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Our high line

diego_maradona

diego_maradona

Steffen Iversen
Staff member
Is it time we abandon it? There's nothing wrong with it in my view if you have a team who can execute it well. Is it massively accountable for our 3 humiliating defeats this year?

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/dec/15/tottenham-liverpool-tactical-analysis

Tottenham's André Villas-Boas is an architect of his own downfall
Tottenham's 5-0 hammering by Liverpool at White Hart Lane was a damning indictment of the Portuguese's tactical acumen
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Michael Cox
The Guardian, Sunday 15 December 2013 18.53 GMT
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The Tottenham manager, André Villas-Boas, instructs his team during their 5-0 defeat at home to Liverpool at White Hart Lane. Photograph: Paul Childs/Action Images
After the 6-0 thrashing away to Emirates Marketing Project, André Villas-Boas significantly adjusted his strategy for the subsequent match, a 2-2 draw with Manchester United. His side played much deeper, with the midfielders protecting the defence keenly – Tottenham invited pressure, but denied space in behind and between the lines. Consequently, the defence was penetrated much less frequently.


Tottenham played high up the pitch with Luis Suárez and Jordan Henderson continually racing in behind the line. Illustration: Graphic
The strategy for this match, however, was a bizarre return to Villas-Boas's favoured high defensive line, which played perfectly into the hands of Luis Suárez and Liverpool. Villas-Boas has significant injury problems in defence, and Étienne Capoue and Michael Dawson is clearly not an ideal partnership. From an early stage it was clear they had no relationship together – they stepped up to play offside at different times, Capoue was never in a covering position when Dawson was bypassed, and Suárez was pulling both out of position. The centre-backs desperately needed protection, as Liverpool continually raced past them at will.

Liverpool's build-up play was occasionally superb, but when a simple long clearance from Martin Skrtel brought Hugo Lloris out of his penalty box and created a chance for Suárez, the extent of Spurs' problems became clear.

Suárez is the ideal striker to work the channels and break in behind, while Jordan Henderson's boundless energy also contributed – he made untracked runs in behind the defence for the first three goals, and encouraged Liverpool to play directly, important considering the cautious nature of Lucas Leiva and Joe Allen. Raheem Sterling continually took on Kyle Naughton down the outside, while Philippe Coutinho tucked inside to play simple passes.

It was astonishingly easy for Liverpool. The similarity to Spurs' previous thrashing is striking, and the fact Villas-Boas actively decided to return to the strategy that failed at City is a damning indictment of his tactical acumen.
 
Yes it is. Dawson is not fast, he gets beaten and then we're screwed. We're hideous when we play Capoue there too. One player who is slow, one player with the turning circle of a fat I've skater, it's not good. Get a deep laying defence instead and then hit teams on the counter.
 
Yes. Ive never liked it being a permanant tactic anyway. I think these sorts of things are best left to the players when they are playing or said from the side/at halt time when you can have a look during a game. Blindly deciding to stick with a tactic which is killing us is not going to help.

Let the players suss out the best way to defend against each side as it progresses. If you are playing against a team with Grant Holt as the fulcrum then a high line is fine. If you are playing Liverpool with Suarez and Sterling and Dwason in your back line then clearly, a high line is asking for trouble.
 
Libero said:
Yes. Ive never liked it being a permanant tactic anyway. I think these sorts of things are best left to the players when they are playing or said from the side/at halt time when you can have a look during a game. Blindly deciding to stick with a tactic which is killing us is not going to help.

Let the players suss out the best way to defend against each side as it progresses. If you are playing against a team with Grant Holt as the fulcrum then a high line is fine. If you are playing Liverpool with Suarez and Sterling and Dwason in your back line then clearly, a high line is asking for trouble.
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Yea I like that. It's a common sense approach. Judge each team on their own merits swallow your ego and play to beat the opposition that's in front of us. Especially when they are good.
 
If we cannot get our pressing working then yes.

Doesn't really matter who we play with at centre back, could be Vertonghen and Vlad, they would still struggle with the high line if the rest of the team let them down with inept pressing.
 
Thanks for bringing up pressing, that's another area that we seem to be extremely weak in. Liverpool were hounding our players, whilst we were in possession. We didn't do the same, our players looked as sharp as the handle of a knife whereas the Liverpool players were the blade.
 
diego_maradona said:
Yea I like that. It's a common sense approach. Judge each team on their own merits swallow your ego and play to beat the opposition that's in front of us. Especially when they are good.
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Exactly.

It is basic common sense. It's no different from deciding to play 3 in the centre of midfield when you realise that the opposition are more powerful than you and are likely to overrun you if you play a flat 2. You don't then take that same tactic into a game when you are playing a team who won't cause you the same problem.

It comes down to trust. You should be able to trust the players to make decisions based on their ability and experience to manage the line as they see fit and are comfortable with to get the result during the game. If you can't or don't trust them then you play people that you can but you have to let them play the game as it develops rather than controlling all aspects of the way your team plays from the touchline with no freedom to adapt as the game evolves.

If you take away a player's ability to make his decisions then you are basically playing for them without taking the responsibility of actually playing.
 
braineclipse said:
If we cannot get our pressing working then yes.

Doesn't really matter who we play with at centre back, could be Vertonghen and Vlad, they would still struggle with the high line if the rest of the team let them down with inept pressing.
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Exactly, this is the point I made in the AVB system thread. The thing is, it doesn't even look like we are trying to play a pressing game, let alone failing at it. It's very strange.
 
elltrev said:
Exactly, this is the point I made in the AVB system thread. The thing is, it doesn't even look like we are trying to play a pressing game, let alone failing at it. It's very strange.
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We were trying and failing. That's pretty much exactly what trying to play a high pressing game and failing looks like. Loads of space around and behind the defenders that's easily exploited because levels of pressure are relatively easily bypassed and opposing midfielders get time to pick the right pass to attacking runners.

Clearly not helped by Sandro being injured (0 tackles and 0 interceptions in 30 minutes!) and Dembele either having an off day or feeling an injury himself. I'm leaning towards him feeling an injury, because if not then taking him off and leaving Paulinho on the pitch makes no sense at all.

To some extent it highlights the danger of that high pressing game, a couple of cogs in the machine not working will cause massive problems. You do really need all of the team working as a unit for that approach to work.
 
braineclipse said:
We were trying and failing. That's pretty much exactly what trying to play a high pressing game and failing looks like. Loads of space around and behind the defenders that's easily exploited because levels of pressure are relatively easily bypassed and opposing midfielders get time to pick the right pass to attacking runners.

Clearly not helped by Sandro being injured (0 tackles and 0 interceptions in 30 minutes!) and Dembele either having an off day or feeling an injury himself. I'm leaning towards him feeling an injury, because if not then taking him off and leaving Paulinho on the pitch makes no sense at all.

To some extent it highlights the danger of that high pressing game, a couple of cogs in the machine not working will cause massive problems. You do really need all of the team working as a unit for that approach to work.
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I disagree. There are plenty of times where we're not even trying to press - where midfielders are physically backing off or staying deep, despite the defensive line staying high.
 
elltrev said:
I disagree. There are plenty of times where we're not even trying to press - where midfielders are physically backing off or staying deep, despite the defensive line staying high.
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That might be. There will be times when that happens even when pressing high, but we certainly tried to press high with Soldado and the attacking trio putting pressure on their defenders/defensive midfielders. If we weren't even trying to press high we would have dropped deeper as a unit including the "front 4".
 
It doesn't work for us defensively, nor does it help going forward.

Defensively because Dawson is not blessed with Pace. We severly struggle against teams with pacey forwards who look to get in behind. Equally we seem to play a high defensive line but we don't press all over the pitch, the point of playing a high line is to press the opposition so that you win the ball back in their half and have a better chance of scoring. We don't do that.

Going forward it completely nullifies our strongest asset - Pace. When we play with such a high line and win the ball back on the half way line there is no space in behind the opposition for our pacey players to run into. We don't counter attack, we win the ball back, realise there is no space to play into, then pass the ball backwards and sidewards until we lose it.
 
The high line is only effective if you have the right type of defender to play it. AVB needs to learn to change the system and tactics to what players he has available. Playing the high line with Dawson doesn't work as he hasn't the pace, the same as using a high line defence when Brad is in goal, he isn't a sweeper keeper. It contributed to his Chelsea downfall, oh how we laughed when Terry would fall flat on his face when a defender raced through.
Play to your players strengths and put them in their best positions and you just might have a good chance.
 
Lily White said:
The high line is only effective if you have the right type of defender to play it. AVB needs to learn to change the system and tactics to what players he has available. Playing the high line with Dawson doesn't work as he hasn't the pace, the same as using a high line defence when Brad is in goal, he isn't a sweeper keeper. It contributed to his Chelsea downfall, oh how we laughed when Terry would fall flat on his face when a defender raced through.
Play to your players strengths and put them in their best positions and you just might have a good chance.
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Yea as I said in the other thread:

diego_maradona said:
I asked about whether players should fit into a system or a system should accommodate players. Looking at the squad it think the English core struggle with the concept of a 4-2-3-1 system based on a high line where we press high up.

Dawson. This guy will probably the first to tell you that he does not enjoy this high line and is constantly shown up having to play it as was someone like John Terry, who was a fantastic defender as ****ish as he is.

Lennon. Martin Jol tried to first play him as a left winger and mentioned then that Aaron needed to develop his game there. But we all know Lennon is at his best with chalk on his boots getting behind his full back to the byline and cutting the ball back. He is the one reminder of the old Tottenham swagger of the last few years. But he has to play on the right

Townsend. Yes he can play on the right, but for me and for many of you, he is a left winger all day like Lennon on the other side and this combo would be a throwback to the old 4-4-2 with Bale and Lennon on either wing. It stretches teams ad makes the pitch a hell of a lot bigger.

Team 1:
-------------------Lloris-------------------
Walker----Dawson----Kaboul-------Rose
Lennon----Eriksen----Sandro---Townsend
------------Adebayor---Defoe-------------

Team 2:

-------------------Lloris--------------------
Walker---Chiriches---Vertonghen---Rose
-----------Sandro-----Dembele----------
----Lamela------Eriksen-------Chadli/Siggy
------------------Adebayor-----------------

I think the players above in team 2 are much more suited to the ideas AVB wants to implement. And they have prior experience in playing in the system.

I think we are struggling when we are shoehorning players into a system they are not buying into or have difficulty in executing.
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braineclipse said:
That might be. There will be times when that happens even when pressing high, but we certainly tried to press high with Soldado and the attacking trio putting pressure on their defenders/defensive midfielders. If we weren't even trying to press high we would have dropped deeper as a unit including the "front 4".
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To me it just seems like we are purposefully using a hybrid approach, which contains some high-line and pressing elements but doesn't go all the way. But in some ways it's even worse if we're trying to implement a full pressing system, because after 1.5 seasons were woefully short of doing it remotely well.
 
The high line is directly responsible for the hidings that have been dished out this season.
West Ham - last 2 goals, Emirates Marketing Project - goals 2,4 & 6 and yesterday goals 2, 4 & 5.
Yesterday was madness - 0-2 down and a man down so we play with a high line? I cannot comprehend those tactics.
 
Its about being able to adapt, more than any specific orders.

The high line has actually worked for us, when we hold possession, it allows us to pressure opponents.

However, when a team like Pool simply bypasses our midfield (for all their putting us to the sword, they didn't play through our midfield that much) with cross field balls and two runners on the end of it, it shows you should adapt. But then again, at 3-0 and down to 10 men, we should have closed shop and done damage control as well.
 
I don't mind it defensively with the right players: Walker - Chiriches - Vertonghen - Rose

But you have to adapt when they're not available, AVB as too stubborn, you can't play Dawson there or Friedel(like he did away to Inter) and expect it to work. I do believe it has a negative impact on our forward play though.
 
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