Stringing together an unbeaten run of matches comes with many benefits – not least points and progress – but also the predilection to stick with what you are doing: if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But it can mask underlying problems. Deficiencies can go undetected, cracks papered over.
This is particularly pertinent to the 11-game run Tottenham Hotspur embarked on before the visit to Anfield on February 11, their last Premier League match. Tottenham were systematically destroyed down their left channel by the rampaging return of Sadio Mane.
Mane’s masterclass was as brilliant as it was brutal. Any hopes Ben Davies harboured of containing his winger were shattered inside 10 minutes when Mane scored twice for the hosts. It could easily have been four but for the brilliance of Hugo Lloris in goal. It was a chastening 90 minutes Davies is unlikely to forget in a hurry.
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The warning signs had been there well before that 2-0 defeat though. The joy at earning a fortuitous 2-2 draw at Manchester City on January 21 masked over how the North London club had been completely outplayed by Pep Guardiola’s side.
Spurs should have been down to 10 men and facing a penalty kick for Kyle Walker’s almost-comical push on Raheem Sterling when the City forward had the chance to make it 3-1, but instead found themselves level 60 seconds later through Son Heung-min’s strike. The South Korean also spared his side an FA Cup replay against fourth-tier Wycombe Wanderers with the winning goal in the eighth minute of added time in a 4-3 victory. Mauricio Pochettino’s men had been losing 3-2 with 89 minutes played.
Spurs found their attack blunted by a Sunderland rearguard marshalled by an excellent but ageing John O’Shea, 35, and it was David Moyes’s men who always looked likely to nick a result through 34-year-old former Spurs striker Jermain Defoe.
Spurs battered Middlesbrough at White Hart Lane, but they only had a Harry Kane penalty to show for it, which for a time seemed to be the only occasion the striker touched the ball in the opposition’s 18-yard box.
A 1-0 defeat away to Belgian side Gent in the first leg of their last-32 Europa League tie prompted several of Pochettino’s first-team squad to hold open and frank discussions at the club’s Enfield training ground last week in a bid to address the team’s problems. It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall.
High on the agenda should have been how the players had flattered to deceive for too long. Toby Alderweireld had become a pale comparison of the league’s premier centre-back over the past two seasons. Christian Eriksen has failed to catch fire in too many games and Vincent Janssen has yet to show he has the quality to step in for Kane should the England striker be suspended or injured, or to make an impact from the bench.
Whatever was said, it seemed to have the desired effect. Against Fulham on Sunday a Kane hat-trick secured a place in the FA Cup quarter-finals, and took his season tally to 19 in 25 games.
While the 10-point gap to Premier League leaders Chelsea looks insurmountable, a recalibration following the defeat to Liverpool could be exactly what third-placed Spurs’ season needs to mount a sustained challenge, and perhaps win the FA Cup for the first time since 1991.
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