It’s a long story why, but I didn’t have time to do my usual match recap of the NLD before the Europa League game yesterday. I figured I would just do a combo post talking about both matches, thinking that at least I would have something more positive to talk about with the Zagreb game. Welp. I should just stop letting myself feel optimistic about this Spurs team, at least until the end of the season, at which point we desperately need to make some transfer moves and possibly bring in a new manager as well. More on that later.
Honestly, everything I had to say about the NLD has kind of gone out of the window now. After that game, I was obviously upset with both player performance and José’s management, but was leaning towards it being more of a manager problem than a team problem. After Zagreb? I don’t even know anymore. I truly don’t know what was going on in Croatia. It’s like the team never really got off the plane. In a season already spotted with lackluster performances, including Sunday’s derby, this one might be the most lackluster of all. And considering that this tournament was realistically our best chance of a) winning a trophy this season and b) gaining Champions League qualification for next season. But let’s be real: if we somehow still make it to the Champions League next season, we’re going to get destroyed if we keep playing the way we have been.
The galling thing is that it’s not like our squad is devoid of talent. Sure, it was an unlucky break that Son was injured and Højbjerg suspended for the second leg with Zagreb. But we still have plenty of quality left in the squad that should have been able to do a job against an inferior (on paper) side. Zagreb, unfortunately, were the superior team when it came to effort, passion, and belief.
There’s really not much else to say… but I’m going to anyway. I guess we should rewind to the NLD first, painful as that prospect is.
Peak Lamela
Today’s special topic: one Érik Manuel Lamela. The NLD was his 250th appearance for the club. Well, he certainly made it memorable! I know we talk a lot about the “pain” of being a Tottenham supporter, but I am being 100% dead serious when I say that thinking back on Lamela’s performance in this game causes me literal pain. Like, heartbreak kind of pain. For him to have come off the bench in a moment of crisis (Son’s injury) and scored such a world-class goal—a goal that should be the pinnacle of his career and a happy memory to look back on—only to have it tainted by his eventual second yellow and sending off is just… crushing. I find myself unable to get too awful upset at Lamela for his red card, because at least he was showing some passion in the freaking North London Derby, unlike most of his teammates (Lucas being the other exception). He at least knows what this match means to supporters.
Maybe Mourinho forgot to make the customary Lamela substitution after his first yellow since he had come on as a substitute himself? Sigh. And even though Lamela has a reputation for being a walking red card waiting to happen, this was somehow his first red card in a Spurs shirt. You couldn’t make it up. But again, you can’t really say that his red card cost us the game, because we actually played better and with more urgency after his sending off (and his wonder goal was the only thing that had us in the game in the first place). Strangely, it was the spark of motivation the rest of the team needed.
Legitimate question: can a goal be disqualified from Puskas award nomination if the scorer’s team went on to lose the match? Seriously though. I feel like Lamela’s goal will be a strong contender to win the award, but if he does… the pain of being reminded what happened next is going to sting. Nobody wins here!
Dreadful Doherty, Bashful Bale, and Star-crossed Sánchez
Y’all know I don’t like to pick on specific players if it can be helped, because at the end of the day it is a team sport, and you could argue that Mourinho should have adapted his tactics mid-match to bring more support to the right flank, but that doesn’t change the fact that Doherty just isn’t working out with Spurs. This game was more proof of how mismatched he is in the current/usual Spurs lineup. It would be one thing if he was at least offering some quality crosses in the attacking third like Aurier does to make up for his defensive deficiencies, but he’s only provided two assists each in the PL and EL so far this season (in the spirit of fairness, Aurier has two goals and one assist in the PL, zero in the EL). In the NLD, Doherty was just terrible from start to finish.
I understand that Aurier couldn’t start due to fitness concerns, but why even have him on the bench if Mourinho wasn’t going to bring him on when necessary? He would have made more sense to me than Sissoko for that final push, since he provides attacking power as well as defense. And again, his bench spot could have gone to Bergwijn if Mourinho really didn’t want to sub Doherty off and we wanted a more like-for-like sub for Bale.
Speaking of Bale, it was really disappointing to see how little of an impact he had on this crucial match (besides in the lead up to Lamela’s goal). But I would argue that he suffered from a similar issue to Kane in this match: a lack of service from the midfield. Our midfield was just stagnant today. No creativity, no movement, no control. Ndombele and PEH were both off the mark. The attack just stalled out in the midfield, on the rare occasions we managed to control the ball and wrest possession away from Arsenal (the other main issue). I do wish we had made more of an effort to switch the attack to the left side (what little forward play we had), favoring Reguilón, since Arsenal was clearly attempting to keep the ball on our right side (their left) flank, where Doherty was vulnerable.
I honestly don’t know the exact rule for whether a penalty should be called for a play that happens after the goal-scoring opportunity has passed, but either way, the penalty felt harsh on Sánchez, who otherwise had a strong game. Trust Lacazette to find a way to cause us pain before scoring. Anyway, Sánchez is quite a conundrum this season. He has improved in recent weeks, but does anyone really think of him when they think of solid, reliable center backs? Not so much.
Kane did do his best in the final 15 minutes to change the result, hitting the post twice and having a goal ruled out for offsides, but I would have liked to see him take charge earlier, as a key leader of the team. And if we were able to test them like that in the final stretch with only ten men, that should demonstrate how much quality we have in the squad. UTILIZE IT FROM THE START!
Speaking of our actual leader, captain Lloris, I don’t think he was too at fault for the result. He was wrong footed by the deflection off Toby for Arsenal’s first goal, and I mean, a penalty is a penalty, wrongly given or not. I’m thrilled when a penalty is saved, but I find it hard to blame the keeper too much when one isn’t.
Mourinho in the NLD: the good, the bad, the frustrating
I seriously don’t know how to feel when it comes to Mourinho’s part in the NLD loss. In the immediate aftermath of the match when my emotions were still heated, I wrote down a few notes about the match to then condense into something coherent for this newsletter—if y’all could see my notes for this match, you would be amazed how ranty I sound 😛. And most of my anger in the moment was directed at Mourinho. I just felt like, he talked a big talk before the match, saying that he “doesn’t look down” to mid-table teams (even though Spurs basically are one, too), but then he went and pulled this disasterclass. I still think he’s culpable for his in-game management (like his failure to adjust tactics mid-match to respond to Arsenal’s right flank onslaught for one thing, and his extremely questionable substitute decisions for another), but now that I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on it, and after gathering more observational evidence from the Zagreb game, I’m inclined to believe that the way Spurs actually played was far from the tactical plan Mourinho set out.
There’s just no reason that with the strong lineup (on paper anyway) that we had for the NLD, and the fact that the only way to ensure glory for the fans in such a highly-charged matchup is to SCORE SOME GOALS, that Mourinho would have instructed the team to sit back. Anyone that’s watched Arsenal this season knows that they have a lot of vulnerabilities in defense, and on their day Spurs’ attack is unrivaled. So either it just wasn’t our day, or there was some disconnect between Mourinho and the players. It’s especially frustrating to see such an impotent performance after a run of strong attacking performances in the previous few games. Where was that press in the NLD? It didn’t show up until Lamela was sent off with the red, at which point I swear you could literally see the players wake up, realize the high stakes of the match, and finally start playing to our strengths. There’s no excuse for how much fear we played with before that pivotal moment, and how much respect we showed to one of the worst Arsenal teams in years.
By all accounts, Mourinho was shouting at the players to press from the start. Has he just completely lost the dressing room? Are they trying to get him sacked? We have more questions than answers at this point.
Just to circle back quickly to an important factor in José’s game management, I’m literally angry with him for trying to imply that he gave Sonny enough rest coming into this fixture by giving him “30 minutes” in the first Zagreb match—after playing him straight 90s basically for the last six. It’s unforgivable. If Son is out for an extended period of time, I shudder to think what’s going to happen with the rest of the season. The only silver lining is that the international break is coming up, so that could encompass part of his recovery time. But without Sonny, the counter attack strategy is moot and not a realistic tactic for future matches.
In conclusions:
It’s not just that we lost to our bitter rivals, it’s that we lost to them in a season where they’re weakened and were there for the taking. And without their captain Aubameyang, no less. We showed too much respect to Arsenal today (or, one could argue, not enough) and they took advantage. It hurts to say it, but they deserved the win. I could eventually stomach a hard-fought loss, but that’s not what this was.
All the credit Mourinho had built up with the recent run is gone in an instant, because we’ve all woken up to the fact that we haven’t won a fixture against a top team in months. Just when I thought he was doing a better job of lineup selection and in-game management (this fixture aside), the players seem to have given up on him. What a mess.
Again, we can argue about who is the source of the negative football Spurs have been playing, Mourinho or the players themselves, but even if it were a winning strategy to play conservatively against certain teams (it’s not, at least with the squad we have, as has been proven time and time again with our results), it’s woeful to watch as a supporter. It just goes against the Tottenham way, and more importantly, the strengths of our current team. Just because we had some success playing on the counter attack in the first half of the season doesn’t mean it’s sustainable across a long, fixture-filled season.
When we play the way we are meant to play, we can beat any team on our day. Unfortunately, as we saw in Zagreb yesterday, it’s one thing for the players to lineup to play to our strengths, and another thing to actually perform well.
Is it tactics or execution? Diagnosing the source of Tottenham’s lack of attack
My honest answer: I really don’t know. Of course, as supporters, we are only allowed so much of a glimpse into the inner workings of the club. We have to rely on the good old “eye test,” because we can only trust what we see on the pitch, not club/management media spin. Like I said, before the Zagreb game I was feeling strongly that it was more of a Mourinho-led issue than the fault of the players. But this match was more proof that if there is a coherent plan going into the game, they either disagree with it or simply can’t execute it satisfactorily. Hugo suggested as much in this, ahem, intense post-match interview:
Hugo had also made similar comments after the NLD loss, saying “I don’t think that we made the performance that we prepared and that we expected.” So clearly there’s a disconnect between the manager’s expectations and the players’ execution.
The main issues, as I see it, are a) lack of press b) ineffective midfield and c) less attacking-minded fullback subs in Doherty and Davies. Could we see some signs of life in the midfield now that Lo Celso is back in the rotation? No matter what, the midfield has got to do a better job of providing service to the likes of Kane and Bale. If the players can’t sort it out, there need to be some changes to personnel this summer. And as much as I’m starting to feel sympathetic towards Mourinho, if he can’t get a tune out of the team by the end of the season and salvage recent failures with a League Cup win and/or top 4, it will be time for him to move on, too.
This match, right off the back of a dreadful NLD loss, could be a real momentum killer, mentality-wise, for the squad. I hope they prove me wrong and bounce back and show some resilience because there is too much at stake. But frankly, it seems like the dysfunction runs deep at the club these days, and I fear that we might be in for a crushing end to the season.
We’re lucky that Chelsea, West Ham, and Everton all dropped points last matchday, but we still have a lot of ground to make up, and they can’t be trusted to keep slipping up. This is what happens when you let it get to a point where success (measured in this case by Champions League qualification) is not solely in our hands. The Europa League was our best chance of securing CL next season, and now that pathway is gone. And I don’t even want to contemplate the League Cup final with Man City yet. I’m just going to go in with zero expectation of success. Sucks that it has to be that way, but the team hasn’t been inspiring hope this week.
As ever, despite the pain they cause us: COYS
Programming note:
I’m strongly considering moving my newsletter off of Substack, because of the recent controversy. If you hadn’t heard, Substack has been frustratingly opaque about just who is receiving funding under the new Substack Pro, but it seems like too much of a coincidence that anti-trans writers have been flocking to the platform. Since I don’t offer paid subscriptions for Spurs Across the Pond, I’m not directly contributing to that problem, but I have heard from a lot of writers (including trans writers) that are upset at having Substack’s cut of their subscription profits going toward subsidizing hate speech, essentially. So I could continue to use Substack’s platform for free, but I will likely be moving to a new newsletter service as soon as I find one that works for my needs, simply as a matter of solidarity. I hope you will join me again as a (totally free) subscriber wherever I end up.
Unrelated, I wasn't able to proofread this post because of other commitments (chief among them snuggling my new puppy), so apologies if it’s a little more chaotic than usual! There also isn’t going to be a preview for this weekend’s Aston Villa match, but at this point I don’t know how to predict how Spurs will play anymore! Let’s just hope Grealish is still out and we gain these valuable three points “in hand.”
Bonus Ted Lasso content to cheer us all up: