High Intensity

Spurs success at the start of the season was based on a high intensity game plan. Pushing high up the pitch and pressing the opposition into mistakes, once you have the ball using your quality to hurt them.

Your main qualities are obviously out wide with explosive pace in Lennon and Bale, this has its benefits but also disadvantages.

The main disadvantage is retention of the ball. Bale and Lennon as effective as they are, tend to loose the ball more often than not going on attacking runs - simply meaning your players have to press again, (and quite often) to get the ball back.

Using an extreme example, Barcelona play a high pressing intensity game and stick to roughly the same 11, but don’t suffer ‘burn out’ over the season. I think its because they keep the ball so well and attack at different angles so they don’t have to press as often.

Watching your games over the season I have noticed your flying starts, almost battering the opposition and then fading away towards the end of games. This works fine with fresh players at the start of the season, but not so well in the crunch second part of the season.

You may think players like Modric & Bale don’t care etc, but I don’t believe that’s the case, it’s just they cannot perform at that intense level for the whole season needed for spurs game plan to work.

I see some similarities with Arsenal’s capitulation in the second half of the last few seasons. Last year for example, Arsenal also played with a high intensity game plan pressing the opposition and it worked great at the start of the season, but with injuries decimating our squad we faded in a similar fashion to spurs.