Tottenham fans will be wondering what to expect from Paulo Fonseca and his tactics as he prepares to move to North London.
Spurs are poised to appoint Fonseca on a two-year deal with the option of a third year according to Calciomercato.
Given that Roma ditched him to appoint Jose Mourinho, some fans are worried that Fonseca is an underwhelming appointment for Tottenham.
He’s a much more progressive manager than Mourinho though, and a 2019 video has given a great insight into his approach.
Fonseca’s tactics to take down Manchester City
Canal11 released a documentary on Fonseca in 2019 having spent time around Fonseca for two weeks, covering Shakhtar Donetsk’s games against Desna and Manchester City.
Fonseca went into great detail about his approach to play against Pep Guardiola’s City side, highlighting that they pressed high with four attacking players.
Fonseca decided to bring his wingers infield to occupy a space between City’s midfield and full backs, then pushed his full backs high up to the halfway line.
The idea was that Shakhtar would build from the back and look to put City’s full backs in a difficult position; whether to follow the winger infield or drop off to cover the wing backs.
If they followed, the ball in behind was on. If they dropped back, Shakhtar had a route out to beat City’s press and progress up the field.
“City is a very pressuring team.” said Fonseca. “When they attack, they project their wingers to exert pressure, as you can see here. If we freeze it here, we can see they have four players – two wingers, a forward and a midfielder. They use this play a lot.”
“To get out of this, we had to lure them to one of the sides. What was our main goal? It was to bring them in to free one of these two players (wing backs). There it is. We were able to get the ball to one of these two players and we were able to advance from a further forward position,” he added.
Tottenham fans have to be excited about this approach, with Fonseca keen to take the game to City with his own adventurous ideas rather than simply putting 10 men behind the ball.
The footage also showed a great instance of this working against City; a switch of play with that exact tactic got left back Ismaily clean through on goal, and he finished past Ederson to seal a 2-1 win. If Fonseca can mastermind similar wins over City as Spurs manager, he would quickly become a favourite.
Fonseca demands possession of the ball
Mourinho’s style often saw Tottenham surrender possession of the ball and hit teams on the break, but Fonseca doesn’t want that.
Fonseca admitted that his ‘obsession’ is with possession, keeping the ball and taking the initiative from the off – surely music to the ears of Tottenham fans.
Fonseca added that he feels ‘very uncomfortable’ when his teams can’t keep the ball, so expect to see a huge change from the football played under Mourinho.
“The obsession with ball possession, the obsession with wanting to play in the offensive half of the field – that’s mainly it. The obsession of taking the initiative during the match, I think that’s what defines our playing style. There’s something that makes me very uncomfortable on the bench, feeling that my team can’t keep the ball.”
Fonseca’s approach with wingers could be perfect for Son Heung-min
There was another clip of Fonseca explaining his approach to exploit space against City, given that it’s hard to play through them at times.
Fonseca urged his striker to drop a little deeper and occupy City’s centre backs, giving room for his wingers to dart in behind, because the space when facing City is behind the defence.
“The space between the lines isn’t easy to use against this team; where does the space exist? What we want is for our winger on this side not to come in support, always in depth,” he added.
‘Always in depth’ is Fonseca’s terminology for running in behind, and that does seem ideal for Son Heung-min.
Jose Mourinho did use a similar approach at times, with Harry Kane dropping deep and Son running in behind to cause mayhem.
Son’s movement off the ball and deadly finishing make him ideal for making those kinds of runs, and it wouldn’t be a shock it the South Korean is a key factor in Tottenham’s attack under Fonseca.
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