Statistical Analysis of Tottenham Hotspur 3 - 0 Stoke City

Article by Ashley Caparelli

Finally, something positive to write about! Spurs fans have been waiting for a performance like this all season and the team performed brilliantly in front of the White Hart Lane faithful. Spurs have been far to easy to play against at home this season. Hopefully this home victory is the first of many in the new era under Sherwood who hopes to once again make White Hart Lane a 'fortress'.

Defence

A solid defence kept us on track in a game where it looked like we may not capitalise on our dominance. A 67% tackle success rate broke down any attack Stoke attempted to build and limited them to long balls and only 1 shot on target. I must admit that before the game I was nervous as to how Naughton and full debutant Fryers would fair but in hindsight Stoke offered very little going forward. We did however concede 7 fouls, fortunately none of them proved to difficult to defend and Stoke's uncharacteristic record of not managing a single headed goal all season continues. Spurs only had to defend one corner which didn’t worry them at all.

Midfield

Two brilliant performances from Dembélé and Pauliniho in the centre of the park ensured we had complete domination of the game and 59% of possession. The pair barely lost the ball with a 97% and 92% pass success rate and set us on our way to having 20 shots. Majority of our attacks come from the right, 45% of them infact. This shows a clear shift in philosophy since hiring Sherwood who seems to want to return to the basics in terms of getting the ball out wide and going around the defence rather than attemept to play our way through the middle. With Eriksen coming in off of the left and Adebayor dropping deep when we didn't have the ball, we didn't become outnumbered in the middle of the park as we have done for the previous games where Sherwood has employed a 4-4-2 formation. I still fear that against better opposition there is a risk that we will become exposed in midfield.

Attack

Despite the 3-0 scoreline I still feel there is more to be desired from from our strikers this season. Soldado scored yet another penalty today which was the first of our 3 goals, however he could have had a hatrick. Only 7 of our twenty shorts were on target, with four others being blocked and the remaining 9 being off target, that's just not good enough. 3 goals is respectable and it is only the second game this season in which it has been achieved, the first also coming in a game managed by Sherwood (the 3-2 victory over Southampton).

This is first time in a while where I have actually enjoyed watching spurs, it was a pleasure to see the relentless attacking that Tottenham were once known for. If this is a sign of what is to come then the future looks great. I will end with an earlier tweet I posted earlier “3 points from 4^th? Who said the season was over?”.