• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Spurs Fanatic

Spurs blog for Tottenham fans

  • Home
  • About
    • About this Spurs blog
    • Privacy Policy
    • Cookie policy (UK)
    • Sitemap
  • Contact
  • Subscribe
Home » blog » Spurs season defining tactics: striker pull effect
Spurs season defining tactics: striker pull effect

Spurs season defining tactics: striker pull effect

1st June 2016 By Spurs Fanatic - Mark

74
SHARES
Share Tweet

Mauricio Pochettino’s use of his striker to have a pull effect on man marking centre backs to move them out of position was key to our season.

Most coaches uses their strikers to be goal scorers, hold up players or even as linkmen. Not many will also include the term ‘decoy’ in their job description. Mauricio Pochettino does though, as he seeks to use his striker to not just get goals, but also to have a pull effect on man-marking centre backs.

The striker pull effect

Harry Kane is one of the most devastating forwards in the Premier League. His effectiveness comes from his ability to do a number of things. He takes shots on early to catch keepers off guard. He often shoots from abnormal angles. He combines this with pinpoint accuracy that makes his efforts difficult to predict, let alone save. Wrap this up in a sizeable frame that can shield off defenders, with decent speed and a non-stop motor, and it makes him a nightmare for the opposition to cover.

It is for these reasons that opposition centre backs will often be detailed with man marking Kane. Rather than try and pick him up when he moves in to their zone, when often it is too late to stop him shooting by then. Defenders will be tasked with picking him up early and tracking him.

This might put an opposition manager’s mind at ease that Kane is always accounted for. He should be picked up and his early shots from unpredictable angles and distances wont catch them by surprise and off guard.

However, in these situations, Mauricio Pochettino uses Harry Kane as decoy. The striker will drift out wide or come deeper in the formation, dragging a centre back with him and opening up a lane for a midfield runner to burst in to the space created.

The tactic is quite simple, but it has often caught opposition defences unaware this season, with devastating consequences.

Pull effect in games

In our opening game of the season, we saw Man Utd try and congest the centre around Kane to stop him being effective. No problem as he sucks in four defenders and picks out a neat lob pass over them for Christian Eriksen to run in to the space behind.

man-utd-1-0-spurs-eriksen-chance
Harry Kane draws the defence as Eriksen runs beyond.

Next up in our 2-2 draw with Stoke, Mark Hughes was short on centre backs and used Geoff Cameron alongside Marc Muniesa. Knowing they couldn’t physically match up with Kane, Hughes had Cameron track him to try and nullify our striker.

Cameron would go wherever Kane did in the Stoke half, which included being pulled out to the touchline. Ben Davies shot past Harry Kane in to the space created and crossed for Nacer Chadli to score.

spurs-2-2-stoke-kane-pass-davies
Harry Kane comes short, Davies goes in to the space created.

Against Sunderland, Kane drew Younes Kaboul with him, who should’ve known better having had a season under Pochettino. This allowed Erik Lamela to pick out the run of Ryan Mason to edge a tight game with the only goal.

sunderland-0-1-spurs-mason-goal
Kane, Mason and Lamela in-sync.

Days later in the Europa League and Qarabag centre back Rasad Sadiqov was trying to track Kane. He was pulled out from his position at the heart of the back four by Kane’s movement, allowing Erik Lamela in to score through the space that Sadiqov had vacated.

spurs-3-1-qarabag-lamela-goal
Kane’s movement springs Lamela.

Perhaps the most devastating game where we’ve seen this tactic at its best was the 4-0 hammering of Stoke at the Britannia. The Potters again went with their centre backs tracking Kane and he pulled them all over the place.

Our first goal of the night saw Kane pull Philipp Wollscheid out from the centre to track him by the touchline.

stoke-0-4-spurs-kane-goal-2
Philipp Wollscheid tracks Harry Kane to the sideline.

Kane found Mousa Dembele, who returned him the ball back to him to curl it in to the corner.

Not long after and Christian Eriksen was put clean through but pinged his shot off the bar. Again, Harry Kane had dragged Wollscheid away from his starting position as the right centre back. Wollscheid had even overlapped his left-sided partner Ryan Shawcross to follow Kane. This created a beautiful alley for Eriksen to run through.

stoke-0-4-spurs-eriksen-shot-bar
Movement of Kane springs Eriksen.

One became two, as both Lamela and Kane sucked the centre backs short. Wollscheid went with Lamela, Shawcross with Kane. This allowed Eriksen to pick out Alli’s run beyond them.

stoke-0-4-spurs-eriksen-pass-alli-goal
Alli on his way as Kane and Lamela suck the CBs in.

Alli should’ve had a second, but inexplicably hit the post with an empty goal at his mercy after rounding the keeper. Once more, Kane had sucked Shawcross up-field, creating the lane for Alli to run through.

stoke-0-4-spurs-alli-post-shot-kane
Kane draws Shawcross way out from defence.

Kane would score the third as we rampaged up-field after breaking forward from a Stoke corner. However, he would also be heavily involved in our fourth without touching the ball this time.

His movement towards the touchline dragged both Shawcross and Wollscheid with him. One defender tracking him would’ve been ok, but two spelt disaster. They were both late to recover their positions after falling for Kane’s decoy run. This let Christian Eriksen in to deliciously tee the ball up for Dele Alli to sweetly volley it in to the corner of the net.

stoke-0-4-spurs-kane-4th-goal
Kane’s run attracts Wollscheid and Shawcross.

With this tactic, this game was definitely Kane’s and our performance of the season.

Striker pull effect overall

When you have a striker that is not only a threat to score goals, but can also pass the ball, then you have a great threat to use him as a decoy against man-marking defenders.

Harry Kane has had a sensational season from a goal scoring perspective, but he also brings so much more to the team. Defences are scared of him and will try to take him out of games by tracking him wherever he goes. Using either his passing or just simply his movement without the ball, he opens up lanes for others to run in to when opposition centre backs are keeping too close tabs on him.

It might not be applicable every game, as not every team will track him, but when opposition centre backs do over pursue, they leave themselves open to this pull effect. It’s a big reason why we scored the second most goals in the Premier League this season.



If you enjoyed this post, please share:

74
SHARES
Share Tweet

Filed Under: blog Tagged With: Harry Kane, Spurs, Tottenham Tactics

Previous Post: « Spurs season defining tactics: use of attacking full backs
Next Post: Spurs season defining tactics: exploiting the inside left channel »

Primary Sidebar

Welcome

Welcome to my Spurs blog!

Tottenham Hotspur tactics and performances have always fascinated me, so i started this Spurs blog. Here you'll find in-depth tactical previews ahead of every Spurs match. Detailed analysis of results afterwards. On the blog there are player and team performance studies.

FOLLOW

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Categories

  • blog (211)
  • Player Analysis (24)
  • Spurs Match (172)
  • Spurs Result (286)

Search Spurs Fanatic

Read on

Kick News - Tottenham Hotspur news
Tottenham News.net
Spurs News
Tottenham Hotspur
WhoScored.com
Guardian Football

As featured on NewsNow: Tottenham Hotspur news
Tottenham Hotspur News 24/7 

Copyright © 2023 Spurs Fanatic · Website by Powred Group Ltd

Don't Miss Out On A Post!
Want to make sure you don't miss an article? Of course you do, you're not daft. So, get new posts delivered to your inbox.
Manage Cookie Consent
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional cookies Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}