With just a single comprehensive win, Tottenham have re-entered the top-four conversation, but how realistic are their Champions League aspirations?
It’s hard not to react viscerally, with raw emotion, to Tottenham’s 4-0 win over Burnley. Supporters have waited patiently through seemingly endless tumult for an electrifying performance like we witnessed earlier. And while today’s performance was as uplifting as it was exciting, will it facilitate a Tottenham surge down the stretch?
The answer depends on whether Gareth Bale, Son Heung-min and Harry Kane can get a consistent run together as a triumvirate in the first team. If Bale continues his resurgence and all three stay healthy for the remainder of the campaign, Tottenham should be considered, along with Chelsea and Liverpool, as frontrunners to secure fourth spot.
There are a lot of variables at play, but you’d think Tottenham are due a run of good form. Along with a rash of injuries to key players — including to Bale, Kane, Sergio Reguilon, Serge Aurier, Giovanni Lo Celso, Erik Lamela, Dele Alli — Spurs endured a couple of extended slumps after a scintillating start to the season.
With that in mind, there is no reason Spurs can’t run the table. Jose Mourinho’s side have 13 matches to make up a six-point gap. The signs, considering the team’s newfound clean bill of health — aside from Lo Celso whose return is imminent — and Bale and Dele’s recent resurgence, are extremely promising.
And when you consider the topsy turvy nature of this year’s Premier League edition, absolutely anything is possible. Home sides’ distinct advantages have been completely nullified while results that were once considered surprising are now commonplace. Any side in the top half of the table that goes on an extended winning run can quickly leapfrog those on the horizon.
More than anything, Spurs will want to prove to themselves that they belong in the top-four conversation. Now supporters wait with bated breath to see if today’s encouraging, enterprising 4-0 victory was an anomaly or a sign of things to come.
If it’s the latter, expect Tottenham to be knocking on the Champions League door as the Premier League rounds the final bend of the 2020-21 campaign.