Nuno Espirito Santo
The long wait for a new Tottenham Hotspur head coach looks like it is finally coming to a close with Nuno Espirito Santo now in advanced talks with the club. The 47-year-old former Wolves boss is currently expected to be announced next week as the club’s new head coach ahead of the start of pre-season training at Hotspur Way on July 5. Here is the Portuguese on himself and his views on football in his own words:
On his style of football while at Porto in 2016
“All coaches say: ‘We want to control the game, we want the ball, blah, blah, blah, blah,’ but it’s impossible to have the ball all the time. If a team is organised it is really difficult to harm them, so you have to search for the moment they are unbalanced. And when is that? When you recover the ball.
“I’m a coach who likes to have the ball but what I really think is: ‘How can you be in charge of the game?’ I think, but maybe I am the only one, that the defensive process can take care of the game. Why is that? Because teams wait to defend. If you create something where you go to defend, to steal the ball where you want, it’s different. A defensive process, yes, but you go for it.
“English football is changing; it’s not this long ball straight up the pitch. There are moments of possession, but the Premier League does allow you a box-to-box game and I enjoy that. Every possession has to have sense [a reason] and that sense has to be to unbalance the other team.
“English teams don’t have long possession of the ball, but it’s a curious fact: the Premier League has more ball in play than any other league. That tells you that your game has to be more intense, your players have to be more ready, there is more distance for the players to cover.”
Creating a new project
An idea is not a formation. “If you embrace a project that will require time and patience then you need something to work on. So the first step of the project is to create an identity. If you don’t have an identity then today you want this player and tomorrow another one. If you have an idea and a shape then this is how you develop an identity.”
Playing out from the back through Conor Coady’s passing range at Wolves
“We try to get the advantage from Conor and the width of the full-backs. It is a good way to achieve progression on the pitch through a long ball that Conor does very well.
“It is one of the lines and the patterns that we have established in the team since the Championship, the width of our full-backs.”
Team shape
“When you attack you have to have width, when you defend you have to be compact. So this is the shape of the team when we are defending.
“We have to be compact, close to each other, knowing that the outside [space] is there but the moment it goes we are there to engage on our defensive process. But the main idea is to be compact when we defend and achieve maximum width when we attack.”
Attacking movement
“The more important thing is the runners. The runners are the ones who can imbalance the defence by dragging them with their movements.
“For example, you can see that Raul [Jiminez] is already checking what moves are coming so that he knows what space he needs to occupy.
“The player on the ball is basic. You need more runners involved in that action. That will create problems for defenders. The run of Pedro is the one that creates doubt for the central defender, does he go first or does he stay with Raul.
“The runners are the ones who create space for the finishers.”
Using dribblers in his team
“Adama [Traore] can do it, Rayan [Ait-Nouri] can do it, Pedro (Neto) can do it. These are the kind of players who, when they engage one-on-one, we can take advantage of it.
“This is one of the moments when you can really imbalance if you have the players who can beat opponents one-on-one, but first of all your organisation has to allow for these players to be isolated in one-versus-one situations. It requires more possession to isolate these players – Adama, Daniel, Pedro – in these situations.”
Defensive foundations
“The beginning of everything is our defensive organisation. The clean sheet is always the first objective that we have in the game. Always.
“We [at Wolves] need to improve on the last touch but the most difficult thing about the game is how you create and how you get to that point of having your last touch on goal.
“People say that the most difficult part is scoring the goal. But what I have to do is get the player there. If you focus on the goal instead of the how then suddenly the chances start to decrease. The encouraging part is that we create and at the same time we are solid.”
Players knowing their roles
“They have an idea to work to,” says Nuno. “Everybody in the squad knows their tasks that they have to work on. They go home knowing what they are going to find tomorrow and I truly believe that is the best way to develop the team. This way you receive the new players based on a core idea that is based on certain rules, tasks, behaviour and character.”
Always planning to win
“We never play like that [for a draw]. We will never play like that. It doesn’t make sense. How can you build a gameplan based on just drawing? You have a corner, you get one goal, you are losing, you lose your gameplan.
“The players look and say ‘now what?’ What you have to become is really strong in what you do. That’s the point of building a team. You don’t know any other way – it would be absurd to do it any other way.
“We cannot build a gameplan built on a draw. Everything can change so fast. You have to prepare to win. How? Every last ball we can win. That’s the gameplan. Always to win.
“The way you analyse? How they build? What they like? They want to play on the outside, so let’s make them play on the inside. You take routines away from the other team. Your gameplan is to recover the ball here because you want to go there. We don’t do gameplans to draw.”
The importance of everyone at a club
“I hope I win [the Manager of the Month award] again. That time it will be for the guys from the kitchen. Everybody is important. If you don’t have a kit-man then you are ruined.
“I give an example. Wolverhampton, January, a training session at 10am. It’s minus-five degrees. A player comes in a bad humour and it’s because the kit-man hasn’t given him his hat and gloves. We have a problem. You have to have a good support staff. If a player has had a bad night, the first person he will share his mood with is the physio. If you have someone in that role who is supportive, that’s the first message.”
The perfect tactical set-up
“What we want to build with our shape is something that can cope with every moment. When you have the ball and when you don’t have the ball. When you have to chase the result and when you have to protect a result.
“You cannot have a situation where you think that if you want to attack then you play this formation and if you want to defend then you play this formation. For me, this is totally absurd because you are relying on your opponent not yourself and so you’re not improving.
“But if you have something that can become very defensive and then in the next moment become very offensive, this is the right way. It is utopia maybe but this is our idea.”
How he deals with players
“It doesn’t happen [when asked what happens with a player who moans about the weather in the quote above] because I have already talked to the kit-man. I say: ‘Whatever they want, if it makes sense give it to them.’ Instead of trying to solve things by punishments, we change the environment so the player gets educated. Another example. One player comes to training late, so you wait for him. Instead of fining him £1,000, we say: ‘What happened in your life that made us have to wait for you to start working?'”
Squad size
“This is the way we should go with a small squad and back-ups, giving every player the chance to have minutes because we believe this is the best way to improve and become better.
“When you have a small, balanced squad, you can work better. First of all everyone is involved in every squad list, a meeting can be a good training session.”
Attention-seeking pundits
“Sometimes a polemic tweeter is more important than a normal view. You know how things move. What sells more, criticism or compliments? What do people like more? They enjoy blood. You? If you have to write ‘oh, they were very good’ or do you want to tear into them? You know what I mean.
“(Does he enjoy blood?) No. I live in peace.”
What he took from playing for Mourinho at Porto
“Mourinho really changed something. He said: ‘We’re going to win’ and we looked at him like: ‘How can this guy be so sure?’ It’s colossal what he did at Porto. When you achieve something like that it is in your memory forever. What I take from him is that belief that he could create something and show us that we were going to succeed, [even] fighting against giants.”
On being a goalkeeper turned coach
“You see the game from the best place. All the analyses I do even now [as coach] are from a camera behind the goal. From the side, the perspective is different, you know the exact distances, but it’s not real, but this gives you a real view of the game as players see it. A player never experiences the game from the side.
“It may not be better but it is my view. I know spaces, distances, and I can judge better the decision-making of the players. I know why this player did not pass to you – because there was an obstacle in front. From the side [you can think]: ‘Why didn’t you pass it …?’ but the lines are different.
“(Laughs) I also saw a lot of games from the bench. I watched games, I listened to my coaches, and I talked to my team-mates. ‘Hey, why is he taking off this guy?’”
Spurs fans will not be counting their chickens though as their club have been here before with managers before pulling the plug late in the process. The supporters have been underwhelmed at the potential appointment of another manager known for his counter-attacking after Jose Mourinho on top of the names missed out on during this managerial search. However, Espirito Santo, who spent time at Hotspur Way after he left Valencia studying Mauricio Pochettino’s way of working, has earned plaudits for his own work at Wolves in recent years after getting the Midlands side promoted from the Championship and he will work the Tottenham players hard.
