How Hojbjerg and Dier must adapt to Postecoglou's methods

Adrian Clarke looks at key tactical points and players who can be decisive in Matchweek 13.

Spurs

In-form Aston Villa are likely to feel encouraged by what they saw from a depleted Tottenham Hotspur at Molineux before the international break.

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Ange Postecoglou was forced into a major reshuffle after losing Micky van de Ven, Destiny Udogie, Cristian Romero, and James Maddison from his starting XI and his new-look side suffered a 2-1 defeat.

Missing some creativity and losing lots of speed from their back four, Spurs were outplayed by Wolverhampton Wanderers for long periods.

Ahead of their visit to north London on Sunday, the ever-shrewd Unai Emery will have learned plenty from analysing that performance.

See: Can Villa fix away form to become genuine title contenders?

Missing Maddison

As always, Postecoglou sent his side out with positive attacking intent, and structurally Spurs did not alter their tactical approach.

In fact, it was a wonderful arcing run from inverted right-back Pedro Porro that instigated their early opener.

See: Villa need a plan for Spurs’ inverted full-backs

As the ball was switched from left to right, from a central position he overlapped Dejan Kulusevski to supply a low cross for Brennan Johnson to score.

This was trademark football from Spurs under Postecoglou.

From this point onwards though, Spurs did not offer a great deal of threat.

Missing that spark and creative vibrancy that Maddison brings, a midfield trio of Pape Sarr, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Yves Bissouma struggled to supply quality service to their forwards.

From a statistical point, the 2-1 loss at Wolves was their worst attacking display of 2023/24.

Registering season lows for shots, touches in the box and Expected Goals, Postecoglou will be eager to see improvements against Villa.

Spurs' attacking stats at Wolves

The deployment of Eric Dier and Ben Davies in central defence, flanked by Porro and Emerson Royal, did not deter Postecoglou from sticking with a high defensive line.

As a team Spurs consistently pushed up to squeeze space for Wolves, but when turnovers were forced, they did look more vulnerable than when they have the recovery pace of Van de Ven and Romero to rely on at the heart of their back four.

Gary O’Neil’s side were threatening on the transition and on several occasions, they had visiting players sprinting back towards their own goal.

In the example below, Dier pushed into midfield to aggressively win the ball but after being beaten, Spurs' defensive line was badly exposed when Rayan Ait-Nouri ran onto a pass down the left.

Several similar scenarios were instigated by the home side in this contest.

Time and again Wolves found space in the wide areas, which were often left vacated when Royal and Porro floated infield.

With so many changes to the starting XI it was perhaps understandable the team's defensive cohesion was not as strong.

Facing 17 shots, and with an Expected Goals Against (xGA) of 2.15, this was a loose display by their own high standards.

Spurs' defensive stats at Wolves

Identikit goals

Left-back Udogie is fit to return this Sunday against Villa, but Spurs will be missing midfielder Bissouma, who is suspended.

This almost guarantees a start for Hojbjerg, who will want to improve on his own performance at Wolves, where he let midfield runners pierce holes between Spurs' centre-backs with untracked bursts into the box for both their late goals.

For Wolves' equaliser, Pablo Sarabia ran off his shoulder into a hole that had been created by Dier (the lower player circled in yellow below) being pulled towards the left wing.

It was a costly lapse that gave O’Neil’s men hope of a turnaround.

Then, deep into added time, Mario Lemina also ran off also ran off Hojbjerg (No 5) into space between Dier (15) and Davies (33).

If they do not tighten up in these situations against Villa, players such as Ollie Watkins, Moussa Diaby, John McGinn and Douglas Luiz will punish them.

Fascinating tussle in prospect

Tactically, Spurs versus Villa could be one of the most interesting fixtures of the season so far.

Postecoglou and Emery both encourage their backlines to squeeze up to the halfway line in a bid to congest space inside the middle third.

They also both like to pack bodies into that domain via a narrow Villa midfield and those inverted Spurs full-backs.

See: Season trends: Inverted full-backs providing tactical flexibility

So we could see much of this encounter played out in that central region, but with high lines on show, we may also witness a string of runs in behind each other’s defence.

This could make for a highly entertaining encounter.

Also in this series

Part 1: How revitalised Van Dijk can stand up to threat of Haaland
Part 2: Can Guardiola find a solution at left-back and shackle Salah?