It was quite a frustrating afternoon as we saw Tottenham Hotspur come through with a defeat at the Emirates Stadium, with Mikel Arteta’s men getting the better of the Lilywhites on a 4-1 scoreline.
It was not the defeat in itself but the manner of it, as Thomas Frank’s men went through an entire first half of a North London derby without registering a single shot. Going into the halftime, Tottenham had an xG of 0 (via BBC).
While when we went to the other side, we saw Arsenal midfielder Eberechi Eze walking away with the match ball, given his headline hat-trick in the all-important derby. This was the first three-goal game by a player in the North London derby since Alan Sunderland did it for the Gunners in 1978. It was an impressive opener by Leo Trossard, which came from a brilliant Ozil-esque pass from Merino, and Eze has followed the tone since.
Tottenham did get a long-range lob goal from Richarlison. But it felt like nothing more than a consolation.
Ideally it was just more than a bad day for Tottenham. And after the game you could hear a debate about how this side is playing with a safety-first approach. Now this, in a sense, is quite an extreme opposite to what we saw from Tottenham under Ange Postecoglou last season.
And now trying to put a wall to all the chaos, we are now seeing a side drifting towards a version of control. A version that we saw today which offered neither any sense of solidity nor threat. It is stripping away all the identity and that so without adding competence.
Let’s look at the raw data from the game for a minute. Arsenal aggregated 17 shots in the game, and Tottenham only had three. And that saw the visitors finishing that derby with just 0.07 expected goals. What is surprising is that this is the second time that we have seen Tottenham produce their lowest xG total in the Premier League history, after they posted that 0.1 performance against Chelsea three weeks ago. And it is bluntly frustrating.
Tottenham have moved to a more safety-first side under Tottenham, but have there been any gains?
If we look at that derby game from the first whistle, the mindset that Tottenham came into this game with was quite clear. We saw Thomas Frank’s back five dropping quite deep while the midfield sat in front to shield. All of this was met by a front line that offered absolutely no sense of press to the Gunners’ build-up.
So from the get-go you know that Tottenham are just trying to stay in the game. Tottenham were trying to limit space, and it looked like the visitors were trying to avoid making it about an end-to-end chaos (something that Spurs preferred to do last season).
Now speaking about it in theory and on paper, it sounds a lot like control to many. But then what we saw today looked more like surrender.
We saw Tottenham trying to win the game while it flowed past them. Even the Lilywhites’ #1, Guglielmo Vicario, admitted that Spurs “did not fight” in his reflection after the game.
It felt like the Gunners were allowed to dominate in every department. And then once that first goal came for the hosts in the 36th minute through Trossard, the whole structure that Frank had deployed started to open up.
What makes this control tactic more difficult to defend is that we just saw Tottenham and Frank fail on their own terms.
When you have a safety-first plan, there are some basic guarantees about being compact and winning your duels while not allowing space in the pockets for the opponents. But Tottenham neither came out on the better side of any duels nor did they show a sense of compactness. Giving a fight is a non-negotiable going into derby, but we didn’t see any this evening.
That xG of 0 vs Arsenal paints a picture of Thomas Frank and his Tottenham
Having that xG of 0 after the first is more than just a bare number. This shows a picture of a team that has removed almost every sense of offensive risk from their game.
Let’s be honest, the wing-backs were pinned in behind almost all game while the front players were almost isolated (even when those long balls came in), and then when it comes to the second phase, we saw the midfield focusing more on screening than progressing.
In that first 45 minutes we saw the Lilywhites barely producing anything that went beyond the half line.
And even if we see that full-time stat, that total of 0.07 xG tells its own story.
While on the other side, we saw an Arsenal side that were carrying their attacking sequences and were quite aggressive in everything.
And if you just look at Eze, the English international had eight involvements in attacking sequences, carried the ball 12 times, and repeatedly left defenders on the floor around the edge of the box. That hat-trick to his name showed the individual (and in a sense collective) dominance that the Gunners had today.
These are the kind of performances that stick with fans for a long time, both on the winning as well as the losing side of it.
To add salt to the wound, the player who dominated was the one that Arsenal signed under Spurs’ noses in the summer. And now he is writing himself into derby folklore at the expense of not only this side but also the whole structure that Tottenham have worked to deploy along the season.
Author Opinion
We saw how Tottenham tried to build an identity which was more bold under Postecoglou last season. Bold enough that it weighed towards chaos at times. While this season we are watching a side that has turned towards the other extreme under Thomas Frank.
While this safety-first blueprint has been sold to Tottenham fans as the route to stability, the performances, like the one we just saw, show that the Lilywhites are neither showing a sense of control nor threat.
What do you make of Thomas Frank’s tactics against Arsenal? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.