Big Ange has problems to solve at Spurs, but first they must forget they were top of the table
Fourth in the table. Two points behind leaders Manchester City. Well clear of Manchester United, Newcastle and Chelsea.
Tottenham are in an objectively excellent position, one that they would absolutely have taken at the start of the season and a truly startling one if we were to take things right back to the abject misery of the closing weeks and months of last season.
From May’s vantage point, the idea of Spurs selling Harry Kane and being anywhere near the top four would be an idea too absurd to even consider; the view then, with some amount of justification, was that removing Kane from the Spurs team would leave a bottom-half team. They are certainly not that.
But their objectively excellent position is not all it seems, is it? The challenge for Ange Postecoglou – his first major one after an extended honeymoon period – is getting the club, the players, the fans to believe that it’s still going well.
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The speed and extent of the unravelling has been dramatic. Even by Spurs standards, the 90-minute season-killing endeavours of last Monday night’s defeat against Chelsea are extraordinary. To the extent that a 4-1 home defeat against a hated rival led by a once-adored former manager was only a tiny sliver of it. Cristian Romero has slipped back to his bad old ways, Destiny Udogie lost his mind and most damagingly of all in the long term, both James Maddison and Micky van de Ven succumbed to long-term injuries.
Romero and Udogie are tough to replace, but will be back before long. Maddison and Van de Ven give Postecoglou a far bigger problem. Their particular skillsets probably place them one and two on a list of players Spurs couldn’t afford to lose. Having to use Eric Dier at right centre-back wouldn’t be half so vexing if he had Van de Ven and his absurd recovery pace alongside him. Whether Van de Ven even truly fully recovers that pace is another concern but not one to worry about right now. Hamstrings can be absolute twats, though.
Maddison is irreplaceable because there just isn’t anyone else to offer the creative spark he provides. Spurs have been desperate for such a player since the departure of Christian Eriksen and had struck gold at last with Maddison. The Wolves game suggests that while the defence will be impacted they might be able to muddle through just about okay against most teams. Going forward, though, a Maddison-less Spurs attack suddenly starts to very much resemble the worst fears of how a Kane-less one might look.
That Spurs lost all four of those players in the space of around half an hour in one game is staggering. It was hardly a secret that Spurs lacked depth outside their starting XI, but there are few clubs who could cheerfully cope with losing two such key players to injury in literally the same minute.
But Spurs will have to cope. Postecoglou will have to cope having at last succumbed to the manager of the month curse after three straight wins. It’s already fair to say somebody else will be collecting November’s weird-looking trophy.
An international break following defeat in a game you led from the third minute to the 91st would normally be a terrible thing. A fortnight to stew on such a gut punch of a result rarely helps anyone. Such has been the speed of Spurs’ descent from unbeaten table-toppers to new crisis club, though, that it was necessary and welcome.
It’s time to hatch a new plan. Postecoglou has already shown he is not one of life’s complainers but nor is he one of life’s pragmatists. He’s not going to change his ways because four key players are missing, but he’s going to have to do something different to what was attempted in the second half against Chelsea and then against Wolves.
There is defence for both. First and most obviously, it very nearly worked both times. Spurs could absolutely have emerged with a point against Chelsea and led for 88 minutes at Wolves. Neither game, though, could be said to provide long-term encouragement for persevering.
The 0-7-1 formation adopted against Chelsea was obviously an extreme response to an extreme situation and can be largely dismissed as such. The stodgy midfield against Wolves is of greater concern. It didn’t look very Angebell and it can’t be repeated.
Spurs fans must hope that after the international break Rodrigo Bentancur is ready to start games. Not least because some good injury news would be some positive news to counteract the negative. Then they’ll just need one more positive just to have a positive.
But even when Bentancur returns, it was quite clear as the Wolves game went on that Angeball is going to be of greatly reduced effectiveness and fun if three of Spurs’ central midfielders are involved. Yves Bissouma, Pape Sarr and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg all have their qualities, but unless it really is time to start holding to what you’ve got for dear life, you don’t really want more than two of them involved.
Someone more progressive has to be there in the Maddison role. Through no fault of the current regime, there is nobody suitable. A drop-off in quality is to be expected, but the absence of options altogether is a result of years of mismanaging and bungling on the transfer front. Spurs have had a great 18 months in the transfer market but it hasn’t yet repaired the damage done by the five years before that, going back to the arrival of Son Heung-min and the last unqualified success among Spurs signings before the Bentancur and Kulusevski swoop in January of last year.
Kulusevski is important here. He could be an answer to the Maddison problem, and there is a way to get him central that doesn’t entirely bugger Spurs up. The squad is desperately short as we know, but what it does contain is two usable right-backs in Pedro Porro and Emerson Royal. Porro has unexpectedly good as a right-back given he has only previously excelled at wing-back, but remains prone to the odd defensive lapse. He could be pressed into service up the pitch in what has been Kulusevski’s position wide on the right. He can cross and shoot and is really more of a Postecoglou-style touchline-hugger than Kulusevski anyway.
Kulusevski isn’t Maddison, but he possesses technique, intelligence and vision and has an understanding with Spurs’ remaining attackers that Giovani Lo Celso does not. Potentially weakening two positions to get some creativity back in the central areas isn’t ideal, but it’s less bad than ignoring the problem altogether. If Spurs’ front six for the next six weeks if Bentancur and Bissouma behind Kulusevski with Brennan Johnson left, Son central and Porro right it is at least one that possesses a better balance of skills.
Whether it’s that or another way altogether, Postecoglou will inevitably have to be creative to come up with a solution; he has about 13 players who are both good enough for and suited to the way he wants to play. He currently has three or four of them unavailable and you don’t need to be a maths whizz to see that’s not ideal.
But what we already know Postecoglou to be is a fine man-manager and inspirational leader. He almost had Eric Dier convinced he could play centre-back in a high line against Mykhaylo Mudryk and Raheem Sterling. He can definitely convince Pedro Porro he’s a right-winger or whatever it is he needs to do.
The practical on-field solutions he comes up with over the next fortnight, but the biggest battle may be in the players’ heads. He must remind them that the position they are in remains a good one, which means encouraging them to forget they were ever top of the table at all.
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