By Harsh Mishra
This past weekend the red team from Merseyside travelled to Brisbane Road. The result was exactly the same as the previous week when the blue team, Everton, visited, but the flow of the game was very different.
Both Spurs and Liverpool came into this game on same number of points and the same Win, Loss and Draw record. They then played out a fairly even 1-1 draw and ended the weekend with even records. In this piece I go through, what turned out to be an injury-ridden game with lots of wrestling for possession in the middle third. I also touch upon an interesting tactical change by Robert Vilahamn, one that we have not seen him make before.
Liverpool under Matt Beard have transitioned to a back 4 this season. On Sunday they lined up in their usual 433/451 formation. Tottenham, as expected, made no changes to their usual setup of 4231, but were (likely) forced into making one change: Kit Graham got her first WSL start of the season, with Drew Spence out of the squad with a slight knock.
Let’s here get the injuries out of the way. Liverpool had to make a substitution just before half time, as young forward Mia Enderby was forced off the pitch with a rolled ankle and the experienced Shanice van de Sanden took her place. Next, Tottenham had to take off Luana Bühler at half-time with a reported injury, with Amy Turner taking her place. The worst injury of them all came minutes before the full time whistle, as Olga Ahtinen got a nasty bang on her knee in an accidental collision with a Liverpool player. This has now been reported by Spurs to be a Medial Collateral Ligament (MCL) injury. This is less serious than an ACL but is likely to keep Ahtinen out of the team until the new year at minimum. Since her creative presence in the midfield has been one of the main reasons for Spurs’ upwards trajectory this season her absence will be a big loss.
Now let’s return to the game and the reasons why it turned into a somewhat sluggish affair. Primarily this was due to both teams focusing on having a numerical superiority in the middle of the pitch and forcing each other to play in the wide areas. This led to numerous turnovers of possession from both sides. Indeed, they both ended up with 35 loss of possessions each (dispossessions + turnovers) – a season record for both.
xG flow chart for Tottenham vs Liverpool
The number of shots taken were even as well. Both Tottenham and Liverpool took 15 shots, but each managed to get only 3 of these shots on target. It wasn’t just that, the way the teams scored their goals were also from similar situations. The two goals came from winning second balls in the middle of the pitch, after the goalkeepers played a long pass. For Tottenham, it was the enigmatic Norwegian, Celin Bizet, who repeated her fiancé’s achievement in scoring in a home game against Liverpool. Bizet’s goal was a brilliant solo effort. She went shoulder to shoulder for a duel inside her own half and then carried the ball all the way into the penalty area and slotted it into the bottom left corner. Sadly Opta didn’t track her touches on the ball on her way to the goal, so I couldn’t plot her events leading to the goal, but here she talks through her scintillating run.
Around the 60th minute mark, Liverpool made a substitution switching to a back 3. Their goal quickly followed, but had very little to do with the change in formation. Like Spurs, they won a second ball from a long goal keeper pass. They then circulated it wide to the substitute wingback, Yana Daniels. The quick transitional situation saw Daniels in lots of space and she was able to pick Sophie Huag in the box, with a perfect cross.
Spurs’ forward 4, after Naz came on at the 60th minute
Minutes before Liverpool’s equalizer, Robert Vilahamn had made a change of his own. He took of Kit Graham who was playing the #10 position and brought on Jessica Naz. The expectation was that Naz would move to the wide left and Clinton shift to the middle, something that we saw earlier in the season. But Vilahamn changed it up this time and opted to play Naz through the center and off the last line. This meant that Martha Thomas and Naz were typically in the same line when Spurs were without the ball, making it a front four. On the ball, Thomas dropped deeper from time to time to link up play, but her position was that of a striker in a two, rather than a #10.
There could be two potential reasons for this change up. With Naz playing in a front two, Spurs maintained a direct threat running in behind, through the center. She also brought in fresh pressing legs upfront, helping save Martha’s legs in the process. The second reason, albeit of a lower possibility, could be to combat Liverpool moving to a back three. There were lots of situations after this change which saw Spurs’ forward line of four shuttling down Liverpool’s back 3 and not allowing them to play through the lines. But it’s important to note that Naz came into the game before Liverpool moved to a back three, so this being a reason is less plausibile.
This game also brought some very good news. Ellie Brazil, who suffered an ACL injury early last season, made her come back after over a year without seeing the pitch. When she came on she took Celin’s position on the wide right.
Overall, it was a close game between two fairly even sides and both deserved to take a point for their efforts. Next up, Spurs have an away trip to face Leicester City, who this week led by two goals at halftime against Arsenal this past Sunday, but then shipped 6 goals in the second half.
Thanks for reading.
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Catch up with Harsh’s Data Breakdowns of Spurs’ previous games this season.
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