England striker’s continued excellence has kept a flawed Tottenham team in contention for a Champions League placeOne of the common anxieties of football’s age of billionaire owners and nation state PR projects is the fear that clubs will lose their long-standing identities, that they will become instead plasticised entertainment vehicles, anonymous machines for winning. Although not quite yet, it seems. Relax for a moment. Kick back. And take a long cool drink of the mixed and flowing substance that remains forever Spurs.There was at least something reassuringly familiar about the collapse at home to Southampton on Wednesday night. Tottenham may have the greatest new-build ground in Europe. They may have an A-list manager in his mid-career prime. They may have...
Arsenal, Spurs and West Ham can keep the plot line crackling until the end of the season, but all lack the strength in depth that will favour United’s hopesAnthony Martial played the pass, Edinson Cavani timed his run to deliver the cross and there was Marcus Rashford to sweep home, the stoppage-time goal giving Manchester United a 1-0 win over West Ham last Saturday and sparking wild scenes at Old Trafford.“Manchester United are targeting West Ham’s top-four place,” roared the TV commentator. “Going Fourth,” declared the front page of the following day’s Observer Sport. And the first thing to say is this was not how United had imagined it at the start of the season. Continue reading...
On a frustrating evening for the pair of big-name strikers, they once again struggled to show why they were so sought-after last summerAt least they’ll always have Leicester. Even while they celebrated Wednesday’s sensational come-from-behind victory at the King Power, sensible Spurs fans – and their manager – knew it was most likely to be remembered as a joyous freak occurrence rather than the start of a new era.In the excitement, that win was compared to Spurs’ magnificently ludicrous triumph over Ajax in the 2019 Champions League semi-final and it is true that the matches have similarities. Both created thrilling, enduring memories from improbable situations; and both were followed by monumental no-shows. Continue reading...
Stirring Spurs comeback at Leicester suggests the Italian could finally be waking a sleepwalking clubIt felt like an end, not a beginning. Internazionale had just gone 2-0 down at home to Torino with half an hour to play and, as the camera panned to the touchline, Antonio Conte bore the expression of a man who had accepted an invitation to dinner only to discover that the menu would be entirely vegan. His side had won three of their opening seven games of the 2020-21 season and were eighth in Serie A. The prospect of mounting any sort of challenge for the scudetto seemed laughably remote.At which point, something stirring and strange happened. Alexis Sánchez pulled one back after a goalmouth...
Blues’ high-spec finely engineered – and very expensive – midfielders epitomised the gulf between Chelsea and SpursThere was a moment midway through the first half of this Carabao Cup semi-final second leg, with Chelsea already 1-0 up, when Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic just seemed to stop, shrug, and pass the ball three times between them: a kind of shared footballing shrug, a raise of the midfield eyebrows. We can do this all day you know. You’re on your own time here.This was a game Tottenham did their best to chase, and with some urgency in the second half. But they were up against opponents who seemed always to be holding them at arm’s length, a palm flat against their forehead,...