Tottenham Hotspur blew a pretty massive chance to keep the pressure on at the top of the Premier League table during Saturday’s early kickoff against Burnley at Turf Moor.
With hopes boosted given the return to the pitch of England striker Harry Kane, it was a below par performance in many ways from the side selected by manager Mauricio Pochettino and we fell to a 2-1 defeat on the day – although Harry did get himself on the scoresheet in his return.
Few, I expect, thought Spurs would go unbeaten for the remainder of the campaign but against a largely struggling Burnley side, accepting it would be a tough game, few would’ve thought we wouldn’t have come out of the 90 minutes with at least a point, if not all three, so to come out with nothing was hugely disappointing.
With Pochettino’s anger and frustration coming to the fore following the final whistle, speaking to Sky Sports having previously apologised for his reaction to the whistle, he again restated that we could only blame ourselves after that kind of performance and he had to concede that our title hopes were now over.
Asked the direct question about reaching top spot and whether our title bid was now over, he explained.
“Yes. We are very disappointed because there are 11 games, the gap can be bigger. Of course, there are a lot of games to play but I today, in my mind, we had to win the three points to put pressure on them. We didn’t for different reasons, our mistakes and only because of us. We cannot blame anyone, only ourselves because we were not able to win.”
We will at least be hoping to finish strongly, not forgetting the Champions League campaign, as a good finish to the year can still see us continue to take steps forward and the reality is, many fans would’ve taken that at the start of the year anyway.