Tottenham 0-1 Newcastle: Pardew’s 4-4-2 presses intelligently, Tim Krul takes care of the rest

Tim Krul makes a save under pressure from Christian Eriksen during the Barclays Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle United at White Hart Lane.

After all the early season experiments, Alan Pardew seems finally to have settled his team into a stable defensive shape, as the Magpies beat a threatening looking Tottenham at White Hart Lane. Spurs were again coming from a midweek game against Sheriff, but AVB started both Eriksen and Sigurdsson who has started the game on Thursday. Pardew took to the same team and formation that beat Chelsea at St.James’ Park.

Sissokho and Gouffran press intelligently, Vertonghen allowed no space to run into

Newcastle’s defensive shape and spirit against Chelsea was particularly impressive due to the performance of Gouffran and Cissokho. Both the Frenchmen were successful in negating the threat posed by Chelsea’ fullbacks, and were fielded in similar roles against Spurs. Sissokho stuck to Vertonghen on the left continually, and the Belgian defender who was given ample space by Mirallas in Spurs’ last game against Everton, was now completely outmuscled by Sissokho.

Gouffran on the other hand was not told to stick onto Walker but rather cover the marauding runs of Townsend. Andros Townsend has been a constant threat this season, but the Englishman has always been seen cutting in onto his left foot from the flanks. So here Gouffran always chose to stay goal-side of Townsend rather than stopping him from dribbling down the flank. This worked well most of the times, except when the lively Eriksen popped up between the flanks and received the ball behind Gouffran. So on most occasions Gouffran was playing in a narrow and deep role to cover Townsend and this led to the Frenchman being seen supporting the central midfield duo of Cabaye and Tiote when Newcastle was on the ball.

Sissokho completely dominated Vertonghen in Spurs half. Hence no support for Sigurdsson upfront.

Gouffran assigned role to contain Townsend’s infield runs. So he is narrower and hence supplements midfield

Dembele outmuscled by Ameobi, Remy quick on the counter

Spurs have recorded the maximum possession stats this season with 59% possession. Again today AVB’s side were on paper dominating the Magpies with upto 70% ball retention at times in both halves. But the difference here was most of this was just the short passes between the CBs Dawson and Chiriches or those with one of the 3 midfielder who came deep to receive the ball.

Moussa Dembele was the deepest midfielder in the first half, and the Belgian often came very deep into the defence to receive a pass and then distribute. But Shola Ameobi’s physicality totally dominated Dembele today and the Belgian midfielder was not given any time on the ball at all. He lost the ball in this manner on many an occasion, as, if not Ameobi it was Sissokho who rushed forward to close down Dembele if free. So Newcastle’s shape off the ball was a 4-4-2 but both of the strikers were deep on the half-line covering the pass to Dembele.

Simple math in midfield showed that Newcastle could not outpass the Spurs’ trio and hence had to stick with swift counter-attacks. These counters became all the more dangerous when the combination of attackers was a towering Ameobi holding play, Gouffran and Cabaye at this skillful best and Loic Remy latching onto balls at lightning pace. Remy spent most of the first half next to Dawson, and every time Newcastle intercepted the ball, the French striker was found to make a darting run behind Dawson. Though he was caught offside most of the time, AVB’s tactic of playing a high defensive line was under major threat.

Another outcome of playing such a high line was seen in first 25 minutes of the game where Spurs’ only mode of attack was to get the ball to Townsend on the right. Despite having the numbers in midfield with Sigurdsson also adding to the middle, Spurs were rarely leveraging the advantage as Newcastle pressed extremely well and very intelligently.

Dembele receiving the ball very deep in his half. Is closed down well by Ameobi.

Sandro’s arrival pushes Spurs higher up the pitch. Pardew forced to move away from a 2 striker system

Roberto Soldado barely saw the ball in the initial period as he was easily dominated aerially by M’Biwa and Williamson. But when Spurs were being closed down in the midfield till the 20th minute, Eriksen started to fall deeper to escape Cabaye’s pressing. This created much more space for Soldado to fall in between the lines and receive passes with his back towards goal. Yanga M’biwa followed the Spaniard on such occasion and fouled him immediately almost every time he received a pass. Though Spurs were unable to breach the Magpies using this tactic, Eriksen and Soldado’s movement was constantly encouraging Paulinho to make a run into the space left by M’biwa while closing down Soldado.

Sandro’s arrival changes Tottenham’s shape, Newcastle sit deep instead

AVB surely had to change tactics at the break and he intelligently brought on Sandro for the faltering Dembele. Sandro was now the lone man in Defencive midfield, and Paulinho had the license to advance into forward positions. Sandro, unlike Dembele rarely ventured in next to Dawson in the defence to receive a pass and then distribute, but instead he pushed ahead to create space for Paulinho and Eriksen. So the tactic Pardew was using of closing down the first pass into midfield by Spurs’ defenders was not working higher up the field, and Newcastle instead had to start sitting very deep in their half to soak up pressure.

Another one of AVB’s tactical switches saw Andros Townsend shift into a much more central attacking role. This was compounded by the fact that Sigurdsson also followed a similar style from the left, and with Paulinho pushing forward more now, Spurs were in affect a 4-1-2-3 now. With Gouffran sticking to the now narrow Townsend, Kyle Walker had the entire right flank empty, as Santon barely went wide when Newcastle were not on the ball.

Pardew now removed Ameobi who was tiring and was quite dysfunctional against Sandro, and brought on Anita. The Dutchman came with clear instructions for Cabaye to move into the tip of the midfield and close down Sandro higher up the field. Now Newcastle’s shape was a 4-4-1-1 off the ball; as Cabaye despite having tackles and interception all across midfield, was rarely involved in tracking back with an advancing Spurs defender.

AVB’s next change saw Defoe come on for Sigurdsson, and Spurs shifted to a lopsided 4-4-2 with literally no one attacking from the left. Soldado would have been in this position normally, but their continual attacks saw the Spaniard also stay in the box mostly. So this allowed Newcastle to break out repeatedly on this flank, as Sissokho was able to dominate over Vertonghen for both pace and physicality.

Spurs dominated the entire second half and on any other day would have scored 3 simple goals. Paulinho’s and Eriksen’s efforts were too hasty to say the least, and if not for a performance of his lifetime by Tim Krul, Pardew’s team would surely have lost all 3 points. Spurs have now again dropped points after playing a midweek Europa League game, and AVB will again be criticized for not bring on 34 million worth of talent sitting on the bench. Eric Lamela has this far been used majorly in Europe alone, and the Argentine needs to quicken his initiation into the League to give Spurs a dimension apart from Soldado. At the end of the day Newcastle have beaten 2 top sides in back to back games, which can be almost solely credited to brilliant covering and pressing by their 2 spirited wingers; and of course Tim Krul.

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