Earlier this week a video clip emerged from a recent Tottenham training session. In it, Tanguy Ndombele has the ball in a practice game. He feints to the left, then the right. Then he flicks the ball out of reach with a deft toe, leaving his hapless opponent – a certain Harry Kane – lunging awkwardly at thin air.
Look. Maybe it was pure coincidence that just a couple of days after having his ankles humiliatingly twisted by one of his own teammates, Kane limped off at half-time against Liverpool with an ankle injury. Who can say? In any case, the reason for bringing this up here is to underline the silken, indiscriminate talent of Ndombele, a player who – even in defeat – seems to hold the key to Tottenham’s future.
“Some of them had a very positive performance, punished by individual mistakes,” said José Mourinho of his players afterwards. Of course, Toby Alderweireld hadn’t left himself on the bench. Matt Doherty hadn’t autonomously decided to station himself at left-back. But the thrust of his analysis was correct: this was a performance of light and shade, particularly from Tottenham’s midfield two, the restless Pierre-Emile Højbjerg and the ruthless Ndombele.
Ultimately, the difference between the two sides here was not in terms of possession but penetration. Tottenham actually attempted more passes than Liverpool (586 to 584), but significantly fewer into the final third (85 to 149) or the penalty area (5 to 18). There may be a lesson for Tottenham here, if only they are shrewd enough to learn it.
Højbjerg may be the lungs of this team, Kane and Son Heung-min the ticking heart. But Ndombele, their bewitching £60m midfielder, has been the soul, and was in supreme form here, despite being hounded by what seemed at times like half a dozen red shirts. It was he who began the move for Son’s early disallowed goal, and sending Thiago Alcântara for a Fanta and chips with an outrageous body feint.
The phrase often used to describe Ndombele is “press-resistant”: he picks up the ball in the most crowded area of the pitch and somehow manages to use it. In doing this, he has the full bag of tricks: deft technical skills, the strength to hold off challenges and the vision to get rid at the right moment. As we saw against Sheffield United and Wolves, he also has an unerring eye for goal. A more ambitious club, with a clear commitment to attacking possession football, would surely look to build a team around his unique technical gifts.
But this is Tottenham and, more pertinently, this is Mourinho’s Tottenham, a team whose reactive tendencies already seem hard-wired, even in situations where you would expect them to take the initiative. In recent weeks Fulham, Wolves, Crystal Palace and Stoke have all been allowed back into games that Spurs were comfortably leading. Whether this is by accident or by design is largely irrelevant: when a team is drilled to be fearful of an opponent’s threat, this is the approach to which they will default in times of stress. Often it manifests itself in the subtlest of tics: the defensive line that drops just a couple of yards, the ambitious through ball eschewed in favour of a safe sideways pass, the little cues that alert an opponent that the momentum is shifting.
Now consider this from Ndombele’s perspective. Ideally you want him receiving the ball on the half-turn, attracting the opposition press but with enough space to manoeuvre and plenty of movement ahead of him. But Mourinho is famously resistant to “first-station” passes – short balls from defence into midfield – against good pressing teams. And so much of the possession Ndombele got here was poor possession: loose balls, 50-50 balls, facing his own goal in deep, useless positions. The point being that when he won the ball, Spurs were rarely in the sort of shape that would allow him to do anything with it.
Maybe this is why Mourinho’s tactical shift at half-time, switching from a 3-4-3 to a 4-2-3-1 to get Ndombele further up the pitch, worked so poorly. Harry Winks arrived to bolster midfield but with none of the structural issues addressed, this was simply a limp pretence at attacking football, the art of moving players around while still getting them to do largely the same things.
Partly this is a question of personnel. Mourinho isn’t wrong: Tottenham have serious problems that go beyond tactics. They need at least two defenders, another midfielder and a wide forward (and as heartwarming as it was, perhaps it’s fair to say Gareth Bale’s return isn’t really working out).
Even so, this is a squad of such rich attacking talents, a squad capable of playing articulate, thrilling, imaginative football. You just wish they showed it a little more often.
