The phrase ‘new normal’ has been thrown around so much in recent weeks to the point where I cannot stand hearing it. But last night watching Tottenham retreat to their 6-yard box in the defence of a one-goal lead, I couldn’t help thinking this may just be our very own ‘new normal’.
This was a growing concern of mine way before the season was disrupted. At first it was the apparent lack of invention as Mourinho prepared for life after Christian Eriksen. Then came the onus on the long ball. This works when Bournemouth’s back four can’t form a straight horizontal line, but is stifled by a coherent defence or by VAR noticing someone’s shoulder being an inch offside. By the end of February, Tottenham were relying on moments of individual brilliance to scrape together points. Think Bergwijn versus City, Dele versus Brighton. The problem is there’s only a finite amount of individual brilliance in our squad, especially when none of our attacking players can avoid injury. This was a shambolic advance to Europe even Field Marshall Haig would have frowned upon.
So I should have known better than to think this was the start of something great when Stevie Bergwijn raced past the United defence to open the scoring last night. But who could blame me? After all, José and his number two, Joao Sacramento, had undoubtedly profited from these months to finally get to grips with this squad; watch hours and hours of past games, work out strengths and flaws, who should play where, how we can kill games off. All the players, with the exception of Dele Alli and Lucas Moura, were fit and available to play. Sure, United had plenty of pace up top, but didn’t we? We could make mince meat out of Lindelof and Maguire! Come on you Spurs!
Half-time. We’re a goal up and Roy Keane is so angry I can feel the heat from my television. This is going rather well. Defence solid. Attack dangerous. Lamela surely just one foul away from getting booked and winning me £38 from William Hill. We’ve got them on the ropes here. Just one more feeble shot past De Gea could secure the knockout.
Then came the bus. The dreaded bus, parked very clumsily in our eighteen yard box. And it was at around the 48th minute mark that I realised we would no longer win the game.
Before the match Roy Keane, in all his ferocious wisdom, mentioned an inherent weakness in the DNA of Tottenham teams past and present. I’m not convinced on the science here, or if weakness is the sort of trait stored in DNA, but he can’t be that far off the mark.
Luckily, I rarely enjoy watching my team for fear of total collapse (there is form there). So mustering only 39% possession on our home turf doesn’t affect me too much. Nonetheless, it was hard to watch as we dropped further back yard by yard, minute by minute. It’s no surprise Paul Pogba was at the byline when he earned his team a penalty.
Were it not for John Moss’ visual deficiencies being picked up on, we would have lost that match. It would have been another case – just like against Liverpool (twice) and Chelsea (twice) – of Tottenham trying and spectacularly failing to win a game by prioritising the evasion of defeat. Life seemed much easier when if we were to lose a big game, we would go down in flames. Not by conceding one in the 88th minute, but by conceding five in the first half. Parking the bus may prove fruitful against Manchester City once in a blue moon. But even that particular victory required a one-man advantage, a penalty save and about seven near-death experiences. In any case, we can’t keep playing with fire.
There are of course some positives to take and some excuses to make. That first-half performance was perhaps as good as I’ve seen all season. It would also be unfair to overly criticise a team on their first competitive game back in three months. We did lack attacking options off the bench. And most importantly, I am 99% sure if I bet on Lamela to be carded in the next game I’ll finally get the money I deserve. It’s not all doom and gloom – no, that’ll be when we lose to West Ham on Tuesday.
The reason I’m annoyed, perhaps excessively, is for the same reason you get most annoyed at the people you love. It’s because you care, and because you hate the Europa League. So José Mourinho, if you stumble across this, consider letting us play some decent football for a while longer in games. Don’t let parking the bus become the new normal.
Chris Perrin 