TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 1 STOKE CITY 2
Tottenham Hotspur - Chadli 77'
Stoke City - Bojan 6', Walters 33'
Red card - Kyle Naughton (Tottenham)
Man of the match - Jonathan Walters (Stoke City)
London // And so it gets worse. A loss to Stoke City on Sunday means Tottenham Hotspur have won two of their past nine games and look as far from finding a balanced and coherent team as ever.
There was booing at half time, and the way loud music was blasted from the public-address system immediately after the final whistle suggested the club expected more blowback at the end – and had prepared for the eventuality.
Spurs have lost four of their past five home matches in the English Premier League and are six points worse after 11 games this season than they were a year ago.
Last season, the solution to the frustration was to sack manager Andre Villas-Boas.
This season, the anger has largely been directed at Emmanuel Adebayor, who was left on the bench in favour of Harry Kane, but the problems run far deeper than the manager or individual players.
The throughput of both players and managers at Spurs is too great, the problems too long-term, to believe that the issue at White Hart Lane does not lie deep within the structure of the club.
As Jan Vertonghen, who reportedly does not have the easiest relationship with manager Mauricio Pochettino and was left on the bench, warmed down at the final whistle with Eric Dier, Benjamin Stambouli and Roberto Soldado, he seemed to say, “Six points from six,” which is Spurs’ home record this season.
The words themselves, perhaps, are not that significant, but the tone of irritation and dismay was key.
Purely in terms of ability, it is hard to see why he would be left out. The defenders who were there did little to justify Pochettino’s selection.
The two Stoke goals were astonishingly simple. Both came from balls lost on halfway, and Spurs failed to muster any semblance of resistance against the ensuing breaks.
After five minutes, Steven Nzoni dispossessed Andros Townsend and flipped to Bojan Krkic, who surged 30 yards without a challenge and clipped a shot past Hugo Lloris.
Then, after 33 minutes, Ryan Shawcross won a header, Mame Diouf ran on to the bouncing ball and hooked it across goal, where Jonathan Walters was unchallenged as he knocked it home.
“After we conceded the first goal, we started to play uncomfortably in possession of the ball and to take rash decisions,” Pochettino said. “When you lose, always you are unhappy and put pressure on yourself. We need to find a solution.
“This is my job. We need to change our mentality. It’s not possible that after six minutes we lose a goal and need a lot of time to recover the performance.”
There was something of second-half revival, and Nacer Chaldi thumped in a volley from Danny Rose’s deep cross, but any thought they might steal a point disappeared as Kyle Naughton was sent off for chopping down Victor Moses with seven minutes remaining.
Stoke, anyway, deserved their win, defending well and with menace, executing their game-plan perfectly.
Spurs, meanwhile, lackadaisical and sluggish, seemed unsure what their game plan was.
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