On the scale of comatose to kamikaze, how bad is Tottenham's defence?

Following our 3-0 defeat at Old Trafford on Sunday, my post-match player ratings scored our back five, on the day, a minuscule 19 out of a possible 50. Fan reaction to our defending in Manchester was definitely embedded with emotion – with one reply, on Twitter, even suggested that I had been overly generous in awarding Kyle Walker a rating of two out of ten.

Returning to the matter days later does little to avoid bleaker reading, as all the facts and feelings point to a Tottenham defence in disarray – a dilemma that we’ve been forced to digest far too often this season.

We’ve got our Tottenham back...and it’s bad

It seems longer than 18-months ago when a Tottenham side, under the stewardship of Andre Villas-Boas, were grinding out one-goal wins (14 in total) that led to us accumulating our highest ever points total (72) in the Premier League. Despite the short-lived success, there were still criticism surrounding the perceived negative football and our lack of attacking intent – something that was blasphemous to ‘the Tottenham way’.

To save you the history lesson, it is a well-documented fact that Spurs are a side renowned for their attacking, appealing and crowd-pleasing football. But despite Pochettino’s side being fifth in the Premier League table in terms of goals scored this season, they currently sit sixth from bottom when it comes to goals conceded.

To put that into perspective, only Newcastle and Sunderland - as well as the league’s bottom three - have conceded more goals than Spurs so far this season. And if that doesn’t sound bad enough, you’d probably also like to turn a blind eye to the fact that sides such as Aston Villa, West Brom and Hull City all have a better defensive record than ourselves at this stage of the season.

The situation is ever so Spursy

It’s undisputed that keeper Hugo Lloris is both the best player and the only world-class player in our squad. It speaks volumes of the defenders in front of the Frenchman then - that a player of his talent, this season in the Premier League, has conceded exactly twice as many goals as Southampton’s Fraser Forster.

In terms of these defenders, our current first-choice pairing is Jan Vertonghen and Eric Dier at centre-half. Jan is without doubt our best centre-back on his day, but even he has been found wanting in his defensive ability – to the extent where Tim Sherwood was probably justified when he exclaimed of the Belgian: “the guy cannot defend.” Next to him is young Dier – who clearly has potential and promise, but the general consensus is that, he too, will stagnate in a Spurs shirt if he does not have a leader to learn and feed off.

Back-up to this partnership leaves us with Federico Fazio, Vlad Chiriches and Younes Kaboul. For the later there is a unanimous acceptance that come summer, he will no longer be at the club – leaving us with only the Argentine and Romanian at present. Regardless of their lack of a run in the side, both players suffer from opposite problems. Where Fazio is solid in his defending, but calamitous with the ball at his feet; Chiriches is comfortable with the ball at his feet, but calamitous in his defending. In terms of providing a solution to our defensive problems – neither seem to offer an answer.

Moving onto our full-backs, it seems that the plot thickens when it comes to the Spurs story of defensive disaster. If the rumour is true of Manchester United wanting to purchase Kyle Walker for £20m come this summer – I’m sure many Spurs fans would drive him up the M1 themselves following his performance at Old Trafford.

In comparison, and on the left-hand side of defence, the signing of Ben Davies has puzzled the footballing world - on the basis of the form shown by Danny Rose. Rose, who was my MOTM against United, has been labelled “England’s best left back” by his boss Pochettino. The improvement in Rose’s game has been truly phenomenal, but the simple fact that our worst defender last season is now our best, this season, is surely enough to ask questions of the rest of our defence.

Defending an art – where’s the artist?

If you were to watch back the 42 goals that Spurs have conceded this season in the league, a high proportion of these have either come from poor positioning, sloppy marking, or a lack of organisation – to the extent where Wayne Rooney was able to waltz through our backline to score his goal on Sunday.

In spite of the progress we are making at the other end of the pitch, the coaching staff (even Pochettino) will have to take some responsibility for the errors in our defending. Pochettino was a defender himself, so you could argue that he is practiced in the art of old-school defending. But still, Spurs are so inconsistent and unreliable in their defensive play, that opposition sides will always fancy themselves of getting a goal against us.

In the Carling Cup final, Chelsea only had 37% of the possession, but still had 15 shots with four on target. While against United, van Gaal’s men only had three shots on target all game – all of which ended up in the back of the net. And despite our steely-style of being able to mount comebacks in games, sometimes we are left with no choice but to do so – as we have served up a goal on a plate to our opponents to begin with.

Build from the back, but how?

A solution for this problem is hard to conjure up, as looking at our squad at present – there is no presence of an old-school defender who will get us organised when we are on the back-foot.

We have been linked with FC Koln defender Kevin Wimmer, but at 22, and having only played one full season in Germany’s top league – he too, like Dier, will need time to adapt. As a result, selling and replacing defenders may not be the best route – as defences often improve the longer the players have featured next to one another.

An option, I feel, would be for Pochettino to install a defensive-minded coach as soon as possible – in a similar move that took Steve Bould to Arsenal. Bould’s impact was noticed immediately at our rivals – who added organisation and further clean-sheets to the side.

When asked of his role in Arsenal’s good run of defensive form back in April 2013, Bould said: "Everybody has realised that clean sheets win games a lot of the time." Although short and simple from Bould – maybe we, at Spurs, should do more defensively to keep clean sheets and, ultimately, win more games.

 

Interesting article. I must ask the question who are the worlds greatest defenders at the moment? There aren't many!!!! Spurs aren't alone in this. Both Walker & Rose need to be reigned back & simply asked to do the basics well.
Sunday we were undone by a diagonal ball for Fellani and Ashley young hugging the touch line. The fact that Mason didn't pick up Fellani meant Walker was stretched out of position. Where on earth Townsend was who knows!!

 

If you think Rose has been our best defender this year I'd like to know what matches you've been watching. He may well be our best defender at attacking but he is in the side to defend, something that he doesn't seem to comprehend. He gets caught out of position time and time again leading to goals or chances for the opposition. Ben Davies is far better defensively and I am bamboozled why we bought him and then don't play him anywhere near enough. Same goes for Yedlin. May have been bought as back up for Walker but his form has surely warranted giving the young lad a go. As for centre backs, Vertonghen is without doubt our best, Dier is one for the future and the other 3 should be sold if we can find a buyer. COYS

 

I'm with you Adelaide Yido.....Rose may have been our best defender on Sunday......as all the others were total fecking shite. Also Rose is such a casual defender in my eyes. Doesn't do tight marking, ambles back when he gets caught out of position and is ill disciplined imo.
Personally for me Vertonghen is just about the best of a very bad bunch....the stat about us being down in the bottom 6 on goals conceded says it all....and that with the best keeper in the Premier League ffs.
Whatever happened to keeping a clean sheet!

 

There aren't many good defences round apart from Southampton.
Rose has been our best and he isn't that good. Walker is very overrated, Vertonghen will leave and makes too many stupid and lazy mistakes, Kabul is and always has been awful, Fabio is terrible, dier will get better.
Lloris is world class but will want champions league next season and will leave in the summer.

 

Vertonghen only plays well at centre back when faced with weaker opposition. He was far better at left back when Rose was injured. Dier will one day be England's best if he is paired with someone he can learn from at club level. Walker is caught out of position far more than Rose. Davies is a better defender than Rose so play him and play Rose in front of him. Whichever combination is played at the back, they never receive any reliable protection from the two defensive midfielders in front of them which is why they always look so nervous. There is no one in the team to tell Rose and Walker to drop back into their positions once they've released the ball further up the pitch which is why they are always chasing the opposition rather than facing them. Our defensive issues are far deeper than who plays in the back four. We lack leadership and organisation, something that can't be done from the touch line given the fluid nature of the game.

 

So what does Roy Hodgson know or see that we don't? I see he's picked 'dros and Walker for the 2 games this month. I certainly don't think Townsend merits the call up.​

 

Hooray!!! This is the point I had been making for a while now. Our defence is a shambles. In the summer, we should say goodbye to Younes Kaboul, Vlad Chiriches, Paulinho and Kyle Walker. They should be replaced with defence minded upgrades. I am still not sure that Jan Vertonghen is our best CB and Federico Fazio is error prone, which may force me to state we should include our CB's for the exit door (it also keeps in play Poch's plan to maintain a youthful side). That said, our defence has no real structure and does not hold its line when moving forwards or backwards. Given that fact, I also share the view that a defence coach is URGENTLY required, to work on positioning and decision making. Additionally, the acquisition of a commanding defensive player to orchestrate play who pay massive dividends.
So much talk around the winter transfer window was aimed squarely at purchasing a striker. Events have once again shown that building must commence from the back. If the back line infront of Lloris is rock solid, our forwards should begin to see more of the ball moving forward, instead of running the opposite way to help the defence. No doubt Poch will be mindful of this during the summer. One can only hope and pray that Daniel Levy will support and not hinder the plan. COYS!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Rose is a good player who doesn't defend well but attacks better, wonder if he shouldn't be played as a winger like Bale.....another thing is if we want to fix our defensive problems we must hire a defensive specialist as the article stated,we have to sell Chiriches,Kaboul and Walker and buy Abdennour,Schar,Carvajal/Pizscek and even that Kurzawa lad looks like a good option, the need to buy a good CDM is also something we need to address because we need someone who's going to protect the defense,someone like Khedira

 

Ive been saying this all season our defence is an utter shambles, it lacks all the basics.
No organisation, no shape, no leadership, no responsibility, no communication.
All this leads to error prone gaffs, ball watching, not marking, panicking and leaking goals.

As i have to keep reminding people we keep buying 'potential' not top flight ready to deliver mens football.
Kyle Walkers dozey football brain rescued by his pace is at the most the only chance you would take with a defence if the 3 next to him were sound but they are not.
Danny Rose is not a LB whether or not he could be is another thing but why do we have to endure it in our 1st team while he fouls and jogs back?
Eric Dier decent prospect again doing his apprenticeship in the heart of our 1st teams defence why?
Jan Vertonghen a class act on the ball, woeful positional sense and lacks that CB 'get stuck in' and leadership quality needed.
Fazio the only defender we could find slower than Daws bought in knowing we are looking to play a high line.
Ben Davis was supposed to be the 'answer' to our LB position another boy scared of his own shadow who cant get a poor unnatural LB out of the LB position.
Yedlin another boy who we havent even seen yet but at some point will be caught in the headlights of the EPL looking at another inexperienced player for help.
Kaboul only numpties werent calling for him to be sold in the summer to this day he is still the only CB in world football ive seen duck a header in his own box, this guy was given the captaincy.
Chiriches the CB that thinks hes Maradona, lacks every trait of an actual defender especially a CB hes like a very poor Jan.

If it were not for Hugo Lloris wed be in the mire big time, fans etc have dressed this up all season that Poch is having a great 1st season but its his Keeper and the unexpected rise of Kane that have saved him on a number of failings.
Firstly he has not introduced a team high press that was the reason for getting him in the 1st place, the system he employs needs everyone focussed and working their socks off to harry and close down players high up the pitch (when was the last time you saw Chadli etc do this). 2ndly since his arrival we have bought poorly ignoring all the obvious weaknesses within the squad.
Its clear we lack 2 Solid imposing CBs that have pace to play the high line.
Its clear our full backs are pacey but thats about it, all have poor everything else.
Bentaleb & Mason are young and will learn but are still only in the side because all their senior counter parts have let Spurs down badly, we have no Midfield General bossing the midfield in the heart of the team, this can also be said for CB position.

We lack leaders on the pitch massively you need these big players to stand up when the chips are down, to organise, to encourage, to dish out a rollicking if needed, to read the game, to sense and snuff out danger.
I have been saying for ages there are too many passengers in this team, weve concentrated far too long on potential and resale value that all our transfer business has become detrimental to the cause, potential needs to be brought through alongside quality in lesser games to build them up and learn, were throwing a load of boys together in the deep end and saying what a massive success it all is when it is clearly not and as the teams around us are all buying quality we will slowly be left behind continuing in this fashion.

Any decent outfit needs a minimum 4 worldies, 12 solid experienced players, and then potential being coached into the side as you slowly replenish/phase players out.
We currently send 7/8 boys out and wonder why theres no organisation or cool heads its an utter farce putting 3 defenders such as walker dier and rose together to play away at utd we can all see the weaknesses before a ball is kicked. We need a massive upgrade in players in the summer.

 

And until this 'i know best' attitude from the clearly inept Daniel Levy is scrapped where football end product is the priority, and the eternal faithful who actively support failure in the name of being a 'true fan' is sorted we will labour around in this never serious about anything mode where we hand victories to teams, bottle big occaisions, end up short, battle to keep our sparce amount of genuine talent.

On repeat!

 

Yes our defense is in shambles and has been for quite some time now. Vertonghen is gone this summer so we need someone like Toby Alderweireld or Fabian Schär. I don't undrstand the logic used to buy Fazio, he's not Premeire League material. Rose is not a true fullback, maybe a LWB at best, but even then I'm not convinced of him in the long run. Let him play on the left wing and Davies in full-back I'm sure they'd do well. This is a dark period for the club and they need to make adjustments or be in worse shape.

 

Not a bad shout to put Rose in front of Davies as he does offer a bit going forward and shows some pace and a real willingness to have a go and get involved which unfortunately is part of the problem that contributes to our defensive woes. We are too dependant on Rose to provide the width and pace, we also rely on him to bring the ball out, and a lot of our play starts with Rose on the left. So why not, for all of his deficiencies as a LB he plays with a lot of heart and courage and looks useful going forward which is why Poch fancies Danny as something of a WB which personally I find very dangerous especially when we don't bother with a HM anymore and why we are caught out the same way every week, high line, FBs out of position and a nice diagonal long ball over the top and down the flanks. Manu didn't do anything different against us at all. We always play the same way and we get caught the same way. Every team no matter where they sit in the league open us up and look like scoring when they attack us, im not going to defend our CBs although I think that Dier will be a fine player, but ffs we do put them under a lot of pressure at times. I don't post as much anymore because for me its always the same, Poch is as rigid and one eyed as AVB, same same every week no matter the opposition, and no plan B. Two CMs who are neither attacking or defensive, Look they are both decent players, ridiculously overrated by a lot of fans but what do they ever really do with the ball ? its easy for teams to hold off and let these guys have the ball because they don't do anything with it. Mark out Eriksen and Kane, long ball over the top and Bobs yer fecking uncle. We will continue to leak goals every week while Poch plays the same system and the same way so again, why not put Rose on the wing.

 

Agree with alot the thoughts here. The way forward ? I think we should have developed a 3 centre back/ wing back system ages ago. It even allows you to play two up front in a 3/5/2 formation, not for every game but when needed as an option. Our lads are pro footballers and be able to be coached into different systems. We could have played Fazio with Dier/verts against Man U to counter Fallainis height. I think even Vlad would fit into a back 3/5, Rose, walker, verts, davies, townsend could all play as wing backs. Maybe in the summer we can recruit and improve a back four but i wont be holding my breath. Watched Everton in the Europa last night play a back four against a shrewd Kiev team and they reminded me of Spurs at the back, too naive, three centre backs are needed at times in the modern game, plus
midfield cover. Have we ever replaced Scotty Parker ? Coys.

 

I've been saying this for time and Liverpool have had real resurgence with this formation as have Italian clubs juve n Napoli. Perfect system for Jan walker and rose.
Maybe time to have a look at carter-vickers at centre half with CL looking unlikely..

 

Where has all this come from .. Its only a few weeks since “ we have never been so optimistic about the future ” brigade were all out in force .. How have things changed so much in a few short weeks .. looks like some have gone missing again until we get one or two isolated performance,s that suit their agenda .. By the way we didn't buy many players in the last 12 months but we have bought a new left back , a new right back , 2 new centre backs and a new goalkeeper , but a bit like the not so magnificent 7 it hasn't really gone according to plan .. Some of us have done this to death all season so i,ll leave it at that ..

 

I'm with you....looking back...some poor starting choices, many poor individual defensive performances, too slow to respond to players having a mare. Townsend off the right...if you are going to play him, try him left side. Why is Dembele so rarely used.
Just too many weaknesses to really deliver. We really don't need Europe next year, if I'm perfectly honest. Whilst that may be viewed as a failure, the Europa league is just a bridge too far. Nurture the youngsters alongside some genuine buys ... ffsake we've got enough to trade....Soldado, Kaboul,Paulinho, Walker, Chiriches, Adeybayor...those cost us around £25m in wages alone....take the write off....your first loss is your worst loss. COYS...

 

agree big fran. Think liverpool have kept a load of clean sheets away from home playing this system lately. Our keeper is better than Mignolet and their centre backs arent spectacular ! skrytel/ toure ! They and Rogers have worked at a good defensive system and its reaped rewards, i cant see why we cant do it too. Coys.

 

Ive also thought about having three at the back at different times tbh while I like the idea I still have a few doubts about it. WBs look fantastic on the ball but if they don't get back then its just as easy for teams to spread the ball around with two CBs having to take over where the FBs should have been, anyway im not trying to be too negative I like the idea but I think it needs discipline, if we are going to let WBs bomb forward then I would also like some proper MF cover, something that we don't use at the moment.

 

Agree notnats that it takes discipline, hard work too, good ozzie traits mate! Lol. And its true we lack proper midfield cover thet exposes our defence. I just think a sophisticated modern team should be able to adapt and counteract the opposition, because we will come up against different styles of play. Guess its all part of the beautiful game! Not a bad bit of cricket going on downunder at the moment either ! Coys.