View: Hojbjerg worryingly bad for Tottenham in defeat v Wolves, poor work ethic is problematic
Ange Postecoglou is facing the first mini-crisis of his time as Tottenham manager after suffering a late defeat at the hands of Wolves at Molineux on Saturday.
Mario Lemina’s 97th-minute goal dealt Spurs with their second defeat of the week after previously going unbeaten in their opening 10 Premier League matches.
On top of that, Postecoglou is going into the November international break knowing that Cristian Romero still has two matches of a three-match ban to serve on top of a whopping 10 first-team injuries [Premier Injuries].
What Postecoglou needed at Wolves was a bunch of players willing to run through a brick wall for him to stop the rot before it sets in but unfortunately, his men weren’t able to do that in their 2-1 defeat in the West Midlands.
A number of players started against Wolves that wouldn’t have normally with Ben Davies and Eric Dier coming into the centre of the defence, Emerson Royal starting at left-back and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg starting for just the second time in the Premier League this season.
Hojbjerg, 28, has found himself on the fringes of Postecoglou’s team this season.
The former Southampton and Bayern Munich midfielder has played in all but one Premier League match this season – and that was the opening-day draw at Brentford – but has only been handed starts against Fulham on 23 October and that defeat to Wolves on 11 November.
In the 2-0 win over Fulham, Hojbjerg did Postecoglou’s decision justice as the Aussie boss started him alongside Pape Matar Sarr in the midfield while Yves Bissouma was suspended.
However, the Dane did little to show that he even could have a future at Tottenham with his rotten performance away at Wolves.
According to stats by WhoScored, Hojbjerg completed just one of the four tackles he attempted at Molineux, dribbled past three times and despite having more touches of the ball than any other player on the pitch in the game [99], he didn’t complete any dribbles, made just one key pass and his pass accuracy was a rather underwhelming 85 per cent.
Hojbjerg was replacing the injured James Maddison in Postecoglou’s starting line-up and it’s fair to say that the Denmark international did little – if at all anything – to fill the boots of the English playmaker.
What’s most worrying about Hojbjerg’s performance, however, was his work ethic.
When Spurs were winning 1-0 early in the second half, he was already looking as though he’d given up trying.
In the image above, Hojbjerg is being ran at by a Wolves player, who opts to pass to his teammate at the top of the picture.
But when the pass is made and the subsequent run from the passer starts, what’s Hojbjerg doing? He’s ball-watching.
In the next image, we don’t even know what the Dane is doing. Two Wolves players are chasing the same ball but he’s just stopped and starts pointing at the ball.
As Wolves then attack with pace after working their way – easily – through the Spurs midfield, Hojbjerg then decides to do some running but after maybe one or two seconds of sprinting, he instantly slows down into a jog and makes no effort to help his team regain possession.
Hojbjerg’s lack of desire is worrying.
He’s not been in the picture this season and Tottenham have been spoken of as title challengers in the opening week of the campaign.
Last season he was ever present and started 35 league matches – completing 90 minutes 33 times – as Tottenham fell to their lowest Premier League finish since 2007/08.
It really feels as though Hojbjerg was part of the problem last season and is becoming a part of a new problem this season for Spurs.
He cannot afford to start the Dane again any time soon.
In other Tottenham news, an injury expert has shared his thoughts on Micky van de Ven’s setback.