Nuno Espírito Santo’s side lacked the attacking intent to allow their best player to succeed

Embed from Getty Images

Tottenham Hotspur failed to impress on Saturday as Crystal Palace ran away with a 3-0 win over their London rivals.

The main talking point to emerge from Saturday’s early kick-off was that Spurs’ number 10 failed to register a shot or even a touch in the opposition box over the course of the 90 minutes. A stat that summed up the performance from the team who started the day at the top of the table.

Let’s have a quick look at the average positions taken by both sets of players and it shows how the home side imposed themselves on the opposition and the game.

The Eagles’ front line had more of an attacking presence in the game. On the average position map from whoscored.com, we see Christian Benteke (20) is about 20 yards further up the field than Spurs’ furthest forward Lucas Moura (27).

Nuno Espírito Santo set up his side in a formation that proved to be compact in the middle of the pitch, meaning the attacking width had to be created by full-backs Emerson Royal, who made his debut for the club, and Sergio Reguilón.

Despite these full-backs being known for their ability to get up and down the field, we didn’t see enough of it in this game, and as a result, there was a lack of space for chances to be created for the likes of Kane.

For many years now, the England skipper has been the frontman of the Spurs band, with each manager trying to play a style that allows Kane to get as many goals as possible. You would think after starting 195 of the last 200 league games he has been involved in, the new manager would be keen on installing a way of playing to suit the clubs third-highest goalscorer of all time.

Dele Alli and Moura were supposed to be supporting Kane, but the end product was too many players in the central areas of the pitch. Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, Oliver Skipp, Harry Winks, and Alli playing in a diamond system with a striker like Kane, who we all know likes to drop deep to pick the ball up, lead to congestion in the central areas of the pitch.

Moura and Alli were not making the runs that Heung-min Son usually does for Kane to play passes into, a job that they really needed to put more effort into. Without these runs, the game is a lot easier for the Palace back four as they are seeing the game happening in front of them.

Could this be an issue with a lack of instructions from the Spurs manager, or is Son that vital to Spurs being successful in games?

His ability to hold his width and make runs through the defensive line helped Spurs snatch a win on the opening day against reigning champions Manchester City, in a game where Spurs only had 34% possession. Something they sorely missed on Saturday.

On the other hand, Patrick Vieira got his tactics spot-on as he set up his side in a 4-3-3 formation, with Wilfred Zaha and Jordan Ayew providing width and pushing Tottenham back.

From the heat map below, we see how Palace (red) were able to make the pitch a lot bigger by staying high and wide. This benefited the midfielders as it gave them more space to get on the ball in the middle of the park, as well as having more expansive passing options out to Zaha and Ayew to break down the Spurs defence.

All three goals came from keeping width in attacking areas and then exploiting space created in the middle.

Palace won a penalty after play down the right-wing lead to a cross that was blocked illegally by Ben Davies using his arm.

Zaha’s dribble down the left flank resulted in a cross for new signing Odsonne Edouard for a debut goal just seconds after coming on the pitch.

Michael Olise helped create the third after picking the ball up on the right-wing and driving at Davies. After laying the ball off to Conor Gallagher, he continued his forward run forcing the Wales international into keeping up with him. This opened up space for Edouard to finish into the bottom right corner and compound Spurs’ misery.

Tottenham fans will hope that this was just an outlier in what has so far been a positive start to the season. With the likes of Son and Steven Bergwijn both not available, the game was always going to be tricky, especially at a ground like Selhurst Park.

The slow and unimaginative approach to a game with no real intent is worrying. Especially when you have a world-beating striker at your disposal who was taken out of the game not by the opposing defenders, but by his own team’s performance.

Follow us on Twitter @ProstInt