Bale’s exit and Paulinho’s arrival brings interesting change in AVB’s tactics

Infact, in Paulinho, AVB has bought a much improved version of Huddlestone who is immaculate in his tackling. Rather than distributing from deep, Paulinho is more of a box to box midfielder, and his Bronze ball in the ConFed rightly showed his goal scoring tendencies too.

With Paulinho a sure shot in the midfield, his lack of ‘distributor’ style means that AVB can go with 2 different tactics. The more definite one would be that he plays a much more flater midfield trio so that the likes of Dembele and Holtby are available in midfield either to combine with Paulinho or else to cover the area when the Brazilian rushes forward. This system would see a front trio of strikers, similar to the one Wenger preaches.

Again in this case too AVB’s buys are right on the mark, as the next Belgian in the Premier League Nacer Chadli ticks all the boxes for a wide forward. His 2 years at Twente show exactly how good he is at attacking directly from the left. In short, Chadli represents everything that Aaron Lennon has left to be desired from in the past. Lennon’s future at present looks quite bleak at the club, as unlike Walcott in a similar system, Lennon has barely any goal scoring instincts.

Apart from this system, AVB also has another tactic which might turn out to be very similar to the one used by Scholari at the ConFed. ‘Big Phil’ allowed a double pivot in midfield which contained Paulinho and a distributor. The most effective for the latter role turned out to be Hernanez who sat deep and allowed Paulinho all the space to attack in. A similar system if used by AVB would need the composed midfielder to operate next to Paulinho and then shift Holtby into a deeper No.10.

This spot for a 2nd holder would surely be filled via the 100 odd million that Spurs are set to receive, but there is another candidate in youngster Tom Carrol that AVB tends to prefer in that role. This system is the only way the likes of Lennon or Dempsey would get a chance to fit in, while the likes of Gylfi Sigurdsson will have to rotate at No.10 with Holtby.

With an attack having scope for 3 strikers and Chadli surely filling in the LF spot, Spurs have now fixed the man of the Striker’s role in Roberto Soldado. After 3 summers of failed routines of signing a top class striker, Tottenham have now gone and signed one of the best out there. Soldado is deadly in set piece situations and despite having Adebayor in the squad, the Spaniard will definitely be preferred.

The current Soldado is quite similar to the Torres of old and is the perfect man to run off the shoulder of the CB’s to receive through balls from the midfield. Ironically the qualities of Soldado might not have been so effective in case Bale was still in the setup, as the Welshman’s direct approach to goal rarely allowed the likes of Defoe to prosper.

The other spot if attack is up for contention presently, though that might not be the case when the ‘100 million’ comes in. Sigurdsson has been played out wide last season, and his stint there had seen him successfully supply crucial diagonal balls for the likes of Bale making runs from the wings. So now playing him on the right side of attack with Chadli cutting in from the left makes good sense too; albeit we totally expect AVB to come up with another perfect signing for the RF position.

The only spot for confusion in this window has been the transfer of Steven Caulker to Cardiff. Caulker had an impressive season last time around and the now English international was a good backup for Vertonghen. Assuming the Coentrao swap deal does come through, Vertonghen would not be deputized at LB and that fills one certain spot in the centre.

The lone contender for the other spot last time around was Dawson, but considering his fitness issues and the silence behind Kaboul’s situation, AVB’s most important buy now is a central defender. The likes of Ashley Williams seems to be the biggest names linked to a non-CL club, but there also seems to be a rift between Martin Skrtel and Brendan Rodgers at Liverpool which could be looked into by AVB.

Come the end of this transfer window, if the Bale deal does go through, AVB could have turned around the entire setup at the Lane. His signings no doubt being shrewd, can now be given a major edge of a 100 million. Eric Lamela at Roma has been a long term target, and now it seems that the Suarez issue is also being monitored by Levy.

And if the Bale deal doesn’t go through, well we shall be celebrating St. Totterringham’s Day again.