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Tottenham Hotspur suffered a 1-0 defeat at home to Chelsea in the Premier League on Saturday night as Thomas Frank comes under increasing pressure in N17.
Let’s take a look at the five things we learned:
Tottenham’s home form is sickening
Any successful season is always built on the bedrock of consistent home form. Tottenham are showing anything but. The Lilywhites are only out of the relegation zone on goal difference when it comes to home results, playing five, losing three, and drawing one.
Only Nottingham Forest, Wolves, and West Ham have a worse record in their own backyard. If Spurs have any ambitions of playing European football next season, let alone Champions League, that needs to change.
Boos around the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
Thomas Frank enjoyed his honeymoon period at Tottenham, but that is well and truly over. Spurs are out of the Carabao Cup, struggling to create chances, and dropping points at home for fun. Tottenham have always been proud of their history of free-flowing, attacking football, which is why the experiments under Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte ended so miserably.
Frank is going to have to find a way to open things up and consistently create chances, or he risks losing the faith of sections of the fanbase. After all, it’s not as if Tottenham look solid at the back either. It may have only been 1-0 this evening but it could and should have been four or five.
Rodrigo Bentancur and Joao Palhinha
Thomas Frank insists it works. Tottenham fans scream that it does not. The defeat to Chelsea certainly served as evidence to the latter camp. Joao Palhinha seems like the perfect option to have as a solo midfield pivot who drops between the centre-backs, much like Eric Dier used to do alongside Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen. That kind of player simply does not need another deep-lying midfield alongside them.
In fact, Bentancur often drops even deeper than his Portuguese teammate, leaving little to no options in the centre of the pitch to actually progress the ball. Dropping the Uruguayan for a more progressive player may come with initial teething problems, but Thomas Frank needs to be brave and find a way to control matches. At the moment, Tottenham are being bullied out of the game almost every week.
Guglielmo Vicario deserves a lot of credit
Another match, another shocking Tottenham performance coupled with a Vicario masterclass. The Italian recorded another eight saves against Chelsea, with at least three or four of those coming as point-blank stops to deny what should have been a certain goal. On another day, the Blues would have scored at least a few more tonight, but Vicario was on top form. Unfortunately, if your keeper is your best player for three games in a row, it indicates there is something deeply wrong with your system.
Returning Tottenham players
One silver lining to take from the defeat to Chelsea is undoubtedly the return of three absentees for Tottenham Hotspur. Cristian Romero, Wilson Odobert, and Destiny Udogie all came off the bench in the second half, and Thomas Frank will surely look to integrate all three back into his starting XI before long.
Of course, Spurs are still missing the likes of James Maddison, Dejan Kulusevski, Radu Dragusin, Yves Bissouma, Ben Davies, Kota Takai, and Archie Gray, but Romero and Udogie in particular should add a completely different dimension to Tottenham’s ability to play out from the back.
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