It is impossible to watch Tottenham and not notice how obviously well-coached they are as a team.
It bears saying even on a day when they nicked a good result in the dying seconds after a display they wouldn’t have been happy with, and it stood out again under the golden haze of Craven Cottage on a January afternoon as it melted into a cold winter night, a riverside backdrop to Mauricio Pochettino scheming his way around the absence of his two finest goalscorers - Harry Kane and Son Heung-min - and somehow finding a way to win with Fernando Llorente leading the line.
Coaching can try to compensate for injuries but it will never be able to cancel out individual mistakes, and for all Pochettino’s method and preparation heading into a key game under the lights, he was let down by the Spanish striker who was ineffective in attack and scored a clumsy own goal at the other end.
Spurs overcame that to an extent, but never looked particularly like scoring the winner. Then Harry Winks appeared from nowhere, sent the huge away end at Craven Cottage absolutely wild and Spurs had kept hold of that faint hope that they can still hunt down the title challengers.
Despite the result, what Harry Kane brings to this Tottenham team was laid bare by a performance of rare attacking bluntness.
The best players in the world, the true elite, paper over cracks.
Lionel Messi has paved over how badly-run an institution Barcelona is and he has done for over ten years. Harry Kane, absent through injury for four key weeks of Tottenham’s season, has long papered over Spurs’ inability to find decent back-up for him with his goalscoring, creativity and consistency but if the cat wasn’t already out the bag, it truly is after this showing halfway through the January sales.
Fernando Llorente had half-expected to be back in Bilbao playing for Athletic Club this month, signing a career-ending contract with the Basque side that remain keen to take back one of the better players they have produced this decade to wind down his professional days. Instead, he has been pressed into action leading Tottenham’s line as they seek to stay in touch with an ever more distant title race. Despite Pochettino’s attempts to get the best out of him today - extra width, more men around him, playing in Fulham’s half - there wasn’t enough juice left to wring out of Llorente. He looks like a toothpaste tube that has been squeezed off its last meaningful efforts, capping off an ineffectual display with an own goal that his side only overcame in the desperate, dying seconds.
The days of Llorente terrifying Premier League defenders with his physicality and nous have gone. At Swansea he was a player who would attract occupy the minds of multiple markers because of the threat he brought. Now he is left to his own devices by centre-backs who know they can afford to stand off as what explosiveness he used to have from a standing start is now gone.
Llorente, now 33, was left all alone in the box by Fulham at the other end for one of the game’s key moments. The Spanish forward misjudged a clearance from a corner by Jean Michael Seri and put Fulham in front against the run of play after just 17 minutes. It set the tone for a pretty miserable afternoon for the latest Kane stand-in to simply not click, let alone ever look like flourishing. It was a rare performance that would have Spurs fans wondering where Vincent Janssen ever got to.
Fulham scored that first goal almost by accident when Llorente shinned corner past his own goalkeeper but had they been able to have it the other way around they would have no doubt agreed to chalk off that calamity strike in order to keep their exquisite second on the record. Instead it was disallowed by the cursed offside flag and Spurs remained within striking distance after a brilliant counter that had torn them apart and threatened to ice this game as a contest.
The move in question switched wings twice to catch Tottenham’s defence off-balance and saw Ryan Babel and Joe Bryan break down the left, intertwining well and using Alexander Mitrovic’s smart run to find Andre Schurrle at the far post. Schurrle’s stinging volley was saved but Mitrovic’s headed follow-up could only be palmed into the side netting, a celebration cut short by the official’s up-raised flag.
Babel was testing for Spurs on his debut at the Cottage. The Dutchman had clearly not trained with Fulham much prior to this fixture but his game relied on playing outside the structure of their attack and roaming free anyway. He broke free to create the first chance of the game, spinning Davinson Sanchez on halfway and then getting away from his man before being denied one-on-one by Hugo Lloris. Babel was then heavily involved in the disallowed goal and almost helped Fulham break Spurs as half-time closed in, only for some last-ditch defending to keep Pochettino’s men within a goal at the break.
In some ways it was a deficit that a far from vintage Tottenham had deserved. They’d had nearly 70% of the ball but created just one shot on target while Fulham had sprung them on the counter to make for more meaningful chances. Perhaps it should have been no surprise up against a team playing five at the back, a centre-back in midfield and a left-back as part of their front three that space would be hard to come by. Fulham had designed it just like that, but Tottenham just weren’t clicking in the final third.
As soon as they fixed that, you feared for Fulham. But it never really came. It is a sign of Tottenham’s strength that even with such a blunt attack they could come back to win this. It is a sign of the determination they have in their squad and the confidence these players have in their system that they kept on plugging away and trying the same things knowing that eventually they would prevail.
Dele Alli popped up early in the second half to nod home the equaliser from close range promised to be crucial for momentum in this game as Tottenham got to effectively start again, and instantly began creating genuine danger. Danny Rose’s deflected shot rattled the hosts’ crossbar as part of his afternoon of dangerous raids down the left. Eriksen and Alli threatened often but delivered the killer pass rarely. Llorente didn’t really do much until the 82nd minute, when his glancing header from a corner threatened Sergio Rico’s far post.
By that point it was looking like Tottenham, who had little to offer from the bench, were simply too thin on the ground to take on this challenge and prevail. There wasn’t enough spark in attack and nobody was attacking the few spaces Fulham’s massed ranks were leaving.
And then in the 93rd minute, with the axe hanging above Spurs’ title challenge, Winks surged from deep to head home substitute Georges-Kevin Nkoudou’s swirling cross and settle a game Spurs had rarely looked like winning.
Some would say that’s the mark of a well-coached team, to win even when the chips are down. Mauricio Pochettino will hope it gets easier, but Kane’s continued absence is going to be a conundrum for him and he doesn’t appear to have found an answer yet. The result masks an enduring problem for Tottenham, but three points are still theirs.
