The Interim Era

Folks, it finally happened! Antonio Conte "has left the club by mutual agreement." It was long overdue in my opinion, but at least now we can move on.

Well, kind of. His assistant, Christian Stellini, will be staying behind to take charge of the team for the final ten PL games, with Ryan Mason as his assistant. I kind of would have preferred a clean break from Conte's "team" along with him, and it feels a bit unfair for Mason not to get another chance to prove his worth, but perhaps this is an act of protection from the club—since top 4 is currently out of our hands with Newcastle having two postponed fixtures to fulfill. It does make some sense to make Stellini clean up the mess he contributed to as Conte's right-hand man and not risk the reputation of a young manager like Mason.

I'll get into some of the implications of this decision from the club up next, then look back at the Women's result in the NLD (spoiler:  it wasn't pretty), before previewing the weekend double-header with Everton.

In this issue:  Stellini steps up | Women's NLD recap | Previewing two weekend matches against Everton | News from around the Lane

Ten-game sprint

It's not going to be a simple thing for Stellini to help Spurs qualify for the Champions League again. We do have some favorable fixtures coming up, but there are also tough tests against Brighton, Newcastle, Manchester United, and Liverpool to get past. The game at Newcastle is a veritable six-pointer.

The task will also be made more difficult by the fact of the increasingly dire injury crisis. It is kind of funny (except not at all) that everyone assumed Stellini would have to stick with the back 3 because of available personnel, and now our wingbacks are dropping like flies. We'll see about that! He might have to get avant-garde with the formation. Not to belabor an old point, but it sure would be nice to have Matt Doherty still around, wouldn't it?

I have slightly more faith in Stellini to figure it out than if Conte were still in charge, so there's that. Conte's resistance to both rotation and in-game substitutions was a constant concern under his management. And if you believe some of the rumors coming out since his sacking about his treatment of the players, I shudder to think how he might have balanced (or not) the very real selection dilemma with the need to consider individual players' fitness—not to mention how toxic the team morale could have become if he had returned. I think the reactions from some of the players about his post-Southampton press conference tirade demonstrate just how completely he had lost the dressing room, and indeed, only Son Heung-min has expressed anything close to well wishes for Conte now that he's been sacked (and that's really just a mark of how classy Son is).

Back to Stellini, it would be difficult for him to implement a wholesale tactical system change for these final ten matches, but I at least hope to see the players empowered to express themselves in their football for once and looking more confident without Conte bearing down on them from the touchline. A little less automation and a little more fluidity, please.

What next?

I think we all know that realistically, Stellini doesn't have much of a shot at getting the permanent manager gig at Spurs. So who might it be?

My sentimental, nostalgic heart grows increasingly despondent because I suspect that if we were going to see a triumphant return of Mauricio Pochettino, the club would have already announced it—even if his new contract weren't to start until the summer. That's just a hunch though. He could still be in the running, and god knows it would galvanize a lot of the fanbase back into feeling passionate about the club once again. And if the club does decide to go with another option, we probably won't see him back anytime soon, with Real Madrid about to be looking for a new manager. It's probably now or much later.

Similarly, the club probably would have already made a decision on the other candidates who are currently without club, including Luis Enrique. I was not a fan of that possibility to begin with, so there's some relief there.

Then there's a manager who just recently came onto the manager market, Julian Nagelsmann. He was (rather bizarrely and unfairly, in my view) let go by Bayern Munich so that they could install Thomas Tuchel instead. We were linked with Nagelsmann previously, so it's not surprising that those rumors have heated up again immediately. I have a lot more to say on the subject of his compatibility with Tottenham than can reasonably fit in this issue, so it'll be in a special bonus issue soon. Keep an eye out! But on a timing note, if Spurs do want to secure his management services, they will need to act quickly—he has also been linked with Real Madrid and with Chelsea in the event that they sack Graham Potter.

There are also some rumored candidates who are currently managing at other clubs and therefore not a realistic option until the summer anyway. I know Roberto De Zerbi is at the top of many fans' lists, but I personally can't see him wanting to walk away from Brighton just yet (and he did literally just get there earlier this season). He'd be trading one "project" for another, and if Brighton continue on their upward trajectory this season he could very well be tempted to stay.  

Ultimately, the club needs to get this next manager appointment right or risk backsliding—both in the table and in reputation. I would like to think that the embarrassment of the Conte saga helped the board get their priorities in order, but only time will tell if they actually learned any lessons from the debacle.

It may not be just Daniel Levy and the board making this decision if Fabio Paratici is still around as Director of Football, or if the club sacks him too and brings in someone new to oversee the football side of things (the preferable outcome, in my opinion). His "update" posted by the club today had the feel and quality of a hostage video and was pretty clearly filmed in a hotel (he was in Italy for what was supposed to be the start of his appeal process, but it has now been delayed until May). Does the club really want to wait this out?

My hope is that we get clarity on who will be managing the team next season before this current season ends. That way, said manager can arrive in pre-season well-prepared and anticipated by the squad. It also allows the club to have a more coherent transfer strategy... in a perfect world where Levy and any potential DoF are cooperating and in sync, rather than the conflicted decision-making we've seen in recent seasons. Fingers crossed!

Not a London Derby

At least, it wasn't in spirit. From the start of the second half, it took on the feel of a training exercise for Arsenal and the end result was quite a step backward from the progress we made last season in this fixture.

Tottenham 1 - 5 Arsenal

Arsenal struck early with a 5th-minute goal from Stina Blackstenius that was simultaneously a lucky misdirection on the pass for Arsenal and a total defensive collapse for Spurs (it's hard to explain that dissonance, just watch the highlight). It took them nearly another 25 minutes to score their second goal, so I wouldn't say it was a terrible first half from our perspective, but we also didn't create much going forward. As we've seen in many games this season, the midfield felt like a black hole where possession went to die. We could barely string two passes together at times. Our sole goal of the match came from a handball call on Katie McCabe; Beth England converted the PK, which brings her to five goals in six WSL appearances now for Tottenham.

It was all downhill from half-time. Far from looking likely to grab an equalizer, we conceded three more goals in a ten-minute span and that was that. I wish I could say that anyone from the defensive line came out of the game with any credit, but they all made errors. And as usual, the midfield was not providing much support at all.

Needless to say, this game—coupled with the generally lackluster performance in the Leicester match which was thankfully rescued by a Beth England wonder goal—did not do anything to convince me that Vicky Jepson can or should make the transition from interim head coach to permanent manager. She simply hasn't made significant tweaks to the starting XI and tactics that Rehanne Skinner employed, and that lack of change has been evident in the team's stagnant form.

Sure, we were never expected to win this match, but we didn't put up anywhere close to the same fight as we did in the same home NLD fixture last season (the first time we took a point off Arsenal in club history). There were a few players who at least seemed to have the right mindset, even if the execution wasn't quite there, but there were also several players who were essentially passengers in the game. I will say in fairness that the majority of the squad looked motivated in the previous game because of its crucial impact on the relegation fight. But that was not the case against Arsenal, and the game was lost well before the final whistle. Jepson is going to have to be more flexible with her management in the last few games or we could very well risk sliding back into danger of relegation.

Realistically, I don't think that is actually going to happen, because we should nevertheless have enough production in us—thanks to Beth's goals and a few other key players' efforts—to secure the three or four points still needed to guarantee safety. In hindsight, I'm not sure Skinner's sacking was wholly necessary at that particular juncture and may have even hurt morale in the end. This isn't to say that she would have done better than Jepson in the Arsenal game, but I doubt she would have done worse. We'll never know.

Two servings of Toffees

In a weird scheduling quirk, both of our teams face Everton away this weekend; the Women are up first at Walton Hall Park on Sunday, then the Men play at Goodison Park on Monday.

Everton Women's previous season looked a lot like what we're going through this season. They had a large amount of squad turnover in the summer, including some new transfers who had seemed very promising. But they couldn't ever quite gel as a cohesive team, and they ended the season in 10th place after going through two permanent managers and finishing the campaign with an interim duo.

Interestingly, they have already surpassed their points total for last season, and their current 21-point total that last season was only good enough for a 9th-place finish for Aston Villa is enough to put them in sixth place so far this year. It goes to show how more of the overall points share is concentrated in the top half of the table in 2022/23, whereas last season the mid- and bottom-of-the-table teams picked up more points as a group. The top five teams have proven very difficult to take points off of in this campaign, and Everton are just outside of that top tier (I'm including Aston Villa in the top category because they are now undefeated in their last eight games in all competitions, and ten in this calendar year as a whole if you exclude their Conti Cup semi-final defeat to Arsenal.)

In other words, Everton have improved form-wise and fortune-wise, even if their results are not markedly different from last season's. They still have some of the same issues with inconsistency when it comes to actually scoring goals; they've been shut out eight times in all competitions this season, including four out of their last five games. In their most recent WSL match, the Merseyside derby (which was a really entertaining watch because of the end-to-end nature), they managed just one goal and only secured the draw because a perfectly valid (in my opinion) Liverpool goal was ruled out.  

So I'm going to tentatively hope that our shaky defense won't be tested too much by Everton in this matchup. Of course, we need to actually score ourselves to make it matter. After less impactful performances from Rosella Ayane and Celin Bizet in the Arsenal match, I hope they can return to the more dynamic form they had displayed in other recent games. Everton are certainly closer to our level than Arsenal, so that should help unleash their best play.

Selection-wise, I really, really wish we could see Asmita Ale back in the starting XI, and much as I would like to see Amy Turner spend a game on the bench, it could be more advantageous to swap Asmita in for a midfielder and play a back 3, so Ash can be utilized higher up the pitch in a wingback role. I would also like to see Drew Spence get a rest, because she's played heavy minutes this season and it seems to be impacting her ability to contribute for the full 90 minutes in the last few games. Mana Iwabuchi will presumably be back in the side after being barred from inclusion against her parent club last week, and it would be nice to see what she can do from that central attacking midfield role that Drew usually occupies, rather than playing out wide as we've mostly seen her employed since joining the team in January. The lineup below is what I'm looking at for my ideal starting XI, with the caveat that I'm assuming Shelina Zadorsky is still out of the squad with illness since we haven't had any update to suggest otherwise yet, and Kit Graham is probably not yet ready for a start:

In this scenario, we have some quality to come off the bench in Graham, Spence, and Nikola Karczewska, with Cho So-hyun and Chioma Ubogagu as other options for fresh legs. I would love to see something similar to this lineup trotted out since it gets most of our best players on the pitch from the start and closer to their best positions, but I suspect Jepson will probably stick to what we've been used to, unfortunately.

Now then, the Men's team. Talk about selection issues! While the news of Ivan Perišić's injury picked up on international duty with Croatia hasn't yet been acknowledged by the club, Emerson Royal's meniscus injury requiring surgery that happened with Brazil has been confirmed. So we are potentially looking at only having one fit wingback. I mentioned earlier that Stellini is going to have to get creative with his formation for this game, or else rely on players who aren't used to playing in the wingback role. The good news is that our forwards who went to play in the internationals seem to have escaped unscathed.

There's also an interesting development in the goalkeeping department. Hugo Lloris is supposedly making his return from injury after being out for several weeks. He played in a closed-door friendly against Ipswich Town and reportedly did well. Do I think it would be wise to immediately reinsert him into the starting lineup? Before all the injury news hit, I would have probably said no, but the rest of the lineup is going to be so unsettled to begin with that I don't think bringing back in a stalwart of the team (our literal captain) would be the biggest disruption. That being said, Fraser Forster hasn't done too awful much to deserve losing his starting spot; his performances since he took over during Hugo's absence even warranted an England call-up when Nick Pope had to withdraw from the Three Lions squad.

No matter who ends up in the starting XI, this fixture kind of scares me. You never know which Everton team is going to turn up (that's been the case for a few seasons now), and they are still just two points above the relegation zone, so will be highly motivated to pick up a point or three.

I don't know if "interim manager bounce" is really a thing, but perhaps a "lack of old-jerk-manager-looming-on-the-touchline boost" is a possibility. I mostly just want to see the players released to play their best football and not be so cautious and reactive anymore. We need to take the game to Everton, as we should be taking the game to a relegation-fodder side. With Newcastle breathing down our necks, these are three points we absolutely can't afford to drop.

News from around the Lane

Quite a few tidbits to share today!

Kerys Harrop is now the joint-record holder for most appearances in the WSL with 177. She is tied with Gilly Flaherty (now retired, most recently at Liverpool) and Kate Longhurst (unfortunately still playing at West Ham). Funnily enough, Spurs Women face West Ham on the final matchday...

Vicky Jepson had some nice words to say about Kerys ahead of her record appearance:

Leadership is key with Kez, she's very vocal, but she's also very caring. She gets around the younger players & has helped them through the turbulence that we've faced this season.

Meanwhile, Harry Kane set a record in his international career this past week, surpassing Wayne Rooney to sit atop the England goal standings with 56 goals and counting (his 55th against Italy was the record breaker). That makes him the top goal-scorer for both club and country now.

Congrats to our record holders!

Elsewhere in international duty news, there was another piece of evidence for the #LetSonnyTakeFreeKicks campaign:

Spurs Men announced the first scheduled friendly of the 2023/24 pre-season so far, a match against West Ham to take place in Perth, Australia as part of Spurs' Asia-Pacific tour. If you don't enjoy these photos of Ledley King having a fabulous time Down Under, then you don't understand joy.

Luckily for those of us in the rest of the world, the match will be streamed on SpursPlay.

Last week, the club announced the creation of a Fan Advisory Board as dictated by the Premier League's new Fan Engagement Standard. It will be interesting to see how this works out in practice, but it's promising to see that key supporters groups like the Proud Lilywhites, SpursAbility, and Spurs REACH are guaranteed representation. Our club is not perfect for many reasons, but I do feel proud of the way it constantly works to become more inclusive of all fans.

Finally, in Spurs alumni news, former Spurs Women co-manager Juan Carlos Amorós got an opening night win in his new head manager gig at NJ/NY Gotham FC in the NWSL. Cool to see him thriving! Meanwhile, Alex Morgan scored the game-winning penalty for my San Diego Wave, so it was a good weekend for NWSL Spurs connections all around.

I think that's all the news... god, I hope it is.

I'll sign off with this:

COYS

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