In the Premier League, where margins are often so small, coaches frequently talk about isolated “moments” that can settle matches.
From a Tottenham Hotspur perspective, several moments proved decisive in their 4-1 humiliation at the hands of their arch rivals at the Emirates Stadium on Sunday.
Destiny Udogie positioned a yard behind the defensive line, keeping Leandro Trossard onside for Arsenal’s opener. Rodrigo Bentancur and Joao Palhinha allowing Eberechi Eze to dance through them for the second. Failing to pressure Eze’s shot for Arsenal’s third, putting the hosts firmly out of sight.
Thomas Frank after Sunday’s defeat at Arsenal (Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
When Guglielmo Vicario said Tottenham were “too passive” and lacked “fight” in his post-match interview with Sky Sports, he was partly referring to their failure to fulfil their defensive assignments, either through a lack of concentration or execution. Until that point, Spurs were unbeaten away from home, with the 2-0 win over Manchester City and Super Cup penalty defeat to upcoming Champions League opponents Paris Saint-Germain in August demonstrating Spurs can limit elite opponents while offering attacking potency under Thomas Frank.
Since their encouraging but fleeting three-match stretch in the season’s opening month, Tottenham have failed to convince entirely in any match aside from the 4-0 win over a below-par Copenhagen in the Champions League.
Having pulled a goal back through Richarlison’s brilliant looping effort from near the halfway line, Tottenham had their best spell of possession in the game over the next 20 minutes. Granted, Mikel Arteta’s side were in control and seemed content to surrender the ball at times, but Spurs had the opportunity to throw players forward and gain territory inside Arsenal’s half in an attempt to fight for an unlikely comeback. At the time, a Djed Spence throw-in around 40 yards from David Raya’s goal may have felt insignificant, but it was the first “moment” in a sequence that takes us to the core of Tottenham’s playstyle and mentality issues.
In front of Frank’s dugout, Spence has three options: throw the ball back to Cristian Romero, go down the line towards Richarlison, or play it a few yards in front to Mohammed Kudus (not pictured near the byline). For Spence, these options are all inherently negative. Going back to Romero means losing territory in Arsenal’s half, forcing Spurs to build through their lines again. On the other hand, Kudus and Richarlison are ahead of the taker but are closely marked and will be isolated if they manage to keep possession under pressure. With these options, the chances of turning territory into an attack are slim.
With that in mind, Xavi Simons’ positioning is odd. Simons thrived in tight spaces as a No 10 for RB Leipzig and PSV in previous seasons, and is theoretically the ideal profile to drop into either of the open spaces signified with the black circles. Should he follow the red line, it brings another body into that position alongside Richarlison, Kudus and Spence, increasing the likelihood of them keeping possession and nearing Arsenal’s penalty box. It would also allow his team-mates to move closer to their side of the pitch, giving Simons options to pass to if he engineers a sequence with the striker or right-winger, or evades Declan Rice on the spin.
As a heavily right-footed player, Simons prefers to come in from the left to shoot or pass on his stronger foot, so he may not be entirely comfortable taking the ball and turning towards the goal on his left. Still, not providing support for Spence is either a failure to recognise the optimal position in the moment or a tactical direction that encourages losing territory.
Romero, possibly Spurs’ most accomplished distributor on the pitch, then moves even further backwards into his own half, and Spence throws towards the Argentina international.
Tottenham’s captain then passes back to Vicario, who launches a low-percentage ball into Richarlison in the middle of the pitch. Arsenal defender Piero Hincapie wins the aerial duel with a run on the Brazilian, and Tottenham lost the second ball, a theme of their defeat. Arsenal turned the opportunity into an attack, ending with Eze’s hat-trick goal, a moment the England international later said he had prayed for before the game, having come close to joining Spurs this summer.
“We always want bravery,” Frank said when asked about the throw-in sequence in his post-match press conference. “You need to be consistent. You need to keep going. You need to do all the right things. I would be more concerned if that was 0-0 or 1-0.”
Pick apart the 27 seconds it took from the ball leaving Spence’s hands to it nestling in the back of Vicario’s goal, and you learn a lot about Tottenham in their current state.
Against Arsenal and Chelsea in the 1-0 home defeat this month, Tottenham’s performances exemplified a continued mindset unbecoming of the Europa League champions. It took the substitutions of Mathys Tel and Wilson Odobert to build attacking impetus against Manchester United at home, but until then, the performance mirrored that of the 2-1 defeat to Aston Villa and the near-miracle 0-0 draw away at Monaco.
Pick the word: ambition, intent, aspiration, desire. Personnel and tactical decisions play a significant part, but a lack of a winning mentality is the common thread that runs through them all.
“We tried to come here and be aggressive and press high and in spells go after them,” said Frank. “We didn’t succeed with that bit. We didn’t manage to get near enough to them in the situations we could. It means we got pushed back and got a little too passive. It looks like we are running after them. When we finally got on the ball, we were not good enough to get out of those situations.
“They are definitely six years down the line, and we are four months down the line, but even with that, I was still expecting much more from us today. Not that we could dominate over 90 minutes, but that we could be as competitive as we were against Man City and PSG.”
On Wednesday, Frank faces a repeat challenge. Against the European champions at the hostile Parc des Princes, Spurs must get closer to the level they showed against PSG in the Super Cup and City at the Etihad. While we are yet to see a meaningful and consistent evolution in Tottenham’s attacking game since that point, with game-to-game patterns of play seemingly non-existent, Spurs have the individual quality and set-piece threat to hurt a PSG side weakened by injuries.
To pull off an unlikely result, Frank must instil an attacking intent that was invisible at the Emirates on Sunday.