Why The New System We Saw Against Villa Will Suit Roberto Soldado

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Yesterday, we saw Tottenham pick up a late 2-1 win over Aston Villa. That game saw Mauricio Pochettino fielding two strikers for the entire duration of the match. These two strikers didn’t line-up how you think they would.

The new system saw Roberto Soldado play just behind the striker, Emmanuel Adebayor or Harry Kane. You may say that there is no change in system, but it saw Soldado play as a number ten, but also helped out Adebayor or Kane up top, so effectively, we saw a 4-2-3-1 formation, sometimes changing into a 4-4-2 when Soldado chose to join the lone striker up top.

Now, onto who this will suit, and as you can tell by the title, I feel that it will suit Roberto Soldado the most. As we saw last season, Soldado struggled up front by himself, and often had to wait for the support from the midfield to come up before playing the ball through as he didn’t have the confidence or sheer pace to take on a defender.

On many occasions, this season as much as last, the Spaniard has dropped deep and sometimes has left us with no target man up front, leaving the midfield  with the responsibility of making goal scoring opportunities for themselves. Playing as the lone striker, the onus was on the Spaniard to score goals, and that is something he couln’t do from forty yards out.

That is why I think Soldado is suited to the number ten position, he can also link-up play very well with other, and the onus is not on him to score all the goals. This will hopefully take him of the mounting pressure off his shoulders and he can play with a bit more freedom, allowing him to roam from his position.

We hope that Mauricio Poochettino will keep this system, so we can hopefully get the best out of Roberto Soldado.