Stefan Ottenheijm

It’s interesting that Postecoglu’s whole point is that players are out. I don’t understand, as I have said before, if the injuries are non-impact muscular injuries, and they are incessant, how is the physical conditioning not on the coaching staff? It’s totally to do with the physical demands on the pitch and on the training ground. Let’s objectively look at what entails that the physical load is far too high. 1) Tottenham are the 4th highest in PPDA. To put it simply, they press very aggressively. Does this mean they should not press? Of course not, but this higher physical load should be managed with lower loads in possession. Let’s look at that. 2) Spurs have committed 781 dribbling attempts (not take-ons). They rank 1st in the league, but that does not portray the whole picture. Spurs are clear outliers in this regard; Chelsea are 2nd, but they have committed 131 fewer attempts. To put that into perspective, the difference between 2nd and 14th is 129 attempts. Clear indication of the higher intensity in the approach. 3) The more vertical and high-tempo a team is, the higher the levels of ball losses will be. It’s neither a good thing nor bad; that depends on the overall game model. Spurs rank 4th in that regard; to put that into perspective, teams that manage similar levels of possession rank 15th and below. Clear sign of a more intense approach. 4) Finally, the most obvious metric to measure physical workload: how much the team sprints. Again, Spurs are clear outliers in this regard, as shown in the graph. The excessive amount of positional rotations also have a part to play in this. It’s abundantly clear that the game model puts an excessive physical load on the players. There are a lot more stats I can get into with regards to accelerations, distances between zonal substructures, and recovery-related stats. Unfortunately, they are only available to the coaching staff at the club, but the metrics I have mentioned still prove the point objectively and conclusively.