I watched Brentford v Spurs back twice this week and I want to talk about it properly, because I think most of the reaction to it has been lazy.

Most the reaction is that Spurs spent £237m and got beaten 3-0 by a team that spent a fraction of it, so the money was wasted. Fine. But there's a much bigger coaching and analysis story sat underneath it.

It's about what happens when you put your principles away for a while and what it costs you to get them back.

De-Zerbi took the Spurs job on the 31st March, 1pt off the drop, 13 games without a win.

Now, he definitely isn't a ‘survival coach’. He was the Brighton manager who attained European Football with a side not really built for it, who played on the edge all of the time. And by that I mean he invited the press into his own six yard box on purpose. That's his identity and one of his in-possession principles (I’ll explain more about this) and it's the whole reason clubs want him.

But last season at Spurs, he put nearly all of it away.

He picked a midfield built to win second balls. He pushed the press up and Spurs started regaining the ball in the final third more than anyone in the league. It wasn't his type of football per-se. But it kept them up on the last day.

I don't think anyone sensible argues with that decision. You save the club first and you have the argument about football later.

Then the club spent the summer rebuilding the squad in his image so he could go back to being himself. Saturday was game one of being himself again. And this is what happened…

Some might say this is an evolution of a ‘pep style philosophy’, because there is large emphasis on keeping the ball. But the tactical intentions are really very different. While Pep builds patiently through the thirds to retain the ball and sustain possession in the opponents half as much as possible, De-Zerbi instead wants to exploit space quickly to hit teams in what looks like transitional moments from their own possession. Pep’s version has a low block to deal with on many occasion, but De-Zerbi’s version has an extremely high press to deal with to get the reward he wants at the other end.

So his principles make a lot of sense; ‘Build to attract/bait pressure in the first phase to then exploit space through a quick progressive pass using third man combinations’. (Image shown)

So the intention is clear, but let’s have a look at what actually happened vs Brentford and this highlights how the players simply haven’t adapted yet to the principles of De-Zerbi.

Spurs did exactly what De-Zerbi wanted. They baited pressure and lots of it. Kinsky also played the ‘correct’ pass and so the decision by the GK was not a ‘bad’ one in the eyes of the coach. And here’s exactly why that decision from Kinsky aligned.

Many coaches would want that ball knocked long in order to try and exploit the space in behind the back line, where Spurs had a possible 1v1 situation. (As shown below)

But the pass instead went through to Richarlison’s feet to break the first line of pressure.

Both options have advantages and trade-offs:

So the decision wasn’t a bad one, but the reason it didn’t work was because the rest of the team didn’t interact well and read the cues to apply the principle properly.

Here Spurs needed more movement underneath and around the ball to give a supporting option to Richarlison as it travelled through. This is because the man to man pressure and tight marking meant Spurs had to increase tempo and play on one-touch. Gallagher here was too static and didn’t read the situation, I could say the same about Robertson who should be travelling and Bergvall simply arrives too late.

This meant Richarlison could not release quick enough and Brentford could get bodies around quickly.

The defensive line didn’t react well to the cues either. Here the line needs to squeeze as the ball travels through under high pressure to reduce the space and improve your counter pressing ability ‘if’ you are to lose the ball. Here they are just to slow and upon Brentford’s regain they allow too much open space.

De-Zerbi then expressed his frustration in relation to some of these things in his post-match presser:

Here's what I keep coming back to. That isn't a coach whose principles failed. That's a coach whose principles haven't been trained/coached into the players yet and there's a big difference.

Bending your model to get a result is usually the right call. What nobody warns you about is what it costs to bend back.

Your players learn what you pick, not what you say. Give them ten weeks of the short-term ‘results focused’ version and that's what they think your football is. When you ask for the real thing later you're not going back to ‘normal’ in their heads. You're asking for something new, from players who now have a load of confidence in the old thing. So players need to know what your intentions are and why you are going to make them play a certain way.

And when the real principle-led system struggles, you can't tell the difference. Something goes wrong in week one and you cannot tell whether the principle is ‘wrong’ for the players I have or whether it's just early. They look identical. That's the moment you panic and bend again and then you're in a loop. You might be trying to fix things that might not even be broken, just instead mis-communicated and mis-interpreted.

So if you're going back to your model after a spell away from it, put one principle back at a time. De Zerbi went back to the full thing and the build up just broke and now he can't easily tell you which piece caused it. Change one, coach it, sit through the matchday, then add the next layer. It's slower, yes. But in my opinion it's the only way you learn anything and actually make it stick.

I'm not saying De Zerbi's got it wrong. I think he made the right call in March and he's now trying to implement his typical style again.

Watch them against Newcastle on Saturday. If he goes back to the survival midfield, that tells you something. If he holds the same principles in this game though it shows that he’s willing to ride out the storm that could be coming.

Let me know what you make of it. Just hit reply, I read all of them.

Until next time,

Lucas

p.s: if you want to build your own Principles for how you want your team to play, I’ve broken it down simply in this workbook. click here.