If I remember last Saturday’s 2-2 draw at White Hart Lane , it won’t be because Coquelin was sent off.
Mainly, I’ll remember that Hector Bellerin produced two assists.
At 22, Bellerin can play with finesse at high speed.
While Spurs right back Kyle Walker is a 25-year-old power player, an athlete who can run and battle and keep running fast for a long time.
Walker, like left back Danny Rose, is a very aggressive competitor. Those guys set the tone for the others by winning the ball, by racing down the flanks looking for a pass, trying to cross it or play somebody in.
Spurs play a momentum game and do it well.
If Harry Kane takes on a defender and loses the ball, they’ll often win it back in centrefield or in the front third. Being a kid from Walthamstow, he’s hungry as well as quite versatile.
By contrast, Arsenal’s style is a slick pass & move game played between seven attackers swarming forward as an ensemble, each looking to create a chance inside the penalty area, or to make a run into the box because he knows a pass is coming.
When Arsenal’s style finds its best rhythm, it’s accurate and effective.
They make the ball do the work more than Spurs, and keep the ball more tidily, mainly because their group has trained together a helluva lot and played matches for a long time with the same or similar personnel.
Mauricio Pochettino (44) joined Spurs from Southampton in May 2014. Almost two years ago.
But this is his first season with a squad that’s willing and able to play his way.
At Southampton, Pochettino showed that he values defensive discipline but now at Spurs he wants to play a forceful game of pressing that denies his opponents possession in areas where they really want to be on the ball.
I didn’t know that Pochettino coming to Spurs would be bad news for Arsenal.
But I suspected it.
Indeed, I once defined pressing as attacking when you don’t have the ball and Mauricio Pochettino is the living embodiment of that mantra.
While Arsenal’s style is based on possession, Tottenham’s style is based on dispossession and counter-attack. Pressing high in groups allows Dele Alli, Lamela, Kane and Eriksen, aided by the raiding full backs, to take the ball off you and attack at high speed, often through the middle.
Kane and Alli, especially, are bang!bang! players who will shoot from distance.
They’re not trying to score the perfect goal, they’re trying to score now!
And if they do get a goal, they try to score again ASAP. I love that urgency, although it doesn’t always work, and can look very untidy. But if flick or a knockdown doesn’t find a white shirt, Spurs will often sustain the press and get the ball back again by forcing an error.
So this is Pochettino’s first year using a style that suits what he’s got. But his style may evolve quickly as he improves his squad.
He made a decision to use defender Eric Dier as a defensive midfielder, so he’s really playing three at the back in a 3-6-1 system. His team attacks with energy but also defends with energy and do it so well that they’ve only lost 4 of 29 league games.
Leaders Leicester have lost lost 3 and Arsenal have lost 7.
Tottenham’s next three games are Aston Villa (a), Bournemouth (h) and Liverpool (a).
Anfield will be interesting because Klopperpool also play a high-energy game. Klopp likes to have a team of ball-hunters.
Liverpool’s biggest problem, in my view, is that they don’t have a striker who scores as many goals as Harry Kane. Somebody like that would make a huge difference to them.
PS. Arsenal’s Red Cards is a book nobody will ever write.