Despite it not finishing 6-1 or 4-0, and being a much better performance than those occasions, Tottenham Hotspur lost 2-1 at St James’s Park in an all too familiar tale of not being clinical and getting punished. Just two articles ago I wrote about needing to learn the art of being more clinical and yesterday the same issues reared its ugly head. There feels no point in being clinical to batter Everton 4-0 if we cannot convert our chances the game before or after, and both resulting in dropped points where we should have been comfortably ahead.
Tottenham had 66% of the possession and 20 shots in comparison to Newcastle’s 34% and 9 shots. Many of Tottenham’s shots were pot shots from Pape Matar Sarr and Pedro Porro which did not generate high xG chances showing us to be wasteful when getting in a good position, and other moments we attacked and got into great positions but did not get a shot away due to a lack of a striker. Son Heung-Min and Brennan Johnson both put in superb crosses that sailed all the way through due to the lack of a striker, where Dominic Solanke or Richarlison might have been to tap home on both occasions. Dejan Kulusevski had a great chance at the end to pass to an open Brennan Johnson but opted for Timo Werner who was marked by a Newcastle defender and I felt that summarised the afternoon perfectly – promising moments and getting into good positions but not clinical enough in the final third.
As Jose Mourinho once said during his tenure as Tottenham manager in a game we defeated Manchester City with limited possession, “they can take the ball home with them, I take the 3 points”. Losing this type of game is criminal but this situation has happened twice already in three games and it is something we really need to work on and make better decisions in the final third.
None of our attacking players, barring captain Son Heung-Min are natural finishers. Wilson Odobert scored 1 goal for Burnley last season, Brennan Johnson scored 5 for us, James Maddison scored 4, Dejan Kulusevski with 8, Timo Werner netting 2 (albeit in a 6 month loan spell). We need more goals in the team and these players need to step up, as well as getting goals from defenders and midfielders. Yves Bissouma, Cristian Romero and Pedro Porro have already been on the scoresheet this season which is good to see. Richarlison did manage 11 goals, but he is injury prone and therefore rather unreliable and Dominic Solanke had an outstanding season at Bournemouth with 19 goals, but it was his first good season in the Premier League so the jury is out somewhat.
Onto the defence, and Radu Dragusin as an individual had a very solid game against Newcastle, but as a unit alongside Destiny Udogie, Cristian Romero and Pedro Porro it felt a bit unorganised with a lack of communication. Porro was on the wrong side of the pitch for Barnes’ opening goal and the rest of the defence were static, and Romero pushed up to play the offside trap whereas none of the other defenders did leaving an empty space for Jacob Murphy to run into and roll the ball into Alexander Isak to tap into an open goal after Guglielmo Vicario had committed. We cannot always be a Micky Van De Ven injury away from disaster but his pace really is crucial for this team.
Hopefully Micky Van De Ven and Dominic Solanke will both be back for the North London Derby and they can lead us to get one over on our rivals – it is very much long awaited. No need to panic just yet, but warning signs are emerging in the distance.