Micky van de Ven has addressed the concerns about the extreme high line that Tottenham play, insisting that he and his fellow defenders are confident that they have every situation under control.
Ange Postecoglou’s high-risk approach often has Spurs fans with their hearts in their mouths as the Lilywhites leave big spaces for the opposition teams to exploit.
Tottenham have some quick defenders like Van de Ven, who have the recovery pace to deal with balls over the top and also has a goalkeeper who is exceptional in one-vs-one situations in Guglielmo Vicario.
However, some might still feel that their tactics are too extreme and that they do not have much defensive control.
Postecoglou came in for a lot of criticism in some quarters after Tottenham’s 4-1 loss to Chelsea in November as he continued to persist with an extremely high line despite his side being down to nine men (talkSPORT).
When asked about that game and other similar situations, Van de Ven insisted that he and his teammates have much more control than it might seem from the outside.
The Dutchman told Optus Sport: “We know what to do so, for us, it’s normal. Of course, when we played against Chelsea, maybe it was a bit too extreme and we spoke about it also with the defensive line after the game.
“But yeah, for us it’s normal and people are shaking a bit because of the high line, because we play with so many spaces at the back but I think with Destiny, with Pedro [Porro], with me, with Cuti [Romero], we also have the pace to recover it and yeah, it’s playing with risk, but most of the time the players run offside and we know it’s offside because we know our strong line.
“The linesmen, they don’t put their flag in the air, everybody is shaking and they’re like, ‘Oh, they don’t have the control’, but we know it’s offside, so we know we have control of the attackers.”
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While Ange does stick to his principles, the Australian has shown that he is a pragmatist and is ready to make some tweaks under certain situations.
For example, our defensive line was slightly deeper during November and December when Van de Ven and Romero were out injured and Ben Davies was partnering Emerson at centre-back.
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