Tottenham’s pressing game has been cunningly adjusted by Pochettino and the manager’s deployment of Eric Dier as a central midfielder who can drop into the backline has been key their success

Tottenham have the best defensive record in the Premier League. It’s not a sentence we’re used to hearing. Not since 1951 have Spurs finished a campaign with the best defensive record of the division they’ve been in. It’s not the Spurs way. They’re supposed to be about moments of occasional attacking genius set against a background of general flakiness. Not any more.

It’s Tottenham’s pressing that really stands out. They perhaps don’t push quite as high or with such relentlessness as Mauricio Pochettino’s Southampton, but that’s part of his maturation as a manager. In previous years his sides have tended to dip in the latter part of the season, but that dip has become less and less pronounced as he has adapted to the demands of the Premier League. The pressing is more controlled now, and if anything seems even more effective.

Pochettino’s inspiration is clear, the parallels between the Newell’s Old Boys side in which he came of age as a central defender and this Spurs obvious. “When we won the titles, and reached the final of the Copa Libertadores [in 1992], we were very similar to the squad that we have now,” Pochettino said this month. “In terms of the average age of the squad, and in the balance between younger and experienced players. There were very good youngsters – like me – and very good experienced players. A similar balance, a similar project.”

Youth is important, if only because young players tended to be more biddable and less cynical than more seasoned players, more willing to follow a manager’s commands.

Pochettino was 13 when he first met Marcelo Bielsa, who at the time had just joined Newell’s as youth co-ordinator. Bielsa, terrified of flying and meticulous as ever, had divided Argentina into 70 sections and, believing talent from the interior was often overlooked, was determined to drive to each of them in his Fiat 147 to search for players. Pochettino’s home town of Murphy – population 3,500, including the parents of the future Southampton goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga – was one of his shorter trips, being located, like Rosario where Newell’s are based, in Santa Fe province, but it was 2am by the time Bielsa turned up. He looked at the sleeping boy’s legs, declared him a footballer and signed him on the spot. Five years later, Bielsa replaced José Yudica as coach and Pochettino was elevated to the first team.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The influence of Marcelo Bielsa, who signed Mauricio Pochettino for Newell’s Old Boys, is apparent in the way Spurs play. Bielsa is here coaching Chile in 2009. Photograph: Albeiro Lopera/Reuters

By 1992 the style had evolved. Juan Manuel Llop, who had been regarded as a right-back who could play in the centre, was shifted into central midfield, with a brief to drop back and become an extra centre-back when the two full-backs were drawn forwards. That was a 3-4-3 rather than Tottenham’s 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 hybrid, but the similarity between Llop’s role and that of Eric Dier, the way a solid base was constructed as a platform for the press, is clear.

Although Pochettino has begun to rotate the full-backs, he has kept the heart of his defence stable. Jan Vertonghen’s knee injury has forced a change but before that, he and Toby Alderweireld had started together in the first 23 league games of the season. Kevin Wimmer has started the three matches since Vertonghen’s injury, becoming only the third centre-back used by Spurs this season; the contrast to 2007-08 when they used nine different central defenders is telling.

In 21 of those games, they had Dier sitting just in front of them. That relationship is key. Vertonghen and Alderweireld play at full-back for Belgium; they may prefer operating centrally but they are capable and not unused to moving wide. Dier can then drop back between them as a de facto third centre-back – at Watford in December, in fact, the trio started as a back three to combat Troy Deeney and Odion Ighalo.

That capacity to switch to a back three during games in turn gives the full-backs licence to push on, which is useful from an attacking point of view in that it allows them to offer creative width but it’s also an advantage from a defensive point of view, facilitating the press high up the pitch.

The effectiveness of that can be seen in a number of statistics. Tottenham make the sixth-most tackles per game in the Premier League, but what’s significant about that is that of the five teams who tackle more than they do, only Liverpool have had more possession this season, while three are in the bottom four for possession (and, obviously, there is a correlation between not having the ball – low possession – and a high tackle rate to try to win it back).

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Eric Dier sits at the base of Tottenham’s midfielder and his capacity to drop back as a de facto third centre-back is of great tactical benefit. Photograph: Matthew Ashton - AMA/Getty Images

Spurs also make more fouls per game than anybody else – 12.7 per game – evidence of how far they’ve come from the old days of being regarded as a little too nice to be taken seriously. No attacking midfielder has made as many interceptions as Dele Alli this season, with Érik Lamela joint-third, and no striker has won the ball as often as Harry Kane, which gives some indication of how high up Spurs look to regain possession.

That requires great fitness, which was also a characteristic of Bielsa’s side. “Newell’s were like a tractor that would shatter all opposition,” said the former Boca Juniors defender Juan Simón. “That team would suffocate you: that was the Bielsa touch, adding mad pressing to Newell’s existing football style. After facing them, you’d go back to the dressing room feeling that you were going to pass out, that they had made you run as never before.”

Brad Friedel said that in two decades of football he’d never worked with a coach who placed such an emphasis on conditioning as Pochettino. Where he departs from Bielsa, who has always had a tendency to drive players too hard, is in modifying the workload so players aren’t overwhelmed by the latter stages of a season.

The benefits of that are seen not only in Spurs’ fitness but in the lack of muscular injuries they’ve suffered this season. That in turn allows for a greater consistency of selection, making the pressing slicker. A virtuous circle has been created. It’s one inspired by Bielsa, but perhaps improved upon by Pochettino.