Tottenham 1-0 Middlesbrough: Winning is All That Matters

Harry Kane, Ben Davies and Toby Alderweireld discuss Tottenham’s win and how much it means to keep their momentum going with a little under four months left to play in the season.

For 57 minutes, Middlesbrough held firm. They contained and didn’t allow Tottenham any space to exploit. If there were pockets of space to attack, Spurs’ final ball would be lacking and result in a turnover.

It appeared as if another answer to stopping Mauricio Pochettino’s 4-2-3-1 formation (besides high-pressing) is to park the bus and keep the ball in front of you.

Sunderland last Tuesday was forced to play defensively and hunker down with players injured leaving David Moyes’ side thin. A draw was practically a win for the Black Cats at the Stadium of Light and a loss for Spurs.

Four days later on Saturday (yesterday), Middlesbrough adopted Sunderland’s tactics and nearly picked up a point themselves but Tottenham were ready.

“We found the same sort of thing against Sunderland on Tuesday and we knew today would be similar.” Harry Kane said on unlocking Boro’s stubborn defense.

“We played better today and created lots of chances, on another day we would have scored more but that doesn’t matter, we won the game 1-0, we got the three points and we move on to the next one.”

“You can see how difficult it is in the Premier League.” Kane added.

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“Liverpool have been dropping points, Arsenal as well against teams in the bottom half and we did the same at Sunderland, so we know how tough it is and it doesn’t matter how we win or how many we win by, we got the three points and that moves us up the table.”

Despite the clean sheet Spurs had to hold onto a slim 1-0 lead for the remaining 32 minutes following Kane’s penalty but Ben Davies echoed Harry Kane’s comments in that as long as Spurs win that’s all that matters.

“It’s what you want to do as a defender – keep clean sheets – and luckily enough we were able to do that today.” Davies stated.

“We did create a lot of chances at the other end but just couldn’t capitalise on the positions we got ourselves in, but in the end our pressure told. They were a tough team to play against, it was a difficult game but we managed to get the three points in the end.”

“[…] It’s 11 of us that have to try to chip in and sort things.” Davies continued..

“As a whole team we just want to get that goal and get that feeling of relief but we fought hard. We’ve got a young squad here and our aim is to keep improving all the time – the manager drills that into us and it’s up to us to show it on the pitch.”

Scoring more than one goal would have been much better. It would have made the game more manageable and less stressful but a win is still a win.

It helps to have the league’s best defense and an opponent who is more concerned with defending rather than attacking. Against other opponents this won’t be the case so while it’s fine to win by the slimmest of margins this can’t be relied upon all the time.

Still, owning the league’s best defense does make it a bit easier for Tottenham. Though for Toby Alderweireld, another factor that decides games is luck.

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“You need a little luck as well, like my header that hit the post or Harry’s header – if one of those goes in then it’s much easier but we kept control of the game.”

“If you don’t score you have to keep clean sheets and stay tight and we’ve done that for a few weeks now. That’s certainly going in the right direction.”

Indeed, Hugo Lloris has stated on numerous occasions that if Spurs can’t find the breakthrough to win a game, then it’s better to not lose. A draw is only one point but losing is always worse.