Steve Lowndes was watching the game live on TV, and as Spurs were so poor, decided to make an assessment on Kazuyuki's debut appearance for Spurs, when he replaced Goran Bunjevcevic at half-time against Manchester City. Thanks Steve!
With our season ending in such abject fashion (some would argue it had
already ended), we have to look to the future. With this in mind I went
back through the second half looking at the performance of Toda (sad, I
know, but I'm desperately looking for some glimmer of hope from an
otherwise awful season).
In his 45 minutes, Toda (by my count) attempted 6 long
passes/crosses/creative balls into the attacking third and none of them
even looked like coming off, i.e. finding a player. He hit one shot of
Freund-like quality. He made a couple of runs, neither of them in
dangerous situations, once beating a player and then offloading and the
other time losing the in the tackle. He made one clearance from a corner
that went to a City player and attempted one header, which he won,
directing it to a teammate.
None of this seems to be the basis of his game, however. He very clearly
plays as a closing down/ball winning/linking midfielder. He moves a lot,
looking reasonably quick over short distances and is always looking to make
himself available for his teammates when we're in possession or looking to
close down a player when we're not.
He played 22 short passes, all of which found a teammate. Most of them
were conservative passes, a lot sideways or backwards, but the only time he
got caught in possession was one of the two times he attempted to beat his
man. You could argue that the conservative passing was due to a lack of
movement from his teammates, but I don't think so. He looked to get rid of
the ball very quickly, a couple of times giving up the option of a riskier,
more positive option for a back pass. Maybe it's more a consequence of
being on debut.
When City had possession he did do a lot of closing down, but for all the
times he ended up facing a player in possession he only ended up attempting
6 tackles, winning 3 of them (one unfairly) and being beaten 3 times. Thus
he didn't really thwart City's passing game (which was, sadly, much better
than Spur's today), but then it takes a whole team of committed and capable
players to create the sort pressure that results in regular turnover of
possession.
So, not startling, a bit negative. A neat player (his first touch was
always good, didn't get him into trouble once) who can keep the ball alive.
But he'll have to improve in terms of his ball winning to be really
effective in the role he plays.
It's too early to say of course, but it'll be interesting to see whether he
ends up being another neat player without really being up to it in the
Premiership (like Bunjevcevic and Acimovic appear to be). At least he'll
generate a bit more revenue in our eastern market.
Cheers,
Steve
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