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Assessing Spurs’ midfield ahead of away trip to Chelsea

Chelsea Player-Manager John Terry is expected to make a return to the side and hopefully will be faced with the intimidating proposition of keeping Emmanuel Adebayor quiet. The big man will face a fitness test on an injured hamstring and, given that Redknapp likes to play 4-4-1-1 in tough looking away games, will be important to Spurs plans. Defoe is in a good patch of form, but has never really looked comfortable playing as a lone striker – perhaps an option from the bench of a goal is required late on.

So it’s expected that both teams will line up with a lone striker each. Defences in the Premier League are almost exclusively a flat back four – pretty boring, and when someone like Villas-Boas asked them to do something unfamiliar like hold a high line and press, there is some kind of bloodless coup and the manager departs. In front of these typical English back fours though, has been an interesting array of midfields. It’s the midfield area that has had the most influence on games this season.  If we consider Redknapp’s 4-4-1-1 as a five-man midfield, up against the five in Roberto Di Matteo’s 4-2-3-1; you’d have to say it was the more attacking of the two. Normally the only defensive minded player is Scott Parker, whereas Di Matteo might play with two defensive minded players in his midfield.

So, who has been the most potent creative midfield force for Tottenham this season? Making no special dispensation for injuries, suspension or selection – who has been the best? The table below shows the contributions of the four players Redknapp looks to for creativity. It tallies up the chances created (If you put a chance on a plate for a team-mate and they don’t convert it – that still counts here) goal assists and goals. Also included is the amount of time spent on pitch – to allow some fair comparison, but really what we’re looking at in this table is total impact, irrelevant of time on pitch.

Impacts of Spurs' creative players

Gareth Bale comes out of top – no surprises there really, he’s one of the most talked about players in the Premier League. Bale has created twice as many chances as the next creative midfielder, and has scored one more goal than Van Der Vaart.

Goals and assists adjusted for time on pitch

This adjusted table shows how effective the attacking midfielders are. In fairness to Modric, he is a centrally based orchestrator of play, it’ll be him that puts Bale in down the wing to provide an assist. Van der Vaart plays almost as a second striker – and he scored almost as many goals per minute as a striker. If Modric supplies the ammunition, it’s Van der Vaart who aims the gun, and often him who pulls the trigger too – he was last season’s top scorer for Spurs with 13 goals.

Next Page: Modric positions compared… left wing or central midfield? Plus the VDV effect…

Tom Nash
Tom Nash
"I never predict anything, and I never will" Paul Gascoigne
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