Mauricio Pochettino: Tottenham’s Performance Good But Not Enough
Tottenham are experiencing a slump after recording yet another draw in the Premier League. Their fifth overall and third in a row in league play.
With another draw yesterday, pushing Tottenham’s winless streak to five games since returning from the international break, Mauricio Pochettino appears to have seen the last of his team’s good performances after being disappointed with the outcome once again.
In their last five Premier League games, Spurs have won two straight before drawing three in a row. Of course, the silver lining — if this could be considered one — is that Pochettino’s side is still undefeated in league play.
But that’s just a small consolation in the grand scheme of things.
“It was a good performance, but not enough,” Mauricio Pochettino said immediately following their latest draw in the Premier League (via Spurs’ official website).
“It’s for that reason, we feel disappointed. We tried, tried and tried and it was difficult. There were a lot of positives but it’s hard when you make it all to try and win the game to then only take one point.”
Indeed, with 22 total shots compared to Leicester City’s six, five on target to the Foxes’ one, it’s yet another reminder that simply dominating a team isn’t enough to win in the Premiership.
For Tottenham to completely overwhelm their opponents this season in the Premier League, statistics-wise, the only games that stood out which clearly showed Spurs were the better team was against Stoke City (a 4-0 win) and Manchester City (a 2-0 win).
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Not surprisingly, both games could be considered a long time ago, September 10th and October 2nd respectively.
So what can Spurs do to get back to winning ways and jumpstart their offense to finish the amount of chances they continue to create? Pochettino simply said, stay positive.
“We need to be positive,” the Argentine manager continued. “It’s true we’re disappointed after that game because it was only Tottenham on the pitch but, in football, if you make a mistake sometimes you pay. It was hard for us but we paid for the only mistake we made.”
“In football, bad periods sometimes happen and we’re in a bad period, but we’re still unbeaten, and that is very important. Now we have two very important games ahead – [Bayer] Leverkusen at Wembley and then Arsenal – and we need to be strong.”
One thing that has prevented Spurs from winning is scoring more goals. It’s obvious and although it would definitely help, that’s not the only thing Spurs need to be better at.
Looking back on the games were Spurs only scored a single goal in the Premier League, Tottenham beat Crystal Palace and Sunderland. When you include CSKA Moscow in the Champions League, that’s three total wins with a 1-0 scoreline.
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It was a struggle to get one goal during those three matches, but what each game had in common was Spurs’ will to continue pressuring the opposition. And once Spurs scored, they didn’t let up. They continued looking for another goal but also maintaining their solid defense to keep a clean sheet.
Spurs right now, while they’re not free falling in the league table, they’re only playing one half of football. Sometimes it’s a good first half but a bad second half. Other times it’s the complete opposite.
Not only that, but if their offense is good, then their defense tends to let up. If the defense is outstanding, the offense can’t match them. In essence, it’s not a complete effort at the moment.