Ex-Spurs Scout: Five things I learned from Tottenham defeat against West Ham, ‘is the Ange honeymoon over?’
Tottenham News is delighted to welcome aboard our brilliant new columnist Bryan King, the former goalkeeper who spent six years as a senior scout at Spurs and 28 years in total in first-team scouting roles. Bryan also spent eight years on Everton’s recruitment team and 11 years scouting at Aston Villa across two different spells.
Tottenham failed to build on their draw against Manchester City and were condemned to a fourth defeat in five league matches by West Ham at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Thursday 7 December.
Spurs have now lost their last three home matches in a row as David Moyes’ side ran out 2-1 winners on Thursday evening.
For the fifth consecutive match, Tottenham opened the scoring but failed to see out the win, becoming the first team in Premier League history to do this.
Cristian Romero heard the home side in front ten minutes into his return to action but goals in the second half from Jarrod Bowen and James Ward-Prowse leave Ange Postecoglou’s side with just one point from their last 15.
Ex-Spurs scout Bryan King was watching on for Tottenham News and detailed five things he learned from yet another disappointing evening in north London.
Tottenham architects of their own downfall once again
It was the same old story, Tottenham dominated for 45 minutes, were full of energy and had all the possession of the ball but at the end of the day I am afraid it is not about possession, it is about finishing and Spurs should have finished that game off. I mean talk about giving the game away. Is the Ange honeymoon over?
To be fair to him, he can’t do anything about injuries or players missing clear chances. At 1-0, the way they were playing, you were just waiting for it to go to 2-0, but Spurs just lacked that cutting edge you need to put these games to bed before half-time. The more the game went on, the more West Ham started to believe in themselves and then Spurs went and presented them the golden opportunities they needed.
Richarlison’s header was the best chance of the game and I initially thought that had gone in. Apart from that, Tottenham were constantly getting into good positions but shots were only half-hit, Lukasz Fabianski was able to deal with most stuff comfortably. They seem to want to overplay and pass the ball into the net, it is okay to shoot from range now and again, just like Giovani Lo Celso did at Manchester City.
That is now one point from the last 15 for Spurs, and they have led in every game. It is alright to say they are playing marvellous football, and it was great at the start it was, but this is a really poor run.
Dejan Kulusevski and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg especially poor
Kulusevski started brightly but he just seemed to disappear and I was surprised he played the entire 90 minutes. I am not sure he got down the line once in the second half, and he seemed to struggle with that in the first half as well. It certainly wasn’t a game where he was going to be man of the match again, I thought he was poor.
As was Hojbjerg, what a terrible start he had. He couldn’t pass the ball, he couldn’t control it and he managed to fall over his feet twice.
No service for Son Heung-min
The service to Son was poor. He looked as though he was limping when he came off, hopefully, he is alright because that is the last thing Tottenham need.
Son struggles a lot in games like this, against teams playing a low block. I like to see him coming in from wide positions because he is always looking for that explosive shot. We saw very little of him against West Ham but I don’t think that was his fault, I just think the general service into the box and towards him was poor.
Son can be effective but he can’t do it without any service, Spurs can’t just rely on one person to get them out of trouble. In truth, they have lost that service ever since James Maddison was injured.
Pedro Porro is a standout player
I thought Porro did very well, he played a great ball in from the corner to set up Romero for the goal, he got back and he got forward effectively. He is a competitor and he was probably Spurs’ best player over the 90 minutes. He was one of the few players to draw a half-decent save from Fabianski.
Newcastle game is now more crucial than ever
This game will be a decider now, especially after Newcastle got beaten 3-0 at Everton. On the back of that result, there is certainly a possibility of beating them because Everton wiped the floor with them but Tottenham will need to be more aggressive, they need to find that killer instinct again.
Newcastle at this moment in time are very inconsistent, one minute they look like a good side and the next they look average. Tottenham have got to win now on Sunday otherwise they could quickly find themselves slipping down to sixth or seventh in the Premier League.
In other Tottenham news, Alan Shearer has labelled one Spurs star “poor” after his zero per cent display on Thursday night.