Tottenham Hotspur strikingly awful in gruesome home horror show against Manchester United
Kane’s poor form may be his own fault but joyless coach is to blame for Son’s sudden slump
Alyson Rudd
Sunday October 31 2021, 12.00am, The Sunday Times
Above the new Tottenham Hotspur megastore there is an enclosed Perspex case inside of which, in huge hologram form, the game’s chosen line-up revolves somewhat menacingly.
It is reminiscent of a scene from
Blade Runner and as such is unnerving. Ridley Scott’s film is, of course, a dystopia, a peek into the future where, yes, there has been progress, but at what cost?
Which is how some Spurs fans feel about their sleek expensive stadium. It is an edifice that has been put before player purchases, before style. You cannot throw caution to the wind when you have spent £1 billion on a new home that necessarily demands both Premier League and Champions League participation. Tottenham’s involvement in the nascent, and therefore not esteemed, EuropaConference competition is not a suitable fit at all, which piles even more pressure on how they perform domestically, not that their head coach appears to have noticed.
Nuno Espírito Santo yesterday became the first man in charge of Tottenham to lose five of his first ten Premier League matches since Christian Gross. The Swiss, whose nine months at White Hart Lane are not fondly remembered and who is famous mostly for his brandishing of a London Underground travel card, was sacked in September 1998. If the former Wolverhampton Wanderers head coach is to last as long, his team’s personality and results need to perk up.
This was, after all, the Philosophy Derby. Neither manager had been offering the fans nor the neutrals what they want, indeed expect, from both clubs and so there was the potential for rebirth. It was not Nuno who grasped it.
The present malaise is best personified by Son Heung-min, who is like a character from a misery memoir, the one who keeps smiling, keeps trying, no matter how cruel their father is, nor selfish their siblings. It is a privilege to be his coach, not least because the South Korea international is the ultimate team player. No matter how fêted Harry Kane has been, no matter how many of Kane’s goals and best performances have been due in large measure to Son’s influence on the game, the 29-year-old is content to let his team-mate take the plaudits.
Kane has been below par this season and that is widely considered his own fault for allowing his failure to secure a transfer this summer to preoccupy him. If Son has been less influential then it is widely considered to be the fault of Nuno. Son’s body language reveals him to be forever alert, always committed.
It was Son who had Spurs’ best chance before Cristiano Ronaldo gave United the lead and perhaps you could conclude that he missed because he was too keen, too bound up with the grandeur of the occasion, and perhaps with being given too much to think about by the coaching staff.
It is, surely, a form of cruelty to rein in a player who was never one to forget his defensive responsibilities.
Nuno has uncomfortably quickly become a head coach synonymous with being a party pooper. This is because Tottenham play as if fun is a commodity under strict rationing. Unfettered joy is not, one suspects, a trait that the Portuguese covets nor truly grasps. Which was a shame because few clubs had suffered quite as miserably as United this past week and to have displayed a collective, tangible joie de vivre could have been the last straw for a beleaguered team. Instead, the home side allowed Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s players to cheer up far more quickly than anyone could have predicted.
This was also the Masochist Derby. Some among both sets of supporters would have settled for abject defeat if it meant the manager was sacked.
It all began with encouragement as it is, after all, difficult to host United and not want to inflict defeat, but the mood changed early in the second half, for two reasons. The home fans saw no sign of fun or confidence and they were baffled when the sprightly Lucas Moura went off.
The magnificent Tottenham stadium, in the end, provided the perfect backdrop for a once mighty team to strut their stuff. The holograms on the outside looked the more imposing version of Spurs.
Airfixx
,Mate, are you coming around to the fact that our owners are a pair of opportunist parasites with no interest in football, or are you still of the opinion they're doing a fine job at one of the biggest clubs in the country?
