Against a wobbly Chelsea beating a path onto redemption with a new manager at the helm on Thursday, Jose Mourinho’s Tottenham appeared hapless, limp and disorganised, surrendering rather meekly to their third straight defeat in the league.
Chelsea’s only goal in the game came from a penalty spot kick ably tucked into the net by midfielder Jorginho following the poor decision by Tottenham’s make-shift defender Eric Dier to repeatedly lounge recklessly at Timo Werner with his feet from the ground.
The goal and the circumstances that led to it served as a telling microcosm of the entire game. Tottenham players, low on confidence and creativity, committing a succession of embarrassing errors that meant that Chelsea’s probing attacks, though lacking a defining cutting edge, produced several chances that made the final 1-0 outcome feel like an escape for the home team.
In defense for Tottenham, Eric Dier was astonishingly poor. The midfield struggled to control the game too and Carlos Vinicius, the Brazilian striker brought on to fill the big shoes of Harry Kane, could not find the right combination with Son upfront to test the resolve of Chelsea’s remodeled defense featuring hitherto sidelined players such as Antonio Rudiger.
Requiring a lift themselves after cheaply offering the same to the struggling champions, Liverpool, who didn’t seem to remember how to score or win a game until they met Jose Mourinho’s disorderly defense and relegation-threatened Brighton who picked their first home win all season against the same side, Tottenham’s troubles have only deepened, with more questions emerging on whether Jose Mourinho can truly lead this club to glory.
For balance, it is important to state the impact of the absence of established stars such as Harry Kane, Giovani Lo Celso, and Serge Reguillon. They are all key to Jose Mourinho’s ‘contain and counter’ strategy.
Harry Kane has earned an additional star as a prolific goal creator, Lo Celso’s incisive runs are essential to the counter-attacks and Serge Reguillon offers alternative goal channels with his expertly timed crosses delivered into the box for either Kane or Son to take advantage of.
However, with Tottenham’s complete capitulation, it is now worth asking if the players’ individual brilliance hasn’t been masking the fundamental flaws of a managerial strategy that hands initiative and control of the game to the opposition, invites attacks that provoke errors in defense, and relies heavily on an almost perfect conversion rate that leaves no room for error upfront.
Only a small fraction of created chances is scored by most teams. This explains why most managers set up to create as many as possible goal-scoring opportunities, especially against teams of equal or inferior strength. Jose Mourinho reverses the logic. His team, with little or no moderation based on oppositional quality, relies on a manic conversion of scarce opportunities to make up for the limitations posed by the primary focus on defending against a goal.
It is a strategy that works to a devastating effect when players are in good form and carry out their duties in a pristine, excellent manner as displayed by Spurs in the early days of the season when they surged to the top of the league table in December.
But football players are mortals vulnerable to fatigue, judgment lapses, momentary loss of focus and other weaknesses. This season has been especially demanding with games coming in thick and fast. By continually exposing his defense to relentless wave of attacks, hamstringing his midfielders from taking control, and tasking his strikers to take maximal advantage of the one or two clear chances that materialize in 90 minutes of football, Jose Mourinho appears to be dueling against common sense.
Mourinho is, without doubt, a great manager, and Tottenham’s season is far from doomed. They still have a realistic chance of a top-four finish and could end the season with a cup win if they prevail over Manchester City in the EPL cup final in April. But the manager’s stubborn insistence on a strategy that has failed to deliver results pokes many holes in his famed ‘pragmatism’ label and will fuel talks that he is out of ideas and on his last legs at the elite top.
*Written By Peter Adeshina
