Spurs Blogsville

Do Tottenham Have A Negative Split Strategy

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Writer: Parklaneyido

As a keen cycling fan, I’ve noticed a pattern in Tottenham’s recent Premier League matches more akin to a strategy used by some professional cyclists in time-trials. This got me wondering whether this is something that Mourinho is deliberately working on.

For the non-cycling geeks out there, let me put this into context. The basic concept of a “negative split strategy” is that you start out at a pace that is not quite your maximum (85-90%) for the first part of the course and then you go all out at 110% for the second part of the course. In cycling, this is becoming ever-easier to achieve with the invention of power-metres (mini-computers that tell you your power output and other metrics, so you can manage your effort to near-perfection in theory).

To put this into a Spurs context, clearly Mourinho is not deliberately setting us up to go a goal down early on and then play catch-up. Nor is he telling players to only put 85% effort in to conserve energy for the second half. However, we have seen Tottenham start with a more conservative, defensive strategy in the first half of matches and then playing with a bit more flair, verve and drive in the second half of matches.

Perhaps this pattern has been through necessity rather than choice, in view of the way we have been chasing games after conceding too early. Nevertheless, I wondered whether there was an element of split-half strategy going on. If this is a deliberate plan by our “super-coach”, I guess it’s resulting in too many goals conceded in the first half and not enough scored in the second half at the minute. It’s still early days of course, but I’m already feeling that I far prefer Pochettino’s playing style, even if results were not going in the right direction under Pochettino either.

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