The New Tottenham Way Of Playing

In recent weeks, Tottenham have been playing a new brand of football that not many of us would have seen before. We’ve been fit, strong, and out run our opponents in the majority of games this season. We may have started the season slower than we would have liked, but the fact of the matter is, we have improved dramatically in terms of fitness and skill, and it all comes down to the training methods of Mauricio Pochettino, his coaching staff and the willingness of the players.

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What made me realise how important this new method was to our side when I was reading “Das Reboot” by German journalist and BT Sport European pundit Raphael Honigstein, and it describes how German football had to revolutionise itself to get back to the heights of what they were years before. Now, I’m not for one second comparing Dele Alli to Bastian Schweinsteiger, or even Kevin Wimmer to Mats Hummels, but Tottenham are showing signs that they are following suit.

Our defensive midfielder has to be one who can defend and then turn into a ball player in a blink of an eye (Eric Dier), whilst the attackers are given license to attack, but have a defensive responsibility. The Bundesliga allowed the clubs to have their own youth league, and new state-of-the-art training set ups, which look like they should belong to NASA rather than a mid-table Bundesliga side. But the fact of the matter is, the Bundesliga set up is what Spurs are starting to do as we speak.

We all knew that the new training ground, which opened a few years ago, would benefit us one way or another, and it seems to be working. Our players looked very good technically and physically, and it showed when we managed to defeat Manchester City a lot more comfortably than we expected, and on Sunday when Tottenham and Swansea played out an entertaining 2-2 draw.

Mauricio Pochettino has openly claimed that a lot of his methods have been based upon Marcelo Bielsa and his incredible fitness regime. Unfortunately for Bielsa last season, his Marseille side couldn’t keep up with his fitness demands, and fell away at the final stretch of Ligue 1. But Pochettino has shown that his sides don’t seem to falter at any point. The regime isn’t harrowing enough to ruin a season, but it is tough enough to keep the players going from first minute to last.

Of course, what the Germans did may never be replicated ever again, because 21 of the 23 in the World Cup squad benefitted from the unique training, but with the help of Adidas MiCoach, they developed their individual skills. Imagine if Tottenham Hotspur invested in that kind of technology where the players were training themselves under a structure set about from top to bottom, where every player, fan and coach believed in the same cause? The players we already have, including the youth we all love to watch on social media including Josh Onomah and Nathan Oduwa, who is currently on Loan at Glasgow Rangers.

The fact of the matter is, with Tottenham increasingly getting better in the fitness aspect, and potentially even the mental state which we all know we need, the club is slowly making it’s way to developing players for our future. The future, the style, and even the culture of the club, is drastically changing.

For the next few games, keep an eye on the midfielders and how they play, how they run and how they control their fitness levels during the game. Short bursts here and there. That’s the Pochettino way, and it seems like the important players in the team are picking up his strategy very, very quickly.