Winning Battles for Perception Can Continue to Drive Tottenham Hotspur Forward

It is the kind of burden Tottenham Hotspur striker Harry Kane will have happily kept on carrying. In the event, though, he will still have noticed a relieving of a pressure he has shouldered for the best part of two years.

The injury Kane suffered in Tottenham’s win over Sunderland raised fears of his side’s ability to get by without last season’s top scorer. Ahead of their first such test against Middlesbrough, statistics from OptaJoe showing their previous difficulties without him suggested they could struggle:

71 – Harry Kane has started every one of Spurs’ last 71 Premier League matches, in a run going back to 9th November 2014. Sidelined. pic.twitter.com/0rAOlS7z4R

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) September 23, 2016

4 – Since the start of 2014-15, Harry Kane has missed just four league games for Spurs & they’ve failed to win any of them (D1 L3). Missing. pic.twitter.com/WwAZbGf84W

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) September 24, 2016

Signed primarily as a back-up option, Kane’s replacement Vincent Janssen countered skepticism about his viability in the 2-1 win.

Indeed, in helping create the two goals for another player in the process of reshaping perceptions, Heung-Min Son, the Dutchman has made himself right at home in this Tottenham setup.

Manager Mauricio Pochettino does not come off publicly as someone so interested in using others’ opinions of his team as motivational material. The playing and coaching staffs doing their jobs as asked should be sufficient if his footballing philosophy is as strong as he believes.

Yet, used intentionally or just coming as a byproduct of the improvement Pochettino is striving for, disproving preconceived notions has driven and can continue to drive the north Londoners forward.

The need to do so has not decreased, even as things have got better in recent times.

This week, they face CSKA Moscow in the UEFA Champions League, eager to prove their opening Group E loss to Monaco was an aberration. After that, they host Manchester City. Beating them twice last season proved so pivotal in establishing their credentials as Premier League title challengers.

.@EricDier’s passionate post-match interview after our 4-1 win v Man City, one year ago today, was one of the moments of the season… #COYS pic.twitter.com/vm5oOL3Ynr

— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) September 26, 2016

Eric Dier’s post-match interview after the 4-1 home win (see above) was a testament to just how big a deal this was.

Spurs experienced a largely torrid time facing Man City in the preceding few seasons, usually at the hands of tormentor in chief Sergio Aguero. It was in keeping with a general view they were not good enough, that they lacked those often intangible qualities required to become a real player among the country’s elite.

“I just see like, we choke against the big teams and we don’t put our foot in and we can’t grind out a result,” a peeved Dier said. “I think in the last couple of weeks we’ve proved them wrong.”

Spurs continued to hold their own against top-four rivals, battling it out to stalemates with Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool but getting the better of City again, …

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