Bale’s exit and Paulinho’s arrival brings interesting change in AVB’s tactics... Though any article on Gareth Bale’s proposed move to Madrid could delve deep into the intricacies of the management at Madrid and if the Welshman does indeed fit into Carlo’s new structure, but this one here will try to turn an unbiased (though slightly red and white) eye towards the man behind Bale’s success last season and easily one of the candidates for managers of the season. Though all the promise that AVB’s stint at Porto had shown to replicate Mourinho’s career, his first job in England was rated as the exact opposite of that of Jose’s. Levy’s choice of appointing AVB immediately after getting rid of the compromise that Rednapp had become, clearly showed that Andre had indeed been given a long term project this time around. Though the Bale transfer now becomes the 2nd time in as many years that the Portuguese manager is going to have to replace a star, a situation that he would definitely not have faced at Chelsea, AVB’s skills as an ex-scout truly come to the fore in the transfer window. Especially in this window where the world is concentrating on the likes of Fabregas, Suarez, Higuain and infact Bale’s departure, AVB’s business in the backdrop has again succeeded to fall of the radar. In fact all the moves that the 35 year old has shown in the market this time fall right in line tactically. Spurs’ downfall at the end of last season, though now quite a notorious trend clearly resulted from a lack of quality on the bench. Ironically it was Bale’s injury in the Europa League game at the San Siro that resulted in the Lily Whites of North London going into a steep fall from 3rd place in April. Bale’s contribution to the goal scoring aspect of Spurs was indeed overwhelming for a midfielder, but so were the substantial changes in roles that AVB provided for him. After having brought in 2 attacking midfielders Dempsey and Dembele after Modric’s exit, AVB allowed Bale to be restricted to the flanks in order to let Dempsey move into his favored No.10. But Dempsey’s gain turned out to be Dembele’s fall, as the extremely talented Belgian was unable to be as influential from a deeper role. The main issue that arose from playing Dembele deeper was that his natural style of attacking with the ball at his feet left his partner in the centre short against a duo of opponents. This partner was in most cases either Sandro or Scotty Parker. Sandro, though enthusiastic in attack is a lousy tackler and weak in positioning. This along with his injury issues forced AVB to bring in a 32 year old English warhorse, who he wanted to get rid of right at the start of the season. Parker though has had a revolutionary year or two with the national team, although that does not seem a big achievement these days, but Scotty’s overall gameplay for Spurs in this 12-13 season has indeed been below par. He has often received critical reviews for his unusually deep positioning and allowing opponents time on the ball. Unsurprisingly he is reportedly on his way to join Harry at QPR. A lack of partners for Dembele in the centre made AVB shift away from a fixed 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-3. Introduction of this system came about via the arrival of 2 completely different talents: Lewis Holtby and Tom Huddlestone. AVB’s call of bringing Holtby in January now seems a good one as the German U-21 captain impressed a lot at the recent Euros. Holtby is a typical No.10 player and has a good goal scoring record. His entry into the team coincided with AVB’s move of shifting Bale into that ‘hole’ and this shifted Holtby to the right flank initially. The other player Huddlestone returned after one of his many injury woes, and the Englishman played a very crucial role of distributing from the deepest tip of the 4-3-3 midfield. Huddlestone’s arrival late in games though unorthodox, was clearly seen to be highly influential in finding the likes of Defoe and Adebayor in forward areas. Tom Huddlestone has had an unfortunate career at Spurs but has been retained in the squad mainly due to his English credentials and rare displays of talent. But the towering midfielder’s attributes in midfield are quite restricted to distribution and rarely are any traits of tackling or positioning seen in his game. Infact, in Paulinho, AVB has bought a much improved version of Huddlestone who is immaculate in his tackling. Rather than distributing from deep, Paulinho is more of a box to box midfielder, and his Bronze ball in the ConFed rightly showed his goal scoring tendencies to.. With Paulinho a sure shot in the midfield, his lack of ‘distributor’ style means that AVB can go with 2 different tactics. The more definite one would be that he plays a much more flater midfield trio so that the likes of Dembele and Holtby are available in midfield either to combine with Paulinho or else to cover the area when the Brazilian rushes forward. This system would see a front trio of strikers, similar to the when Wenger preaches. Again in this case too AVB’s buys are right on the mark, as the next Belgian in the PL Nacer Chadli ticks all the boxes for a wide forward. His 2 years at Twente show exactly how good he is at attacking directly from the left. In short, Chadli represents everything that Aaron Lennon has left to be desired from in the past. Lennon’s future at present looks quite bleak at the club, as unlike Walcott in a similar system, Lennon has barely any goal scoring instincts. Apart from this system, AVB also has another tactic which might turn out to be very similar to the one used by Scholari at the ConFed. ‘Big Phil’ allowed a double pivot in midfield which contained Paulinho and a distributor. The most effective for the latter role turned out to be Hernanez who sat deep and allowed Paulinho all the space to attack in. A similar system if used by AVB would need the composed midfielder to operate next to Paulinho and then shift Holtby into a deeper No.10. This spot for a 2nd holder would surely be filled via the 100 odd million that Spurs are set to receive, but there is another candidate in youngster Tom Carrol that AVB tends to prefer in that role. This system is the only way the likes of Lennon or Dempsey would get a chance to fit in, while the likes of Gylfi Sigurdsson will have to rotate at No.10 with Holtby. With an attack having scope for 3 strikers and Chadli surely filling in the LF spot, Spurs have now fixed the man of the Striker’s role in Roberto Soldado. After 3 summers of failed routines of signing a top class striker, Tottenham have now gone and signed one of the best out there. Soldado is deadly in set piece situations and despite having Adebayor in the squad, the Spaniard will definitely be preferred. The current Soldado is quite similar to the Torres of old and is the perfect man to run off the shoulder of the CB’s to receive through balls from the midfield. Ironically the qualities of Soldado might not have been so effective in case Bale was still in the setup, as the Welshman’s direct approach to goal rarely allowed the likes of Defoe to prosper. The other spot if attack is up for contention presently, though that might not be the case when the ‘100 million’ comes in. Sigurdsson has been played out wide last season, and his stint there had seen him successfully supply crucial diagonal balls for the likes of Bale making runs from the wings. So now playing him on the right side of attack with Chadli cutting in from the left makes good sense too; albeit we totally expect AVB to come up with another perfect signing for the RF position. The only spot for confusion in this window has been the transfer of Steven Caulker to Cardiff. Caulker had an impressive season last time around and the now English international was a good backup for Vertonghen. Assuming the Coentrao swap deal does come through, Vertonghen would not be deputized at LB and that fills one certain spot in the centre. The lone contender for the other spot last time around was Dawson, but considering his fitness issues and the silence behind Kaboul’s situation, AVB’s most important buy now is a central defender. The likes of Ashley Williams seems to be the biggest names linked to a non-CL club, but there also seems to be a rift between Martin Skrtel and Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool which could be looked into by AVB. Come the end of this transfer window, if the Bale deal does go through, AVB could have turned around the entire setup at the Lane. His signings no doubt being shrewd, can now be given a major edge of a 100 million. Eric Lamela at Roma has been a long term target, and now it seems that the Suarez issue is also being monitored by Levy. And if the Bale deal doesn’t go through, well we shall be celebrating St. Totterringham’s Day again.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 03:35:27 +0000
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