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This article is part of Football FanCast’s The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…
Despite boasting attacking riches like Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Erik Lamela amongst their ranks for the clash against Leicester, Tottenham looked relatively devoid of any tangible creativity.
The north London side’s biggest road to success was through their counter-attacking play, and it was that approach that led to their opening goal in the first half.
But as the Foxes grew into the game, the likes of Kane, Son and Lamela all faded in influence, and it was up to right-back Serge Aurier to provide some inspiration going forward.
On the chalkboard
Turning to the Ivory Coast international as an attacking outlet was perhaps understandable; after all, he provided a fine assist in a barn-storming performance against Crystal Palace in the Premier League last weekend.
However, Mauricio Pochettino’s side appeared to rely far too heavily on the former PSG defender to create for the team.
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Spurs’ insistence on having both Son and Lamela occupy narrow positions in the game to help support Kane increased the burden on Aurier ten-fold.
By the end of the match, the 26-year-old had registered two key passes and five crosses – both figures being the joint-second highest of any Spurs player on the pitch. And that’s not even to mention his driven strike from inside the box being ruled out by VAR.
The Ivorian’s sizeable influence on the way Spurs operated at the King Power Stadium was arguably to their detriment. Not having a natural winger to take on Leicester left-back Ben Chilwell meant Aurier often had to make his runs from deep to support the attack, allowing sufficient time for the opposition defence to recover.
The 26-year-old finished the game with 84 touches and 55 passes – the second and third-highest numbers respectively in the Spurs side.
If Pochettino is to rectify what went wrong, then he needs to have a serious look at changing the way he gets his team to shape up.
Relying on a defender who has just 17 goals and 35 assists in 259 games of professional football to be your main attacking threat probably isn’t the best way to go about things.
