Spurs vs. Reality

The occasion can't warp time.

Had Spurs put up a fight against Liverpool in yesterday’s league cup semifinal, grinding out a 0-0 draw for 85 minutes before McAllister slipped a perfectly weighted pass into Salah, who buried it in the far corner to give Liverpool the victory, our fanbase would be heartbroken, but we’d understand.

After all, Liverpool are probably the best team in Europe right now, playing at full strength. Their front line, in particular, can be terrifying and is capable of carving up better sides than Spurs.

But it was the manner of the defeat—a 4-0 drubbing in which Spurs never managed to get a foothold—that makes the result so bitterly frustrating. And in such moments, it’s easy, even soothing for some, to reach into the bag of negative intangibles and pull out what you can: the players don’t care; someone should have ‘done something’; the players weren’t trying; the manager had no plan.

Some of that stuff may be therapeutic, but none of it will get you any closer to understanding what happened.

The Occasion Can’t Warp Time

Yesterday’s defeat and our immediate reaction to it is a case study in momentum. Spurs were coming off a couple of crucial wins in Europe and in the Premier League, battling through squad depletion and fatigue.

Then the January transfer window closed on an optimistic note for Tottenham, who were able to bring in a strong defender and excellent fit for the squad in Kevin Danso and one of Europe’s most exciting young talents in Mathys Tel, despite rumors the latter would never join Spurs and was destined for Arsenal, Manchester United, or Chelsea.

Richarlison had worked his way back from injury and found the back of the net twice in 5 games. Micky van de Ven came back for a moment, Bissouma came back, and Postecoglou started speaking about getting a wave of additional players back from injury soon.

These are the circumstances in which we approached the occasion of the league cup semifinal against Liverpool, a big deal in any case, especially for a club still hunting for its first silverware in more than 15 years.

Going into the match, it all started to feel like we were poised to turn the season around, and though facing a the toughest of opponents in Liverpool, this was the perfect occasion to announce that turnaround.

But it was a false dawn.

You Want It to Be One Way…

Given all that momentum going into the match, Spurs fans wanted to believe that we had a new baseline and a new set of reasons to kick on and put in a great performance at Anfield. The addition of Danso meant we could play an actual center back at center back while missing our 3 other center backs to injury. The addition of Tel meant we had some real firepower on our depleted bench, a strong, pacy finisher who can take on opponents 1v1 and potentially change the tenor of a game.

Of course, in reality, it’s difficult enough for a new player to slot into a back line right away, especially as unsettled a back line as Spurs’ and especially against one of the world’s most formidable attacks. So we always had to temper our expectations for Danso’s debut (which I thought was fine in any case). Similarly, with Spurs having struggled for possession from start to finish, and with Tel forced onto the pitch perhaps sooner than expected due to another Richarlison injury, it was always going to be a tricky situation for the young attacker, who didn’t get much opportunity in his debut.

Meanwhile, Spurs lined up against Liverpool with 10 unfit players, 7 of whom (Vicario, Romero, van de Ven, Udogie, Maddison, Solanke, Johnson) are routinely in our best 11 (and that’s not including the fact that Porro was fit but rested for the first time in months). In effect, Spurs went into the match without 8 of our best 11.

Just as a (charitable) visualization of what this would look like, and with the caveat that Liverpool of course have a stronger and much deeper squad than Spurs, this is roughly how each side would line up if the roles were flipped and it was depleted Liverpool against full-strength Spurs (with Liverpool missing Alisson, van Dijk, Konate, Robertson, Szoboszlai, Darwin, and one more of either Salah, Gakpo, Diaz, or Jota, and perhaps having Trent to bring on for Bradley, or shifting Bradley to the left side to play out of position):

… But It’s The Other Way

The effect of the big occasion, the promising January transfer window, and the immanent prospect of some of our key players returning from injury did a number on all of our brains.

That is, in the immortal words of Marlo Stanfield in The Wire, we wanted it to be one way, but it’s the other way. We wanted to be past the injury crisis and on the other end of a turning point in the season, punctuated by an unexpected victory at Anfield, but in reality we’re still deep in the injury crisis and nothing has really changed.

Accordingly, we wanted it to be one way—a fresh, new, interesting explanation for the poor performance and the poor results—but it’s the other way, the same, frustrating, boring explanation for the poor results:

It’s.

The.

Injuries.

It’s still the same 13 players playing Thursdays and Sundays for months now. They’re still tired. It’s still the same defensive weaknesses with zero first-choice players in our back 5. It’s still the same energy deficits in the front line. It’s still the same lack of holdup play without Solanke. It’s still the same lack of ball progression without Maddison.

It’s still the same Spurs side that’s bottom third of the table in virtually every metric, not the fit Spurs side that was top of the table in virtually every metric before everyone got injured.

It’s Not About Quality

So, when Son’s hitting the crossbar instead of the back of the net, or 4 of our back line are watching a waist-high cross drift past all 4 of them and fall to a surprised Cody Gakpo to punch home, or our midfield looks overrun and can’t win a duel, it’s not because these are not good players. It’s not because even the depleted squad we put out isn’t capable of putting in a much better performance than they did, on paper. It’s not because Postecoglou set them up to sit deep for the first half hour. And it’s not because Postecoglou had them play more expansively when they needed a goal.

It’s because they are tired. It’s because even though we can feel big occasions, and develop hopes and dreams about big occasions, big occasions can’t bend reality.

An Optimistic Note

The good news in all of this is that Danso and Tel really do bolster the squad, so in time, as we really do start to get players back from injury, and as the new players get comfortable in the system and with their new teammates, we really are poised to improve. I think Spurs will have our turning point moment and I expect will finish the season with performances and results that look a lot more like when we were fit and firing than when we’ve been depleted and dragging.

It’s just that we wanted that moment to come last night, for the occasion. But it was never going to, because ultimately it’s the core, underlying circumstances of this depleted squad that drive our performances, results, and destiny, and sadly not our time-sensitive hopes and dreams.