Data Breakdown: WSL Game 5: Everton at Home

By Harsh Mishra.

This past weekend saw Tottenham Hotspur Women back in action after the first International break of the season. This time Spurs hosted one of last season’s mid-table sides, Everton. The Toffees were coming into this game at the back of a heavy 5-0 home thrashing by Manchester United. But unlike Spurs’ previous opponents Aston Villa, Everton had not been totally winless in the league, having won the away leg of the Merseyside Derby 1-0, a week before defeat to United. Short story, international break aside, an in-form Spurs were facing another out of form fellow mid-table contender.

The game ended 1-1. Spurs had the bulk of goal scoring chances, but gave away the equalizer in the form of a penalty. Based on the quality and quantity of chances Tottenham were able to generate, they should have come out on top, but eventually paid for not capitalizing on their chances. In this piece I am going to touch upon two things in some detail: Spurs’ issues in asserting their dominance on the ball and their pattern of creating chances via. high pressing situations.

Pass Network Maps for Tottenham vs Everton

This game saw Robert Vilahamn revert back to his usual starting 11, as Spence came back into the side in place of Naz, who had started the last game. This meant that Grace Clinton was pushed back to the left flank. On the other end, Everton started with a back 3, their usual setup under the Danish coach Brian Sørensen.

Much like the last game against Villa, Spurs had to fight for most of the possession, as both sides were willing to disrupt each other’s buildups and battle in the midfield. In the last edition of the Data Breakdown, I pointed out how Spurs had issues in pressing Villa high up the pitch, due to Villa splitting their Center Backs to play very wide. This game the challenge was different. Spurs’ front 3 of Thomas, Bizet and Clinton had their jobs cut out in Everton’s first phase of possession. It looked like Thomas was tasked to pressure the player on the ball, and the wingers would focus on showing the wide center backs the outside. They did so by positioning themselves between the wide center back and the near sided midfielder, thus cutting out the passing lane into the central areas. This opened a passing lane out wide to one of Villa’s wingbacks, this pass would then be jumped on by Spurs full back, as well as the winger. This process worked well a few times and Spurs were able to generate high turnovers, some of which led to chances, more on that later.

Passes by Tottenham (left) and Everton (right) divided by thirds, in the first half

But Everton have been playing this system under Sørensen since last season and showed great composure on the ball. They were willing to play through the lines despite the pressure from Spurs and kept possession for long periods. Vilahamn, in his post match interview pointed to Spurs’ struggles in dominating the middle part of the pitch, specially in the first half. Tottenham did well to stop Everton from doing much in the final third, allowing Everton only 2 shots in the entire first half. A lot of credit here goes to Spurs’ defenders, who did well to stop any sort of creation from Everton. But I also feel that Everton’s recent run of poor form may have led to their final third play slowing down. They were able to breach Spurs’ press a number of times, specially from the wide channels, but were unable to take advantage of Bartrip and Bühler being dragged to the wide areas.

Now coming to the times when the press did work. Overall, this game was Spurs’ best of the season in terms of getting shots quickly after regaining the ball. They took 5 shots within 10 seconds of a defensive action (tackle, interception or ball recovery), one more than the 4 they took against Chelsea. Martha Thomas, who in the last 2 games scored goals directly as a result of her off the ball work, was key. She was the one who intercepted Veje’s pass, after Veje was initially put under pressure by Spence. It took just 4 more passes post that interception, for Clinton to head the ball home. Thomas created another opportunity from her pressing, this time for herself, as she intercepted a back pass from Finnigan to Brosnan. But Thomas could not get her shot past the Irish goal keeper.

All passes that found Martha Thomas

Martha Thomas was also very much involved on the ball. She got more ball touches and attempted more passes than she has in any other game this season. As part of that she did not constrain herself to the center of the pitch, but showed a willingness to run the channels and be involved in play out wide.

Another player who was very good on the ball for Spurs was Grace Clinton. She has been putting in some great creative performances this season and this game was no different. As well as scoring the hearder, Clinton was the creative hub for Spurs from the left and completed 7 out of the 8 dribbles she attempted, 4 more than anyone else on the pitch. There was an instance in the 14th minute of the game when she received the ball from Bartrip, on the left flank, near the half way line. She dribbled all the way into the penalty area, beating multiple Everton players on her way. Unfortunately, at the other end, it was Clinton’s defensive action, which was detrimental for the Lilywhites. She was caught pushing Heather Payne on the back, inside the penalty area. This resulted in Everton’s equalizer 6 minutes from time. The challenge that she opted to make was unnecessary given that Payne was closely tracked by Neville. But Clinton, just 20, will have to learn from this, as the penalty undid a lot of her hard work, in what was otherwise a great performance.

On the back of the chances Spurs were able to generate, and at the same time limit Everton’s, they should have tucked the game away well before time. But it wasn’t to be. They are a team still very much on the learning curve and this was another step. Next up, Liverpool at home, who have the exact same points tally as Tottenham and beat Arsenal at The Emirates, on the opening day of the season.

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Catch up with Harsh’s Data Breakdowns of Spurs’ previous games this season.