Tottenham show title credentials in Crystal Palace win
Tottenham have begun to show the sort of character in recent matches that they lacked in previous years by winning even when things are not going well.
Tottenham Hotspur used to play wonderful football people would say. They were attacking and beautiful people would say. But they’d also then point out that they have a glass jaw and not much of a spine to go with it either. When the going got tough and the tough got going it would often be Spurs who went down without even so much as a whimper.
This though does seem to finally be a Spurs team that are able to withstand that historic pressure of a title race. They’ll need to also because they may be the only team really positioned to do England and the Premier League that grace of stopping this current Manchester City side.
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With Liverpool and City distracted by the Champions League and Spurs as much as already out of it there’s no reason that Tottenham couldn’t with a little luck, a lot of graft and more hard yards couldn’t manage to make it happen.
It is days such as these where it matters the most. Tottenham weren’t good. They were barely above bad on a day where their opponents were resolute and tough. They had 65% of the possession but in a game that had 21 fouls and only 6 shots on target, it’s very difficult to get things going. That’s why having the character to get over the edge in matches like this is so important.
Jose Mourinho in his first spell at Chelsea made the 1-0 victory into something of a joke even though it isn’t. A 1-0 victory says a lot. The game was closer, tighter, harder and more complicated than originally thought. 4-0 means the gap in quality was too large to even really qualify as a contest. 1-0 says you did what it took to barely squeeze over the line. Good and consistent teams who win over the course of decades win a lot of 1-0 games because they know that trophies aren’t won on the day but at the end of the season. No one has ever won a trophy for a single great match. Many good ones are more important than that.
It appears that Tottenham have finally learned that difficult and yet noble truth and are beginning to show the character many in North London desperately need them to have.