Tottenham comfortably beat a rotated Manchester United side in their final game at White Hart Lane.

Spurs dominate with fluid possession game

For the duration of the first half Pochettino’s team controlled the game and were able to pin United into their own half. Of course, this was also down to Mourinho’s passive and rather reactive game plan.

Despite Mourinho’s comment at the beginning of the season that United would be looking to move towards a more zonal style of defending, we have still seen plenty of man-marking and man-oriented defending from his team this season, and this game was no different.

Tuanzebe and Carrick marked the roaming movements of Eriksen and Alli, Rooney and Mata oriented themselves towards Spurs’ double pivot of Dier and Wanyama. The emphasis on the man as the reference point was made clear by Jones’ tracking of Kane even on occasions where he dropped far into midfield to receive the ball.

As such, Spurs were able to manipulate United’s defensive shape with their movement and positional rotations in attack in order to open spaces within United’s shape, particularly in the front four.  Kane dropped deep at times as mentioned, as did Alli and Eriksen along with more lateral movements. Son was more wing-oriented in his movements, along with frequent runs into depth.

Another aspect which helped Spurs to maintain game control was the stable foundation that they had in possession, built from the centre-backs and defensive midfielders.

The right-back Tripper took up advanced positions in Spurs’ possession phase. This was balanced by Dier who shifted to the right halfspace. Wanyama remained central, or slightly towards the left. Davies often remained deep to support the buildup while the left wing was occupied more dynamically by either Alli or Son. Alternatively, he could move forward to occupy the left wing, causing two other possible permutations. Sometimes they would use a 1+3 structure at the back, which gave Vertonghen a much more active role in buildup, carrying the ball into midfield and looking to make penetrative passes. Another option was for either Alli or Eriksen to drop into the vacated left halfspace in order to receive the ball. As well as allowing Spurs to get two of their most talented players on the ball, it also had the possibility of opening space by dragging a United midfielder out of position due to their man-oriented scheme.

These structures gave them stability in possession due to their numerical advantage against weak first-line pressure from United. The coverage of both halfspaces and the strong connections between them allowed for effective ball circulation and switching. However the main advantage that it gave them was a strong defensive transition. This was again due to the coverage of both halfspaces, which gave them the ability to break up United counter-attacks by retaining control of the centre whilst also cutting connections for direct passes to the wings.

United’s counter-attacking game was very weak overall, and not only due to Spurs’ strong counterpressing game in defensive transition. The passivity of the wingers/attacking midfielders for United left them in poor positions to counter-attack. They often tracked Tottenham’s full-backs and midfielders into deep positions within United’s own half, which meant that they had too much ground to make up to threaten Spurs’ defence on attacking transition.

United were also unable to pose a threat in their own possession game. This was again largely down to Spurs’ impressive defensive efforts. They played with great intensity and compactness in defence, attributes which are characteristic of Pochettino’s sides. As a result, United were unable to build any kind of dangerous or sustained attacks in the first half. This was reflected in Spurs’ domination of possession, as well as the scoreline of 1-0.

Second half

Three minutes into the 2nd half Spurs doubled their lead. United continued to struggle to gain any control in the game, and Spurs remained strong both with and against the ball. At around the hour mark Mourinho moved Martial out to the left wing, which was what led to United’s only goal. Martial was a able to use his individual strengths in a 1v1 situation on the left side before assisting Rooney with a low cross. Shortly afterwards Pochettino reinforced the midfield by introducing Dembele alongside Dier and Wanyama. United didn’t threaten Spurs’ goal much after that, and their attempts at finding an equaliser were lacklustre.

Conclusion

Despite the understandably rotated team put out by Mourinho, the reactivity of the performance was disappointing, as has been the case in most games against top-level opposition this season. Spurs’ performance was dominant, and showed the current gap in performance between the two sides.