Takeaways: Nottingham Forest 0-2 Spurs

I’m not a huge fan of statistics, but the figures from yesterday’s hard-earned victory over Forest, courtesy of Sky Sports, paint a fair picture of proceedings.

Firstly, we ceded 55.3% of the ball to Forest, who also won more corners, with 6 to our 1. Of course, possession doesn’t win games, and yesterday proved it as much as anything – Forest generally didn’t do much with the ball and their set pieces. Indeed, of the hosts’ 17 efforts, only one was on target, with none of them deemed clear-cut chances by Sky Sports’ statisticians.

Contrastingly, with our diminished share of the ball, 7 of our 18 attempts forced Henderson into decent saves, not least Kane’s penalty miss. These figures can be interpreted in two ways: one may argue that, while we created more opportunities and ultimately won the game with less of the ball, our failure to wholly capitalise on these opportunities still leaves question marks regarding our finishing and use of the ball.

The latter draws me to the main negative I took from yesterday: Forest’s higher passing accuracy of 84.7% to our 80.5%. Forest, for all their huff and puff, would lose the ball to us in threatening positions constantly – as demonstrated by Kane’s opener – but we would constantly give the ball back to them, only to wait for them to do nothing with it and give it back to us…and so the cycle continued.

It was almost akin to both sides doing their best impression of the Chuckle Brothers – to me, to you, to me, to you! Fortunately, our carelessness and sloppiness with the ball at times did not prove costly, but one wonders if we will be made to pay for this against more ruthless opponents.

Indeed, since the Saints win, sluggish performances have been the common denominator in at least one-half of our performances, and yesterday was no different. Questions have therefore arisen over whether this slumber is a deliberate tactical ploy or if this is something we are seeking to address. Thankfully, Eric Dier admitted that this was far from deliberate energy conservation, stating:

“We’re very happy to get the three points but we’re disappointed with our performance because I think we can play a lot better, especially in the first half, we can play better in possession, back to front, every one of us, but we defended well as a team, we dug in when we had to, and we know we can create chances and score.”

Indeed, that this sluggish demeanour characterising our recent performances is troubling the players is a great sign, and is hopefully something that levels out as the season progresses. As Dier said, it was important that we dug in and let the attackers do their thing to secure another vital three points.

A great win overall at an absolute cauldron of a stadium – but, as has been the case over the past few matches, there is still room for improvement.

Substitutes

Game Statistics
0	Goal attempts	0
	On Target
	Corners
	Fouls
	Yellow Cards
	Red Cards
	%