Spurs Held to another Draw Yet Again

Some say Spurs failure in their league title bid was due to the regular end of season collapse of a Pochettino trained team.  Year after year, the high press, all out game of Spurs coupled with one of the toughest training regiments have been a plus when players have out-competed the opposition, but the statistics of the final six games of teams Pochettino has managed, all show the same pattern.

So much so that Leicester City fans had arrived as League Champions to unceremoniously crow on Spurs failure to catch them in the title race, their fans even brought a banner to the ground saying "Finished 3rd in a Two Horse Race".  There are some similarities in today's performance that echoes the large number of drawn games last year.  While the team remains unbeaten this season, too many draws equate with too many lost points.

Life will self-correct itself as a Spurs supporter if they beat their North London rivals Arsenal next week.  A defeat against Arsenal will be the chief signal that Spurs are still pretenders to the throne, even though the starting eleven do forge an exceptionally good team.  That Spurs hit the cross-bar and post with fierce-some shots says that some of their players are trying to be clinical in front of goal but they are still not accurate.  At a certain point in the game with shots 18 to 4 in Spurs favour, a second goal would be justified for the effort.  As it happens, it is Leicester who found the clinical finishing power in a goal that was testimony to determination.

The title holders during the last 15 minutes began to look like the team that surprised the world by winning the league title last year and Spurs simply had to hang on.  The three substitutions by Claudio Ranieri considerably improved the Leicester team, and it is a good thing that they had not begun the game with that ending 11 players. 

Unlike Spurs Leicester have already booked themselves into the knock out round of the Champions League and their tough defense was only breached today due to a dubious penalty decision, which gave Vincent Janssen his first Spurs goal.  Janssen does have physical presence in his hold up play, but the sense of belief is missing, even after the penalty goal.  With Harry Kane looking good to get back in the team after injury, this was an opportunity for Janssen to make his mark, and he has so far not been big enough mentally to fill those shoes.

The return of the prodigal son "he is one of our own" Harry Kane next week may spell some relief to Spurs fans who are beginning to get frustrated by the muted firepower of Spurs - but they should also be applauding a Spurs defense that has conceded only half as many goals as they have played league matches - that is an impressive statistic, especially considering a key defender is currently out of the team with an injury,

The question next week is how much has Kane been helped by his injury - will he take a few weeks to get back to full fitness or will he hit the ground running?  Kane loves to score against Arsenal, though in recent games Spurs defense has allowed them to get back in the game.  This year that defense looks like the same kind of stingy defense that had teams calling Arsenal "boring Arsenal". 

The good news over the last week is that Liverpool beat Spurs in that tin-cup competition called the League Cup.  The 2-1 defeat at Anfield was virtually against a second-string Tottenham team, which shows how much Tottenham regarded this competition.  If there was such a thing as a good loss that would be it.  The bad news is that Spurs November fixtures do not get any easier after the Arsenal game.  November will therefore be a make or break month for Tottenham in terms of title aspirations. 

Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea have all shown signs of being a superior force in the league, and Manchester City are re-finding their feet after a damaging 4-0 loss to Barcelona and defeat a couple of weeks ago to Spurs.  That means that Tottenham may end up chasing a Europa League spot with Manchester United and Everton also in contention.

Tomorrow's game between Chelsea vs Southampton, will be telling in terms of Chelsea's own title aspirations - but it also is a test of whether the great form Southampton are showing will hold.  Everybody had Southampton as the team to be relegated at the end of this season when they lost Ronald Koeman to Everton and sold yet even more quality players to other teams.

Tottenham therefore are currently judging by the lack of finishing, a team that may finish anywhere from 5th to 8th place in the league this year.  Any chance of winning today was gone when Pochettino put youngster Harry Winks on.  These are kamikaze decisions by the Tottenham manager because Leicester were on the prowl and looking very dangerous and the last thing a manager should do is hand over even more of the tactical advantage to the opposition.  While this was Leicesters first away point of the season, they at times can still play like last years championship winning side did - and they sure are doing that in the Champions league.  That is where Spurs next stop is - another Wembley (home) game, if such a game can be called "home". 

Spurs fans better get used to the Tottenham team learning to play their game on substantially larger pitches.  With the new stadium slated to be complete in 2018,  they must learn how to play on the Wembley pitch and learn fast, because Wembley is going to be their new "home" for the entire season next year.

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