You’re 1-0 up with 20 minutes to go. You’re about to win your first home league game in 156 days. You’re well on top and playing your best football in 18 months. If you can just see it through you’ll be four points clear of the relegation zone with two games to go, crisis all but averted. And then your left-winger attempts an overhead in the corner of your own box and kicks an opponent in the head nearly eight feet off the ground. It may have been the highest altitude penalty awarded in the Premier League this season; it was certainly the stupidest. Never underestimate the Spursiness of this Spurs.
The gap to West Ham is two points. Spurs must go to Chelsea three days after the FA Cup final then face Everton at home. West Ham have Newcastle away and Leeds at home. But perhaps the most important aspect is the sense that the momentum has shifted. The pendulum that had seemingly been swinging decisively towards Tottenham has slowed; it could easily swing back again.
What a waste those five league games under Igor Tudor seem now. Spurs took one point from them; even two or three more would have made an almighty difference. Those 44 days of confusion, of ever-changing formations, mystifying selections and brutal press conferences seem another world now. It was hard to square this side, at least in the first hour of the game, with the team that lost limply at Fulham and was told by their manager it lacked only four things: attack, midfield, defence and brain.
The improvement under Roberto De Zerbi has been stark. The adaptation to De Zerbi football was not immediate – he began with defeat at Sunderland and a home draw with Brighton – but in the three games since the impact he has made has been clear. Spurs draw opponents on to press them. They’re confident playing the ball in tight spaces. There is organisation and a gameplan. But they remain extremely fragile.
No matter how positive the mood before the start, they remain Spurs and therefore prone to self-destruction. Not since August and the first two games of the season had Tottenham gone into a game after back-to-back league wins. There were smiles on faces and an expectant hubbub. For the first time in a long time, the pre-match montage extolling Danny Blanchflower’s glory game didn’t seem sarcastic. When the remorselessly ebullient pitch-side announcer Paul Coyte claimed the fans had always been behind the team it was, just about, fleetingly, possible to ignore what obvious nonsense it was; his familiar “Up the Spurs!” rallying cry was greeted not with the sullen sense of duty of recent games but with an expectant roar. By the final whistle, of course, there was booing, although at least some of it might have been directed at the referee Jarred Gillett.
“Together always,” read the tifo in the South Stand. It’s the sort of thing troubled sides always say, but it’s so much easier to believe when the momentum is in the right direction. Even VAR decisions seemed to be going Tottenham’s way: not only the equaliser Callum Wilson had ruled out for West Ham at home to Arsenal on Sunday, but the marginal offside call that denied Dominic Calvert-Lewin a penalty just before half-time. It wouldn’t last. Gillett may have missed Mathys Tel kicking Ethan Ampadu in the head, but the VAR official Craig Pawson did not.
At that, Spurs wilted, at least until the final minutes of a bafflingly long period of injury time when they forced a string of corners. Perhaps it was simply the dearth of creators on the bench, a side-effect of the implausibly long injury list (although James Maddison did return), but it felt just as much a loss of belief. The zip disappeared from their game. Tel vanished. Randal Kolo Muani was far less involved than he had been. Passes were misplaced, anxiety returned. Only the sharp reflexes of Antonin Kinsky plus the crossbar prevented Sean Longstaff grabbing a late winner. The spirit has improved under De Zerbi, but self-confidence cannot be restored overnight.
What Spurs must focus on is how much better they were before their heads went after conceding the equaliser. They really should have been ahead before half-time, perhaps even decisively so. Tel got the goal six minutes into the second half, but they couldn’t find a second and that left them vulnerable to the sort of moment of thoughtlessness that gave Leeds the penalty.
It is still in their hands. Given the goal difference situation, a win and a draw would effectively guarantee it. But that’s four points, and if Spurs hadn’t conceded the late equaliser to Brighton and if they’d held on here, they’d already have them. The worst thing they could do would be to dwell on such thoughts, to dwell on the fact that they could already be safe. But equally, if Tottenham do end up going down it will be the result of a profound carelessness. De Zerbi has already changed some of their habits, but the most damaging are deep-rooted. At some level, being Spursy is just who Spurs are.