Spurs made it three wins out of three at home this season and four wins from six overall to continue our unbeaten start to Premiership proceedings with a 2-1 victory over Fulham.
Hojbjerg’s second strike of the season and Kane’s fifth were responded to by a late reply from Mitrovic, but, in professional Conte fashion, the lads saw out the remaining minutes comfortably and we marched on to our 14th point from a possible 18.
As some readers mentioned in the pre-match discussion, the scoreline did not do us justice, and we were more than worthy winners today. This sentiment was shared by opposition manager Marco Silva, which I find rather refreshing, as it is so rare for managers to concede that their side were worthy losers. However, this is just what Silva did today, as relayed by the Evening Standard:
“Tottenham deserved three points, our first half was not good enough, we didn’t get to our standards. On the ball, we were not at our level, even without high pressure from Tottenham, we took many wrong decisions on the ball first half.”
This high pressure from Tottenham that Silva spoke of was a far cry from Wednesday’s whimper at the Hammers. As relayed by Spurs’ official website, we had 23 efforts on goal, 8 of which were on target, hit the woodwork twice, and had two goals disallowed.
We really should have done more with this dominance, and some of our wastefulness in the final third today takes me back to the drum I’ve been hitting since our opening day victory over Saints, and in reality, beyond that. Clinical finishing and decision-making have been perpetual weaknesses of ours – in such matches, teams like Manchester City simply steamroll their opposition (as I write this, they have just been held to a draw at Villa Park, so that hardly does my narrative any favours does it!).
This was attested to by Antonio Conte, who pointed out our need to improve in this department, as relayed by Ham High:
“If I have to find a situation that we need to improve, it is to be more clinical because when you create so many chances, you have to score but we scored two goals disallowed, then the crossbar.”
As some readers were also saying in the pre-match discussion, the prime culprits I feel were the wing-backs today, more so Sessegnon than his more conservative counterpart Emerson. Indeed, both get into great positions – offensively and defensively – but Sessegnon in particular had the beating of Kenny Tete down Fulham’s right all afternoon, yet lacked the crossing accuracy of Ivan Perisic or the confidence to beat a man when doing so would have given him a clear run at Leno.
That said, I do have a lot of admiration for the way both have markedly improved their game in recent months under Conte. For all his shortcomings going forward, Emerson has been solid at the back this season, whilst Sessegnon was a menace all afternoon, setting up Kane’s goal, forcing a great save from Leno, and unfortunate to have another assist for Richarlison denied by the VAR officials. Good work from both, but at the same time, improvement is needed.
Luckily, the improvement was seen across the rest of the team as we survived Mitrovic’s late reply to consolidate a promising position towards the top end of the table. Our best start since 16/17, where we made an identical start to proceedings, winning 4 and drawing 2 of our opening 6 games. Our next league game after that? Manchester City…we all know how that went!
Great result, played a lot better. What was Romero doing for their goal, weak challenge and positioning
Drdrums.. agree about Spence.
Great talent and not even on the bench. He looks a class above Emerson Royal ( can’t pass, can’t cross) and Doherty.
Very strange. He will be off if we’re not careful.
He’ll get his chance chaps, don’t worry…Conte said he’s doing well but he’s got a lot to learn, may be frustrating for supporters fed up of Royal’s limitations but Conte’s ways (and the ways of the Premiership, especially when stepping up from the Championship) are hard to adapt to. Look at Sessegnon – set the Championship on fire and even had a year of Premier League action before we signed him, and even then he’s still learning and fluffing his lines. Yes, it’s frustrating not seeing him, but he’s still got a lot to get used to and with so many games to come, he’ll get his chance. He’s just got to be patient, as we have 🙂 his time will come lads, don’t worry
I didn’t see the new article so here’s my repost:
Very nice to see Sonny winning many 50/50 balls and getting more open space to play in. He seemed less reluctant and much more assertive getting the ball in transition and moving up field. It seems his higher intensity created some great chances to score a goal. What is the deal with Spence? Such hard work and a lot of money to sign him and he gets zero opportunity to get on the pitch. Is he just so unimpressive in training that Conte won’t even put him on the game day lineup? I figured that he had massive talent and would be certainly in the rotation for right wingback. It’s a shame he’s not even involved.
Good overall performance I’d say at least 7 out of 10 for most of our players there today.
As I said on another thread, I am starting to think we are managing games just now.
A bit more attacking against lesser sides more open expansive.
Against stronger teams more defensive, reactionary.
I can see tactics, starting to appear, different set ups for different teams.
There is room for improvement, but our new signings are starting to come into the afray now.
Havent lost (I think) competitively since around April, not so Spursy now…
For me a good overall performance, Niall said that lol!
The game wise, we should learn to get our scoring boots on, lol! it will happen of course, so look out someone!
As Niall said basically every game is planned/managed by Conte.
Newbies showing their faces as they now are getting used to the Prem and our leaders tactics, thus proof in team play is very noticeable.
We are in transition, so still slowly but surely, the baby steps I mentioned loads of times before are turning into strides, miracles take time though. COYS
As we were denied 4 goals by wood work and var / officials we are gong to get a high + goals in the PL table this season…Sonny was more alive and halfway back to form. Richy has shown he is settling in and our strikers are more frightening for the opposition defence. As mentioned on here we are adapting to conte’s systems and as iv’e said we are more like an Italian / english team every game. I’ve noticed rival fans/ media are not slagging off spurs now. 🙂
Now onto the next game CL away, a 2-0 win for spurs…COYS
As far as the game itself went a definite improvement over the West Ham game. The simple fact we were moving the ball a lot quicker made a big difference. In terms of current form there’s no doubt Richarlison is the pick of the bunch, he looked dangerous every time he touched the ball. Given we hit the bar and the post and I’m still not clear why Son’s goal was ruled out we could have scored more.
The referee was poor, which to be fair seemed to be true of most of Saturday’s games. Its depressing to realise that no matter how badly they do their jobs they will never be sacked.
There’s a theme on this site that unless we play pretty football the points don’t matter. This weekend gave the lie to that. City dropped two points, Arsenal three and suddenly the top of the table closes up. Whatever happens, however you play, you pick up every point you can get and see how far it takes you.
I’m not sure who, if anyone, has argued for “pretty” football. I’d like us to play beautful football, which is a term borrowed from Pelé, and he certainly played to win. I have argued that winning losed ita appeal if we have to play ugly borinf football to do so.
100%PY
B108 I said as much myself, typical Italian game management, or even Fergie tactics, we can play when we want.
Jod, take your point, but as I said last season, many times, games are won on margins and decisions, the ref made the, “wrong decision” in at least 3 games over the weekend, each decision favouring the “bigger team” Chelsea, Liverpool and City all benefited from ref decisions this, weekend, and that could make a difference at this level.
I don’t think there’s any conspiracy among referees to favour certain teams. They are just very bad at their job. In most well paid professions if you aren’t doing your job properly you will be fired and replaced by someone better. But not referees. As a club you try to control what you can control and ignore the rest.
I don’t think there is a conspiracy amongst the Refs, but I do believe they FEAR! the top/bigger sides/teams and managers, thus they make the most beneficial mistakes for them, which them makes em look very bias!
Mind I do believe there is a conspiracy against us lol! COYS
Agree PY
It is, an old addage the bigger teams get the decisions.
The point is do these Refs then get the big games, if they make the, “wrong” decision.
I seem to remember “Fergie time” and 10 seasons of the away team never getting a pen at Old Trafford. No conspiricy there.
If you think it stopped in Fergie days, Man U given the most pens awarded two seasons running.
Until old Klopp finally drew public attention to the fact, but no conspiricy. 😜
Foregive me for repeating the inserted comment I made above. I know of no one whose argued in favore of “pretty” football.. I’ve argued that we should play “beautiful” football, which is an expressiong borrowed from Pelé, and he surely played to win. He argued, as do I, that winning by playing ugly football diminishes the achievement. I don’t think I, or anyone else has argued for pretty football. I’m not sure what that would mean.
Beauty is not captured by mindless fancy passing, nor fancy dribbling. Beauty can be found in a well played defense, which is not parking the buss.
Anyway, I think the comment made against pretty football was arguing against nothing that has been supported on this site.
A team should play to win at both ends of the pitch. It should flow and coordinate offense and defense. It has no business parking the bus and passing the ball back to the goalkeeper out of fear to make a mistake.
Beautiful football is not boring football. It’s football that we can appreciated watching for its own sake, It is playing to win, not to nick a point.
TK – The problem is losing football is losing football no matter how its played and losing football is what we’ve been playing for a long time now. Even Pochettino didn’t manage to change that. So now someone comes along who looks like he might be able to actually win something and all we get is whining about the style of play. Pretty, beautiful, losing is losing.
Hopefully this should put the “we play awful football under Conte” narrative to bed for a few days…