West Ham was added to a blacklist for Tottenham on Thursday evening, after Chelsea, Wolverhampton, Aston Villa, Manchester City. Indeed, over their last five outings in the Premier League, the Hotspurs have only taken one small point out of 15 possible, going from the throne of leader to fifth place in the standings since the start of November. Because yes, Ange Postecoglou’s flock could not have started the 2023-2024 financial year better, with 8 victories and 2 draws over the first 10 days. With a “MaddiSon” duo on fire (James Maddison and Heung-min Son, 11 goals and 6 assists between them) which perfectly compensated for the departure of Harry Kane to Bayern Munich, the Australian coach, who arrived last summer in coming from Celtic FC, imposed real domination in Her Majesty’s championship. But, and there always has to be a but, a massacre of injuries (Maddison, Van de Ven, Bentancur, Perisic…) and a London derby reversed the trend…
Chelsea reception at the start of November: Dejan Kulusevski broke the deadlock in the sixth minute of play and launched his side in the best possible way against a team in difficulty against the residents of the Big Six. However, the expulsion of Cuti Romero will reshuffle the cards and offer victory to the Blues. Behind, two losses in front of the Wolves and the Villans (both with the same result, 1-2) then a parity score against the Cityzens. The rout at home against the Hammers (2-1) confirmed a terrible statistic for the London team: in fact, they are the ones who have lost the most points in the five major championships, 16 in total in just between their match opening against Brentford (2-2) and the last 5 days. A first in the history of the Premier League, as explained Opta. Captain Heung-min Son did not hide his disappointment after the recent rout, particularly noting his team’s ability to fail to kill the match as soon as possible.
The Spurs lack edge up front… and behind
“We deserved better or not, that doesn’t mean anythingdeclared the South Korean international at the microphone of Prime Video. We lost the match, which is unacceptable. You take the lead five times in a row and you lose the match, I think it’s unacceptable and as a player you have to take responsibility. West Ham have always been difficult to play against, so we knew what was coming, but we were soft. In the Premier League, even when you win 2-0, 3-0, you don’t know what will happen in the end. 1-0 is not enough, we have to try to kill the match.” This curse does not escape the Lilywhites in their Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, where they have had three defeats in a row. A situation which also worries his technician, Postecoglou, critical at a press conference on the effectiveness of his team in both camps. Enough to somewhat regret the absence of a scorer and real successor to Kane, flamboyant since his arrival at Bayern Munich.
“I think we were very bad on both surfaces today, both in terms of finishing and the two goals we conceded, then explained the 58-year-old coach. Even in the second half we had incredible chances. For us it’s another game, like the one against Aston Villa and others earlier in the year. (…) It’s not about playing good football, it’s about winning matches. That’s what I’ve been saying all along, that’s all I care about. I prepare teams to win matches and 1-0 at half-time was not a good performance from us. A good performance would have been to go 3-0 or 4-0 up in the first half and kill that game off, as we should have done against Aston Villa. When you don’t do it and you give away goals like you shouldn’t, you don’t get what you deserve.” To get started again, nothing better than a direct opponent for the race for Europe, Newcastle (Sunday at 5:30 p.m.) to start a new dynamic and find the oiled machine from the start of the season…
