Pundit Rio Ferdinand has told BT Sport (11/09, 1:20pm) that he thinks Tottenham Hotspur boss Nuno Espirito Santo will be ‘going bananas’ with his side’s passive play.
Tottenham won their first three games of the new Premier League season. Three 1-0 wins in a row weren’t exactly flashy, but they got the job done.
Fans were hoping for the same again on Saturday as Tottenham made the trip to face Crystal Palace.
What they got was a far cry from a solid 1-0 win.
Tottenham had Japhet Tanganga sent off and then fell behind to a Wilfried Zaha penalty. As if that wasn’t bad enough Odsonne Edouard came off the bench to score twice.
A 3-0 defeat to Palace was not what fans had in mind. To concede those goals when down to 10 men was one thing, but the manner of the performance was frankly dreadful.
Nuno’s midfield experiment fails in Tottenham defeat
Tottenham’s midfield just completely failed to progress the ball. Nuno had to tinker with his formation with Son Heung-min and Steven Bergwijn, but it just didn’t work.
A midfield three of Oliver Skipp, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Harry Winks was just too safe. Too many times they missed balls out to Tottenham’s wing backs, especially Emerson Royal.
They were constantly taking the safe option, and Rio Ferdinand was baffled.
Ferdinand suggested that Nuno will be ‘going bananas’ with his midfielders because they were ‘very very passive’, particularly highlighting Skipp and Winks as guilty players in this regard.
“The Spurs manager must be going bananas,” said Ferdinand. “He’ll be seeing this analysis, he’ll be seeing it live himself. You’ll see it when they’re playing, they’re very very passive. Skipp and Winks have both had a couple of opportunities each to just play it,” he added.
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