What a fresh start can mean for Tottenham Hotspur
By Gary Pearson
If they play their cards right, Tottenham are in the position to benefit more from this forced hiatus than any other Premier League team.
Everything that could have gone wrong before the season was suspended did for Jose Mourinho and his beleaguered side. Ousted from the FA Cup and Champions League in the span of a week in disparaging fashion was a microcosm of other sorrowful happenings at the club. Spurs fell seven points adrift of fourth place Chelsea after a string of poor league results.
While Jose Mourinho’s tactical and formation decisions should take some of the blame, the bevy of those disconcerting performances were also a byproduct of devastating long-term injuries to key personnel.
Harry Kane, Son Heung-Min, Hugo Lloris, Moussa Sissoko, Erik Lamela, Harry Winks, Giovani Lo Celso, Tanguy Ndombele, Ben Davies and Steven Bergwijn all suffered injuries at one point or another, many of whom were still unavailable for Spurs defeat to RB Leipzig.
With the forced break comes a chance for a fresh start. And Tottenham inarguably needed it more than any other top flight team. Stripped down to a skeleton squad, Tottenham’s depleted side were drained of morale and sapped of confidence.
When we come through this deplorable pandemic, all of Tottenham’s injured players will be fully recovered, fighting fit and ready for action. And then there’s the players who were healthy before the hiatus, battling on through heightened adversity. Confidence eviscerated, bodies battered and bruised, these lads will come back with a new, reinvigorated view on life.
They’ll once again be motivated, inspired to show exactly what the real Tottenham Hotspur look like. They say that revenge is better served cold. So too is redemption.
Finally, Mourinho has had ample time to dissect exactly what went so awry, aside from losing his two top scorers to injury, in the weeks prior to the season’s halt. He’s had time to analyze, research, evaluate and refocus without having to worry about finding 11 healthy players to field.
While I’m not suggesting Tottenham will return immediately to their formidable best, they have every chance of atoning for what transpired before the coronavirus shook the very foundation of life as we knew it.