I waited a couple of days to write this recap of the Liverpool game, hoping I would have a healthier perspective about it after the initial emotions were gone (those emotions being: pain, frustration, disappointment).
So let’s talk about perspective. There are a lot of fans across the league who would be thrilled to have their team in 6th place, four points off a Champions League spot, and with a game in hand. They’d be proud of their team for having the joint-second best defense (yes, really! I know, it doesn’t make sense to me either). They’d be chuffed that their team was still active in all their competitions and already booked for a cup final.
Why then did the Liverpool defeat feel so crushing? Because sometimes it’s about more than where the result actually leaves the team in the table and how the season is going overall. Sometimes it comes down to the feeling you get watching the game, and for almost the entire second half, all I felt as a fan was embarrassed. It was an embarrassing performance from the players on the pitch, who looked like they would rather just call the whole thing off and go home. Hell, Serge Aurier literally did go home, apparently (we’ll get to that later… sigh). Mentality has been a consistent problem for Spurs even going back to the Pochettino era, but it never gets any easier to see the club you support phoning it in for a major game. And especially against the reigning champions. It’s embarrassing!
I don’t think it’s necessarily the most productive question to ask who is to blame, Mourinho or the players? (It’s both). The better question is: why does it keep happening? Why do we continually fall apart in the second half? Why are there so many games where the players look unmotivated and out of ideas? Why do we get the sense that there isn’t a plan B when plan A fails?
I’m not getting paid the big bucks to figure that out (*cough* Mourinho *cough*), but I will share my suspicions anyway because I spent the past two days stewing on it:
Spurs’ system is too reliant on one player: Harry Kane. When he’s off his game or gets injured as he did on Thursday, the rest of the team looks utterly unmoored without him. And it’s not just his goals that we miss; we also lack his playmaking (he’s still the assists leader in the league, though probably not for long thanks to his injury), and this season we’ve even come to rely on him for big defensive interventions (what else can you call Harry heading a ball off the goal line?). It’s not just that no single player in the squad can do everything that Harry can do—he shouldn’t have to be doing it all in the first place.
And speaking of having to do too much, Mourinho is demanding too much of the defense. It’s not that they aren’t capable of defending well for large spells, sometimes even entire games depending on the opponent. I swear I wasn’t making that up about Spurs having the joint-second best defense. It’s true! Only Manchester City have conceded fewer goals this season, boosted by their new signing Rúben Dias and a newly-confident John Stones. But a key difference between Man City and Spurs is that City are playing attacking football, dominating possession and taking the game to their opponents. Not to sound like a reverse Mikel Arteta here, but it’s “just maths”: the more you have the ball, the less time you spend defending. And the less you’re defending, the fewer chances your opponents are getting on goal. Why are we conceding so many goals from set pieces, or from headed shots? Because we’re allowing too many such opportunities to our opponents. If we increased our average possession per game, especially in the second half, I guarantee we would limit our opponents to fewer shots on goal—we might have even seen some of those last-minute draws remain as wins. But of course, that’s easier said than done, and we would need to see more consistency from our midfield players especially to make it happen.
And to segue from that point, it particularly doesn’t make sense to have such a defensively-skewed strategy when Spurs have one of the best attacking partnerships in the world in Son & Kane. Mourinho needs to get over this idea of playing the system he’s always preferred as a manager and play a system that caters to the talents of the players he actually has—not the ones he wishes he had. But just to throw a little cold water on that suggestion, our midfield is once again the missing link. I’ve talked many times about the need for more assists and goals from players other than Son & Kane, and there are times when the midfield players just don’t look like a threat. Ndombele, for all we love his flicks and tricks (yes, I am using the phrase normally directed at Dele), he can sometimes be like an island out there on the pitch—holding on to possession in clever ways, but then failing to connect with his teammates. Not every game of course; he’s had some great assists, and he is our third-leading scorer after Son & Kane—but we still need more tangible output from him. Before y’all think I’m being too harsh, I am fully backing him to make that leap this season. He’s definitely got in him. As for Bergwijn, Son’s fellow starting winger, he’s been looking better and better every game, and I’m hopeful the finishing will follow.
In lieu of my usual recap of the match that progress from moment to moment (because who really wants to relive that in full again? Not me!), I’ll wrap it up with a few stray observations and shouts, as the Brits would say.
Højbjerg, for what it’s worth, was our man of the match. In fact, he was the only player whom I don’t have anything negative to say about, performance-wise. It’s a shame that his first goal in a Tottenham shirt has been overshadowed but such a woeful effort from his teammates. And I continue to be impressed with his maturity and insightful comments in post-match interviews. There’s a reason he keeps getting described as a future Spurs captain—he’s well on his way to deserving the armband.
Joe Rodon did have a pretty decent performance, despite his crucial error that led to Liverpool’s third goal. I’m willing to cut him a little more slack than I am for the rest of the lineup because he still hasn’t had much PL game time at all, and there was always going to be a learning curve coming up from the Championship. He’s only going to learn by doing. Is it ideal to be “easing” him into the starting lineup in such pivotal matches as Chelsea and Liverpool? Of course not! But what choice does Mourinho have when the other center backs can’t seem to find a consistent run of form? If I had to rank our center back options based on their current form, it would be: Sánchez, Tanganga, Dier, Alderweireld, Rodon. And there’s a big drop-off after Alderweireld. I know Dier wants to be a center back, but.. is he?
Now that we know about Aurier’s halftime exit, coupled with Kane being forced to sit out the rest of the game due to injury, it does make sense that the rest of the squad were shaken mentally coming into the second half. I’m not saying that makes it okay that they basically collapsed and handed Liverpool the win, but it does explain a lot. They’re going to have to be a whole lot tougher mentally to weather this upcoming stretch without Kane, however long it ends up being (does anyone trust Mourinho anymore when he says how long a player is going to be out? I certainly don’t).
I don’t even want to talk about Mourinho’s substitutions for this game. I really don’t. Except to say that I feel very bad for Carlos Vinícius, who can’t be feeling high on confidence at the moment if Mourinho won’t even play him when Kane is literally unavailable. Maybe it comes down to the fact that, as I said earlier, Kane isn’t really playing as a traditional striker at the moment, and Mourinho doesn’t see Viní as a like-for-like replacement? Still baffling. Still frustrating.
I am really, really curious to see what ends up happening with Aurier. Can he possibly come back from this? Do we want him to? I can think of very few situations where it would have been okay for him to leave the stadium mid-game, none of them positive. If it was truly just a case of Mourinho singling him out for criticism, shouldn’t he be used to that by now? It’s such a weird situation. And frankly disappointing, because even though Aurier still has a mistake in him now and then, he’s improved a lot since last season and is definitely our best right back. I don’t feel confident at all about Doherty being able to shoulder the burden for the rest of the season. This isn’t the kind of club crisis you ever want to see, but especially not when we’ve also got a Kane injury absence to contend with.
Overall, I think this match just brought a lot of us down to earth regarding Tottenham’s title hopes. Not just performance-wise, but also considering Kane’s injury. If he really is out for three weeks, that would be exactly the date of our next Europa League match, making him a doubt for that match. Unless Mourinho was once again exaggerating the extent of an injury (like he did with Son’s before the Man U match), he’ll be missing the next FA Cup match, too. It’s a good thing the League Cup final isn’t until April. But as for the league, top 4 is feeling like a much more realistic goal now.
I hate to be so doom and gloom, but some losses just feel more demoralizing than others. Even though it would normally be nothing shameful to lose to the reigning champs (…twice), it was the manner in which we lost that made it hurt so much. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever felt this down after a Spurs game—or during one 😭. Even the Champions League final wasn’t that bad, it just felt sort of surreally flat. It’s these kinds of games like we had with Liverpool that make you realize how much you care about the club you support, because you know they can do better and it’s such a letdown when they don’t. “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.”
Let me throw it over to y’all now: what’s something we can feel positive about, whether it was from this game, our upcoming matchups, or a trend from the season overall?
Battle with Brighton up next
I feel like having Brighton up next should be a silver lining, but you never know with Kane out. At least it’s an opportunity to bounce back quickly before facing the new-look Thomas Tuchel-managed Chelsea on Thursday. And Brighton will be missing their most promising player this season, youngster Tariq Lamptey.
I will not even attempt to predict our lineup, especially after the… creative decisions Mourinho made against Liverpool. I think we might start to realize how integral Reguilón has been to our starting lineup with him being out injured for a while, too. Hopefully, Hugo will sharpen up after his disastrous second half against Liverpool—well, and the last minute of the first half. He had some big saves before all of that went down. We can’t afford for him to be going through a crisis of confidence. And again, the logical thing to do would be to play our only other designated striker on the roster in place of Kane, but Mourinho will surely find some reason to mess with the formation instead.
Spurs Women fulfilling postponed fixture
I’m looking forward to seeing Tottenham Hotspur Women’s new loanees, Cho So-hyun and Abbie McManus, in action tomorrow, assuming they’re ready to play. Chelsea is a tough matchup (they haven’t lost a single match), but with any luck, we can continue our recent run of form and at least nick a draw. Super early kickoff, so it’s time for me to hit publish on this post and get some sleep!
COYS