Pochettino's 4-2-3-1 Spurs 2016/17 // FM20 Tactic

Pochettino

Pochettino is very much a modern thinking coach, he likes to develop young players. His teams play an aggressive and attacking style, looking to put as much pressure on the opposition as possible. Pochettino is one of many modern coaches who credit Marcelo Bielsa for influencing them. You can often see aspects of Bielsa's principles in Pochettino's teams, the high tempo and relentless pressing are hallmarks of Bielsa's teams. Jesus Perez has described Mauricio Pochettino’s philosophy as “risk with knowledge”.

During his time in England, the Argentine has gained a reputation for his development of young players and attacking style of play. At Southampton, Pochettino made homegrown players Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw and Callum Chambers key players in his team. This focus on youth continued at Tottenham, with Harry Kane, Dele Alli, Eric Dier and Harry Winks all made massive strides under his charge.

Having finished in fifth and third in his first two seasons, Pochettino stepped up to finish second in 2016/17, though eventual champions Chelsea had long since established themselves as the frontrunners for the title. It would not be until matchday 21 – following consecutive victories over Southampton, Watford, Chelsea and West Brom – that Spurs would take their place in the top two, and they would hold on this position to secure their highest league place in the Pochettino era.

Ambitions of winning the FA Cup and the League Cup were ended prematurely by Jürgen Klopp’s Liverpool and Conte’s Chelsea, while Spurs dropped to the Europa League after finishing third in their group behind Monaco and Bayer Leverkusen. Silverware continued to elude Pochettino, as Belgian club Gent secured a shock result by knocking them out of Europe.

Pochettino Tactic

Poch played a 4-2-3-1 formation throughout his time at Spurs. Pochettino liked his fullbacks to play high and wide in attack providing the width and creating overloads in the final 3rd. Wanyama or Dier would operate as a halfback and would drop between the centre backs to create 3 at the back this allowed the fullbacks to bomb forward. The second central midfielder usually Dembele would pick the ball up from deep and provide dynamic running advancing the ball up the pitch. Eriksen operated as the playmaker and he could play anywhere across the 3 attacking midfield positions, however, he would mainly come in from the right into the central areas. Son would play from the left and he would cut inside playing more as an inside forward, with Dele playing off Kane.

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