No matter how many players are signed or sold, managers hired or fired or stadiums demolished and then rebuilt, the unmistakable essence of Tottenham Hotspur remains resolutely the same. At the precise point that it all seems to finally be clicking into place, something invariably goes wrong to bring any prospect of progress to a grinding halt.
Rarely has the club’s capacity to veer from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other been quite as pronounced as over the past few weeks. To borrow an age-old football cliché, April has been a month of two halves for Spurs: emphatic wins over Newcastle and Aston Villa by four-goal margins have been followed by limp, scoreless displays in defeat to Brighton and a stalemate with Brentford.
From threatening to gallop away from the rest in pursuit of the fourth and final Champions League spot, Spurs are now playing catch-up having ceded momentum and, more crucially, points to Arsenal. The goals and shots have dried up completely. From scoring 25 goals in seven Premier League matches, Spurs have failed to even record an effort on target in either of their last two.
It seems distinctly Spursy that an injured right-back who struggled to get a game for the majority of the campaign and was free to leave in January now suddenly looks like he was the key component behind Spurs’ top-four push all along. Matt Doherty started just two of Spurs’ opening 24 Premier League games of the campaign, but his return to favour coincided with a run of six victories and a solitary loss in seven matches.
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As the most decisive of Tottenham’s wing-backs by a considerable distance, Doherty’s loss has had a big impact and now he is expected to miss the rest of the season. Only the front three of Harry Kane, Son Heung-min and Dejan Kulusevski had more efforts on goal and created more chances than Doherty during those seven matches, while Spurs’ shots and expected goals have been more than halved from 14.7 and 2.36 respectively to seven and 0.55 in the two games he has missed.
Doherty’s exploits offered further evidence that Antonio Conte is some sort of wing-back whisperer but as yet the Italian has not managed to coax similarly effective displays from Emerson Royal, Ryan Sessegnon or Sergio Reguilon. If Conte does stick around next season, a pair of wing-backs will feature prominently on his transfer wishlist.
Spurs also lost the midfield battle against both Brighton and Brentford, which is perhaps unsurprising given that on both occasions Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Rodrigo Bentancur were outnumbered by two to three. Yves Bissouma and Christian Eriksen respectively ran those matches. Eriksen’s display offered a stark reminder that Spurs have never adequately replaced him in the two-and-a-half years since he left for Inter.
Despite those issues, Conte has been reluctant to deviate away from Plan A, both in terms of his favoured 3-4-3 system and his first-choice personnel. Lucas Moura was given four minutes plus stoppage time to make the difference at Brentford, while Steven Bergwijn, Spurs’ stoppage-time king, didn’t even make it off the bench.
Disappointing as Spurs’ last two results and performances have been, the top-four is still well within reach. Upcoming fixtures against Leicester, Liverpool and Arsenal are undoubtedly tricky, but none of those teams will set up to frustrate Spurs as Brighton and Brentford did – they will seek to play Spurs at their own game which will invariably create space for Kane, Son and Kulusevski.
But with Arsenal enjoying a two-point cushion, the margin for error is narrowing. Spurs have been relatively solid at the back, conceding just three times in their last six, but they will have to rediscover their golden touch to beat their north London rivals to the punch.
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