Takeaways: Spurs 2-0 Marseille

Spurs’ Champions League campaign is well and truly up and running after a hard-fought win over Marseille, with Richarlison scoring his first goals for the club following a recent run of excellent form.

As has often been the case in this fledgling season, we were made to work hard for our victory. However, rather than seeing this as a negative, as many figures in the media and our fanbase have done, I see this as another positive step in our upward trajectory under Antonio Conte.

Of course, our first-half showing wasn’t pretty, and Marseille had camped in our half and we barely had a kick on the ball, with possession stats (Via SofaScore) reading 58%-42% in Marseille’s favour prior to Chancel Mbemba’s sending-off for the visitors (more on that shortly).

However, as was the case against Forest and most sides we’ve faced over the past few weeks, Marseille did absolutely diddly-squat with this possession. The Frenchmen registered a solitary shot on target all game: a comfortable save for Lloris from a long-distance effort from Guendouzi. Come the full-time whistle, we were fully deserving of our victory I thought.

Indeed, last night followed n pretty much every game this season: we have endured extended periods of letting the opposition have the ball in our half, held our shape, and let our attackers do their thing, an approach that has seen us score in every game and win 5 out of 7, drawing the other two. It may not be pretty, it may not be the “Tottenham Way”, but goodness me it’s not half effective!

Granted, there is room for improvement, as I’ve been saying since the start of the season – last week against Fulham, it was clinical finishing (which was actually exceptional last night, scoring 2 goals from 2 shots on target), but last night, it was the lack of pace with which we moved the ball and the number of times we gave it away that I took issue with (112, if SofaScore is to believed).

I’ve no issue with us ceding possession, but we have to be better with what little we see of the ball if this counter-attacking approach is truly the way forward for us. Indeed, last night I felt that in some moments, we took too many touches when it wasn’t necessary, other times we tried one-touch passing when an extra touch would have been a better option.

This led to many instances of unnecessary loss of possession, but thankfully, Marseille didn’t have the quality to do some damage – the same cannot be guaranteed for Manchester City come Saturday night, however.

Interestingly, I thought that the sending-off made things more difficult for the lads yesterday. If the first half saw us struggle to counter Marseille’s press, and thus, do anything meaningful with the ball, the red card made us face the dreaded low-block and the concomitant scenario of having a greater share of possession and breaking down a stubborn defence.

Luckily, we have more tools at our disposal this year to deal with such scenarios thanks to our summer signings – Richarlison’s aerial ability, and the crossing ability of Perisic, both of which saw us break down the resolute ten-man rearguard of our French visitors.

Although Kulusevski and Son can put a decent delivery into the box, this was not a frequent feature of our attacking play last season, having only scored 8 headed goals in the league last season (see Kickest for more on this).

However, this year, we have already scored 7 headed goals from 7 games in all competitions – Dier and Sessegnon against Saints, Kane against Wolves, Chelsea and Forest, and now Richarlison’s brace yesterday.

When faced with stubborn opposition, as Marseille became when reduced to ten men, we now have the tools to attack low(ish) blocks aerially, which will prove invaluable in future matches against opponents that will inevitably limit our capacity for counter-attacking.

A tough match out of the way, and the perfect start to our European campaign sets us up nicely for the toughest test of our season yet at the Etihad on Saturday night. Stay tuned for the preview…

Substitutes

Game Statistics
0	Goal attempts	0
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