How Tottenham's brilliant full-back pairing of Danny Rose and Kyle Walker could be key to beating Chelsea
Rose and Walker have been the best duo in England for a while, and they will play a crucial role against the Blues
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Your support makes all the difference.When Chelsea go to White Hart Lane on Wednesday in pursuit of history, they will face the next-most in-form team in the country. While Tottenham Hotspur have Harry Kane and Dele Alli back to their best, the two most important players to their recent turnaround not been that goal-scoring pair. Nor have they been Christian Eriksen, Hugo Lloris or Mousa Dembele.
It is at full-back where Tottenham are winning games right now. Danny Rose and Kyle Walker are in the form of their lives. Each can claim to be the best in his position the Premier League, and one of the very best in Europe. While no other team in the world has a pair as reliably powerful and incisive as those two.
Tottenham have won their last four straight games, their best run since they looked like they might edge out Leicester City for the title last March. Of their 13 goals, six have been assisted by full-backs, including two by Kieran Trippier at Vicarage Road on Sunday. Another was scored by Rose against Burnley just before Christmas.
But this is not just a recent development. All season Rose and Walker have been Spurs’ most consistently dangerous players. They rank as second and fourth in the Premier League this season among defenders by open play chances created, according to Opta, Walker with 27, Rose with 19.
The pair keep getting better and they are the reason why three times this season Mauricio Pochettino chose to move away from his back four to a 3-5-2 system, against Arsenal, Hull City and Watford. Spurs were not creating enough chances and Pochettino wanted them to be more dangerous. “When you have full-backs like Danny and Kyle, they can play as offensive players,” Pochettino explained at the Emirates. “We tried to put them in a better position, to play as wing-backs, that was our idea.”
When Spurs played Hull last month, Pochettino only told the players three hours before kick-off that they were playing 3-4-1-2. It did not matter. Rose and Walker, freed up by their new roles, chipped in with an assist each for Eriksen. The next game, against Burnley, Walker assisted one for Dele Alli before Rose, ever more ambitious getting into the box, scored the second.
That was a typical performance from the pair, who can now count themselves as the best at their jobs in the country. You would have to look very hard across Europe to find superior alternatives in either position. That is why there was interest in Rose and Walker this summer, from the richest teams in England and Europe. Rose and Walker could have trebled their salaries away from White Hart Lane but both stayed at Spurs, signing new deals before Christmas.
Both Rose and Walker are very ambitious and are committed to being the best players that they can be. They loved their brief involvement in the Champions League this season even if there was some surprise in the dressing room that Rose and Walker each only started three of Spurs’ group games. But having heard the famous music they are desperate to hear it more often. Rose and Walker have plenty in common, born and raised in Yorkshire, joining Spurs as teenagers, being loaned out at first and then exploding over the last few years. They even share the same agent, Mark Rankine.
Both Rose and Walker decided to stay this summer, to be loyal to Spurs, largely because of the man who has made them so good in the first place. Both Rose and Walker speak incredibly highly of Pochettino, who has turned them in two and a half seasons from inconsistent youngsters into England regulars. He has got them fitter and stronger, and has worked on them relentlessly on the training ground, on their defensive positioning and tactical awareness. “As daft as it sounds, I had never had a manager work on me until Mauricio Pochettino came to Tottenham,” Rose said last summer. “It wasn’t until he came in that I had anyone work on me as a left-back and help me improve.”
Just as important as the technical and tactical side, though, is psychological. What Pochettino gives these players is belief, through his trust and encouragement. He has told Rose and Walker to go and play with arrogance, pointing to Marcelo of Real Madrid. He has told them to take risks in possession. They know that they have the licence to do that, especially since the addition of Victor Wanyama in defensive midfield this summer.
Now they are flying, and whether they play in a four or a five on Wednesday night they will give Victor Moses and Marcos Alonso by far the hardest test they have faced on this run. If anyone can out-flank Chelsea’s 3-4-3 and finally pin them back, these are the two men who will do it.
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