Arsenal's attacking woes & a proper relegation battle

The Athletic FC Hello and welcome to the Athletic FC Tactics Podcast. I'm Michael Bailey. It's February and we have real jeopardy in both the Premier League title race and relegation battle. So this week we'll discuss the tactics we have seen and we'll see from the teams at the top and bottom of the Premier League. And we will do that with Michael Cox. Hi, Michael. Liam Tham. Hey, Michael. And Mark Kerry. Hi, Michael. Good day to you all. In the week of the North London Derby, we've had lots going on. Arsenal's lead at the top of the Premier League table is in serious danger of evaporating after their two-two draw with Wolves on Wednesday night. By the time they play spurs on Sunday, their gap to Manchester City could be just two points. Meanwhile, Tottenham have sacked Thomas Frank and brought in former Juventus manager Ego Tudor until the end of the season. He has one job to keep them safe from relegation. Let's focus on Arsenal and events at the top of the table first. This was the first time in Premier League history that aside starting the day bottom of the table, avoided defeat to the side starting the day top, despite trailing by two or more goals. And Arsenal have now failed to win from a leading position in three of the last five league games, which is two in two draws and a loss. That's a problem, right? And probably not a tactical one, Michael. Yeah, there's been a lot of discussion so far about Arsenal's intent and their strategy. And I think in general, a lot of people seem to be a little bit frustrated that Arsenal are maybe more defensive, more cautious than they'd like them to be. And I think that's been a theme of the arteta reign really. Personally, I actually don't think that's the issue. I think a lot of the issue has just been, to be honest, in terms of technical competence. I don't think Arsenal are trying to be so risk averse. I just don't think they have the players really to create enough chances and to score enough goals to put them out of sight. And it's actually become a bit of a repeating thing. I mean, it's only a couple of months ago since we did a podcast about how good Arsenal's defence was, but actually there's been three games this season where they've been away at teams who I'd say quite renowned for direct football and set pieces. That being Sondland, Brentford and now Wolves. And they've considered quite preventable late goals in situations that really meant to be their strength. You look at their overall defensive record and it's still very good compared to whatever other team the league and indeed historically in the Premier League era. But actually, I just don't think they're scoring enough goals. I don't think they're giving themselves big enough cushions. And it's not just the draws and the defeats. I think there's been quite a few games this season where they've basically got away with it. The best example being the reverse fixture against Wolves where they had a one goal lead. They can see the late goal when Wolves had a bit of spell of pressure and Arsenal got away with it with an own goal in stoppage time. Actually, both the goals that they were on goals. So I think there's been, for me, there's been a feeling throughout this season that Arsenal were just not quite good enough. And I think they have squeezed out a lot of results and we can say that's the sign of champions and all that. But that's a bit of a truism. I think if you're doing that in the first half of the season, you probably need to up your game in the second half of the season. And I anticipated they would with the return of Urdugar, Diffitness and Havitz, Diffitness and. But we haven't seen any of that. So yeah, I don't think this is just about last night. I think Arsenal have been in a bit of a pickle for quite a few months now. And like I say, I don't think it's just about intent. I just don't think they're a great team, really. I agree with Michael on that. I was at the Brentford game recently and the second half was quite incredible already. There were kind of three, four break-ways with Brentford where. And I'm counting the mids of writing a piece about kind of Arsenal defending counter attacks. Now, generally, they've been good. There's been a few games where they've looked a bit susceptible, bright in the lead cup, in the Champions League and the first half. And this second half against Brentford where. I mean, they're the best counter attack in team of the league. They've got a num-n-9 in equal to Yago that can really run the channels and really cause us to send the backs problems. And to Arsenal's credit, they're quite good, I think, it's still minimising chances in those games where the striker does get in, they get bodies back, they make them take shots from bad angles, they can block shots. I think Rye generally is good at kind of shot-stopping from those situations, too. But they quite easy could have lost that that Brentford game and, you know, Mick and I tetra basically set as much in the post-match press conference. And it felt like a similar story in the Wolf's game where I had a look at the numbers and Arsenal had 99 possessions in that game, which are effectively different attacking sequences. So these are having kind of more instances than usual of turnovers happening, of them regaining the ball, just not really keeping controllers as Michael's saying. And that might be a thing of not having an older guy in there to kind of balance them out. Obviously, we see our tetra now trying different solutions in attack by bringing the soccer central, having madwake out wide. And that's going to be a real problem, because we've seen the Premier League become a really, really good, transitional league, counter-attack and league over the past four or five seasons. It's basically taken the crown off the Bundesliga now in Germany for that. The Premier League is the counter-attack and league. So, yeah, there's definitely problems for Arsenal to solve in attack. It has become harder for teams to manage games in that way. I think the physicality of the league at the moment, the emphasis on set pieces, and I think just the fact that there's 10 subs happening between two teams, it just changes situations. I think, you know, you can generally see games opening up. It's quite rare, even when you've got a really great team, it's quite rare that they play well for 90 minutes. I think what tends to happen is and I'm making these numbers up, obviously, but you often have a team who's, they just win the game in half an hour, three new up, and then another hour, it's just about not losing it. And I think Arsenal just never, almost never get into that situation. To be fair, there's been a couple of games against Lee's and Son of the LAST two weeks where they have scored more goals than normal, but you're right, there's been so many games. I mean, there's been full-in game, the Palace game, just situations where you think Arsenal with all their attackers, you know, having brought in three big attacking names in Eze and Yokras and Maduweke. I just don't think they're scoring off goals and I don't think they have good enough spells to justify the fact that they barely played first half at Brentford. They just didn't create any chances, I don't think. And the second half here, they just, they couldn't string any passes together. I just don't think that you can keep on doing that when you've got a one-goal advantage. I know that a two-goal advantage here, but for two minutes, I think. And yeah, I just think it's coming back to bite them and I do think it's been on the cards for for quite a few months really, unless they had stepped up, which they haven't. I saw this stat from James Benj on social media last night that Arsenal have conceded 20 goals in the Premier League this season with six of them from shots worth 0.0 for XG or less. No team has conceded more low-value shots. I feel like we've addressed this subject recently, Mark, is this a quirk of the numbers or something to do with maybe David Rare and his ability to save long shots? I think it's probably the former, I think it's probably reading too much into it to suggest it's a conon going pattern. I think we can still talk about David Rare's ability to save long shots, but as a share, and obviously when you're only talking about 20 goals conceded in total, it is small numbers already, but as a share of the goals of the total goals conceded among all teams, 30% and in the context of 20 goals in total, please bear that in mind, but 30% of Arsenal's goals have been conceded from outside the box. That's the highest share of any Premier League team, but you actually look at those six goals where actually list them. There's the Hugo Beno-Weno one from this week. Another was Patrick Dorgu, which came off the crossbar was an unbelievable finish. Mateusz Kuhnje, not too dissimilar, from Manchester United, great finish. The junior crewpy one for Bournemouth, David Rare, I've looked back at each one, could have argued in a little bit better. The other one was Rochaeluson, where he loved David Rare for being off his line, wasn't close enough to the sort of secure box, if you like. The other was Dominic Sobosly's Free Kick, which was an unbelievable finish as well. So breaking each one down, I don't think there's really too much evidence of a consistent pattern of poor goalkeeping. You think about the XG that you mentioned before, but then you think about maybe expected goals on target, how much value the player adds after the shot has left their foot. I'd argue that quite a few of those actually are, if not unsavable, then really positioned very well in the goal mouth. So I wouldn't place too much blame at David Rare's door there. I think he's got a certain style and he is quite short, Raya. I think he, I would guess, of all Premier League goalkeepers, I think he's probably the furthest off his line in general when trying to save shots. I agree, I think most of them are unsavable. Dorgu, unsavable. I think the one-on-one last night, and I know I keep on banging on about the Premier League ball and how much it curls and dips. But I think if you stand quite far off your line, I think you're giving the player quite a lot of space to aim at. And when you look at how the bueno ball goes into the goal, it's not really anywhere near the corner, but you look at anything that's an incredible strike. And you look at any, there's not that far into the corner. And it's not just Raya, but I increasingly think, and I know you've done a very good art of corn, nirpo shots, and how that's increasing in the Premier League. But sometimes I look at these shots, so I'm just like, you're leaving five times as much space at the far post, really, as the nirpo's. And we know that we know players want to curl the ball. Almost, you know, it used to be like, oh, the trademark Tieri on Refinish, but every good attacker can do that. And loves doing that. We know what they want to do. So I don't know why Galki was don't guard more against really what the players want to do. And if you get beaten in the nirpo, there's a couple of times fair enough. But I just think there's so much space on some of these shots. Don't know what the edge she was on that one, I'm guessing probably not for something. I bet he scores that more than one in 25 times. I don't think it's really, I really don't think it's that hard a shot to score from. I don't think I've seen him do that before. I don't think it's that difficult when you've got that amount of space. He's never going to score inside the nirpo. No chance. But in my opinion, this team, space at the far place. Let's move on to just a theme of the titan race in general and who has maybe the better fixtures from here Mark. Is it Arsenal or Manchester City? Does anyone get a sense that Manchester City could now go on one of these long winning runs that we've seen? I mean, that would heat pressure on Arsenal and it would certainly ask questions given the respective teams recent history. Well we can kick it around between us but statistically speaking, if you looked at the average opt-of-power ranking rating if you like, for the remaining fixtures of all teams and ranked them, Arsenal marginally have the easy games remaining. If you do it as an average of all the potential fixtures but I think the point in this is when we're looking at run-ins is that the title might be over with a couple of games to go potentially in which case the meaning of the remaining fixtures obviously changes throughout. So obviously Arsenal have got spurs this weekend so that's obviously a big one to start off with. You then look at having the easier side of their fixtures comes in the final few games. Crystal Palace, Bernalys, West Ham and Fulham in reverse order but they still have to play Newcastle, Manchester City, Chelsea and Spurs. So it's tough. I think even though I am going to lean on the numbers for it, I don't think you can almost look at it in a statistical way. I think each one, as the season progresses, each one takes on its own importance and I think it's really hard to truly try and distinguish between the two in terms of difficulty because so much can change. The Paul Merce and Thea Run sky spool, as you say, whoever plays first more will have an advantage because they're pushed pressure on the second team. I should really do quite a lot of that. I'd be worth digging to. Oh yes, please. I can't remember this but supposedly Tottenham Lester in 2016 was big for this. Tottenham was always on the Monday or Sunday and playing catch up. I'm not sure whether it's true. I do think it's. Yeah, it could be an interesting piece of a game. Yeah, the psychological side of it. Yeah, which is why, as I said, you can't look at it too much as much as I like to give the hard-called fact. I do think there's a psychological element to this as well. Well, on that point, Sky Show, a really interesting graphic at some point during their coverage last night. I'm not sure if this is before or after the game, but they looked at the points one in the final 12 games of each of the past four Premier League seasons and compared Arsenal Manchester City and that. A man City of one more points in the running, if you like, in all of the past four seasons in Arsenal and they've pretty consistently hit 30 points or a little bit more kind of average is about 30. Arsenal in 2023, 24, 31 points, just one fewer than City, but besides that, they really do to tear it off quite a bit. I think that's hard, especially when you look at the fact they're going into Champions League knockouts, Carre by Cup Final coming up as well, that it's going to be a real test of squad depth. One of the things that might count against Manchester City this season, it's something that one of our riders, Jordan Campbell, has written well on. There's how much of their title winning experience they've lost. They've got a lot of players that are fairly new to the club or operating in new positions as well. Pep Guardio has mentioned it an awful lot in Paris conferences and then you think about some of the players that they have had in terms of stones, Roderie that have dealt with injuries and been out of the team for long periods. That's probably more of a psychological thing than necessarily being tactical. You probably really want to lean on that experience and there's established partnerships and there's really important players. I think it's probably less certain that City will go on that typical round where they just kind of click into gear. But then we have Simpep trying a few different shapes this season, a few different approaches. It feels like he always spends the first half, two thirds of a season trying to find the optimal balance. They've obviously done business in the summer and done business in January. You do get the sense that City still could, even without those key players, really come together. City have only won three of the last eight league games and I think they've shown a lot of weaknesses during that spell as well. Those three wins are being in wolves and full of them at home which you'd expect and the one at Liverpool away which obviously they could very easily not have won. But I mean, they're defending away at Sunnall and the White Brighton was really poor. I think Chelsea, when they drew one or what home with when McFarland was in caretaker charge, I think City just showed they couldn't control the game when they won their up and the one against Tottenham to be tuning up against a team who felt like Tottenham, a bait to be given up or the fan to give up really in that game to blow that to no lead and draw to all. I think it was almost as unforgivable as what Arsenal did at Wolves to be honest. Yeah, maybe people say this thing a lot but I do think whoever wins the league this year will be the weakest title winner for quite a long time and we're probably going back to Leicester and even then Leicester were underdogs. I think when you look at the player ability, they were a fantastic team in terms of maximising the abilities of the key individuals and I don't think you can say that about anyone in the title roast this season. Let's move on to affairs on the other side of the North London divide and the relegation battle Tottenham find themselves in. This is how the bottom of the table looks as it stands. Wolves are rock bottom on just 10 points then it's barely isolated in 19th so the working theory is those two will go down but miracle then you have resurgent West Ham with notting on roast spurs and leads or within six points of the hammers. We relieved to we at least get a relegation battle this year. Michael the last two years the provider teams have gone straight down with barely a wimper. Yeah, definitely. There's a couple of established teams in there. Tottenham obviously have been in the top flight for decades and West Ham now for about 15 years I think I'm right in saying. It's quite exciting because I think imagining, well I think imagining either of those stadiums in the championship to be honest is the most striking thing. The general level of the Premier League is very good this season. We can see from the Champions League group phase that the Premier League teams are very dominant and yet those same Premier League teams are going to botmalf clubs and really struggling to get a win. I actually don't think, I mean West Ham have been playing quite well in recent seasons and Tottenham I know they haven't been a good team this season by any means but I think four or five years ago you could be this level below where they should be and be like 10th or something. The fact that we're even vaguely talking about them in relation to relegation I think just shows how strong some of the teams are. The likes of Fulham and Sunderland and these kind of teams are actually quite difficult to play against. I mean if you take the bottom three currently they've got 51 points combined and that's what obviously won't have been very many at all and there's 12 game weeks left to play. The past two full seasons the bottom three got 66 and 59 points combined in those two seasons across the full 38 match days which will record lows in in both of the seasons. It was incredible kind of just stylistically how different they were and just how poor they were in terms of results. But it's funny I think how that's kind of skewed our perceptions a bit. West Hamer on track currently and of course this is I think a weird average because they were really really poor and now they've improved a bit and they're kind of averaging out like about 17th 16th kind of form but they're on track to get 35 points. Now if you go back into kind of the 2010s that was about average for the team that went down in 18th but the past six years it's been 25 points 26 points 34 35 28 which is Fulham and then 34 we've had other seasons of teams being quite poor but we're kind of returning to what is a kind of normal relegation level and I think we're all kind of a little bit very fresh in the memory with the past few years or it feels like the season is like outstanding. It's probably not incredible but it is very different to what we've seen in the past two years. I think a bunch of anything it's given a good bit of shake up to the manager Mary go around if you like that we didn't have a couple of seasons ago or in the past two seasons rather and that has led to certain teams panicking a little bit more than others of course we'll come onto nothing for us and therefore managers but I actually looked into it specifically of so in the 22 23 season there were 26 changes in managers if you like and that is including into in managers as well even if it is only one game. Then the following season and the past two seasons where the teams who have come up have gone straight back down that went right down to six changes so there wasn't much of a turn over in manager because everyone kind of stuck with with what they had. There's 24 25 season there was only 11 as well and so far there have been 11 this season as well so that might still rise a little bit but it does feel a little bit more like we are seeing a turn over of manager because these teams who we maybe don't expect Sunderland being a key one are doing so much better than expectation and teams are starting to panic their way through it having to maybe spend more money than they would like to by firing a manager in high re hiring or hiring simply out of necessities to try and stay in the league and maybe gambling a little bit whereas that gamble just wasn't quite there in previous seasons because the championship teams who came up just weren't strong enough to stay in the league. I think it's also worth pointing out that the teams who went down last season are currently in fourth, tenth and twenty second place in the championship. The teams were prime to come up a Coventry middle's for a mill wall at the moment and middle's were had a season about ten years ago but you know their team is reverent in the top line for a long time so yeah after a period where people were thinking there's basically a 23 team Premier League and we're just going to rotate between six teams actually things have had a bit of a shake up which is good fun. Yeah don't get me started on parachute payments. Firstly do we agree that walls and burning are toast that they're done? I'd say so I think points wise it's going to be really difficult for walls I think statistically speaking very very unlikely they're still there odds on to still beat the derby record of eleven points aren't they? So they at least have that. You look at their underlying numbers they're expected goal difference so looking at the quality chances they've created and conceded on a per ninety basis is better than where they are on the league table but it's still in the relegation zone if you like I won't go into the specifics but not as bad as they maybe should be. they've conceded 10 more than one. they should have, which is more than any of the team and they scored five fewer than is expected, which is among the highest in the league as well. So they probably deserve to be a little bit higher or probably a bit more in the mix to fight relegation, but especially with Robert Woods coming in and improving things a little bit, I think they're too little too late. Let's move up to the team currently in 18th, West Ham of one, three and drawn one of their last five, which is much better than relegation form and having a breakout star helps to Chris Encio. Some of Hill has good four in his last five league matches after no goals in the previous 27 games. So he is flying Liam. Yeah, he's been in really, really good form. They've had a few good additions, I think, West Ham, which are basically balanced as he met a bit better. Probably the most important one is in the coaching staff. Nuno is brought in to kind of defensive minded coach and they also made some signings in the jungle transfer window, which feels very after a team trying to fight their way out of relegation. They brought in a couple forwards, Pablo, who's injured, which is, I think, actually quite a big problem for them now, but most importantly, Tati Castellanos as a striker. I think he's only scored once, maybe twice, in fact, it's sort of way, Bernley just had a couple good goals off crosses, but it's really given them a good focal point up front. There's a period earlier this year where they're basically playing Bowen and some of it is kind of too false forwards. It wasn't really working because they're not particularly big and will be dominated by centerbacks. Then they also lose the fact of just, they're really good out wide. When you let them play out wide and you give them support, you give them fullbacks like Jufe, like Wimbus Saco, who can cross, you can underlap, suddenly they're really, really good and they're looking awful lot better. Just to back up some numbers from what you're saying there, as well, Liam, that if you look at the attacking half of the pitch and split it across three thirds, the left third, middle third and right third, West Ham have the lowest share of touches through the middle third, which obviously speaks the idea that they like to play more on the wings as well. As much as anything, to your point, Nuno knows where the strengths lie of each player and they're just doubling down on it and doing really well. Yeah, they've been good by being bold. Nuno, I don't think of this attack-minded coach at all, but at times they're basically played four attackers and really gone for it. Evening as Chelsea, they lost that three to it, Stamford Bridge. I just think one of those things where Chelsea had too much length and depth, but they were really good to go to and out there. Against Manchester United, they played well and obviously the CESCO flick for their equaliser very deep and stoppage time. The only question I'd have is maybe against Chelsea and Manchester United. The Dicco quite defensive. I think Nuno is quite fond of bringing on defenders to shore up things. Same with Forest. Same with Forest, and they end up considering quite a lot of pressure and I've not convinced Centrebacks are always that reliable enough. I think they've got fee players who can look good, but also make daft errors. One of the four teams we do have to talk about, two have taken the plunge with a new manager. It's Fita Pereira who is in place for Sean Dish at Nottingham Forest and he becomes Forest's fourth manager this season, which Mark is that a record? And if it isn't then who's actually coming close to that? It's a record from a permanent manager perspective. If you include interims and caretakers, an episode we've done fairly recently, people should go and listen to, then you can maybe start to get into a bit of a blurred area. But for a permanent perspective, this one is the most. There's been a few occasions where there have been three. I'm tempted to throw this out as a quiz, but I won't. But fairly recently there have been three with Southampton in the 22-23 season with Ralph Hassanhutt, Old Nathan Jones and Ruben Sellers. In the same season, Leeds did the same with three managers, Jesse Marsh, started the season. Then I was happy to see her and then Sam Aladise who was, I think the final four games to try and firefight. That's the ultimate firefighting mission and these were subsequently relegated. Then there have been others I won't list all the managers, but Watford in the 21-22 season, Swansea in the 2016-17 season, Fulham in the 2013-14 season, Portsmouth in the 2008-09 season, Charlton Athletic in the 2006-07 season and Sunderland in the 2002-03 season, all also had three. So this is the first time there have been four permanent managers in a single season in the Premier League. Qdos Tanoorage avoiding third manager in a season there in their Premier League struggles. It's interesting, Vita Pereira was the man brought in to replace Gary O'Neill at Wolves when they were in trouble in December 2024. They were 19th with only nine points from 16 matches and Pereira got them to a 16th place finish. 17 points clear of the drop. It was quite a run as well. Is he the proof that the firefighter managers still exist, or whether they're in the mould of Sam Aladay says maybe questionable, Liam? I think without clubs saying it out loud, basically every coach now is a firefighter to some extent, with how short the tenures are. One of our data analysts does some really good stuff in time to look at managerial attendees. The average sense is that you come up quite weirdly because you get people like, club previously, our Tetta, Guadiole, that will spend quite a long time at a top club. An awful lot of managers that if you go below that kind of the median, so the middle number in the group rather than looking at just the average, it tends to be an awful lot lower. You get a lot of coaches that are basically in charge for a season at best. I'm actually kind of amazed that clubs continue to give out contracts that are two, three years so readily and when bringing a coach in, just how volatile it tends to be with the number of sackings. We'll come onto Leeds and Daniel Farck, I'm sure at some point, but they're probably a good example of that, a club that have changed tactically. Basically, there was one point where it sounded like it was basically going to be sacked and then switch the tactics, switch the system. It's basically functioning doing what a firefighter would do, but without having been sacked and being replaced. I think that's a really interesting case study. I'm really interested in how a new manager goes about this, about attempting to keep a team up at this late stage of a league campaign. You've not got long to go. It's 12 games for Forest and Tottenham. Right now, you're taking over a team of little confidence. The tactics employed before almost certainly weren't working. What makes a manager a kind of relegation specialist, someone who can firefight in this particular situation, Mark? Yeah, it's a difficult question to answer. We could definitely do a whole episode on that question alone, but I think that the main theme that I've seen is that you improve from a defensive standpoint and try and stop the ball going in the back of the net more so than to improve the attack. Adam Cleary did a really good video on this recently. People should definitely go and watch that. It's a really good sort of breakdown, a data breakdown actually of that. He said there were a few sweeping conclusions, but among many conclusions, he said that the timing of the manager change was crucial. Speaking about the Sam Aladai's example with just four games, you compare that to maybe Vito Pereira for Wolves. I think he came in in the December, had time to really, I suppose it instilled his ideas and had time to turn things around. The more time you get, as is obvious, the better the result essentially. It was more so about improving defense than attack, which was kind of a key indicator of survival. I suppose those are key elements, but also just experience in the role helps as well. I think the fact that someone like Igor Tudor has come in to Spurs, the past two roles he's had, he's come in to Juventus in March for different reasons in terms of firefighting, but the ability to turn things around quickly, he came into Juventus in March and the previous role was Lazio also coming in March. Some managers have that ability to or have that maybe that tag that they can come in and do things quite quickly. Vito Pereira obviously coming into Nottingham Forest as I said before, he came in in December, but he came in midseason. It's no coincidence that in seasons gone by as well, Sam Aladai's being another example of that, that you have these managers and the manager, Mary Go round, that used to be a Mark Hughes, a Tony Pughliss and Alan Parge, you don't know why I just rattle those three off in quick succession, but you have those managers who have that experience in the role. I suppose that can't be underestimated too. I think this is the interesting thing because I don't disagree the fact that managerial bounce so to speak or firefighter, caretaker manager is usually about fixing the defense. But that's not really the issue for these sides. I mean, Tottenham's defensive record is quite good this season in terms of expected goals. They've got the sixth best record in the Premier League, defensive record that is. The issues have been going forward in terms of expected goals in their favour, it's the fifth worst record in the Premier League. So I think that's what the fans have been annoyed about both from an entertainment perspective and just getting results perspective. They're just not good enough going forward. And I think to a certain extent, I mean, if you're coming into a place to die, you know, this is the guy almost, you expect them to be appointing now. So I think it's actually quite a tough job for both of them because I don't think you'll be, I don't think they've got enough time to really change the attacking philosophy. I think looking at how the Premier League is at the moment, maybe the way that they'll improve the attack is just working on set pieces and just becoming better in that respect. But I don't think there's an obvious job to be done with tightening up the defence. I mean, seemingly that's Frank's mentality when he came in at Tottenham was, look at the way they've been playing under Poster Coglu. The thing we can improve is by sorting the defence out and he might make arguments that they weren't good enough in a tap because of some missing attacking players. But I think to this job is going to be very difficult to be honest because I don't think there's an easy fix there. Let's switch our primary focus now to Spurs. They have employed Ega Tudor in his first interview ahead of his first game in charge, which is of course the North London Derby. He outlined his plan for a rather bold approach. We want to play this game in a way that our fans will like giving everything that we have in the right way, brave, but in the same way intelligent and smart to achieve what we want. And that's the victory. A bit different to how Thomas Frank spoke perhaps. Liam, you don't actually think Spurs are in danger of going down. I assume despite being five points from safety and with 11 injuries currently. No, I don't think so. They're on track for I think 42 points or at least 40 plus. They radicially don't need that many points from the remaining games. Again, the proximity, I think similar to what it was last season. Historically, well, I don't know if historically works any more based on last season, but they're not a team that have often been that low down the table. And I think no matter how big the point gap is seeing a team in kind of 16 to 17, it just means they always feel really, really close to it. I think on the quote from Igor Tudor, funnily enough, I actually don't think that outlines a rather bold approach. I think he's kind of saying we want to be bold, but to kind of cite a very good piece that Mark did off the back of the Arsenal Wigging game in the FA Cup that coaches don't see the point in going to Arsenal and trying to go toe-to-tie. There's a great quote from Rob Edwards who wolves about kind of saying it's like he can't do it as long as it's impossible to do from a coaching perspective. We haven't got the squad for it. I'd love to do it someday. He could theoretically choose to be bold and do that, but I think the part he says in the second half of it, we have to be intelligent and smart is basically justification for saying we want to sit in deep because as we've just spoken about the start of this pod, Arsenal's main problems are breaking teams down about having that creativity, about having the goals. They're a really good team when teams come onto them and press them, they've got real good pace up. Why that they can hit in space and behind and I think a lot of the time it can basically be reduced to a game of how good can Arsenal set pieces be in the first half or the first hour, where can they break teams open with that? I've been intrigued to see what Igor Tudor does, but I don't imagine his first move, especially when they need points, it's going to be to kind of go really gun-home and it'd be like that. I think especially in a game at home, you obviously want to be more dominant there, but I think trying to go all out and full throttle to Arsenal who then might pick you off, you definitely don't want to home in your first game in charge. Yeah, no, I definitely agree that. I think in the piece that we wrote about Igor Tudor, he does like to play a 3-4-2-1, so he likes to play with a back three, but he also really likes to press high. In his last full season in charge of a team that was Marseille in 22-23, no team had a higher volume of possessions when the attacking third, than his side. So he likes to press really high and press really aggressively, but to Liam's point, doing that against Arsenal, they'll pick you off, for example. But then think about the rest of the season, with the injuries they have. I suppose he could have leveled the same thing at Thomas Frank as well. He's not probably able to impose the style that he would wish to in a short space of time, then he would like. So I don't know whether actually he might have to be a little bit more pragmatic and just simply maybe do a firefighting job of improving things, first and foremost, get the attack working a little bit, but not feel like you have to be the gung-ho out of possession side. That maybe would have proved a bit more useful in seasons gone by, but especially the way that the Premier League has been this season, it's probably a little bit naive to do so anyway, not to mention the injuries that Spurs have to actually be able to impose it in the first place. So be interesting to see just how much things do change and how much it's in Tudor's image of how Spurs play versus just getting points and just steering clear relegation. I don't think they will go down. I think they've probably got too much quality, but I think they've got to be really careful. I know that you can say they're on course for 42 points. They're won five of their first 10 games, and they were a decent side at that point. They've won one of their last 11 games that was against the Crystal Palace team, who whenever I see them, they just look like they've given up on the glass, let's be honest. So that was one nail win. They got that. But I think one, two points say, one, I think this is quite a weird appointment. I'd say it's probably the weirdest appointments, as Rangnik at Manchester United, when you bring someone who's a caretaker manager, who's got no experience of the league, no connection to the club. There's a lot of adapting they've got to do. I do find it quite a strange appointment. And secondly, it's still in the Champions League, and I think that will take up a lot of resources. I think he's quite draining in terms of fitness. I think when you've got 10-11 players out injured, you're going to have to count on the same players midweek and at the weekend. And I think the point to tell you needed for survival will be higher this year than for probably about 10 years. I think it's going to possibly be higher 30s. So I don't think they'll go down, but I think there's only got a five point cushion over West Ham. West Ham are playing really well and Tottenham are not playing very well. So I'm a little bit concerned for them, to be honest. And I don't think they've got one or two players who you just count on to drag them out of it to be honest. He's saying you don't think they'll go down. You've just made a great case for the selling the fact that they they're going to mind to Michael. And we've got one other club we should touch on and that is Leeds United, a tweak of the season award, maybe is what we should offer to them. Switch to a back five has worked miracles and maybe resisting the temptation to get rid of Daniel Farca for another Sam Alladais type as they did in 2023. Maybe that's helped them. I think the fact that they've stayed with Daniel Farca speaks the idea in general. We spoke about it on this podcast before with that kind of myth of the manager balance to a certain extent. I think there's evidence to show that actually sticking with the manager is no different really than the second manager in hoping for an improvement. And there was this study done in the Netherlands. I think it was in 2017 and they looked at Premier League sackings from the year 2000 to 2015. And their conclusion was essentially if you stick with the manager in bad form, the team improves regardless by the same amount as if than as if that that manager were sacked. So the idea being the conclusion being that on average Premier League sackings make no difference to the average points per game. Now this is over a longer period, which is why I think the myth of the manager balance is sort of in effect because the three or four games that follow you sort of see maybe an upturn in in points and performances. But beyond about five games that that effect kind of goes away. So I think that is evidence of leads one being a really good evidence of stick with the manager allow Daniel Farca to make tactical changes. Obviously going from back four to back five or having that opportunity or option to switch between the two. That's maybe where the change has been. It doesn't necessarily have to be an action bias to change the manager. You can change so many of the things. And just to show it to Daniel Taylor s piece out today, I believe, on the manager balance as well. So that's well worth the read. And just one last thing on leads. The strange thing about them is when we're talking about Arsenal not playing that well against a lot of teams actually leads to the only team they've beaten soundly twice. They beaten five nil at home and four nil away. And the strange thing in those games was actually they weren't playing great football. But it was I mean in the most recent game it was set pieces that under leads and in the reverse game it's probably Kyoko's best game this season. And they're the kind of situations you kind of think this leads team would deal with. But they haven't. So I find them quite a strange team. But I'm pleased they're doing well. I think they're good. It's good to have leads in the Premier League. They're quite fun. Ellen Rhodes Gray. I mean the atmosphere for some of those games I think has been Liverpool game that three or before Christmas or in December I think it was a really good game in particular. You can kick off record as phenomenal as well. I like clubs just having a weird specific thing with like we can just games at home under the lights. Well they're an interesting one because I think only walls have a worse away record than leads this season which speaks to how strong they are at home under the lights at Ellen Rhodes. I'll be saying they've made Ellen Rhodes fortress here we can. It might be my Daniel Farcad into the glasses but there are six points behind Sunderland at the moment. I think leads may well finish the highest of the three promoted sides by the end of this season. There you go. That's my wild take. And with that we are out of time for today. A huge thank you to Michael Liam, Mark and producer Mike. As always please do send us your thoughts and topic suggestions in an email to tactics pod at theathletic.com. We do love hearing from you. We will see you again very soon and in the meantime enjoy the football. Theathletic FC