the times | Tuesday December 21 2021 59
FootballSport
Dier in the David Luiz role
Conte is using Eric Dier as a ball-playing centre back at the heart of a
back three. As these pass maps show, David Luiz performed a similar
function for Conte's Chelsea side
Dier’s passes for Spurs v Liverpool
December 2021Luiz’s passes for Chelsea v Stoke
December 2016Tottenham Hotspur have been elimi-
nated from the Europa Conference
League after Uefa ruled that they
should forfeit their final group match
and awarded a 3-0 win to Rennes.
Tottenham would have needed to
beat the French side in the tie, sched-
uled for December 9, to finish second in
group G and progress to a play-off for a
place in the round of 16. The club
announced the night before the match
that it would have to be postponed
because eight players and nine staff
members had tested positive for Covid.
Tottenham had offered to play the
match last night, a day after their leagueTottenham exit Europe after forfeit ruling
match against Liverpool, but were
accused of making a “unilateral deci-
sion” to call off the game by Rennes.
Uefa said the teams could not find a
date to play and referred the incident to
its control, ethics and disciplinary body.
“We have to accept this ruling and
our focus turns to the competitions we
remain in,” a Spurs spokesman said.
The club have also been fined £4,270
for two fans running on to the pitch and
£2,350 for objects thrown by supporters
in the 3-2 win over Vitesse Arnhem last
month after being charged by Uefa.Gary Jacob
dier’s diagonals
Eric Dier has been arguably the most
transformed player under Antonio
Conte. Although he had been a regular
starter under José Mourinho and Nuno
Espírito Santo, he looked short of
confidence. Most Tottenham Hotspur
fans had given up on him.
Under Conte, though, he has been
superb and has emerged as the best op-
tion in the centre of the back three. Dier
looks liberated by the extra protection
of playing with an additional centre
back, but the clearest indication of Con-
te’s influence can be seen in his passing.
Under Nuno, Dier’s passing was usu-
ally short and/or sideways. He did hit
the occasional long pass, but with a
largely scattergun approach. Conte has
clearly instructed Dier to play more
ambitious, penetrating passes. Not only
is Dier hitting that long diagonal much
more often, he is also doing so in a
clearly targeted way — trying to release
Son Heung-min deep on the left —
rather than seemingly at random.
Of course this may remind you of
how Conte revitalised the career of
David Luiz, another centre back who
had been struggling in a two before
Conte put him in the middle of a three
and gave him licence to hit long, raking
passes for Chelsea. Compare Dier’s pass
map from the 2-2 draw with Liverpool
on Sunday to one of Luiz’s from the
early days of Conte’s 3-4-3 at Chelsea:
the 4-2 win over Stoke City in Decem-
ber 2016. They’re not exactly the same,
but you see the same incisive forward
passes and the right-to-left long balls.
sharpening up kane
Harry Kane didn’t have one of his best
finishing days against Liverpool — and
he should have been sent off — but in
many other aspects it was his sharpest
Premier League performance in a long
time. He scored, had six shots in total
and set up two clear chances — and
that’s not counting the one he made for
Dele Alli with a brilliant decoy run.
Conte wants his strikers to link up, get
in advanced positions and take shots in
the penalty area, and the clear upturn
in Kane’s attacking contribution seems
to suggest it’s working for him.
It’s a tiny sample, admittedly, but
from five Premier League games under
Conte, Kane has averaged 0.52 expect-
ed goals (xG) and 0.18 expected assists
(xA) per 90 minutes. That is a big
improvement on his underlying threat
under Nuno (0.24 xG and 0.12 xA) and
even last season, when he was the top
scorer and assister in the league (0.5 xG
and 0.11 xA).
It’s clear to see that Kane is
getting into much more dangerous
positions. Against Liverpool, look at
how many touches he took in the area
and in the central corridor behind the
area, from where he can slide in those
classic Kane passes.
Contrast that with his touch map
from Nuno’s final match, the defeat by
Manchester United, in which he was
weirdly deep and peripheral, and
almost invisible in that No 10 zone. The
numbers bear this out: under Conte,
Kane is averaging 5.4 touches in the
opposition box and exactly one
through-ball per 90 minutes, compared
with 4.4 box touches and 0.4 through-
balls under Nuno, and 5.0 box touches
and 0.2 through-balls last season.make ’em run
A couple of months into the job, a hugepart of the added value — and this is
particularly true in Conte’s case — that
a new head coach brings is their ability
to motivate their players. Conte wants
his teams to play a ferociously energetic
style of football and throughout his
career he’s shown the ability to achieve
that through his uncompromising em-
phasis on fitness in training and his
charismatic ability to inspire players
and whip a home crowd into a frenzy.
Tottenham had two weeks between
Conte’s first Premier League game, the
0-0 draw with Everton, and his second,
the 2-1 win over Leeds United. Sergio
Reguilón called it “one of the worst
weeks of my life” and said Conte had
drilled home that “when we attack, I
have to arrive, arrive, arrive”.
Running lots — it’s not rocket
science, but it is rocket fuel for Conte’s
style of play. And the early signs are
striking: Tottenham have covered an
average of 115.3km a game under their
new coach, compared with 100.2km
under Nuno and 107.5km last season.
The Conte era may have just begun, but
already the foundations are being laid.How they finished in group GP W D L F A GD Pts
Rennes (Q) 6 4 2 0 13 7 6 14
Vitesse (Q) 6 3 1 2 12 9 3 10
Tottenham 6 2 1 3 11 11 0 7
Mura 6105514-93Sunderland player to miss
quarter-final with Covid
Sunderland’s preparations for their
Carabao Cup quarter-final away to
Arsenal have been disrupted by one
unnamed player testing positive for
Covid (Gary Jacob writes). They will
test all players today but the club are
hopeful of no further cases as 97 per
cent of the squad are fully vaccinated.
Mikel Arteta, the Arsenal manager,
plans to make changes to the side that
have won the past three games. Four
youngsters, including Charlie Patino,
18, and Folarin Balogun, 20, trained
yesterday. Takehiro Tomiyasu, the
right back, has a muscle injury.Arsenal women handed
Wolfsburg tie in last eight
Arsenal will play Wolfsburg in the
quarter-finals of the Women’s
Champions League. They are the only
English side in the competition after a
4-0 defeat by Wolfsburg last week
prevented Chelsea from joining Jonas
Eidevall’s team in the last eight.
Barcelona, the holders, will meet
Real Madrid, Bayern Munich face
Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus,
led by the former Arsenal coach Joe
Montemurro, take on Lyons. Arsenal
will play the first leg at home on
March 22 or 23, with the return game
the following week.Dier’s deft passing, Kane’s reboot
and greater graft signal progress
James Gheerbrant on
how, after only five
games, hard-running,
sharper Spurs already
look like a Conte team
Kane front and centre once more
Under Nuno Espirito Santo, Harry Kane was often deployed in a wide
role but Conte has got him playing in central positions as a No 9/No 10While Kane has only scored once in the league under Conte, the
underlying stats suggest an improvement in his performancesKane's touch map v Liverpool
December 2021Kane's touch map v Man Utd
October 2021Kane's stats per 90 minutes
Last seasonUnder Nuno
Espirito SantoUnder Antonio
Conte
Expected goals
Expected assists
Touches in the
opposition box
Through balls0.5
0.115.020.180.24
0.124.390.370.52
0.185.41.0TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER MARC ASPLANDKane celebrates his goal in the draw against Liverpool, a fitting reward for a performance in which he occupied advanced positions, linked play and made decoy runs