Spurs: We’re still not at our best
TOTTENHAM seem to have to hit their stride. It started with digging out away wins at Wolves and Crystal Palace. It took in the late goal against PSV Eindhoven which kept their Champions League hopes hanging by a thread. And it has culminated in their best performance of the season last Saturday against Chelsea, followed by a resilient display against Inter Milan on Wednesday.
The week which was said to define this early part of their season, with the north London derby at the Emirates to come this afternoon, has gone pretty well so far. Certainly the Chelsea victory seemed to be up there with their recent best in the Premier League, such as the 2-0 home win against Manchester City in October 2016 or overpowering Manchester United by the same scoreline at Wembley in January this year.
Yet Toby Alderweireld would take issue with that. The squad, he says, remains far from content. Maybe it is the knowledge that, for all the praise the team has gleaned for performances in the past, at the crucial moments they failed to get over the line: against Juventus in the Champions League last 16, against Chelsea in the FA Cup semi-final. Whatever, he insists they are not back to their best.
‘No we don’t feel that,’ said Alderweireld. ‘We are the most critical of our own performances. A lot has been said about the stadium and about the pitch [at Wembley] and we’re doing very well but we can improve. And even if we go well, we can improve. We know we have to do the same thing as the last couple of years and we will get good results.
‘The game against Inter was a very good performance against a very, very good team. An Italian team can play very smart, they like to defend, can play as well. But we don’t take anything for granted. Sunday comes quick again. But for the last two games for sure against very good teams we got to a good level and showed we can compete with everybody.’
Amid the turbulence of the on/off move to the new stadium, the fact that 10 of the first team were involved in the World Cup semifinals or the Asian Cup final, the glut of injuries that has induced and the failure to sign any players pre-season, the resilience of Tottenham is maybe surprising, especially for a club that invented the adjective ‘Spursy’.
‘It’s difficult,’ says Alderweireld. ‘Wembley and the pitch is not good we know. But we don’t try to use it as an excuse. We’re playing good football now. Before [at the start of the season] was maybe different. Before, sometimes, if we don’t play well we didn’t get the results. Now if we don’t play well, we defend very well.’
The measure of Tottenham’s progress in recent years is that finishing above Arsenal has ceased to be a major cause of celebration and victory in a north London derby is, these days, a means to an end. ‘It’s a very big game but Inter was and Chelsea was as well,’ said Alderweireld. ‘That says something about the evolution of Spurs. It’s not the biggest game of the year.’