Tottenham and Leicester’s Contrasting Champions League/Premier League Balancing Acts
Four teams from the Premier League get to enter the Champions League each season. You have a good run, you outlast a few big clubs, win a couple upsets and bingo you’ve got yourself a couple games with Real Madrid or whoever.
The thing is, there are more than four teams that rate themselves to get those spots and the competition for them gets pretty fierce. Arsenal you can book in for at least fourth place – they’ve made the last 18 UCLs. Manchester City have been there the last five times now. Then you’ve got Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea – all not only regulars but European champions within the last dozen years.
So if you’re a team like Spurs or Everton or Newcastle or Leeds or Blackburn or, yes, Leicester City… then your trips to the Champions League aren’t to be taken for granted. The last Premier League season was a situation almost never to be repeated. United, Chelsea and Chelsea? All three sacked managers on the way to finishing outside the top four while Spurs and Leicester slugged away in a title challenge of their own. Leicester did the business, Spurs slipped to third but still got their Champs League ticket stamped for the first time since the Gareth Bale heyday of 2010-11.
And now what? Leicester got through to the knockouts with a game to spare but they’re lingering in 14th on the domestic front – with as many points in five UCL games as they have in 13 PL games. Tottenham are faring a bit better in the Prem in fifth though they’re finding it tougher than last season and just lost their unbeaten start as they were Conte-d by Chelsea. Oh and they’ve already been eliminated from the Champions League. Hmm.
There’s a balance in there which is incredibly tough to find. For Leicester it doesn’t really matter. They won the Premier League and their European sojourn now is a once-in-a-lifetime reward for that. There’s no illusion that they can win the league again so they can sacrifice that almost completely as long as they don’t get relegated (which they shouldn’t). This is a bonus for them – just as it was for Spurs in 2010 when they topped their group ahead of Inter Milan and then knocked AC Milan out in the next round before going down 5-0 on aggregate to Real Madrid. That’s the kind of fairytale that Leicester are hoping for this season.
But at the same time, the fixture congestion seemed to affect them and a slow start to the Premier League season and way too many draws towards the end of it saw them finish six points off of Arsenal and down in fifth – dropping them back to Europa League the next time around where they’d be for the following five seasons (although in 2012-13 they did finish fourth only for Chelsea to win the Champions League and steal their spot – they’ve since changed that rule).
TOTTENHAM’S TROUBLES
If Spurs’ situation has an Achilles heel, it’s optimism. Since Mauricio Pochettino has taken over they’ve established themselves as one of the best defences in England and a team worthy of challenging for the top four year after year. There was hope they could do that the last time they made it this far but realistically they took a drop off when Luka Modric left and an even bigger one a few years later when Gareth Bale followed him. Now they’re a team that rates their chances of rolling with all those punches. Harry Kane, Mousa Dembele, Toby Alderweireld, Dele Alli and Hugo Lloris have all missed time so far.
Except… Kane is still their top scorer despite missing nearly two months of football. The last game that Alderweireld played 90 minutes in was the 2-0 win over Man City, the best result of their season. Since then they’ve won once in six Premier League games and been knocked out of the Champions League and EFL Cup, keeping one clean sheet in nine games after seven from 11 before that. Victor Wanyama has limited the catastrophic absence of Dembele (Kane scored once in 11 games without Dembele last PL season and 24 in the 27 that the Belgian appeared in), the form of Son Heung-Min means that Dele Alli isn’t so crucial and Michel Vorm is one of the best reserve keepers in the division but despite bringing in cover for their star striker and defender it hasn’t happened yet. Vincent Janssen has been off the pace. Eric Dier is playing central defence and that’s not only a drop off at the back but it also means he’s not in the midfield.
Then add in that Georges-Kevin N’Koudou hasn’t been much of a factor and Moussa Sissoko was just dropped from the squad and given a public dressing down by the manager and they haven’t actually strengthened much at all. Alderweireld and Kane played 91 games between them in 2015-16. They haven’t been so lucky this time around and clearly that was gonna affect their ability to rotate the team in Europe without consequence on the ol’ scoreboard.
Yet after their first legit title race in bloody ages, this was supposed to be a season in which Spurs consolidated themselves among the Premier League elite. Their aim is not to savour a special season but to make this the norm, to regularly compete at this level. As such they didn’t have Leicester’s luxury of prioritising and that was a big deal. Pochettino never really seemed to make up his mind which competition was more important and as a result they’ve suffered at each. Despite expectations and all that, they don’t have the depth that Arsenal or City have. Meanwhile domestically the two form teams are Chelsea and Liverpool who are doing their thing without playing in Europe at all.
Take a look at the starting XIs for Spurs in the UCL:
Home to Monaco (L 2-1):
Lloris / Walker, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Davies / Dier, Alli / Lamela, Eriksen, Son / Kane
Away to CSKA Moscow (W 1-0):
Lloris / Tripper, Alderweireld, Vertonghen, Davies / Wanyama / Lamela, Eriksen, Alli, Son / Janssen
Away to Leverkusen (D 0-0):
Lloris / Trippier, Dier, Vertonghen, Rose / Wanyama / Lamela, Eriksen, Alli, Son / Janssen
Home to Leverkusen (L 1-0):
Lloris / Walker, Dier, Vertonghen, Davies / Dembele, Wanyama / Sissoko, Alli, Eriksen / Son
Away to Monaco (L 2-1):
Lloris / Trippier, Dier, Wimmer, Rose / Winks, Wanyama, Dembele / Son, Alli / Kane
Three different formations, a different back four every single time, 17 different starters. Obviously those injuries didn’t help but you’d imagine neither did the tinkering. They didn’t actually defend badly at all in this competition. Their problem was that they couldn’t score goals. They’d dominate and then conceded a silly one and lose or draw, the only game they were outright outplayed in was the last one in Monaco and they still had over 62% of the ball. What’s great about Harry Kane as a striker is he takes shots. Get him a sight of goal and he’ll unleash. Without him (and sometimes even with him) Spurs lack anything close to that kind of ruthless attitude and they find themselves going through the motions without the intensity that forces defensive mistakes. That’s why Son’s been so good for them, particularly while Kane was out. He takes on defenders. It was those two who snatched victory from the jaws of defeat against West Ham the other week.
Then there was the Wembley drama. Having to play their home games at the national stadium because UEFA weren’t so accommodating as the Premier League when it comes to playing at White Hart Lane mid-reconstruction. Spurs have lost both games there with one meaningless one to play (meaningless unless they’re still keen on Europa League)… just like how Arsenal lost three of six there over two seasons in the late 90s in the Champions League when they couldn’t play at Highbury.
It’s hard to play when you feel like nomads. Especially in Europe, where home legs are still so important with all the extra travel. Plus Wembley is a daunting place. It’s huge and atmospheric whereas White Hart Lane is the opposite. West Ham are having the same problems getting accustomed to London Stadium after being so used to the suffocating nature of Upton Park. Not to mention a bigger pitch makes it tougher to close off space and execute the high press like Tottenham do. It means even more running for one of the hardest working teams out there.
They’d better get used to it because next season they’ll be playing all their home games there with White Hart Lane being demolished to make room for the new stadium. Look, a team on the rise has to do things like this. Arsenal did so and came out the other end of a long period of frugality and now they’re swimming in cash. Spurs had a capacity of around 35000 at WHL and the new ground will seat 61000. Legit teams need legit capacities. The fact that they’re suffering for their ambition now is kinda ironic. The future is getting in the way of the present that made that future possible.
Catch-22: To be a Champions League club we need a Champions League stadium but building a Champions League stadium will cost us our place in the Champions League.
And then there’s the mental side of things. Try as they might, this Tottenham team can’t seem to escape the Soft Spurs reputation. They straight up crumbled at the end of last season, costing their fans a long overdue set of bragging rights by finishing ahead of Arsenal for the first time this millennium. They often rotated in the Europa League but this time they were having to ask their top players to back up maybe as often as three times in seven or eight days and even if fitness doesn’t prove a factor there, simply keeping their concentration up at a hundy is a challenge.
Pochettino: “I told you from the beginning of the season that our challenge would not be physical or tactical – it would be to manage our minds. I don’t think we have showed enough quality to go to the next round but it doesn’t mean we don’t have quality in our feet. We need to improve our mentality.”
That can come with experience – actually experience is the only way you can learn that stuff. Problem is that the way things stand domestically they’re in for a tough task if they’re gonna make it back again next season.
LEICESTER’S LESSONS
The Foxes don’t have the burden of expectation so they can go out there and just enjoy it and you’ve gotta imagine that’s freed them up to do as well as they have. That… and also a really soft group, let’s be honest. Club Bruges, FC Porto and FC Copenhagen. Porto are a quality team, the only one of the three (four including Leicester) with a European legacy and when they play them away in what’s obviously their toughest fixture of the group they’ll have already qualified.
There’s clearly a purpose about how they’ve gone about tackling the UCL. That concentration hasn’t been a worry for them, in fact it’s the opposite – players like Jamie Vardy and Riyad Mahrez look like completely different players in the Champs and Prem without the same motivation. Also having a manager with prior experience in this competition has to be an advantage. Pochettino was learning as much as his players were. Ranieri already knew what to expect.
And while Leicester have used as many starters as Spurs have in the Champions League, they’ve kept the same spine throughout. Wes Morgan, Robert Huth and Danny Drinkwater have played every minute while Vardy and Mahrez have made very start. Christian Fuchs has also player every minute at left back. Kasper Schmeichel kept four clean sheets in a row before his injury meant that Ron-Robert Zieler took the gloves (and conceded in a 2-1 win over Bruges). Their formation has been steady as she goes, the approach the same one they bossed with last season.
See there are no drastic changes here, the one difference is that they lost N’Golo Kante to Chelsea. He’s not been replaced, not even close, and it’s fair to say that a lot of their Premier League issues are down to not having that guy who can win the ball like he does. Kante wins it, passes it to Drinkwater, who smacks it forward for Vardy to run onto it. Bingo. Drinkwater is still playing outstanding footy but the team has had to be more defensive – especially with Vardy messing about. He has two goals in 958 minutes in the PL so far. For contrast, it was exactly a year ago that he scored for the 11th consecutive PL game. All up last season he scored 24 times in 3139 mins. You can do the math there, it ain’t flattering.
Without a goal in the Champions League either, Vardy’s form slump is even more drastic in wider context. He hasn’t scored since the 4-1 hiding at the hands of Liverpool. That was more than two months ago. He’s just not the same player without the cast.
At least he looks to try harder in the Champions League though. Mahrez is the same except that he’s scored four of their seven UCL goals. And three in the PL. He takes penalties, to be fair. So it’s a good thing for Ranieri’s foresight because even if there was no new Kante to be found, he did add Ahmed Musa and Islam Slimani to insure against those two either dropping off or buggering off (Vardy rejected a bid from Arsenal, remember – imagine the alternate history if that had happened…). Plus Demarai Gray and Shinji Okazaki were always undercover guns (10 of their 13 PL points have come from games in which Okazaki appeared).
There’s probably a case to say that Premier League teams are figuring the Foxes out now, which isn’t a problem yet in the Champions League. They’ve all played the Foxes at least twice now since that point in early 2015 when they suddenly became amazing with the exception of the three promoted teams – Leicester lost to Hull, beat Burnley and drew with Middlesbrough. Even at times last season you saw they were vulnerable to teams that forced them to come at them, negating the whole counter attack thing. Teams like them and then also Arsenal, who dealt them two of their three defeats. Although they went nine games without a clean sheet and 17 games without being kept scoreless to start the 2015-16 season, by the end of it they were a team that was grinding out 1-0 results. That’s the team they’ve remained in the Champions League, defending stoutly and winning thanks to a scrappy goal or a penalty kick.
Funny thing is the best way to beat Leicester might be to play like Leicester. They don’t have a lot of pace at the back and despite the best efforts of Drinkwater, there’s room in the midfield with their 4-4-2 formation often leading to three vs two overloads in there. Plus they’ve been horrific on the road. They’ve taken one point in away games, a 1-1 vs Spurs of all teams. In around that they’ve copped losses to Hull and Watford amidst absolute pastings by Liverpool, Man Utd and Chelsea. Only Burnley have a worse away record in the Pl – and even then it’s only by one goal difference point. Meanwhile their home form has actually gathered them more points than Manchester United.
What’ll be interesting is over the next few months when there’s no European commitments, whether or not Leicester’s results improve when they’re able to pick a more full-strength side without an eye on the midweek.
Not that it really matters. Leicester fans are gonna be living in surplus the rest of their lives, they’ve no illusions that they’ll be topping the Manchester clubs on the regular nor do they have any need for that after how special their last season was and if they haven’t quite recaptured that magic we’ve still seen glimpses of it in the Champions League. If they get drop-kicked 8-0 on aggregate by Barcelona in the next round, who cares? 5000 to 1, baby. Spurs were handicapped by their own bright future while Leicester City were unleashed because of their mediocre past.
It’s weird how these things work.