Same old, same Tottenham
It's six weeks on but the break has not changed Tottenham Hotspur in the slightest. Once again the Jekyll and Hyde nature of Antonio Conte's team was on full display as they stuttered and stumbled in a first half yet finally pressed and improved in the second.
It's now nine consecutive matches in all competitions - six in the Premier League - in which Spurs have conceded the first goal but yet somehow they found a way back once again with top drawer goals from Harry Kane and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg.
It's a problem Conte needs to solve and whatever was put into place on the training pitches of Hotspur Way during the World Cup break or in the meeting rooms of the sprawling training complex clearly did not uncover the answer.
READ MORE: Tottenham player ratings vs Brentford: Harry Kane and Hojbjerg score as Tanganga struggles
In the first half at the Gtech Community Stadium Brentford looked the far better prepared team and while Spurs did probe forward it was the hosts who looked dangerous every time they got forward.
Once again though after Brentford scored a second goal through Ivan Toney early in the second half so Tottenham came to life, like Frankenstein's monster when hit by a bolt of lightning.
From that point on a strong, organised Brentford side that has beaten Manchester City and Manchester United as well as drawing against Chelsea were largely contained and under control without Fraser Forster having to make another save in his first Premier League appearance in a Spurs shirt.
Not only did Kane and Hojbjerg score the goals to grab Tottenham a share of the game but they could have won this encounter, the former hitting the crossbar and the visitors carving out further opportunities in front of goal.
In all Spurs had 61% possession to Brentford's 39%, they had 16 shots on target to the hosts' nine with eight on target to Brentford's five.
For Conte, this Christmas has brought him his wife Elisabetta and daughter Vittoria to England from Italy to spend the festive period with him but it has not brought him a different Tottenham Hotspur.
Last season it was the win-loss-win-loss inconsistency that irked him so much and now that irritating quirk has zoomed in even further to create a similar pattern but within 45 minute periods that feel like night and day.
When football.london asked Conte about this predictable new version of Spurs he grimaced. He has found himself stating 'this has never happened in my career before' with a helpless grin plenty of times since walking through the doors of the north London club. Tottenham seem to attract unwanted firsts.
"I think for the people that today watched the game, but this is the not the first time they watched Tottenham, it was another exciting game," he said after that grimace. "In one side, I have to be happy for the way, for the reaction, for the way we played in the second half of the game, but not only the way we scored two goals, but the energy, the desire, the intensity that we played. When you play in this way for sure you create a lot of problems for your opponent.
"In this side I’m happy. In the other side, this is nine games in a row that we conceded the first goal. This is not positive because understand we have great character, understand that we have a great reaction, understand that we believe in ourselves but at the same time it's important to be stable for a team that wants to try to stay in a good position in the table.
"To concede for many games the first goal or also two goals, we have to make good reflections and try to find the solution. For me this is the first time that happened this type of situation, to concede the first goal nine times in a row the first goal (laughs) to your opponent, but at the same time it’s the first time to have this fantastic reaction of these players."
He added: "They showed great character, great desire, but we have to put these from the start. In our mind it was so, we wanted to start in this way. Then we conceded a goal and then we conceded another goal from a set piece.
"Against a team that I want to underline also is not an easy game. Brentford, don’t forget they have beaten this season important teams like City, United, Chelsea they drew at home but maybe they deserve much more. It’s not easy to play against Brentford because we are talking about a physical team.
"When you go to press them they play a long ball and Toney is really good to keep the ball and to play with the every striker. Every set piece in every zone of the pitch they put this ball into the box. They are physically strong and not an easy game. I want to underline this, but at the end, we could win and it's ok."
Dejan Kulusevski was clearly unhappy with the team's performance after the game and he said Tottenham can only hope to be considered a big team if they rid themselves of this current bad habit.
"The first half was very bad. We didn't feel ready and lost every second ball. We didn't do anything with the ball so we were very disappointed with the game. It's not okay," said the Swede.
"You feel that as a player, as soon as you get the first goal you feel that you're going to win. We went very, very close. I thought we were going to win and I was watching the clock the whole time because I knew we had a lot of time to score. Unfortunately we did not but the big problem is not the second half, it's the first half.
"We have to improve. It's not okay to start games like this. If we want to be a big team then we need to start playing from the first minute. It's not enough with words, we have to do it on the pitch."
He added: "Honestly if I knew [how to change it] I would tell everybody, but I don't know. We have to figure it out as a team, everybody together.
"Of course [there's a lot of frustration in the dressing room]. We didn't expect this. We worked so hard to not play like this so when you work hard you want to see the results but today we didn't do that. There's another game against Villa soon we will be prepared because the first game is always the most difficult after such a break."
A struggling defence
For a man who prides himself on creating Scrooge-like defences, Conte is hating the fact that his back three is as generous as they come.
This was another day when players young and old made mistakes that would have had the Tottenham head coach spitting feathers.
Japhet Tanganga has been struggling with a knee problem this year but Conte said in the week that he hoped the 23-year-old Spurs academy product had finally overcome it.
The centre-back was still a surprise choice to come in for his first competitive start since January, having just 17 minutes to his name from the bench late on against Marseille in the Champions League earlier in this campaign.
Conte selected him on the right of the back three ahead of Davinson Sanchez, and with Ben Davies not quite 100% after his World Cup injury the prospect of Clement Lenglet moving into the middle and Eric Dier going to the right was not yet a viable option.
Tanganga had also played on the right of the back three for Conte in the three recent friendlies against Motherwell, Peterborough U21s and Nice with Sanchez instead in the centre in Dier's absence.
So there was an element of continuity in the decision, but also a sense that perhaps Tanganga could offer that little bit more going forward in support of Matt Doherty than Sanchez can.
The reality was unfortunately rather different. Tanganga spent most of his hour in the game chasing Ivan Toney's shadow. The Brentford striker continued his fine season on the pitch with another bustling display, holding up the ball every time the hosts wanted to go long and making himself available in the box every time they got down the flanks.
Tanganga looked every inch a player who has not played in a Premier League game in more than 11 months and there was a certain irony to the fact that when Sanchez replaced him, Spurs looked far more solid defensively and the Colombian got up the pitch well, firing one powerful shot at Brentford keeper David Raya.
It was not just youth that was an issue though as Dier and Lenglet fared little better in their defensive efforts.
For Toney's goal, Brentford's second, Dier wildly sliced an innocuous clearance midway in his own half over his own shoulder and behind for the corner Brentford scored from. From that resulting flag kick, Lenglet let Toney slip past him to fire home completely unmarked at the back post from a yard.
The Frenchman had also only managed to deflect Mathias Jensen's shot at Forster for Brentford's first half goal. Some might criticise the goalkeeper for palming it out to Vitaly Janelt but he was trying to make a reaction save to that sudden change in direction of the shot and questions should also be asked of both Hojbjerg and Yves Bissouma as to how Janelt had run in between them into acres of space without either thinking they should accompany him.
Conte was livid with his team's defending behind the scenes but his public demeanour was entirely different.
Having tried various players in the back three - and even a different goalkeeper with Hugo Lloris given a rest on the bench after his World Cup exploits - yet still producing the same defensive performance, football.london asked Conte outright whether he would like to sign a new defender in the January transfer window.
"No, about the defenders, I think now we’ve have recovered also Japhet Tanganga. It was his first game this season. He struggled a lot with his knee. You know now that he needs a bit of time to grow into the game, but I’m pleased for him to play a game today," he said.
"Then at central defender I think we are good. We have to continue to work, to work. Cuti Romero comes back tomorrow in the training session. I repeat in one side I am a bit disappointed this season because we have conceded many goals. In the other side I think that we are scoring many goals, creating chances and to attack with many players."
It was a public backing of his defenders particularly with the World Cup-winning Romero set to join training on Tuesday but the truth is that it's no secret that if a centre-back was available on the market that would improve Conte's squad then he would leap at such an arrival.
In that scenario Tanganga would be sent out on loan or even sold if a good enough offer came in.
Conte might think it would affect morale to publicly say he needs another centre-back - some might say it would be a wake-up call for his defenders - and there's also the financial aspect of teams raising prices if they know a club are desperate for a player in a certain position.
Romero, bursting with confidence after his exploits with Messi in Qatar, will make a difference to the backline but Conte still has to decide whether there are enough quality options at the back to end this wretched run of conceding first.
If the Spurs boss decides he truly does not need better defenders then the onus is entirely on him to fix the back line.
Kane completes the set at the perfect time
Harry Kane got back to doing what he does best on Monday afternoon. The only way you could really imagine the 29-year-old responding to that missed penalty was to score in his next game and that's exactly when he did.
It looked like Kane was playing within himself in the first half although Brentford boss Thomas Frank did admit afterwards that one of his gameplan strategies was to shackle the England captain.
It only worked for 65 minutes though as in that moment Kane sent a towering header sailing into the far corner of the net from Lenglet's perfect cross from the left.
He could have added a second soon after with a brave header, throwing himself in between goalkeeper and defender only for the ball to strike the crossbar and bounce to safety.
This was not vintage Kane but after that moment in Qatar it was the perfect response at the next available opportunity with the Brentford fans singing 'you let your country down' around him.
Kane would have been hurting more than anyone. He didn't need the abuse he received on social media in the aftermath and will continue to receive to remind him of that painful moment or the horrible things he has been sent through the post by deeply unpleasant people.
He took a few days off to rest and reflect with the family before returning to Tottenham in an attempt to play his way away from that moment, surprising his team-mates with a dressing room appearance at half-time in Wednesday's friendly against Nice.
The striker began training the next day and there was never any doubt that he would start against Brentford four days later and his team-mates and coach have no doubts about him.
"To underestimate his strength is a big mistake," said Hojbjerg, who scored his fifth goal of the season with a curling clinical strike Kane would have been proud of. "He is a machine. He has the quality to be number one in the world. The biggest mistake you can do in football is to doubt Harry Kane."
Kane now has 13 goals in 16 Premier League games and has moved to within four of the late great Jimmy Greaves' 266 goals as Spurs' all-time top goalscorer.
Kane's strike against Brentford meant he has now remarkably scored against all of the 32 Premier League sides he has faced in his career. The goal also ensured a festive record for him as the England captain has scored in every single Premier League game he's played on Boxing Day and this one made him the first player in the competition's history to score 10 goals on December 26th.
After the game Kane applauded the travelling Tottenham fans who sang his name throughout the encounter and Conte had no worries about his striker's ability to block out the noise around his return to the pitch.
"Personally, about Harry, I have zero doubt about his quality, about his mentality, about the way he approached every game and every training session," he said. "For sure, for Harry, he’s facing a strange situation because he played a really good World Cup. I think that also because he played a good World Cup and the team played the quarter-final, then he missed this penalty. It was a decisive penalty for England to drop England.
"But you know very well, football is this. You can have positive or negative moments. If you are strong mentally, if you are a top player, if you are a player of a big, big level, then there is a moment you have to put to one side a negative situation and move on. I think Harry did this. I repeat we are talking about a really, really good player and especially a good person. For this reason, our fans and also the fans of the other teams should every time clap him."
Football's tribal nature means that will never happen and Conte believes there's an element of fear involved when Kane steps on to the turf.
"The fans were scared because today he was playing for Tottenham but not for what happened for England. It’s normal. The fans tried to create a problem, but only I think because he was playing for Tottenham and against their team," said the Spurs boss. "It's normal. In Italy you don’t know what happened! (laughs)
"When they play national team together they are the best. Then when they start together in the league, the fans find ways to disrupt the other players of the opponents, because in this moment they are a player for the opponent and can hurt your team.
"No, no [it's not personal]. In England I think I always found a fantastic atmosphere, a great education and fans really polite. This impressed me a lot."
It is important for Kane and for Tottenham that the England captain takes his frustration and disappointment out on opposition defences and goalkeepers and the signs on the first viewing are that the process has already begun.
Conte's clear message within a strange partnership
Within his calm after the match, Conte admitted that he needed to speak to his players about this habit of conceding first and you can be sure that he did not converse in such a calm manner.
"For this reason I spoke to my players because it's becoming usual, this type of situation. Ok we were good to come back and at the end we deserved to win the game, but we have to try to improve," he said.
"It's important to be stable. The team needs to be stable from the first moment of the game until the end. You know the difficulty of this league. In this moment, United, Chelsea and Liverpool stay out of a Champions League place but for the history of these clubs and the potential of these clubs, you know they want to take a place in the Champions League.
"For this reason we need to try to improve, to work very hard and to put in our mind the target to go to another level. I think that since my arrival we have had a good step, for this reason we took a place in the Champions League last season. Now it's important to continue to grow and there is only one way. To work very hard and to have the desire to put yourself in another level."
Conte's message was as much to the club itself as it was to his players - 'have the desire to put yourself in another level'.
His substitutions sent the same message about the quality he sees in his squad. There were only two of them and both were centre-backs coming on, Sanchez for Tanganga and Davies for the bloodied Lenglet.
Conte's attacking options to change the game were slim. On the pitch already he had Kane as well as Kulusevski who was bright in moments as the Swede gets sharper and sharper with what was only his second competitive start since September.
Son Heung-min tried to take the game to Brentford with his running but the fact remains that the South Korean star has only scored in one Premier League match this season and one Champions League game. For last season's Golden Boot winner in the league that's well below his usual standards.
Yet Conte was never going to change any of his attacking options. For when he does not trust his bench he does not use it.
With Lucas Moura out until a solution can be found for his inflamed tendon problem and Richarlison missing with a World Cup hamstring injury that will keep him out until later next month, Bryan Gil was the sole attacking player among the substitutes.
The Italian clearly does not trust the little Spaniard enough to come on and add anything to the game. There's also the subplot that if Conte were to bring on Gil then it's showing the hierarchy that he thinks the 21-year-old is good enough for the now and he certainly does not want them to believe there's no need for a more ready-made older replacement.
This is the same board that gave him Djed Spence in the summer, a player signed by managing director of football Fabio Paratici and his scouting department purely because they felt he ticked every box for a Conte wing-back.
Yet the 22-year-old is yet to start a competitive game for Tottenham and on Boxing Day, after suffering from a fever earlier in the week with Oliver Skipp and Son, he took his place alongside 18-year-old Alfie Devine and third goalkeeper Brandon Austin as the young emergency players brought along simply in case of late injury or illness to the first team.
This was not what Spence would have envisioned when he chose Tottenham in the summer in a deal that could eventually be worth £20m to Middlesbrough, despite interest from the likes of Borussia Dortmund, Roma, Newcastle, Brentford and Nottingham Forest.
With Matt Doherty unable to take his recent fine friendly form into this first competitive match, even Conte knew that turning to Emerson Royal was not going to add any attacking impetus down that flank. A viable option would have been Spence but the England U21 international was not even among the matchday squad.
Spence will have watched Jude Bellingham shine at the World Cup with England this month, having chosen Dortmund as a teenager and the Tottenham man might just be wondering whether he would have had a different trajectory himself this season if he had chosen a club with a pathway for younger players.
Conte is not that kind of manager, believing it's the job of academy staff to develop young players to his required standard, not his. However, Tottenham were well aware of that when they hired the Italian with his glittering CV.
In the moment they hired the former Premier League and Serie A winner they raised the expectations around the club and within the fanbase but in doing so also hired a manager who did not fit the 'DNA' chairman Daniel Levy outlined in the months before of developing young players.
They will have seen what's happening down the road since with Mikel Arteta's youthful squad of Arsenal players sitting on top of the Premier League table but that style is not the Conte way.
If you make the decision to hire Conte you don't then try to shove that square peg into a round hole. Instead you have to cut that hole to fit or simply buy yourself a new one the peg will fit into.
The Italian will be looking at those big clubs gathering below Spurs knowing they will use their power to try to claw back above them and they will not hesitate. The window has not yet opened and Chelsea are making moves as are Liverpool while Manchester United will not be far behind as they seek their Cristiano Ronaldo replacement.
Conte knows Tottenham cannot dither and rely on what they already have this month. Despite his public words, Conte is desperate for new faces that will improve his squad and he made no bones about it before the World Cup break. Fast forward to Friday ahead of this Boxing Day match and he seemed to have reminded himself of the club's way.
"What do I want the club to do? I think it’s not right to say this. I think that in every club, there is the head coach, and sporting director and the owner, to try to speak about the situation. I can give advice to my club, the way to try to improve the team, and to improve the quality in the squad. Especially because after five months, the situation has changed, from the start of the season," he said.
"I think if there is the opportunity to strengthen the squad, we will do something. You know which is our policy, you know very well which is our policy, we will try to follow this policy and to improve the team, if there is the possibility to strengthen the squad we will do it. Otherwise, we will continue with these players, and I am happy with them."
When quizzed on what he believed the club's policy was he added: "You know about the signing, signing players, and about young players. About players with not big salaries, and this. We have to sign players, that they can stay in our vision, in the vision of the club."
"Our vision" was stretching the use of 'our' to the extreme. It's not Conte's vision to sign young players on low wages. He works at the other end of the scale and that's what makes anticipating what comes next between Conte and Spurs like Buddy the Elf fearfully awaiting the moment the Jack in the Box will suddenly leap out at him.
It's a partnership between two parties that makes little sense on paper and perhaps the lack of viable alternatives for the Italian right now is what is keeping things sweet. He does enjoy his work at the club even if there seems to be a ceiling to what he can achieve right now.
Something has to bend in the month ahead, whether it's Tottenham bursting out of their confined box thanks to the stadium they promised would be a financial gamechanger or Conte proves that he's not a coach who can only play with the best toys in the chest.
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