Okay, I had good intentions of doing recaps of the Brighton and Chelsea matches, but one thing led to another (read: binge watching season 2 of Succession before my library loan was due), and I was really feeling too disheartened about Spurs to want to write them anyway. I feel like the less said about those games, performance-wise, the better. But I should probably say a quick word on the Mourinho of it all before we get to the good stuff, today’s home win against West Brom.
The atmosphere in the Tottenham fandom (speaking mostly of Twitter here because I don’t spend much time on Instagram anymore) has been pretty toxic regarding Mourinho, so I feel the need to clarify up front that although I didn’t want Mourinho to be appointed and was super wary at the beginning of his tenure, I have tried my best to back him as a supporter. I even felt like maybe we were turning a corner this season when it comes to the players buying into his vision, and his style of play actually getting us some good results. I mean, we were in first place for several weeks! I don’t think that was a fluke—if anything, we had some unlucky results in the first half of the season and probably should have been been able to widen the gap at that point.
Then December happened. Although we had a decisive victory against Arsenal, a frustrating draw with Crystal Palace was followed by our second PL loss of the season, to Liverpool, and then another loss against Leicester. Our form was up and down all throughout January and culminated in three straight losses going into today’s match. Part of it was losing Harry Kane to injury for two and a half of those matches. I think another part of it was the toll of playing so much low-possession football finally catching up with the team, fitness-wise. And it kind of felt like maybe the players just weren’t playing for Mourinho anymore. They looked utterly devoid of motivation, and if there was a tactical gameplan, they didn’t seem to be executing it.
Those were some of the toughest matches I’ve ever watched as a fan. There were times when I actually felt bored, and worse—without hope. I know some people were hoping Spurs would be up for it in the derby match against Chelsea, but I didn’t have any confidence that we could get a win, and even a draw seemed like wishful thinking with the way we’d been playing. The penalty Dier conceded was just absurd, but fitting at the same time. The only thing that brought me a small bit of comfort in that match was that Chelsea clearly still have some issues of their own, because they should have beaten us by several goals—not just through the good fortune of a reckless penalty.
So Thursday was a bit of a breaking point for my patience in Mourinho. I’m not necessarily #JoseOut, if only because we all know it would be too costly for Spurs to release him from his contract at this early juncture (and there aren’t many good replacement candidates available at the moment besides). Would I like for us to bring in a new manager that would strategize to our strengths (as in, fully utilizing the best attacking partnership in the Premier League in Kane & Son)? Yes. Do I think it’s going to happen? No. We’re stuck with him, probably at least until the end of this season.
What’s really frustrating is that it would be foolish to expect him to change—his attitude or his tactics—even as he’s been presented with game after game of evidence that our squad is a) not good enough defensively to play a low block against every team and b) struggling to create anything in the midfield or in the box as a result of those defensive tactics. He tried to butter us up earlier in his reign with media spin and playful PR (so many ham products! Instagram tutorials!), and I think most of us were rightly skeptical of those attempts, because he’s proven once again that he’s the same old José he was at his previous teams—freezing players out, playing favorites regardless of their value to the team, and being absolutely terrible with the selection and timing of his substitutions (that last one is a real pet peeve of mine).
Sure, he might win us a couple of trophies by focusing on a few select games/competitions, but his approach isn’t sustainable over the long, fixture-crowded Premier League season. That’s why we’ve already dropped beyond the realm of challenging for the title, despite our strong start to the season. Something had to give, and Mourinho preferred the relatively more straightforward path to victory through the cups, rather than the long slog of the domestic title. I don’t know about y’all, but the possibility that we could challenge for the title just a couple of months ago felt so much more exciting than the idea of winning the League Cup. A trophy is a trophy, but some are harder to achieve than others.
And at this point, we risk only grabbing a Champions League spot by winning the Europa League, because there’s a lot of competition for top 4 (besides Spurs, we’ve got Man U, Leicester, Liverpool, Chelsea, and West Ham all jockeying for the places, not to mention Everton and Aston Villa who both have two games in hand to our one game). Remember how stressful it was last season waiting to see how the final matchday played out to determine if we would get Europa League, not even Champions League? At the risk of sounding arrogant, Tottenham has too many top-class players to be worrying about top 4, but here we are, thanks to mismanagement.
I guess this is a good place to start discussing the West Brom match because José did adjust his tactics to favor a more attack-minded approach for this game, albeit against a lesser team. But that’s basically where I’m at with Mourinho. I don’t trust him, and I’m disappointed that we’re even in this situation where top 4 is in doubt. And with Man City up next in the league (after the FA Cup tie with Everton), I fear that we’re going to be seeing the low block back in effect sooner than we’d like.
What do y’all think—José in? José out? José seriously on probation?
But finally, some good news to talk about
Like most American Spurs fans, I was barely awake as the game was about to kickoff (6 a.m. here in Texas), but I did have time to check the starting lineup and do a little happy dance when I saw Harry Kane’s name on the teamsheet. He’s back! Thank the lord! I had kind of suspected his injury wasn’t that severe based on the fact that he was able to continue until halftime in the Liverpool match where he sustained the double ankle knocks—and also because Mourinho is notorious for stretching the truth about injury prognoses when it’s convenient to him (remember when Son was horribly injured and came back for the Man U match? Good times, naughty José though.). Even though West Brom are undeniably terrible, I was still nervous going into the game just based on our form and worrying morale issues, but knowing that Kane was starting immediately had me confident that we could and would win. He’s that integral to our success—both in performance and squad unity/morale.
Another promising sign from the starting XI was how attack-heavy the lineup was. Although I usually prefer to see Lamela as a super sub (sometimes he’s more super than other times, but you know what I mean), I thought he would provide some much-needed energy to our recently lackluster efforts. I wasn’t thrilled to see Sánchez in the lineup, but Dier definitely needed to spend some time on the bench after several poor performances, and Sánchez actually had some pivotal moments in today’s game! Of course, all of our center backs have their good days and their bad days, and that’s why we need to seriously focus on that position in the next transfer window. But I digress. I suppose Dele is still “injured” since he wasn’t on the bench, but hopefully we can believe Mourinho’s recent comments about a reconciliation and his desire to integrate Dele into the team for the remainder of the season. Time will tell.
The first half was another one of those halves where we had lots of chances, but unlucky finishing—I choose not to say poor because we improved in the second half, and Kane inevitably had a bit of rust to work off. Aurier and Lamela were putting in great shifts, and you had to think that surely one of Harry’s shots was going to find the target in the second half. Less than ten minutes into the second, he was finally back on the scoresheet with a superb assist from Højbjerg, who was back in his usual impeccable form after a rough patch in the Chelsea match. Four minutes later, we got our second goal thanks to Son. Lucas set him up for the assist, and it was one of the best plays I’ve seen him make all season (with an assist-to-the-assist from Kane). The only surprise was that Kane & Son didn’t set each other up, but as Sonny said in his post-match interview, just playing together on the same field again was a big boost for both players.
Aurier picked up a knock midway through the second half and was subbed out for Doherty, who did… fine. He still hasn’t wowed me, but if Aurier could make such a marked improvement over last season, it’s possible that Doherty can make a similar transformation by the end of this season. Lamela’s strong performance was cut short since he had already received a yellow card and was therefore blunted in defense, and Bergwijn made a likewise capable but uninspiring replacement as Doherty had. And now for my usual mini-rant about Mourinho’s subs: why didn’t he bring on Dane Scarlett earlier? It was so exciting for the 16-year-old to make his debut (the youngest ever player for Tottenahm in the PL!), but why not give him more than just two minutes in garbage time, especially with the win already secured? Mourinho said after the match that it was important to him to be the manager to give Scarlett his PL debut, since he sees so much promise in him. I feel like trusting him with a little more responsibility would have been a greater demonstration of his respect for the younger player.
The only other notable moment I want to draw attention to was the potential red card situation with West Brom’s player Robert Snodgrass, who recently joined the Baggies from West Ham. He somehow got away with just a yellow card, despite a near-identical studs up kick to the one against Rudgiger on Chelsea that landed Sonny with a red card last season—except that Snodgrass went for Ben Davies’ groin rather than his thigh. Supposedly the VAR referee did review the incident, but didn’t deem it worthy of sending head ref Stuart Attwell to the pitchside monitor to reconsider. I think this is the issue that really infuriates fans across the league—that VAR isn’t implemented consistently. What counts as a handball in one match is ignored in another, or a soft penalty is given in one match while a stonewall penalty is overturned in the next. Snodgrass receiving a red wouldn’t have had a huge impact on this match, but it doesn’t seem right for him to get away with such a nasty foul, either. Precedent!
Overall, despite the weak opponent, I was happy with Spurs performance. There isn’t a single player I would single out as having a poor game, and a few were exceptional. Lloris didn’t have much to do, but did have a great save right before halftime. Even Sánchez did his part, playing West Brom’s striker Diagne offsides for both of his overturned goals (I think it was also Sánchez that inadvertently blocked one of our own shots at their goal, but we’ll let it slide). I was particularly pleased to see Moura making better decisions with his passing (though he was a little short on meeting a few of his teammates’ through passes), and Aurier was looking threatening on the wing once again while also attempting a header. Another stray observation: I’ve noticed that Davies seems more comfortable pressing forward with Alderweireld covering him defensively. I know a lot of Spurs fans don’t rate him, but I’ve seen enough good moments from him this season to feel comfortable with him filling in for Reguilón—but please come back soon, Reggy.
And most importantly: how refreshing is it to see that we had the majority of possession for once? Very. It’s good to have some positive feeling back where Spurs are concerned, especially receiving confirmation that we do have a strong squad with lots of strengths, as long at they’re focused, motivated, and set up well (I was going to say “efficiently,” but that’s kind of the double-edge sword of Mourinhoism, isn’t it? There’s such a thing as being too efficient to the point of playing it safe). It would be nice to see more of this attacking football going forward, but I do worry that we’ll be parking the bus again come Man City. But first up, we’ve got Everton in the FA Cup midweek.
Make or break at Goodison Park
I am super curious to see how we line up for this match, considering that we have Man City on the weekend (what a week, eh?). Mourinho has hinted that Dele might be available for the Everton match, or might be back in action for Man City. If he is available I would love to see him in the attacking midfield, #10 role that Lamela played against West Brom, with Lamela replacing him as a sub if Dele’s recent lack of playing time starts to show in his fitness. The center back pairing is always a question mark; I would honestly be okay with Toby and Sánchez starting again just to have some consistency, but swapping Rodon in for Sánchez would be fine by me, too. We don’t want to see too much rotation, because like I said earlier—the league title is not a possibility anymore. We have to stay in contention for the FA Cup, and we need a strong lineup to face the in-form Everton side that just nicked a last-minute draw with Man U this weekend. (I hate that DCL is so likable. I want to hate him, like I do every other striker in contention for the Golden Boot against Kane & Son. Curses!)
Regarding injuries, Everton’s keeper Pickford has been out for a couple of games, and James Rodríguez exited the Man U match early with a calf injury. As of this writing it’s not clear if either will be available for Wednesday’s match. Their midfielder Allan, who has been out since December, is likely to feature since he was a possibility to play this weekend. Spurs will still have Reguilón out with his expected injury period extended, and a return unlikely until after Man City. Lo Celso is also unlikely to feature any time soon. Fingers crossed that Aurier’s knock in the West Brom match was nothing serious.
On a positive note, it’s hard to imagine we could play any worse against Everton than we did on the opening day of the season. I think that’s positive? 🙃
Bummer times for Spurs women
It would appear the the new manager bounce is, if not gone, on a hiatus. Spurs Women have lost two games in a row, against 1st-place Chelsea (predictable, though still disappointing considering our strong start to the match) and Aston Villa. Unfortunately, with first choice keeper Becky Spencer out injured our second keeper, Aurora Mikalsen, was really thrown into the fire for her debut. She’s struggled with shots from distance (paging Joe Hart 😉). The strike from Aston Villa’s Iwabuchi was particularly formidable, and the difference maker in a 1-0 result where Spurs dominated the game overall. We also saw debuts from our two new loanees, with Abbie McManus starting in both games (unfortunately notching an own goal in the Chelsea match) and Cho So-hyun starting against Aston Villa. Hopefully they’ll get integrated into the side quickly and we can get back to winning ways, with Bristol City up next on Wednesday, overlapping with the Men’s FA Cup match. A full afternoon of Spurs!
COYS