EZE come, Eze go!
Thomas Frank’s Spurs may have missed out on Eberechi Eze — but there’s no time to rest as they go to Manchester City on Saturday lunchtime.
And while there will be questions asked in the boardroom over transfer activity, Frank will be scratching his head over how to stop City’s new superstar, Tijjani Reijnders.
The 26-year-old arrived from AC Milan before the Club World Cup in a £46million move as the successor to the creative void being left behind by the legendary Kevin De Bruyne.
And the Dutchman enjoyed one of the best debuts you are likely to see in the Premier League, scoring, assisting and becoming the heartbeat of City’s play throughout their opener against Wolves.
And SunSport’s tactics man DEAN SCOGGINS — in our hit show Tactics Exposed — is asked how Tottenham will put the shackles on him?
WILL FRANK PARK THE BUS?
Well, I’m not sure you can call it parking the bus, as they WILL attack.
But if the question is if they will play a back five, like against Paris Saint-Germain in the Super Cup, the answer is YES.
Frank favours the back five against high-class opposition.
It, obviously, gives an extra defender but more importantly, it allows a defender to ‘jump’ into midfield and press midfielders like Reijnders.
City, who we’ll come onto in more detail later, will look to flood the opposition half with numbers.
But one way Spurs will try to stop him is by making the spaces that Reijnders likes to operate in as tight as possible by crowding them out.
Expect Micky van de Ven to do this role at times, with Spurs packing central areas to stifle space for City.
Although they will need to be on top form, with Reijnders proving himself to be a two-footed player capable of creating danger out of thin air.
What Wolves got wrong in their defensive plan was attempting to dive in on Reijnders too soon, with the midfielder able to skip past his marker before lifting a cross in for Erling Haaland.
Even when he was boxed out, runners around him will be able to provide him with solutions to get around the press.
WHAT’S NEW WITH CITY?
Pep Guardiola has been tinkering all summer, and we got sneak previews in the Club World Cup.
In the 4-0 win at Wolves on Saturday, City were electric and tactically, it was very interesting.
There is a new flexibility as they form a 2-3-5 attacking shape.
From goal-kicks, their wingers can often start narrow, close to striker Haaland, with the full-backs providing the width to keep the game open.
But as they get higher on the pitch, the wingers go from in to out, with full-backs inverting to give the three-man midfield, either side of Nico Gonzalez.
This allows Reijnders and Bernardo Silva to bomb forward and join the front five.
And while a lot of the talk around the country is about third-man runs, City might be about to pioneer a new sixth-man run.
Spurs will sit deep in numbers against the City front five, but the inverted full-back will then bomb on to make a line-breaking run beyond the defensive line.
We saw the likes of Rico Lewis, Matheus Nunes and Rayan Ait-Nouri do this a lot in the Club World Cup.
And whatever side the ball is on, there will be an option for that sixth-man run.
It is risky, but if Spurs play with five, it will give City one less player to worry about on the counter, meaning they can be that bit braver by committing an extra body forward.
One other change of note is how wingers will be positioned on a goal kick.
Last season, they were seen hugging the touchline, but in the Club World Cup, we saw the eights drop deeper and the wingers tuck inside closer to Haaland.
The extra man is designed to lure a pressing rival into a trap and leave space behind them for City to then go directly into the likes of Haaland for a rapid attack, ironically, a very un-City-like move.
Read the full article here