A dismal defeat at Old Trafford felt like the reality check that has long been in the post for Tottenham this season.
If Antonio Conte could legitimately insist that his side deserved better from the 3-1 reverse at Arsenal earlier this month, there was no getting away from the fact Spurs were fortunate to lose 2-0 last night. “We have to be honest: United deserved to win,” said Conte.
Two weeks ago, in Frankfurt, Conte appeared to aim a dig at United head coach Erik ten Hag when he responded to criticism of his tactics by insisting he did not like his teams to “play open and concede six, seven or eight”. It was the day after United’s 6-3 defeat by neighbours Manchester City.
Were it not for Hugo Lloris’s string of acrobatic saves, however, Spurs might quite easily have shipped six here in what was surely the worst display of Conte’s tenure.
Their error-strewn performance was short of quality and ambition, and given their stodgy football for most of this season, a result like this has been coming. The match was also part of a wider trend of Spurs’s under-performing in big away games, an issue which long pre-dates Conte.
A year into the Italian’s rebuild, Spurs remain as alarmingly brittle and unconvincing as ever in this type of match, as the head coach acknowledged afterwards.
“This was not the first time for us,” he said. “Despite the table being good, every time we played a high-level game, we struggled.”
Conte has turned Spurs into an effective and occasionally exhilarating team, even if their football has rarely been easy on the eye, on the way to their best start to a Premier League campaign.
Last night, however, they never appeared to possess the self-belief to win, and it felt inevitable they would crack as United built the pressure from the opening minutes.
When Tottenham play at their rivals with the heat on, they still look too meek and fragile
Spurs have played impressively and coherently at the Etihad and Anfield in recent seasons, taking four points from away games against the top two last season, but such was the gulf in class to City and Liverpool, these games were arguably free hits without pressure.
When Spurs play at their rivals with the heat on, however, they still look too meek and fragile, as evidenced by their defeats at Arsenal and again last night.
While United were hugely impressive, the manner of the defeat felt largely self-inflicted, with Fred opening the scoring seconds after the restart and Bruno Fernandes sealing the win after a catalogue of Spurs errors.
Conte is not entirely blameless, and Spurs’s set-up was dispiritingly negative, with Rodrigo Bentancur, who has scored one goal since January 2020, often the closest player to front two Harry Kane and Heung-min Son.
The Italian was also slow to use his bench, not making a change until the 81st minute. The evening will not convince Conte of the merits of a 3-5-2 and again underlined the importance of Dejan Kulusevski, whose return to fitness cannot come soon enough.
But ultimately the defeat felt like it went beyond personnel, tactics or formations, and was at least in part the result of Spurs’s long-held inferiority complex in this type of game. Conte, the serial winner, has clearly taken steps to make the team grittier, but there is work to do to make them winners.
