Speaking to Football.London, Antonio Conte compared Thursday’s defeat with both the corresponding fixture (which we won in dramatic fashion) and the more recent North London Derby defeat that came right before Thursday’s match:
“Yeah, it’s strange because in the last period [after the Arsenal match] the question was why is the first half is poor and you wait until the second half to change the situation. Yeah, but I think that I have to analyse very well the game.
“If I have to compare this game with the game we played last season, I think we played much better today. The performance was good today because we played with personality, we created a lot of problems for Manchester City.
I remember very well last season that we played for a long period in our box to defend the result, then one, two, three counter-attacks. No, one counter-attack and we started from the back, from the goalkeeper to build from the back and we scored the other two goals.”
While I do agree with Conte that a lot of the forward play on Thursday (at least in the first half) was far more impressive than a lot of the ‘backs-to-the-wall’ stuff we served up in the corresponding fixture, the stark difference between the two displays (aside from the result, obviously) was the state of the defending.
For all the good work we did going forward on Thursday, scoring twice in the first half and Ivan Perisic missing a sitter at 2-2, it matters little if you keep giving the opposition gifts like we have been doing for months.
Indeed, Spurs have now conceded two goals in matches against Chelsea, Leicester, Manchester United, Newcastle Bournemouth, Liverpool, Brentford, Aston Villa, and Arsenal, three to Arsenal and Leeds, and most recently, four against City on Thursday.
This makes it 11 matches out of 20 in the Premier League in which Spurs have conceded multiple times, and the fact that Spurs have only managed to win three of those matches and have lost seven has highlighted the team’s inability to consistently outscore the opposition.
What bothers me more beyond the regularity of the goals is their ridiculous nature – according to the Premier League, it’s now officially six goals goals conceded from individual errors (with Hugo Lloris being responsible for four of those), but those figures do not take into account the nature of the goals Spurs conceded on Thursday, making them a rather generous overview of the team’s recent failings.
Indeed, Ivan Perisic was culpable in the build-up to three of those, Lloris flapped at the ball for the first and was beaten at his near post for the second, while Clement Lenglet practically handed the ball to Riyad Mahrez for the fourth goal.
In his post-match comments, Antonio Conte was quick to avoid throwing his players under the bus, and refused to pin the blame for the goals on individual players:
“I don’t like to go about the single player, but for sure when we concede four goals the first person responsible is the coach. Then the players because I don’t put the mistakes on my players.”
“The mistake first of all is mine because it means that maybe we have to work defensively more to be more compact, like the whole team not only the defenders because when concede a goal it means the whole team not only the defenders, the keeper or a single player.”
While I am an admirer of his honesty in holding his hand up for accepting the blame for the defeat – something he’s been guilty of not doing in the past – the admission that these individual errors are likely down to how he’s setting up the team is a damning indictment of his recent work.
Indeed, the odd individual error happens to every side in the league, but such is the regularity of their occurrence within Spurs’ ranks that it’s got to be a problem with the way the team is setting up, and that ultimately comes down to the manager.
Now, I’m a firm believer that we are better with Conte on board than without him, but to me, it seems that the uncertainty regarding his contract situation is affecting the club’s performances, and you can almost see the wave of negativity among the players and fans amid this contractual uncertainty.
Without full commitment from the manager, the players start doubting why they should listen to the man, thus compromising their own commitment to him, which leads naturally to lapses in concentration and ultimately, the individual errors we’re seeing so frequently.
It’s not just at the back either – Heung-min Son has been a shadow of the Golden Boot winner for months now, and Harry Kane, despite his superb goalscoring record so far this season, has not been hitting the standards that he has been setting for nearly a decade. Neither of them looks committed, and if this lack of commitment is present in the managerial, defensive, and offensive department, then this tosh we’ve been serving up is to be expected.
That said, we’ve got a talented group that is clearly still alive on the recent evidence of the first half on Thursday and the second halves at Palace and the NLD last week. We may be hurting, we may be suffering, but we’re not dead yet…let’s get some clarity on Conte’s contract, clear our heads from Fulham, and go again.
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