Glimmers of hope from another bad Tottenham Hotspur loss

The 3-1 Tottenham Hotspur loss to Arsenal, which leaves the team in the bottom half of the table, was a terrible performance. However, there are a few glimmers of hope fans can try to hang on to with a long and likely arduous season ahead for Spurs.

Son is a player for Spurs to be proud of

Very few Spurs put in a full 90-minute shift on Sunday at the Emirates. If there was one Tottenham player who left it all on the pitch, it was Heung-Min Son. For much of the match, it seemed Son was trying to press and pressure at the top of the pitch mostly by himself.

With the ball, Son was the most dangerous player for Tottenham on the pitch, getting both his shots on target and scoring one late to at least avoid the shutout.

In the prime of his career, captain of his national team, and a global superstar, Heung-Min Son could play for any team in the world yet quietly re-signed with Tottenham this summer to little fuss. It is just too bad not everyone gives the effort he does, nor has the character of Sonny, truly one of our own.

Oliver Skipp continues to impress for Tottenham

It was a real shame it took 45-minutes to realize something needed to be done to stop the bleeding in the Tottenham midfield. Pierre Hojbjerg was supposed to be the defensive midfielder, except no one apparently told him.

Instead, Tottenham was completely overrun in the middle of the park, particularly on the counter-attack, something Oliver Skipp has been adept at breaking up all season. In the second half, Skipp did just that and the marauding runs overpowering Spurs in the first half from Arsenal started to disappear.

Some of the control Tottenham established in the second half came from Arsenal dropping a bit deeper and some of it came from Skipp coming on and making the midfield whole. Skipp came in tackling and won more tackles in 45 minutes – three – than any other Spurs aside from Hojbjerg’s four in 90-minutes.

Wrongly yellow-carded for breaking up play, Oliver Skipp provides the kind of defensive stability the team needs if they want to push forward because he stays home, reads the game, and is willing to take one for the team. Every minute Skipp is not playing the rest of the season is a minute of development lost.

Bryan Gil brings something special to Spurs

Bryan Gil has played well outside of the Premier League for Tottenham and seemed like he was getting in line for a real opportunity. Instead, he got 21 minutes of mop-up duty as Spurs were being slaughtered by their archrivals.

In those 21 minutes, Bryan showed he is a player Tottenham needs on the pitch. He had as many passes in a quarter of the match, fourteen, as Dele did the entire first half. Gil was second on the team in dribbles.

His three dribbles were only 1 less than Tanguy Ndombele and equal to Lucas for the entire match. When you add in that Gil had the pre-assist to Sergio Reguilon on Spurs goal and also earned two free-kicks in his cameo, it is obvious the young man needs to be on the pitch for Tottenham.

With players like Bryan and Skipp, there is a potentially bright future at Tottenham, which can help shape the present and give players like Son the support they deserve. While Spurs glass may be cracked, broken, and definitely not half-full, it is not empty either.