06/10/2013
16:00
White Hart Lane
Tottenham Hotspur vs West Ham United
Goalscorers:
0-1 Wiston Reid 66'
0-2 Ricardo Vâz Te 72'
0-3 Ravel Morrison 79'
Analysis
Hands up who expected that?
Our away record in recent times has been appalling. This isn't just a Sam Allardyce thing. Prior to yesterdays game, we had won 10 Premier League away games since the 1st of May 2006.
Sam Allardyce has had a fair amount of criticism in recent times for our away record and performances, for our inability to score away from home, and his perceived reluctance to change his system.
Well, if we're happy to criticise Sam for this, then we also need to be ready to accept that his decision to drastically alter our formation was probably the key to our success.
The media are either reporting our game plan as a 4-2-3-1 utilising a 'false nine', or as a 4-6-0. The official West Ham site called it a '4-4-2 with no designated strikers'. Whatever it was, it's clear that Tottenham didn't know how to defend against it.
Below is a chart displaying the average positions of our starting eleven. What you can see, is that West Ham flooded the centre of midfield to stop Spurs creative midfielders cutting through us. It's difficult enough to play against a three man midfield, but four proved too much for Tottenham's midfielders.
Between them, Mark Noble, Kevin Nolan, Ravel Morrison, and the 'false nine' Mohamed Diamé, put in a massive 16 tackles, really stifling the opposition.
Flooding the midfield like this allowed for West Ham's fullbacks to plow forward and contribute to the attacks. Both Razvan Rat and Guy Demel pressed high up the pitch and boxed in Tottenham's fullbacks and wide men.
Rat put in an excellent performance at left back. Despite coming up against one of the league's trickiest wide men, Rat wasn't dribbled past on a single occasion. In fact, Townsend tried, and failed, to go round the Romanian in the second minute, and didn't try again.
It was also a pleasure to see Guy Demel selected at right back. Joey O'Brien is a very dependable defender, but Demel offers the side a lot more going forward. His link up play with Stewart Downing was exceptional - the pair were involved in both of the top pass combinations made by West Ham (Downing to Demel - 12; Demel to Downing -11).
And Demel's attacking intent can be displayed by his attempted take ons. He attempted four take ons on Sunday, and was successful with three of them, supplying a real outlet for the side, against an opponent who are famed for keeping hold of the ball.
As mentioned above, Demel linked up superbly with Stewart Downing.
There have been some grumbles about the decision to sign Downing instead of a striker this summer, with some questioning the Englishman's ability at the top level.
On Sunday though, Downing showed his quality. Downing has the best pass accuracy of all of our players this season, a massive 89% (followed by Mark Noble with 82%). And on Sunday, he was accurate with 23 of his 25 passes (96%).
A real issue of ours in recent times has been an inability to keep hold of the ball in key areas - we continue to have one of the worst pass accuracy rates in the league. Downing's ability on the ball allowed us to use possession very well when we got hold of the ball.
The image below shows Downing's passes on Sunday (Green = Successful, Red = Unsuccessful, Yellow = Chance Created).
There were outstanding performances from West Ham players all over the pitch. Everyone did their job marvelously, but seeing as the weekend outside of our game had been used to rave about the performances of a young Manchester United midfielder, I think it's only fair that I use this opportunity to rave about the performance of a young former Manchester United midfielder.
Ravel Morrison was absolutely outstanding yesterday. Not only did he score an early contender for goal of the season, but he produced an all round midfield performance of the highest quality.
The midfielder was all over the pitch, breaking up play (two interceptions), winning tackles (three out of three), but also driving at the Spurs defence (two successful takeons). We truly have an exceptional player on our hands here.
The image below shows Morrison's heat map, which illustrates perfectly how mobile the midfielder was. Again, credit must go to Sam Allardyce, who allowed Morrison the free reign of an attacking midfield role, with Kevin Nolan sat in the holding midfield area.
I can't think of many better ways to go into the international break than beating Spurs three nil at White Hart Lane.
This was a remarkable performance, where everyone did their job fantastically.
Let's savour it.
General Play
4-2-3-1 Formation 4-2-3-1
(-48) Hugo Lloris - Jussi Jääskeläinen (35)
(-9) Kyle Walker - Guy Demel (35)
(-8) Michael Dawson - James Tomkins (35)
(9) Jan Vertonghen - Winston Reid (104)
(-11) Kyle Naughton - Rǎzvan Raţ (32)
(8) Paulinho - Mark Noble (1)
(38) Mousa Dembele - Ravel Morrison (31)
(44) Andros Townsend - Stewart Downing (25)
(9) Christian Eriksen - Kevin Nolan (-18)
(-19) Gylfi Sigurdsson - Ricardo Vâz Te (5)
(10) Jermain Defoe - Mohamed Diamé (-8)
(10) Erik Lamela - James Collins (7)
(1) Roberto Soldado - Joe Cole (-12)
(16) Lewis Holtby - Joey O'Brien (-1)
Best Performance
(44) Andros Townsend - Winston Reid (104)
Worst Performance
(-48) Hugo Lloris - Kevin Nolan (-18)
59% Possession 41%
510 Passes Attempted 325
Jan Vertonghen 75 Most Attempted 44 Winston Reid
80% Passing Accuracy 73%
73% In Opp. Half 57%
Erik Lamela 93% Best Accuracy 96% Stewart Downing
75 Long Balls 69
Michael Dawson 17 Most Long Balls (excl. GK) 9 Winston Reid
Most Frequent Pass Combination
Dawson to Vertonghen 16 - 12 Downing to Demel
13 Aerial Duels Won 13
50% Success 50%
Kyle Walker 4 Most Won 4 Winston Reid
Kyle Walker 88 Most Touches 65 Winston Reid
Offensive Play
14 Attempts on Goal 16
4 On Target 5
6 Off Target 8
4 Blocked 3
6 From Outside the Box 11
Andros Townsend 4 Most Shots 3 Ricardo Vâz Te
10 Key Passes 12
Andros Townsend 2 Most Key Passes 5 Mark Noble
24 Crosses 18
Christian Eriksen 7 Most Attempted 5 Stewart Downing
4 Successful Crosses 5
17% Success 28%
Christian Eriksen 2 Most Successful 3 Stewart Downing
Defensive Play
19 Tackles Attempted 27
17 Successful Tackles 20
89% Success 74%
Mousa Dembele 6 Most Tackles 5 Mohamed Diamé
18 Clearances 28
Michael Dawson 10 Most Clearances 9 Winston Reid
12 Interceptions 16
Kyle Naughton 3 Most Interceptions 6 Winston Reid
3 Shot Blocks 4
Mousa Dembele 1 Most Shot Blocks 2 Stewart Downing
0 6yrd Blocks 0
Most 6yrd Blocks
Discipline
5 Fouls 9
1 Most Fouls 2
0 Yellow Cards 0
Tottenham Hotspur:
West Ham United:
0 Red Cards 0
Tottenham Hotspur:
West Ham United:
Head to Heads
Hugo Lloris vs Jussi Jääskeläinen
3 Goals Conceded 0
2 Saves 4
1 Crosses Claimed 1
24 Total Passes 28
17 Accurate Passes 16
71% Success 57%
10 Long Balls 23
42% % 82%
8 Throw Outs 1
0 Kick from Hand 5
0 Errors Leading to Shot 0
0 Errors Leading to Goal 0
Michael Dawson 9 Most Passed To 8 Winston Reid
Michael Dawson 7 Most Passes From 9 Winston Reid
Michael Dawson vs Winston Reid
5 Aerial Duels 4
3 Duels Won 4
60% Success 100%
2 Tackles Attempted 3
1 Tackles Completed 2
50% Success 67%
11 Clearances 9
1 Interceptions 6
0 Blocks 0
0 6yrd Blocks 0
0 Errors Leading to Shot 0
0 Errors Leading to Goal 0
67 Passes Attempted 44
54 Successful 33
81% Success 75%
0 Crosses Attempted 0
0 Successful 0
0% Success 0%
1 Chances Created 0
0 Attempts on Goal 3
0 On Target 1
0 Goals 1
Jan Vertonghen 16 Most Passed To 9 Jussi Jääskeläinen
Jan Vertonghen 15 Most Passes From 8 Jussi Jääskeläinen
Christian Eriksen vs Ravel Morrison
34 Passes Attempted 35
25 Successful 24
74% Success 69%
1 Key Passes 0
0 Assists 0
1 Attempts on Goal 2
1 On Target 1
0 Goals 1
1 Tackles Attempted 3
1 Tackles Completed 3
100% Success 100%
0 Clearances 0
1 Interceptions 2
0 Blocks 0
0 6yrd Blocks 0
0 Errors Leading to Shot 0
0 Errors Leading to Goal 0
Paulinho 6 Most Passed To 5 Ricardo Vâz Te
Andros Townsend 8 Most Passes From 6 Winston Reid
Jermain Defoe vs Mohamed Diamé
2 Attempts on Goal 1
2 On Target 0
0 Goals 0
0 Key Passes 1
0 Assists 1
15 Passes Attempted 19
13 Successful 14
87% Success 74%
4 Aerial Duels 4
0 Duels Won 1
0% Success 25%
Christian Eriksen 4 Most Passed To 3 Ricardo Vâz Te
Jan Vertonghen 4 Most Passes From 4 Stewart Downing
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