Dr Tottenham prescribe winless Wolves first point of the season
Winless Wolves were on the brink of receiving the perfect prescription from Dr Tottenham, but Thomas Frank’s side were not feeling so generous after all.
After five defeats from five to start their Premier League campaign, Wolves had a timely appointment with Dr Tottenham, and just as they tend to do, Spurs were on the brink of dishing out the perfect prescription: a much-needed win.
The Doctor’s finest hour arguably came around 11 months ago when they got Crystal Palace’s season up and running on matchday nine. The Eagles had not won any of their opening eight matches, drawing three and losing five. They couldn’t even beat Manchester United, West Ham or Leicester before Spurs rolled into south London.
Palace, as we all know, went on to have a decent Premier League season, making relegation a mere afterthought and winning the FA Cup. We wouldn’t have backed Wolves to win a trophy had they held on, nor would we have backed them to have a comfortable league campaign, but there was at least a sliver of hope where there appeared to be very little after Leeds won 3-1 at Molineux last week.
Wolves do not have Dr Tottenham to thank for their first Premier League victory of the season, but they can at least thank them for giving them a point. Getting their first point at a Big Six club slightly softens the blow, even if dropping two feels like the biggest blow of all right now.
No result would really have been a surprise. Steamrolling them was what, on paper, should have happened. Losing and playing very ordinarily was what made the most logical sense. A draw? We’re not so sure. A draw that forced a re-write at 10pm? Definitely not!
We say a loss or a win wouldn’t have been a surprise because Spurs are just an odd club, innit? No matter the manager, they’ll always dish out medicine to clubs in need, yet somehow always manage to beat Manchester City. It’s so bizarre. Bizarre, but we’re used to it.
On the face of it, a comfortable 3-0 win against Burnley on matchday one, beating City away, losing at home to Bournemouth, getting the optimism going with a win at West Ham, drawing at Brighton, and then salvaging a late draw at home to the league’s worst team this season, is entirely on brand and extremely predictable for this fantastically amusing establishment.
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Overall, it’s been a decent start to life at Spurs for new boss Thomas Frank, who started Destiny Udogie for the second week in a row but benched right-back Pedro Porro for Djed Spence. With hindsight, we’re not sure why. Udogie wasn’t at the races, and Spence is clearly better at left-back, despite being a right-footer. He’s a bit like Newcastle’s Tino Livramento in that respect.
Most managers would be criticised for a midfield two of Joao Palhinha and Rodrigo Bentancur. There’s not much mobility and almost no creativity there. But Frank sort of gets a pass. At Brentford, his midfield was usually industrious, with those in front of them given licence to express themselves. He pretty much skipped them out when going from goalkeeper to forwards. It’s usually one player in particular with a risk-taker role in the attack, and in this Spurs side, it’s Xavi Simons.
It was not Simons’ night. Again, though, he was taking risks and attempting killer balls, which doesn’t exactly result in a high pass success rate. One bouncing back-post cross to Mohammed Kudus almost gave Spurs the lead, but an outstanding close-range Sam Johnstone save tipped the ball onto the crossbar. Kudus was involved in a lot of Spurs’ attempts to create chances, and he thought he’d opened the scoring after a tidy move between himself and Lucas Bergvall, but he was clearly offside.
In the second half, Kudus’ final ball was rubbish and his ability to take defenders on was non-existent. Spurs’ final ball was rubbish all night, in truth. Wolves’ was as well. They had Guglielmo Vicario to thank for their goal, as he palmed a shot into Joao Palhinha with a camera save instead of taking a more natural approach to thwarting the effort on goal. Santiago Bueno capitalised to tap it in and Wolves were in the ascendancy.
They were the better side for most of the second period but their final ball also continued to lack, and Frank’s players were resorting to shots from range, with Cristian Romero and Palhinha blazing over their respective efforts in the last 10 minutes.
Ironically, Spurs’ last-gasp equaliser came thanks to an awful cross that met Pape Matar Sarr instead of the desired target, and his deft touch laid up Joao Palhinha for a wonderful finish in injury time. Dr Tottenham didn’t feel so generous after all.
The Portuguese whipped his top off and in the end, no creativity or mobility was required to calmly score from the edge of his own box in the 94th minute.
We’re hardly going to brand Frank’s Spurs as a different beast or mentality monsters after salvaging a draw against the team bottom of the league, but it’s hardly a bad thing that they found an equaliser when Wolves were fighting for their lives to preserve all three points.
Put it this way, they’re not showing signs of being the generous Dr Tottenham we’ve seen in years gone by. Not yet, anyway.