Why Micky van de Ven is so crucial to Ange Postecoglou's Tottenham tactics
Van de Ven was a good defender at Wolfsburg, but at Tottenham this season he has shown why he has all the talent to become a world class central defender.
I’ve been wanting to make a video about Micky Van de Ven for some time now and this international break seemed like the best time to do exactly that. Last weekend, Tottenham’s hopes of a top-four finish were dealt a minor blow when they lost 3-0 to Fulham at Craven Cottage.
The towering defender missed the game with a hamstring injury and perhaps to no great surprise for Spurs fans this season, their team didn’t look anywhere near their best without Van de Ven at the heart of the defence.
When we take a look at Tottenham’s form in the Premier League this season with and without the defender we can see just how much of a difference he makes to Ange Postecoglou’s team. So far this season Tottenham’s goals conceded per game average is 40% higher without Van de Ven in the side. But, rather intriguingly, their goals scored per game drops by 16%. And, naturally, when we take both of those figures into account it only makes sense that the club’s points per game with Van de Ven in the team this season is a pretty remarkable 45% higher than the points they’ve won without him.
Interestingly enough, Postecoglou did go out of his way to say the Fulham defeat wasn’t down to Van De Ven being injured, but I suspect that’s because he’s a manager that prides himself on developing systems that can have players move in and out of them with relative ease. That’s not to say he doesn’t rate his own defender - that would be ridiculous - but I think he’d probably prefer to overlook the idea that his team are over-reliant on the young player in a defensive and attacking sense. Even if they really are.
Perhaps a good way of showcasing how much of a difference Van de Ven makes in this Tottenham team is by looking at how they pass the ball with and without him. Here we have two pass maps by the excellent @markrstats on Twitter, with Tottenham’s performance against Fulham on the right and their recent win over Aston Villa on the left. When we highlight Van de Ven against Villa, we can see just how much of Tottenham’s passing goes through the player. So much so that it looks as if the sheer weight of his gravity is pulling the rest of the team towards him. When we then look at the Fulham game, where Radu Drăgușin slotted in for his injured teammate, we can see that Tottenham’s centre of gravity shifted to the right and towards Cristian Romero.
It’ll then perhaps come as no surprise to learn that Tottenham’s two left-sided players in both games - Destiny Udogie and Brennan Johnson - received 27% fewer touches of the ball in the second game without Van de Ven pulling the strings, compared to the first one which he did play in. Although this is a tiny sample size of just two games, I think it does a good job of illustrating how good Van de Ven is as a central defender in the Premier League. He’s got that extremely rare combination of speed, defensive solidity and technical ability that’s undoubtedly needed to thrive in the English top-flight.
Let’s take a look at those impressive attributes by beginning with the defender’s speed, which is really just incredible. Before departing Wolfsburg in the summer, the Bundesliga confirmed that the Dutch talent’s top speed of 36.35 km/h was the ninth highest since the league’s records began. And of the eight players that clocked a quicker time, just one was another central defender. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, in February of this year the Premier League confirmed that the towering defender had actually beaten his own record set in Germany in a clash against Brentford where he hit a top speed of 37.38 km/h. Which now makes him the fastest player in the English top-flight’s history.
To put that into context, it means Tottenham have a defender guarding their high line with a top speed that was just a slither off Usain Bolt’s pace when he broke the 100m world record in 2009.
The defender’s range of passing is also rather exceptional. To date, Van de Ven has the best passing accuracy in the Premier League among every player in the division. And when we narrow in on riskier long passes, he not only comes fifth in the entire division but also sits top among all central defenders.
Interestingly enough, when we compare Van de Ven’s player radar from this season at Tottenham to his radar at Wolfsburg last season, we can actually see that he’s making fewer tackles and challenging for fewer aerial balls. But the most drastic change comes in his dribbling and passing. Here we see a player making far fewer dribbles up the park with the ball, but far more passes into the opposing final third. This makes sense, since Postecoglou’s tactics tends to see Tottenham dominate possession and play a very high line. As such, Van de Ven’s ability to pass the ball around the pitch has become far more necessary than his ability to counter attack with dribbles up the pitch.
All in all, Tottenham not only have a player that has all the attributes to become a world class central defender, but also one that has quickly become a vital part of his manager’s tactics. And that’s why Tottenham’s hopes of finishing fourth this season may be over reliant on the central defender staying fit.