Danny Wright

Fri 6 October 2023 16:00, UK

Luton Town versus Tottenham Hotspur is the Premier League equivalent of Spurs’ FA Cup clash away at eighth-tier Marine in 2021.

Obviously Luton are a much bigger club than Marine but there are only a handful of teams over the last three decades who’ve pulled off a shock promotion to the top flight similar to what the Hatters achieved last season. None, however, have gone all the way from non-league to the Premier League quite like the Bedfordshire side.

It’s a David-versus-Goliath match for the Premier League and the expectation isn’t just for Spurs to beat Luton, it is that they should be able to obliterate them.

We saw last season how close the Premier League table can be and with some big-six clubs underperforming this term, it’s vital for Tottenham to not only look after their points tally but also their goal difference.

Spurs have the joint-second-best in the league right now with nine. However, so do third-placed Arsenal and Liverpool in fourth. Plus, just two points separate the top four at this early stage so the finest of margins could be the difference between Champions League or Europa League qualification – or the title itself.

Considering it’s their first season in the Premier League and their promotion last season was a huge shock, underdogs Luton have a respectable record at this point with one win and one draw in seven games. They’ve only scored six goals but they’ve conceded 14, which is the same as Brighton and only one worse than the usually-solid Wolves.

According to stats by Wyscout, Luton’s expected goals against is 15.09 – which is lower than Sheffield United’s (21.71), Bournemouth’s (19.44), West Ham’s (15.29), Wolves’ (15.17) and Fulham’s (15.12).

However, the Hatters are a very standoffish side, who don’t press anywhere near as high as most other teams in the Premier League.

Wyscout shows that Luton’s PPDA (passes per defensive action) is 15.47, meaning that teams, on average, play over 15 passes within 40 yards of their goal before any Luton player makes a bid to regain possession.

Only four teams have a higher PPDA than the Hatters.

On the other end of the spectrum, Tottenham have the lowest PPDA of 7.63, meaning they have a very high press and routinely push forward when out of possession.

Tottenham have encountered just one of the above teams this season when they took on Sheffield United on 16 September.

In that game, Paul Heckingbottom almost got the better of Postecoglou, who had to rely on goals in the eighth and tenth minutes of stoppage time at the end of the game to win 2-1 at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

It was a game Spurs really struggled in so based on how they performed at home against the Blades, there’s a chance they could find it a bit tricky to work around a Luton side who, based on the numbers, are defending in a similar fashion.

According to stats by Wyscout in that match, James Maddison misplaced all three of his through passes, had his joint-lowest pass accuracy of the season [80%] and only completed 50 per cent of his passes into the penalty area. On the games either side of that against Bournemouth [71%] and Arsenal [100%] he had much more luck and they are teams with the sixth and fifth lowest PPDA’s in the league respectively.

In the chart above, teams in the top-left have a high press based on a low PPDA and these have been Maddison’s two best performances this season for completion of passes into the penalty area.

That game against Sheffield United is out on its own as it’s one of Maddison’s least fruitful games as a playmaker this term and they have the highest PPDA by far.

Unless he learns how to unlock the Luton defence, it could be yet another frustrating afternoon for the former Leicester star.

In other Tottenham news, Son Heung-min has earned a Premier League Player of the Month nomination for September.