this shot.
03:36But he does neither, he just sort of jogs around.
03:39And look, I know what you're thinking, oh, here we go, a Newcastle United fan doing a character assassination on
03:46a former player, boo, etc.
03:48But I pinky swears, I promise you, that is not what this is.
03:51There is culpability throughout the rest of this team, in lots of other different players, even in the dugout.
03:58But the reason I'm highlighting Tonali is because he is maybe the neatest explanation of what these problems are.
04:05A clearly excellent player for whom nothing seems to be working because both the system they're playing in is making
04:12things hard for them,
04:13and their own personal contributions are not making up for that.
04:17And all of that, right, has led to this.
04:20And before I show you it, again, it is only two games.
04:24But a few weeks ago, you would have argued that Spurs had maybe one of the kind of starts.
04:29So it's absolutely not conclusive.
04:32It's not going to look like this at the end of the season, but it is currently quite interesting.
04:36They have had only one less shot than Arsenal, and two more on target, but are yet to score a
04:43single goal.
04:43And if that sounds like, I guess they've just been a little bit unlucky, clearly they're creating chances,
04:49they've just been a bit wasteful with the finishing, or something like that, then no, Ellen, that's not the truth.
04:55Because the overall XG value of their shots has been the second lowest in the league.
05:01In fact, only Villa have had worse, and they're yet to register a single shot on goal, never mind a
05:07goal.
05:07And so it's more of a case that the bulk of the chances they're having are efforts like this one,
05:12where they've got good territory, they've got good possession, but they just aren't really sure what to do to try
05:17and open up the defence.
05:18Like, this gets a corner, sure, but most modern coaches would be really annoyed at him taking that shot,
05:24because they've got so many numbers forward, there must surely be a better option.
05:29So yes, the numbers say that when they're attacking, they are creating chances, which is great,
05:33they're just not really creating very good ones, and it is a similar sort of story defensively.
05:38Because in terms of their off-the-ball work, no team in the league has pressed more than Tottenham this
05:43season.
05:44They lead the division for pressing sequences, which, like you saw in this Newcastle example,
05:50forces them high up the pitch, it tries to make things difficult.
05:53It's exactly what you would expect from a Roberto de Zerbi team.
05:57And then, in terms of actually winning the ball, they do drop, but not very much.
06:01They're still fifth in the league for winning it back, high up the pitch, which, again,
06:06that is exactly what you would expect from a Roberto de Zerbi team.
06:10But then, when we look at winning the ball there, and turning it into something...
06:17Ugh!
06:17Only one shot from high turnovers, which is the second worst in the Premier League,
06:23and gives them a conversion rate of turnover to chance of only, like, 5%.
06:29And the top teams in the league, what you would expect a Roberto de Zerbi team to be,
06:33are more like 30% or 35%.
06:36So, the fundamentals are there, they're doing what we expect them to do,
06:40they're just not doing it very well currently.
06:43Like, just, I'll show you this one, this is actually really decent pressure,
06:46and they force the error from Newcastle, and instead of recycling the ball,
06:50their first pass is forward, which is exactly what you'd want them to do.
06:54But when it comes to the decisive pass, where are the numbers supporting?
06:58Where is the quality of the ball?
07:00What is even the idea from this situation?
07:03Like, the more I've watched that back, the more I can't understand what it is he's even supposed to do
07:08in that situation.
07:09There's no cohesion with the rest of the team.
07:11Nobody seems to be making the right runs to try and support him.
07:15It looks like a team, again, currently only two games,
07:18that is trying to do something that they've not been very well coached in.
07:21So you put that all together, we've got a team who create lots of chances,
07:25but very few good ones, and a team who press about as well as anyone in the league,
07:29but then can't do anything with the ball.
07:31And they've also conceded the third highest number of chances in the Premier League this season,
07:36which I would say is especially concerning when you look at the teams that are around them there,
07:41because Ipswich, Newcastle, Crystal Palace and Leeds are currently four of the sides
07:46with the lowest possession in the division this season,
07:50like between 13% and 20% on average lower than what Tottenham are doing.
07:54So you would expect them to be giving up a very high number of shots in the process.
07:59And I know I can hear exactly what you're thinking.
08:02Is there any danger of you getting to a point here, Adam?
08:06And yes, just about.
08:08I think what we're looking at is a team that has a lot going on,
08:12none of which is particularly working at the moment.
08:14And I think the reason for that is in large part down to their recruitment approach this summer.
08:21Like this so far is a staggering outlay on new players.
08:25And at the point of me recording this,
08:27Tosin and Mudrick are apparently on their way in just yet to be unveiled.
08:32And not only does that take their spending to just north of 400 million quid,
08:37wow, but it also gives them this squad here,
08:40which I'm just going to leave on screen for a second,
08:43because there's a lot of names there.
08:44And this is literally just first teamers,
08:47experienced pros who will be expecting minutes on the pitch.
08:51There's barely any young players in here that you would like to give minutes to
08:55if there's a few injuries or a pile up of fixtures.
08:59This is literally just the full first team.
09:02Now, obviously, they have offloaded a number of players in the process.
09:05This is it at the time of me recording.
09:07There may be one or two more by the time you watch it.
09:10When you look at this list,
09:11it's only really Christian Romero and Yves Basuma,
09:15who I think represent like smart selling.
09:18Like they are big earners past the point of their physical peak,
09:22or at least on their way to being there.
09:24And after that, everybody has either barely played or never played.
09:29Except, obviously, for Jed Spence,
09:31who seems remarkably undervalued there at like 20 million or whatever that is.
09:36That is a starting fullback for a major nation in a World Cup semi-final two months ago.
09:43And that's all they got for him.
09:45But the point I'm trying to make is that in terms of the wage bill,
09:48they've not really done very much.
09:50This is last season versus this season.
09:52And yes, I should say, these are all estimates.
09:55There isn't a publicly available 100% accurate reference for Premier League wage bills.
10:00But these are pretty close.
10:02Romero was either their top or their joint top earner.
10:04Okay, so that's good.
10:06And the two lads on loan, they were on good money.
10:08But if it is even remotely true that Spurs are covering all of Marmush's wages,
10:13estimated as being anywhere between £250,000 and £300,000 per week,
10:20including or before bonuses,
10:21then all the savings they've made pretty much with those three outgoings have been swallowed up by one player.
10:28And now you've also got Tonali, who'll be on north of £200,000.
10:31Senesi and Robertson, who'll be on serious money because free transfers always get a massively inflated wage.
10:39Clubs like to look at the transfer in terms of the whole outlay, including fee, agent, whatever.
10:43So if you arrive on a free, you get a big fat wage to make up for the fact there's
10:47no transfer fee.
10:48Usually, they'll be on decent wedge.
10:50Savio and Tosin, they'll be on six figures.
10:52Mudrick will be close, if not the same.
10:54New contracts for Van de Ven and Porro, put them in this category as well.
10:58Like, genuinely, when the dust settles on this transfer window,
11:02I can almost guarantee you Tottenham will have a higher wage bill than Chelsea and Man United.
11:10And if it's not quite higher, it's pretty much exactly the same.
11:14It'll be nearly double that of Newcastle and Aston Villa, the fourth highest in the league, just behind Arsenal.
11:21And the reason that's a problem, right, is because if you go and ask anybody who works at any single
11:27sporting institution around the world, football or otherwise,
11:31what is the one consistent major indicator of a team's future prospect, they will, without blinking, tell you it's the
11:40payroll.
11:41The last three Premier League champions are the three teams with the highest wage bills.
11:47And the beauty of sport, obviously, is it guarantees you absolutely nothing.
11:51Like, West Ham had the 10th highest wage bill last year, and they were rubbish, so they ended up getting
11:56relegated.
11:57But what it does guarantee for you is what the expectations are.
12:01If Spurs are spending this much money, they cannot have any excuses for not finishing somewhere around the top of
12:10this division,
12:11around the teams that they are spending in line with.
12:14And therefore, if this is how they're setting up on the pitch, which is just all wrong,
12:19and if this is how they're applying themselves individually, which is not good enough,
12:23that needs to be addressed right now.
12:25Not a slow start and they'll click and they'll get there eventually.
12:28That needs to be fixed yesterday.
12:31So the point I'm trying to make, right, is that the problem for Spurs is not the tactics or the
12:36individuals,
12:37because it's only two games.
12:39There's so much of the season left to go.
12:41There is so much time for all those things to come together and start working.
12:45The problem for Spurs is the expectation.
12:48You cannot be spending that much money and end up getting sucked,
12:53even just for a part of the season, into the relegation conversation.
12:57They need to be immediately back near the top of this league.
13:02And if they're not, the pressure that's going to put on the manager,
13:05the pressure that's going to put on the players,
13:07is going to derail an entire other season for them.
13:11They need to fix this so quickly.
13:13So yeah, it's not all doom and gloom.
13:15I absolutely believe this team is very good and will improve and get better.
13:20But time is not a luxury they've got.
13:23I don't think that's the point I'm trying to make.
13:25But if you're a Spurs fan, you've seen it much worse than I have.
13:31So let me know what you make of it all in the comments down below.
13:33Are you not worried about this start?
13:34Are you worried about this start?
13:36Are you happy with the manager?
13:37Do you think they should have bought 10 more players, for example?
13:41All thoughts, feelings and that.
13:42Welcome down below.
13:43A reminder, we're now within the two-week window for me doing the Great North Run
13:48and other subsequent half marathons.
13:51We're trying to raise about £10,000 across the course of the year
13:53for Mind and other charities.
13:55The target for this one is five, which is amazing.
13:57The donations we've had already.
13:59If you've ever tried to use mental health services in this or any other country,
14:03you will know they are not good.
14:05So charities like Mind do such an important job making up the shortfall,
14:10filling up the gap, supporting people when they need to be supported.
14:12I'm just over the moon to be doing anything with them.
14:15So any donation you would like to make to that cause, however much it is,
14:19it goes a really, really long way.
14:20They can do so much with so very little.
14:22The link is in the description down below for that.
14:25You can get me across all the social medias at Adam Cleary, C-L-E-R-Y.
14:28And don't worry, Tottenham fans.
14:30The sun will shine on you again.
14:35I just don't know when.
14:36That's the point.
14:37Goodbye.
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