Lost control
All control seems to be lost at the moment at Tottenham Hotspur.
The Spurs players lost control of another match, Cristian Stellini seemed to have lost control of his confused team with chaotic tactics in the second half, the fans lost control of their patience with Davinson Sanchez and later Pedro Porro and as the chants continue for his exit so chairman Daniel Levy is losing control of the club's direction and his search for the next manager because with every passing debacle the fans will sing for just one man.
Once again this was a match in which the Spurs players resorted to dropping back. This has been the default Tottenham setting for a long time now.
READ MORE: Tottenham player ratings vs Bournemouth: Arnaut Danjuma and Son score but Davinson Sanchez poor
The pattern of matches is utterly predictable. Start with a bit of enthusiasm, maybe get a goal then fail to add to it before slowly dropping deeper and deeper on the pitch, inviting pressure and then opposition goals before having to fight back and maybe getting a point or three, depending on the quality of the opposition.
It's as predictable as Spurs' ability to slap away the hand of another club offering them a gift ahead of kick-off as Newcastle did with their heavy defeat at Aston Villa.
Stellini added his name on Saturday afternoon to the long list of managers and players who have questioned in recent years why the players naturally sit back as their primary instinct.
"The only question [mark against their efforts] the players need to have is don't give two games in one," he said in his club interview. "Play only one. When we score, again we drop too much. We allowed the opponent to score two goals, not one, and to recover that is very difficult.
"We did because we gave everything on the pitch and we had the opportunity to win with Richarlison."
On the team sitting back, he added: "It's the mindset, the mindset has to change absolutely, because it was not our intention. We need to go strong. When we scored the first goal, immediately we dropped back. We have to keep the ball, not waste it and play strong. This is the only thing that's important to analyse because today we played two different games.
"The game was well prepared, we played good and after the goal it changed and we don't have to do it."
When pushed further by football.london in his post match press conference, the Italian, who looked more dejected than he ever has before, said: "We played two different games. We played a good game until we scored and after we conceded the second goal. What is in the middle is not the mindset we have to use because we started the game well. When we scored we dropped.
"We dropped again. We have to change this type of mindset. We have said many times that we need to continue to go strong and try to keep the ball in their half of the pitch. We did this only when we were 2-1 down.
"It's a habit we have, it's not the first time, it's a long time that we do this, but we have to be perfect in the defensive situation. Today we were not so perfect because we allowed them to score with two mistakes. This is a problem, it's not a tactical problem, it's an individual problem, a mistake."
There's no doubting that individual errors did not help Tottenham, but to dismiss the dropping deep of the players as having nothing to do with coaching is a hard sell.
Some might argue that having had three managers in a row with a preference for a style that demands a more compact formation which often calls for sitting back and hitting teams on the counter has drilled that mentality to hold back into the players.
The team won't be told to sit back in most scenarios but in a compact system the natural tendency may be to retreat into its deemed safety rather than take risks or play more openly.
"We largely dominated the ball, Spurs' main threat was just the counter-attack," said Cherries boss Gary O'Neil after the game and that's an observations Tottenham fans will have made many a time in recent years. They often seem like the visiting team when playing at home.
The irony is that towards the end of the match, Stellini abandoned all compactness, took the handbrake off and turned to what was a 4-2-4 formation but with the club's all-time top goalscorer Harry Kane playing in midfield, in front of Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and behind the front four.
"In that moment we used Harry in the midfield line. We dropped Harry to have more of the ball and the possibility to play and we used four players to try to attack," said Stellini. "That was the formation. We have all the quality we can have to try to score. That was the intention."
The acting Spurs boss will argue that he was a missed Richarlison close range header, completely unmarked from an Ivan Perisic corner, away from being spot on with his tactical shift, after Arnaut Danjuma had levelled the scores with his first ever Premier League goal.
It was a formation that brought plenty of confusion with players not entirely sure where they were meant to be at times, running into each others' space. If it was a tactic of creating chaos, it was one that almost worked but ended up proving more chaotic for Spurs in the end as Dominic Solanke and Danjo Ouattara found the space to attack and for the latter to score the winner.
In the end Spurs had 24 shots on goal to Bournemouth's nine, but managed to put only eight on target to the visitors' six.
It was another game in which Spurs stuttered and stumbled against a team in the lower reaches of the table. In just over two months they have lost to Bournemouth, Leicester City and Wolves and they have drawn against Southampton and Everton.
Also, for all his talk of respecting the other managers in the Premier League after his run-in with Roberto De Zerbi last week, it's worth noting that Stellini and his staff walked straight down the tunnel at the final whistle without shaking hands with O'Neil and his bench.
"I think that when we were on the wrong end [of the result] at our place I shook the opposition manager's hand so I was disappointed with them today," the Bournemouth boss told the BBC after the game. "I thought to go straight down the tunnel and not shake hands was poor on their part, but it is what it is."
To Stellini's credit, football.london understands that the Italian later sought out O'Neil in the tunnel to shake his hand, waiting there until that BBC interview was finished, having realised his error in the immediate aftermath after the final whistle.
On the pitch, Stellini's interim tenure has been unconvincing so far. In his defence, like Conte, he's been hammered and hampered by the injuries within the squad, clustered in certain positions. There was another suffered on Saturday by Clement Lenglet, which affected Spurs' balance and took away the Frenchman's ability to deliver a dangerous ball as shown by the one to Ivan Perisic before the opening goal.
The absence of Rodrigo Bentancur remains the biggest loss of all. The Uruguayan was able to constantly bring attacking movement, aggression and goals from midfield before his cruciate ligament injury. He set the tempo and since then Spurs have relied too heavily on a front three to create moments of individual magic way in front of the banks of more defensive players behind them.
It's difficult to see how Stellini can fix this with the players he has and the lack of tactical options those remaining provide.
This was not a good day for the acting Tottenham head coach, but he was not alone.
A difficult day for Davinson Sanchez and Pedro Porro
Many Tottenham fans have had enough. They have been on the edge all season with their frustrations bubbling under the surface and sometimes over it.
Go back to almost the beginning of the season in August last year and there were already half-time boos in only the second home match of the campaign against Wolves. Those boos would become a frequent accompaniment to the half-time whistle for many a game after that as Spurs struggled in the opening 45 minutes.
The Tottenham supporters pay some of the highest ticket prices in the Premier League and in Europe, not least the season ticket holders, yet they still turn up in their droves every week to watch a club that does not always appear to make decisions with their best interests at heart and to watch football that over the past four years has been mostly difficult to enjoy.
Another 61,369 hardy souls turned up on Saturday and they have every right to voice their opinion at their team.
Yet the atmosphere surrounding the club right now is so toxic it makes it difficult for any little green shoot to flourish.
That reached an unpleasant and uncomfortable nadir in the moments after Solanke had put Bournemouth into the lead in the 51st minute.
With Lenglet injured, Stellini chose to bring on Sanchez and switch Cristian Romero over to the left.
You could never fault Sanchez for lacking in effort, but mistakes have littered his game in recent years after a promising first season following his then club record arrival from Ajax.
The Colombian might suggest that his sparse game time nowadays ensures he gets no rhythm or sharpness to his performances and that when he has had a run of matches he's looked better, but he does not help himself with his clumsy defending at times and lack of concentration.
On Saturday, he failed to control a pass at first with a poor piece of technical ability before giving the ball to Pedro Porro, who duly lost it and the ball was worked to Matias Vina to score. Porro had more than enough time to get rid of the ball, instead choosing to run into trouble, but Sanchez's touch beforehand was noted by everyone.
It was that 51st minute though that really triggered what was to come. The 26-year-old centre-back was turned far too easily by Marcus Taverner, who he seemed to lose behind him in the build-up to Solanke's goal, and then in trying to get back and tackle he only ended up prodding the ball into the striker's path to score.
The Spurs fans were furious and decided to take it out on Sanchez. After the restart, on the couple of occasions the Colombian touched the ball again he was booed by thousands of fans.
It made for the most uncomfortable of spectacles. Fans boo opposition players, they might boo their own players for a lack of effort or if they have disrespected the club, but this was something different.
Emerson Royal was booed by the Tottenham fans earlier in the season as he was about to come on to the pitch, but Sanchez was getting it every time he touched the ball.
It was borne of frustration at the way the club is run from the top and those fans will tell you it is because they feel they have seen the same players struggle for years but continue to be picked rather than upgraded.
Yet that does not mean it was a good look for anyone involved and fans of other clubs quickly used it as a stick to beat their Spurs counterparts with.
It split the fanbase further between those who looked to justify the boos and those who were ashamed of them.
After a couple of minutes Stellini took Sanchez off, the substitute substituted, and as it did for Emerson back in November, so it provoked a large booming cheer for his removal from the pitch.
The Colombian walked off after just 23 minutes of football and sat devastated in the dugout, looking like he wanted the ground to swallow him up.
Some of those who support the booing will talk of money and how Sanchez's salary will soften the blow of what he went through, but life doesn't work like that.
The defender's return to his wife and young son that night as he tried to process what happened and they consoled him would have been the same as anyone else put in that position. Yet those in most jobs will never experience having thousands booing them.
It was unpleasant to watch and while Stellini explained his logic in making the change for tactical reasons, the timing of it will only have told those booing that they had achieved their goal and with that in mind some may feel it will work again in the future.
For those reporting on the game and even for Sanchez's team-mates, it was something not seen before, thousands of supporters booing their own player's every touch after a mistake.
When asked about the cheer when Sanchez went off, Spurs captain Hugo Lloris said: "It started earlier [with the boos], it was when he was on the pitch.
"I've never seen this in my career. I feel really bad for Davinson. He's a team-mate, he's a friend and he's been fighting for the club for many many years now, and it's just sad. The story is sad for the club, for the fans, for the player. It's something you don't want to see in football."
Stellini added in his press conference: "I understand it’s a tough moment for everyone and we have to analyse this moment, everyone needs to analyse how important is to support the player.
"I take the responsibility for the decision we made. I thought it was [too] early in the game [when Lenglet was injured] to use one striker more because it was the first half and we were one up, so I didn’t think it was the moment to change with a striker.
"After, when we were 2-1 down I thought it was the moment. Davinson has to know it was only a tactical decision but we need to support him because it's a tough moment for him and also for all the team. So we have to create unity in our dressing room and in between us, and we will do."
When asked whether he would be fine about playing Sanchez in front of the home crowd against Manchester United next week, Stellini said: "If we need, yes. He's a professional player. We need to go strong for the team, but I repeat, if the team pushed more when we scored the first goal, we are here to speak about a different situation.
"It's the mindset that needs to change, not only Davinson, it's the whole team that can help, every player that came onto the pitch."
The fans' frustrations come from bigger overall problems and gripes, but it wasn't the greatest advert for any potential new signing thinking about coming to the club this summer and Pedro Porro's treatment online during and after the game only reinforced that.
The young Spaniard is one of the most positive characters in the Spurs camp, his social media presence reflecting that in his posts to the fans each week.
Yet after his mistake for the first goal and then being nudged out of an aerial duel easily in the build-up to Bournemouth's winner, he found himself abused from all angles on social media, prompting him to deactivate both his Twitter and Instagram accounts - although he later reactivated both after the weekend. Davinson Sanchez deactivated his Instagram account in the aftermath of the match.
Porro had gone from the £40m January signing people were calling for to being hounded by some of those same fans.
The frustrated ones might argue that Sanchez has been at the club for six years. Yet Porro has been at Spurs for just three months and has already removed any way of communicating back and forth with the fans after his experience on Saturday. He was clearly not feeling the support from the supporters.
The overriding source of the fans' frustration is understandable as the club lurches from one mishap to the next, but this was a day that was far from the greatest advert for Tottenham Hotspur on or off the pitch.
Arnaut Danjuma makes his point
If there were any positives to take from this latest Tottenham horror show, one was another goal for Son Heung-min and another was an improved Ivan Perisic display.
The Croatian was man of the match on stats-based ratings site Whoscored - just ahead of Son - with his assist, three key passes, four dribbles, three shots and three accurate long balls as well as the long throw that led to Spurs' second goal and the late corner that Richarlison somehow headed wide from six yards.
Perisic slung 19 crosses into the Bournemouth box to Porro's 13, but it's difficult to know whether the fact that only two reached their target (Porro had five) was because of the quality of the delivery or the movement of the attackers.
One attacker who did make his mark was Arnaut Danjuma. The 26-year-old had beforehand been given just 50 minutes across four appearances since arriving in January.
He had made a difference against Brighton, involved off the ball in pressing and then creating space for Harry Kane's winning goal but found himself still on the bench a week later, despite the indifferent form of Dejan Kulusevski.
The Netherlands international came on to the big cheer that greeted Sanchez's exit, at least safe in the knowledge that he was someone the fans were behind.
Danjuma chased everything, tracking back to make one tackle that seemed important at that stage of the game and up front he caused Bournemouth problems, sending two shots on target and one off, while putting in one accurate cross and embarking on one dribble.
Then came the goal that everyone thought was going to write the headlines in his favour as Perisic launched a long throw into the visitors' box and the ball was headed out to Danjuma on the edge of the box and his low strike was deflected off a defender and into the far corner.
Bournemouth felt Harry Kane was offside and although the ball did not touch him that he was in the keeper's line of sight. It's difficult though to see how Neto would have reached the strike even if his view was partially obstructed such was its power and distance away from him.
In the end, the Richarlison miss and then Outtara's winner prevented Danjuma's strike from being the key goal it should have been.
The January arrival managed to balance his post-match interview for the club between clearly being delighted to have scored but bitterly disappointed with the result as his face flickered from smiles to sadness.
"The primary feeling that we have is disappointment," he said. "I think towards the end of the game we did well.
"We tried to win the game and if you're Spurs you should always try to win the game. So inevitably you're going to leave some space in behind for Bournemouth on the counter, but I think I'd be more disappointed if we didn't go for the win.
"I think towards the end of the game we showed character, we got the equaliser. Unfortunately it wasn't to be today but we can make sure that we do nothing less than go back to the drawing board, dust down and make sure that we give our all in training again and prepare for the next game."
On that last-gasp winner for Bournemouth, he added: "It was [a punch to the gut] to be honest with you. It would have been a dream to win the game again as we did away, but this is football. It's not always meant to be and in the hard times it's even more important to stick together and it's even more important to get the support.
"We're obviously devastated with the result of the game but nevertheless I'm standing here very confident in my team-mates, the fans and the staff. We've got seven games left and it's all to play for, so as long as we focus on those games, we get our conviction back, our confidence back, there's nothing to worry about if you ask me."
Danjuma has a reputation for speaking his mind in interviews and, despite being a club one, this latest interview was no different as he admitted he was disappointed not to start or get the chances he has wanted on the pitch.
"It's something for me to build on personally. Obviously I've been waiting to get a chance," he said. "As disappointing as the result is for me today, for me it was also disappointing not to start or get the minutes that you're hoping for but for me as a player it's the same situation as we're in as a team after the game today.
"In football, in the hard times it's even more important to stick together, find the character to get the motivation to work twice as hard.
"For me as a player that's all I try to do and when I came on obviously I'm very happy with the goal for the club. I've been waiting to score for the club for a while now in the Premier League as well. With the result, it happens every now and again in football, we just need to make sure we go back to the drawing board and prepare ourselves for the next game."
Buoyed by his first Premier League goal, Danjuma was still full of confidence about Spurs' remaining seven games, starting with next Sunday's huge trip to Newcastle.
"I don't think we should start hoping after we win the game [that Tottenham might get top four], I think we should start hoping now. We should make sure that we've got our confidence. Newcastle dropped some points, we've dropped some points today," he said.
"Obviously we've had a big chance today, it wasn't meant to be. So all we've got to do, we've got a full training week ahead, we need to make sure we switch each other on and we find our togetherness and make sure we bring the three points back home from up north."
Danjuma's impact and the crowd's desire for change might just see him finally get a first start for Spurs at St James' Park.
He will need to get fitter to last longer but these 39 minutes of football in his legs in one go will have helped with that.
Stellini needs to change the club's momentum on the pitch and in Danjuma he has a rare thing right now at Tottenham - a player with confidence. He must harness anything positive he can get.
Mounting problems for Levy
Again the chants came, mostly from the big south stand at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
"We want Levy out, we want Levy out," they called. Then came an even louder one of "Mauricio Pochettino, he's magic you know" which spread further around other sections of the ground.
Daniel Levy was sat in the director's box, his recent travels abroad having come to an end, and he returned to a club lacking in leadership and direction, not just on the pitch but off of it and for that the buck has to stop at the chairman.
He has had fans calling for his exit before but never with this volume at matches. It is somewhat awkward that within the walls of the huge stadium that will likely be his legacy, there are now bigger crowds to voice their frustrations at him and better acoustics for those watching on around the world to hear them.
Yet it is those chants for Pochettino that may prove even more problematic for Levy in the weeks ahead than the calls for his head.
If a Tottenham team lacking in confidence falls short in this toughest of defining weeks at Newcastle and Liverpool, either side of a home game against Manchester United, then the calls for the Argentine to save them are going to get louder and louder.
With every woeful match that is entirely in keeping with the past four years so those peak three years in the middle of Pochettino's reign are only going to shine brighter as an example of what things were before Levy meddled.
The truth is that the final year of the Argentine's tenure was not a time to be fondly remembered, although there are many reasons for that, some falling on Pochettino, some on the players and some on Levy, not least with those two transfer windows when the club explicably failed to bring in a single player, before when things got tough he failed to back the one man who should have had credit in the bank.
At the moment Pochettino does not appear to be a pressing person of interest for Tottenham - if anything the club are keeping their options open until the end of the season when more candidates are available to speak to and the job market and those coaches available will be clearer.
The problem is that as the clamour for a romantic return for Pochettino grows so does the pressure on Levy to make the one decision that will deflect from his mistakes of recent years while trying to remedy the biggest one he may have made, that is if the Argentine does want to return right now with Spurs in its current state.
The other issue is whether it's actually the right move for everyone right now, especially if the club are forced into it.
The last time Levy made an appointment mainly to appease the fanbase was 22 years ago with his first ever appointment, bringing in the Tottenham legend Glenn Hoddle to replace the Arsenal one in George Graham.
There is a certain irony to the fact that Hoddle then failed at Spurs while Graham remains one of only two men to lift a trophy with the club in the past 24 years and he did it before Levy took charge.
football.london understands that one of the key aspects Tottenham are looking for in their next manager is someone who sees the north London club as their first choice, rather than only turning to them as a fall-back option if another vacancy is filled.
That's easier said than done with the current state of the club, with confidence low, a cluttered internal structure and the fanbase turning on the owners and players, as well as the added problems of the high profile managerial vacancies that are expected to be available this summer across Europe.
Spurs are actively knocking down any suggestions that they have a leading candidate at the moment for the job. They are no doubt desperate to prevent a repeat of the 76-day farce of 2021 when fans were left bewildered and angry at how they ended up with Nuno Espirito Santo after seemingly speaking and failing to hire most of the best managers in Europe.
Denying everything right now is the club's way of trying to avoid looking stupid. The simple way to do that would be to finally pick the right manager rather than someone 25th on the list of candidates.
Levy will have to make a decision in the weeks ahead as to whether he will be led by the fans to get them off his back for a while or whether he will continue in the face of those chants to perform due diligence in his search for the next Spurs manager.
He also has other matters on the horizon with managing director of football Fabio Paratici's appeal being heard on Wednesday against the Italian FA ban that was extended by FIFA.
Paratici, who is currently on a leave of absence, will find out whether he can return to work that day or face the two-and-a-half year ban which will see his time at Spurs come to an end. Even if it is the former, other investigations, including one begun by UEFA, are in the works.
There is also the future of Harry Kane to be sorted while Levy's new number two and chief football officer Scott Munn starts work on July 1 after his gardening leave with The City Group ends and he is expected to join the club on the first leg of their pre-season tour to his homeland Australia.
However, by then most of the major decisions that will define the next steps of the club will hopefully have already been taken.
Everything is on Levy's shoulders right now and he must decide whether to listen to the fans or decide once again what is best for them. He has struggled on both counts in recent years.
The pressure is on and it's only building. The Spurs chairman needs to pick someone who will not only make the fans happy again but keep that smile on their faces for years to come.
READ NEXT:
- Fabio Paratici - The man who can no longer be able to tell Daniel Levy what to do at Tottenham
- Tearful Cristian Stellini explains why he can never say Tottenham are in crisis
- Tottenham in Romaine Mundle contract race with first team promotion after Herbie James transfer
- The incredible list of ex-Tottenham stars playing in a remarkable fundraising match next month
- The two men who will take on Fabio Paratici's duties at Tottenham as he starts leave of absence
