Wing Back System Leaves Spurs Lacking In Midfield But a Win is a Win

Spurs played Wolves last Saturday at 12.30pm which was the first match of the premiership last weekend. It was great to get the game over with so I could enjoy the rest of the weekend with my family. We were on holiday. I watched the match in a place called the strand in by the seaside in a lovely little spot called Dunmore East. The game started and I saw that Wolves were a good team, a very good team. Bruno Lage came from nowhere and is slowly instilling his beliefs into the team and they are much more attack orientated than Nunes Espirito was. For the last two games against Chelsea and now Wolves I found Spurs were lacking in midfield. Looking at the two Central midfielders of Hojbjerg and Bentancur, it wasn't for lack of effort or quality (Hojbjerg got man of the match) but they were just overrun. Thankfully the Central Defenders stepped out and we got away with it until half time but it was noticeable. Wolves did their homework. They overloaded their midfield just like Chelsea did and started getting chances through the middle. Conte tightened things up at half time asking his wing backs to play more narrow and this plugged a hole. Spurs ended up getting a goal from another set piece. Spurs never score from set pieces and have now scored 3 set pieces in their last 3 games. Much of this new found set piece success is down to the new set piece coach Gianni Vio who has joined Spurs in the summer from Brentford. He was with Conte while he managed the Italian team. Gianni is meant to have over 4000 set piece plays and he studies the players to see which ones would be effective for the team. It seems to be working. Anyway back to the midfield.
In order to play a wing back system, the wing backs are meant to provide the assists, they work the hardest and are bombing up and down the wing. It leaves 2 midfielders in the middle of the park mostly defending. One of the midfielders (in this case Hojbjerg) is asked to attack when the wing backs attack but it takes alot of running and work from the central midfielder. You could see Conte urging Hojbjerg to attack attack attack when the wing backs started running up the wing. Hojbjerg is a work horse but there is a certain groan among the Spurs fans when he gets the ball on the edge of the box because nobody knows where the ball will end up. Thankfully against Chelsea last week he scored but the feeling is if Bissouma starts he will have much more quality to finish than Hojbjerg does.
https://twitter.com/nikolaimoeller1/status/1561393188484665344?s=20&t=GY2PMfKqHoLwF-PYoJkjcw
Source
That said there is still that extra man in midfield that Spurs sacrifice to play a wing back system so we just have to get used to being slightly overloaded by the opposition teams in our midfield.
Conte has his eyes out for a CAM so his system may change once he gets one of these in and rumours it will be Malinovskyi who has an elephant of a left foot. With Ndombelly and Los Celso out the door the wage bill is down to a healthy size again so we can now start signing players again. I expect another big signing right before the window closes to give us a real chance before the world cup to solidify the top 4.
Harry Kane has now the record goals for one club in the premiership. The man is a machine and I would say he will sign a new deal soon with Spurs to stay at the club seeing that Man City only bid £90 million for him which is laughable. Meanwhile Jack Grealish wasn't even in the city squad at the weekend and he cost upwards of £100 million.
https://twitter.com/Tottenham_Feed/status/1561639319579664386?s=20&t=GY2PMfKqHoLwF-PYoJkjcw
Regulion and Gil are the next out the door with moves to Nottingham Forest and Valencia on the cards. Gil who is a massive prospect just did not have the physicality for the premiership but is one for the future. Winks is the other player that Spurs are looking to shift but this will be difficult as noone really wants him. Injuries this week will tell alot around who comes in for him.
So it is Nottingham Forest next for Spurs and I would expect some changes. Son has had 3 bad games now so I expect he will lose his place come Sunday to Richarlison. Also we will probably see Bissouma start against Forest as we have an important game against our rivals West Ham midweek.

https://twitter.com/LeeHutton1984/status/1561470282375737349?s=20&t=GY2PMfKqHoLwF-PYoJkjcw
Source

And finally

I have finished the Arsenal All or Nothing. It was pretty cringy stuff listening to Artetas stories going on and on while the players eyes glazed over with boredom. Here are five things I picked up from it.

The Spurs game pretty much finished them and they could not raise their head for Newcastle game.

Their training ground is shocking.

They have a weak mentality.

They faked a Covid case to get out of Spurs match.

https://twitter.com/jstevens123/status/1561458491646156806?s=20&t=GY2PMfKqHoLwF-PYoJkjcw
Source