Test for Pochettino as Spurs and Chelsea Look to Be Going in Opposite Direction

Given the vagaries of football opinion make those of the weather or economy seem stable in comparison, the current blanket of doubt being thrown over Mauricio Pochettino and his Tottenham Hotspur side seems just about reasonable.

That’s to say it’s reasonable in the same way it’s reasonable to let out an involuntary laugh when someone falls over in the street in a slapstick fashion, less so if you can’t stop chuckling on discovering there has been a broken limb. It’s all about moderation. 

Pochettino hasn’t become a bad manager overnight. 

He has, though, overseen just one win in Tottenham’s last nine matches and a catastrophic UEFA Champions League campaign that stooped to a new nadir on Tuesday night. An abject defeat in Monaco saw Spurs suffer the indignity of being eliminated with a group game still left to play. 

It’s like having to hang around on a quiz show when your light has gone out. The possibility of the Europa League is no more a consolation prize than winning a vacuum cleaner when you had been playing for a new car. 

Pochettino’s decision to prioritise Saturday’s game against Chelsea game over Tuesday’s in Monaco angered supporters and left neutrals bemused in equal measures. 

A fit to start Jan Vertonghen was left on the substitutes’ bench, alongside the rested Kyle Walker, despite Spurs already missing the injured Toby Alderweireld. Christian Eriksen was also omitted.

By choice, Tottenham started against Monaco, in a game they had to win to revive chances of progression (a draw would have just about kept hopes alive), with three quarters of their regular back four missing. Danny—a Rose between three thorns.

Having spent five years trying to get back into the UEFA Champions League, a conscious decision was made to prioritise a game in November that is one of 38 to determine whether next season they will be able to return to the same competition.

This was less the tail wagging the dog, as the tail tying itself into a noose around the dog’s neck. It’s like saving up all year to eat at an expensive restaurant and then when you get there, dolled up to the nines, ordering tap water and some bread to share.

From the outside peering in over the fence, it does seem as though Tottenham have lost a little perspective with regards Saturday’s rerun of the “Battle of the Bridge.”

17 – @HKane has scored 17 goals in his last 16 @premierleague London derby appearances. Specialist. https://t.co/vEDbSiXnAJ #COYS #FPL #PL

— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) November 25, 2016

Spurs’ acute ire at surrendering a two-goal half-time lead in the corresponding fixture last season, to gift-wrap the Premier League title to Leicester City without Claudio Ranieri’s side having to play, was best illustrated via the nine bookings they picked up. A Premier League record no less.

The Football Association later hit Mousa Dembele with a six-match retrospective ban for appearing to eye-gouge Diego Costa. Referee Mark Clattenburg mustn’t have had a big enough book.

In fairness, by the end of the game, Spurs’ players, taking their cue from an enraged Pochettino, had started to resemble the kids in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, who go full primal and, in the absence of an authoritative figure, kill Piggy. It’s a good job there wasn’t a conch kicking around on the night.

There’s an argument to say they have yet to fully recover.

Danny Rose, who misses Saturday’s derby through suspension, has this week conceded Spurs’ players were in tears in the dressing room after the game last season, per the Daily Mirror’s Darren Lewis. 

Chelsea celebrating winning a point as though it had won them the league, not Leicester, incensed the away side.

Prior to the game Eden Hazard, Willian and Cesc Fabregas had all said they didn’t want Tottenham to win the league in interviews with Sky Sports and Match Of The Day (h/t the Telegraph). Given Chelsea had played the majority of the campaign wearing flip flops in the meekest defence of a title in living memory, it’s hard to imagine Saturday’s game won’t be full of more needle than Trainspotting 2. 

Certainly the atmosphere inside Stamford Bridge on the night transcended the previous year when Chelsea had won the league courtesy of a tedious 1-0 win over Crystal Palace.

“They (Chelsea) are, not only in England but in Europe, the team most in form today,” said Pochettino in his press conference on Thursday. 

If he really wanted to instil a little confidence in his players, he should have also mentioned the fact Chelsea have won their last six league games, scoring 17 without reply. And maybe add in how they haven’t conceded a goal in 585 minutes of league football since ditching a porous back four for a back three tighter than a pair of Jamie Redknapp’s slacks. And don’t forget Hazard and Diego Costa have gone from sulking to sublime since Conte got hold of them. 

No one could have predicted Chelsea being 3-0 down at Arsenal at half-time may potentially have made their season. Many will have thought it could have broken it, with a report from David Woods of the Daily Star at the time suggesting Conte was dissatisfied with the club’s transfer business over the summer. Well-publicised meetings between manager and owner Roman Abramovich hardly suggested it was the happiest of camps either. It’s not looking so bad now. 

ICYMI – Your October @BarclaysFooty Manager of the Month is… Antonio Conte! pic.twitter.com/UHjcbCiNeA

— Premier League (@premierleague) November 18, 2016

In stark comparison, Monday’s win against West Ham United was a first for Tottenham in five Premier League games, while over the same period, just a solitary clean sheet has been kept, away at Bournemouth. That’s not great for a side whose title tilt last …

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