Lackadaisical Effort by Spurs Punished by Wolves
By Aaron Coe
The Bench and Substitutes
When I first saw the bench today, I was excited, a lot of youth on the bench and the return of N’Koudou to the squad, hopefully we’d see some new Spurs stretch their legs. Given the first 30 minutes, it seemed like that would happen.
Then as detailed, things fell apart for Spurs and suddenly there weren’t many options. Eric Lamela was left out of the squad altogether, so his mazy runs would not be an option. The most attacking force was Lucas Moura, who did come on at 68 minutes, but he came on for Dele Alli, rather than one of the three deep midfielders, leaving the gap between midfield and attack unresolved.
Worse, Dele Alli was the one of the front-three who had shown the most movement in the game. I get it, Son has been on FIRE, you can’t take him off the pitch. However, when you NEED to win and NOT drop points, and you haven’t had a shot in over 20 minutes, maybe swapping one attacker for another is not the best option. That said, Dele was really slowing play up a lot with his hold-up game, which is better when it moves at a quicker pace.
Either Winks or Sissoko should have come off and we’d just live with two deeper midfielders, Eriksen plus one, in front of Sanchez and Alderweireld. Instead of adding a fourth attacker in front of Eriksen to target, Tottenham were left with three attackers and three deep lying midfielders. At one point, Eriksen and Winks stayed within 5 yards of each other for a good 5 minutes. Spacing is needed to move the ball, Spurs never had it for the last hour of the game.
I love Mauricio Pochettino as a coach, I don’t know the man, but it is clear he has a plan and his team has bought in and I have too. That said, the last two losses have both sat at his feet. Both Arsenal and now Wolverhampton saw minor tactical changes, which Tottenham failed to respond too in real time. From one side, 2 losses over 7 league games isn’t a big deal, but when the result will lead to Spurs potentially being 9 points out of first and/or only 2 up on 4th and sitting in third, this loss is going to leave a mark.
Pochettino is a smart guy and he learns from his mistakes, but it stinks to make them now, after all the hard work to put themselves in a position to really compete in the League. It is not over, but this one hurts and the failure to see how we only had three attackers for most of the game is a tough one to swallow, particularly given it has happened before. Where was Danny Rose? Why put N’Koudou on the bench if you won’t bring him on? Or Oliver, who seems to be more attack minded than Winks?
