A concerning victory

So normally the title to this article would be a contradiction but anyone who watched that game could only have been concerned.

We travelled to a poor Spurs team, whose home record has been diabolical this season and a manager under pressure. I said before the game that Spurs should be tailor made for us and so the should have been but our performance was absolutely turgid. We seem to have abandoned our pressing game altogether, our counter attacks are slow and disjointed and our all round play is ponderous and horrendously boring to watch.

Spurs seemed more intent on kicking our players than actually playing football for most of the game and Simmons was rightly sent off for raking his studs down Virgil’s calf, which should have made the game a comfortable day’s work for us and on a positive note, Wirtz got his first PL assist for us and Isak his first PL goal. Unfortunately Isak picked up what looked to be a bad injury and I’ll be surprised if he’s not set for an extended spell on the sidelines, judging by how he went off.

Frimpong was lively when he came on and it was his good work that set up our second, as Ekitike rose above Romero to expertly head home and at 2-0 against ten men, you’d be forgiven for thinking that was game over. If only…

Richarlison came off the bench and after the usual chaos in our box that any set piece delivery seems to cause us, the Brazilian swept home a loose ball and after that, our head’s went. Even Spurs going down to nine men didn’t settle us and we were embarrassingly holding on for dear life for the last 20 minutes and were frankly lucky to come away with all three points.

Sorry but I’m just not convinced by our manager. We’ve added some of the best attacking players in Europe to a title winning squad, yet we’ve gone backwards in almost every department. We’re so boring to watch, our pressing is nonexistent, we can’t defend and our attack is slow, predictable and completely lacking in penetration. Our midfield was so packed yesterday that there was no space for anyone to provide movement and neither side were creating chances. We don’t play like a team and are relying on individuals pulling something out the hat with a bit of skill. Theres no patterns to our play or any kind of identity as a team and that’s on the manager.

Wolves next, who are on course to be the worst team in PL history and are still to pick up a win this season. There can be no arguments about fixture congestion in these two fixtures as we had a full week to prepare for Spurs and we have another full week to prepare for Wolves. Anything less than a comfortable win will be unacceptable in my opinion. As for yesterday, I don’t think I’ve ever felt more concerned after watching us win and now we’ve got a few more injuries into the mix. It’ll be interesting to see if the club do any transfer business next month. Until then, we limp on!