Match date: 30 March 2014

Liverpool put in one of their best performances of the season when the two sides met earlier in the season at White Hart Lane, with Liverpool putting five past the Spurs, ultimately leading to the firing of Andre Villas Boas and the appointment of Tim Sherwood.

Brendan Rodgers reverted to more of a 4-3-3 having had his side play with a diamond midfield over the last few games. Joe Allen was dropped to the bench and both Coutinho and Raheem Sterling were restored to the side.

Sherwood picked an attacking side for Tottenham as well, which ended up leaving the back four exposed to Liverpool’s quick play. Nabil Bentaleb was the only defensive player in front of the back four with Sherwood picking Chadli, Sigurdsson, Eriksen, and Lennon in support of Soldado.

Liverpool’s Attacking Play, Front Three

As they have in many of their home matches throughout the season, Liverpool started the match at such a high tempo, immediately putting Tottenham on the back foot, which resulted in a Younes Kaboul own-goal just 1:38 into the match. Unfortunately for Tottenham, so much of their poor play was the result of Sherwood’s poor tactics and team selection. Immediately, you could see that Tottenham were trying to play a high line, but had little pressure on the ball in midfield, with the midfield just a few yards in front of the back four meaning there was high pressure from the back, but the first line of pressure was sitting too deep. This allowed Coutinho to easily pick out a diagonal ball to Raheem Sterling, which forced the Tottenham defenders to slide over and for Eriksen, who was deployed on the left, to drop to cover Glen Johnson’s forward run, with the Dane did poorly, allowing Johnson to provide the cross for Kaboul’s own goal.

For much of the match, Liverpool were able to play with just their front three putting pressure on Tottenham’s back line. Jordan Henderson made good supporting runs into the Tottenham penalty area, but Coutinho, arguably Liverpool’s most creative player, had the freedom to sit in a deeper role and feed the Liverpool front three as the Tottenham back line was too high for the lack of midfield pressure on the ball. Below, you can see just how deep Coutinho was picking up the ball and from how deep his forward passes were being made. The little space between the Spurs’ back line and midfield allowed him, and the rest of Liverpool’s forward passes, to essentially break two of Tottenham’s lines consistently.

Pressing earned Liverpool their second and third goal, but again, they had little numbers in support and Tottenham’s mistakes were more essential to the goals than Liverpool’s pressing. The second goal was the result of a Steven Gerrard long ball that Michael Dawson tried to square to Kaboul only for Suarez to intercept and get in behind to score. Gerrard’s ball wasn’t as accurate as it could have been, but it was easy to play somewhat aimless balls beyond the Tottenham midfield to put pressure on a shaky Spurs’ back four.

With Rodgers opting to play a 4-3-3, rather than the diamond that he has used in the last few matches, it meant that one of Sturridge and Suarez had to play on one of the wings, as they did so earlier in the season against Everton and Arsenal. For this particular match, Sterling was deployed on the right, with Sturridge through the middle, and Suarez came in from the left. He typically did not drop too often, usually staying higher up the pitch, meaning that Coutinho did more defensive work for him, but there were times where Suarez made a tackle or won the ball back in deep positions, assisting Flanagan.

Sherwood’s Selection

Tim Sherwood greeted by some Tottenham supporters as a breath of fresh air after Andre Villas-Boas was fired. Many saw the Portuguese manager as too tactical; he demanded exacts from his players rather than allowing them to express themselves on the pitch. There were times where a Tottenham substitute could have been standing next to Villas-Boas for about five minutes, receiving instructions, before eventually getting subbed on. With Sherwood, however, there seems to be a lack of any real tactics or coherent thought process.

As noted above, Sherwood, from the director’s box, deployed a high line, only for his midfield to apply little to no pressure on Liverpool’s ball carriers in midfield, allowing them to pick out easy passes to Liverpool’s front three. Before the match, Sherwood noted that he had not watched the 5-0 defeat that Tottenham suffered earlier this season against Liverpool, but had he done so, he would have (hopefully) thought it more naive that he opted to play with just one true holding midfielder in his 4-2-3-1.

Liverpool’s quick play means that they can play past lines quickly and with just Bentaleb sitting in front of the back four, Liverpool again were able to play quickly through midfield, especially when Tottenham tried to press. His other questionable decision was to play Chadli as a number 10 in support of Soldado rather than Christian Eriksen, who thrives in a central attacking role. Despite having a good match against Southampton last time out, scoring twice and assisting another, Eriksen was unable to have any real influence on the match on the left side of Tottenham’s attack. He completed just one pass to Soldado, which is not what a player with Eriksen’s creativity should be limited to because of a tactical move.

Instead, Eriksen was deployed on the left and looked uncomfortable coming inside rather than moving out from a central position when Tottenham were in possession of the ball and when he had to track Glen Johnson, which he notably failed to do for Liverpool’s first goal.

Tottenham Try to Press

The second half looked a bit better for Tottenham in terms of their intentions, but lacked execution. Perhaps noting that Liverpool found it easy to play out of the back and through midfield because of a complete lack of pressure on the ball in the first half, Sherwood told his players to press high up the pitch in the second half. As seen below, the pressing was immediately noticeable, with four Tottenham players looking to put Martin Skrtel and Steven Gerrard under pressure.

Unfortunately, the front players that Sherwood had out on the pitch aren’t the type of players that you’d expect to put in a great amount of defensive work, which made Tottenham’s pressing disconnected and ineffective and ultimately left the Spurs’ back line exposed. It was Tottenham’s pressing that left Tottenham exposed for Liverpool’s third goal. With five players pressing Liverpool’s backs, a quick turn by Jon Flanagan was able to take them all out of the match and forced Bentaleb to slide over to close Flanagan down which in turn open up space for Coutinho to receive the ball, dribble at the back line, and shoot under relatively no pressure. Overall, the pressing had no real positive effect on Tottenham’s play as Liverpool found it far too easy to play around the pressing players and Tottenham were unable to win the ball back in Liverpool’s half with any consistency.

Conclusion

With their eighth straight win Liverpool went top of the league, two points above Chelsea and four points above Manchester City, who still have two games in hand. Rodgers continues to show his ability to change his team selection in a positive manner, looking to exploit the opposition’s weaknesses effectively.

Tottenham supporters must be wondering why Tim Sherwood was appointed. A manager that openly says he doesn’t really bother with tactics and didn’t even properly prepare for this match by watching Tottenham’s defeat to Liverpool earlier in the season just shows that he is out of his depth as a manager. To think as well that one of the problems for Tottenham in that loss was the same mistake repeated by Sherwood, playing a high line with little pressure in midfield, makes it all the more unprofessional.