Subtle Stability and Distinct Deficiencies

It's been really interesting to see the different approaches that Spurs' two interim managers have brought to their respective teams. Ryan Mason's bold yet balanced strategy is starting to pay dividends, with the Men's team getting their first win since he took over. Vicky Jepson, on the other hand, had been favoring continuity up until the last match, where her team selection could only be interpreted as throwing the game. There's a lot to talk about with these two matches, as well as some interesting interview quotes from Harry Kane to dissect. First up, let's jump right into the Men's game from Saturday.

In this issue:  Crystal Palace recap | Manchester United recap | Off-season Tetris | Previewing the weekend match

Tottenham 1 - 0 Crystal Palace

A fun fact to start with:  there was a nearly 44-year age gap between the managers of this fixture. Roy Hodgson had actually given Ryan Mason his England debut back in 2015. The apprentice ended up getting the better of the master in this case, though I doubt Hodgson felt anything but pride for his former player. He seems the type to give credit where it's due.

Perhaps I had missed a squad update, but I was surprised to see Emerson Royal not only back in the matchday squad for the Crystal Palace game but getting his first start in almost two months. Yves Bissouma had also recovered from his injury enough to be on the bench, though he did not end up seeing the pitch.

The starting lineup lent itself to a very fluid formation, something new from Mason that he had decided to implement after finally getting a full week of training with the team prior to a match. The formation shifted between a 4-4-2 and a 3-4-3 depending on possession. Royal's inclusion in the back-4 made Spurs much more solid defensively and was an important factor in keeping the team's first clean sheet in all competitions since the scoreless draw in the second leg of the CL tie against AC Milan, and the first in PL competition since the 2-0 win over Chelsea. Mason's decision to drop Eric Dier from the starting XI was equally important. Cristian Romero took over the central center-back role when the game state called for the back-3 and partnered with Clément Lenglet while in the back-4. Ben Davies continued to prove his positional versatility by shifting between the left-back and left-wingback roles. He's showing a bit of rust still from his recent injury absence that showed up in delayed decision-making, but he grew into the game and improved his passing accuracy by the second half. Usual left-wingback Ivan Perišić was an unused substitute, though I think this was a rest decision as much as a tactical decision. Meanwhile, Royal's presence on the right flank of the defense allowed Pedro Porro to take on a more attacking role, alternately playing as a right-sided midfielder and as a right-wingback. He was able to play with much more freedom going forward without being exposed defensively, and it resulted in just his second assist for the club.

With the caveat that the football on display was less riveting at certain times than others, I think this was a very effective strategy from Mason. It was a good example of how a manager can be both proactive and pragmatic at the same time. The pragmatism came from his recognition of the available players' individual strengths and weaknesses, adapting the tactics to actually suit them and minimize risk, in contrast to Antonio Conte's preferred system that constantly left the team exposed to defensive pressure. It was particularly wise to replace Dier in the backline with Royal—and a big call to make, considering that Dier has been a stalwart in the defense under several past managers, while Royal was latterly coming off a period of injury and had been in and out of the squad at different times in his almost two seasons with the club. As I remarked on Twitter:

(Spoiler:  he actually did keep Lucas on the bench. Hallelujah!)

The strategy was undoubtedly effective; we were able to limit Crystal Palace to just two shots on target and allowed zero big chances. And on the offensive side, Palace didn't have any answers for our fluid formation. By the end of the game, it had taken on a true London derby feel as the Palace players resorted to desperation fouls (ahem, "professional fouls") and racked up five yellow cards in the second half. And as I will freely admit, there were times (especially in the first half) when the game was not exactly exciting, but the result never truly felt at risk. I suspect there was a certain level of energy conservation going on, which I fully support after two absolutely bonkers games against Manchester United and Liverpool. It's all right to have a calmer match every now and then. Plus, Aston Villa are likely to be a tougher test for Spurs, and prioritizing damage limitation made sense for this preceding fixture. The only injury concern we do have heading into that game is for Lenglet, who went down with an apparent arm/chest area injury just before the end of the game. Hopefully he is good to go for this Saturday, but I'll get into the implications later on in the match preview.

Oh, and the sole goal of the game? Headed in by none other than Harry Kane of course. In addition to going free and clear into 2nd place in the all-time PL goal standings above Wayne Rooney with 209 goals, he also set several records:

• most headed goals in a PL season (10)
• first player to score 100+ goals both home and away (he has nine more away, funnily enough)
• most 25+ goal seasons in the PL
• most London derby goals

His goal just before halftime in the 45+1' minute was a beautiful, long-range give-and-go with Porro. Spurs' newest player had been very effective at getting into space on the right flank all game and Kane connected with him several times on similar plays; that particular instance resulted in a goal that Crystal Palace keeper Sam Johnstone had no hope of stopping. Shoutout also to Davies for finding Kane in the center of the pitch to get the move started.

It's worth mentioning that Son Heung-min had a very strong performance, with the exception of missing a golden opportunity to put the scoreline at 2-0 off a superb Romero through ball (though Son may have been offside anyway). He had quite a few key defensive moments as well, as did Kane with a pivotal goal-line clearance. While we all would have liked him to have a more consistent season (not helped by Conte's tactics), it's good to see him in a firm stretch of form to close out the season.

As I noted earlier, the game became quite physical and heated in the late stages of the match, and the disrupted nature made it difficult for Spurs to get anything going to find a second, decisive goal. But we held out for the win and, thanks to Brighton's shocking loss to Everton on Monday, are back up to 6th place in the PL table. Europa League qualification is looking increasingly likely.  

Manchester United 3 - 0 Tottenham

All right, let's shift focus from a game that was very shrewdly managed to a game that was a managerial debacle from start to finish. I'm not exaggerating.

It wasn't a surprise, necessarily, to see Ash Neville and Eveliina Summanen left on the bench for this fixture—both were on yellow card accumulation watch—but it hurt to see two of our top performers this season sidelined against one of the most difficult opponents in the WSL. They were replaced by Shelina Zadorsky in defense (the captain's first appearance and start since the previous fixture against Manchester United on February 12) and Kit Graham in the midfield (Graham's first start since returning from her ACL injury).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by KG (@kitgraham_)

There was another big shakeup in the starting lineup with Tinja-Riikka Korpela replacing Becky Spencer after the latter had started several matches in a row. Less surprising was Rosella Ayane losing her spot on the wing to Jess Naz; after a few strong performances, Ayane's form had dropped and Naz had looked promising in her few appearances since returning from an injury. Speaking of injury returns (a sadly common theme this season), Ramona Petzelberger made the matchday squad for the first time since September, when she had her only competitive appearance for Spurs against Arsenal, and would end up featuring as a sub late in the second half.

Needless to say, the lineup did not inspire a lot of confidence. There was a clear lack of defensive strength in the midfield, and neither fullback in the back-4 (Amy Turner and Kerys Harrop on the right and left, respectively) was particularly pacy—a risk against such a rapid forward line from United.

However, on the first goal, Turner didn't even make it hard for United to score; she mishit a backpass that Leah Galton was able to easily intercept and fire the ball past Korpela into the far corner of the goal in the 32nd minute. Turner's error had shades of Lucas Moura against Liverpool. Just three minutes later, we conceded another goal to United when Turner and Graham both failed to clear a flicked-on cross into the box from a short corner routine. Alessia Russo got on the end of it instead and fired home on a volley from close range.

Right before halftime Naz had received a pass from Graham and utilized her rapid pace to get past United's Maya Le Tissier and cross the ball into a dangerous position in the box for Celin Bizet to attempt a headed shot. Unfortunately, Bizet's header hit both the crossbar and post, and although Beth England and Naz both attempted rebound crosses back into the six-yard box, Bizet couldn't get a touch on the second round. Annoyingly, that wasn't the only "how on earth didn't we score there??" moment of the match.

We entered halftime down two goals but had at least had a few chances of our own, so I was somewhat hopeful we could try to get back into the game in the second half with the right subs. Alas, Jepson made the bizarre decision (barring any injury concerns we aren't privy to as an audience) of swapping Naz out and bringing on Ayane. I thought Jess had had a promising start to the game and didn't understand this substitution at all. Plus, it's starting to feel like a Davinson Sánchez-type situation to sub Ros in at such questionable junctures; it just invites abuse from the fanbase. While I'm not as down on Ayane as a player as some fans are, I still felt frustrated by this decision, mostly from the perspective of wanting Naz to have more time on the pitch to continue building her form, which has been trending upward.

For United's third and final goal in the 53rd minute, there was a miscommunication between Zadorksy and Harrop in clearing a cross from Galton, and the ball bounced unluckily off Harrop's back right into Nikita Parris' path. She took a stabilizing touch and then fired past Korpela from close range. Again, we didn't exactly make it difficult for them.

Jepson then made a rather mixed bag of substitute decisions with her triple change in the 59th minute. I was fine with Drew Spence leaving the match since she had been very ineffective (especially on the defensive end), but it was frustrating to once again see Bizet's match cut short and Graham not afforded an opportunity to continue building chemistry with the newer members of the team that she didn't play with last season. Ash Neville, Mana Iwabuchi, and Ria Percival came on to replace them. Spurs could not gain a foothold in the game, nor did Petzelberger's entrance in the 77th minute for Amy Turner have much of an effect. That last sub was perhaps the most baffling of all. I've been calling all season for Turner to be dropped because of her numerous mistakes (not to mention the fact that she's constantly played out of her preferred position), but to take her off so late in the match and for a midfielder? It just didn't make sense, and I worried we'd concede another goal by disturbing the defensive equilibrium at such a late juncture. Fortunately, that was not the case.  

There was a big chance to get a goal back when England got on the end of a poor back pass from United and cut the ball back to Iwabuchi in the center of the box for a clear shot, but Iwabuchi somehow managed to hit the ball squarely at Mary Earps for the United keeper to instinctually save with her body, as did Ayane on the follow-up attempt. Clinical finishing, it was not.

As with the Men's team, a Brighton result was responsible for a move in the table for Spurs, but this time it was a step down to 10th place thanks to Brighton Women's win against West Ham. The good news is that Reading and Leicester both lost, so we didn't slip further down.

Realistically, this match didn't matter in the context of our safety in the league. Although Leicester have a game in hand, it's against Chelsea, who are currently chasing the title and will not give up any points without a fight—not to mention the obvious gulf in talent between the two teams. Reading's two remaining games are against us (a Spurs home match at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium) and at home to Chelsea. So long as we can get at least a draw against Reading, our safety is all but guaranteed, barring a fluke Reading win against Chelsea. Even if we were to lose to Reading and they still lost to Chelsea, we'd stay up on goal difference—an all-but insurmountable difference of nine goals, as it stands.

So why did this predictable—if not forgivable—loss to United feel so painful? For me, it was just a demoralizing snapshot of our status as a team at this time. It's not just that we were shown up by a club that has invested more strategically in its squad (though perhaps not their facilities and other team resources), or that our fanbase's trust in the club to take the Women's team more seriously is at an all-time low; it was the manner in which Vicky Jepson selected a team set up to fail that felt like the final straw. For the club to put their faith in an interim manager who doesn't seem to fully understand the stakes at hand is a dangerous line to toe. If Reading or Leicester's last couple of results had gone their way, or we had failed to pick up two points from our previous two games, the relegation danger could have been even more dire for Spurs Women. And I am not willing to give much credit to Jepson for picking up those two points, because she made some very concerning team selection and in-game decisions for those matches as well, and it took individual brilliance from Beth England to help secure those draws in the end. It's not exactly reassuring that our strategy to close out the season seems to have been "hope the other teams screw up more."

It's a cliché, but we are not a serious football club—not at this moment in time. And you cannot blame the fanbase for feeling frustrated, verging on apathetic. The fanbase for the Women's team is not yet so large that the club can be this flippant about alienating fans. I sincerely hope that they are not considering Jepson for the permanent job next season. The bigger worry is that the club won't have learned anything at all from the lessons this season has provided.

In the short term, there's a very real concern that the small amount of momentum the squad had built up with the draws against Aston Villa and Brighton will have dissipated after this latest blow to morale. Perhaps it's a good thing that the Women's team doesn't play this weekend (it's FA Cup final time); they have two whole weeks to snap out of the funk and hopefully finish the season strong with wins in the two final matches. But again, I'm not feeling hugely optimistic that will actually happen with such haphazard management and—let's just say it—an unequal level of commitment across the playing squad.

Off-season Tetris

I find myself thinking about how many things still need to fall into place for the Men's team this summer before preparations for the next season can begin in earnest.

We've all been waiting on bated breath for the latest rumors in the managerial search, but there's another decision to be made that's tied up with who that eventual manager will be. Harry Kane has one year left on his contract and has not signed an extension as of yet. Whether he stays or goes this summer could depend upon the club's choice of manager, and vice versa. There's also the matter of the sporting director vacancy (and whether or not it will be filled), as well as the already-completed hiring of Scott Munn as Chief Football Officer, whom any potential DoF would report to. All of these Tetris pieces have to fall into place correctly for the club to move forward with a strong strategy.

Kane has come out with some interesting quotes in a couple of interviews over the last two weeks regarding his opinions about the future of the club.

The first was an exclusive with Sky Sports that I would like to quote at great length because I think the answers are quite illuminating. Questions are in bold below when relevant (the first quote kind of diverged from the original question):

If we can come away from this season with top four or some good European football then we can accept it and prepare for the next season… If we can finish this season in a strong manner and with a bit of positivity it goes along way into July and pre-season where we can go from there.

How do you think the club improves? You sound like you have a few ideas...

They are conversations that need to be had toward the end of the season. I feel like we lost a bit of what the values are at this club over the last few years. It's about finding a way to get back on the same page again and obviously even with the fans as well.

You're a Spurs boy. What do you mean by Spurs values?

When you've been here this long, I've been here since I was 11 years old, you understand what the fans are like, you understand what the club's like. You've been through good moments with the club, I've been through not so good moments.

Values are…everyone wants to win and everyone wants to lift trophies and that's ultimately our aim every year. But we're in a different situation to some of the clubs around us and we have to accept that but still find a way to improve and get better.

Are you talking about almost getting back to the Pochettino era? Do you find yourself thinking, what did we have then that we've lost over the last few years?

Yeah I think whenever you have a good moment as a team, I think we had three or four really good years when we were competing at the very top and that was without spending loads of money.

We had a really good mixture of young and experienced players. It's impossible in football to click your fingers and go back to the good times and say 'let's go back to what it was', because every season and every situation is different. But I feel like there were some values at that time and some culture that really made us achieve the things we did.

So maybe we've lost parts of that over the last few years and it's about looking back at that and seeing the good things we can take from that and trying to implement that in the future.

These answers from Harry are really interesting for a few reasons:

• He seems to be realistic about the fact that our rivals for top 4 (Manchester teams, Arsenal, and now Newcastle United) have financial resources that we simply can't compete with, and therefore Spurs have to find strategic and cultural advantages to make up for that investment deficit
•  He embraces his identity as a "Spurs boy" and genuinely seems to care about the future of the club
• He explicitly states that some form of European competition, even if not Champions League, would be a positive outcome for the season (to be fair, the "good" part of that quote would suggest he doesn't include the Europa Conference League in that category)
• He recognizes that the club's relationship with fans has been damaged this season and needs repairing
• He admits that it's not as simple as re-hiring Pochettino (this one is really just me reading between the lines from the "It's impossible in football to click your fingers and go back to the good times" quote)

It could be tempting to see these quotes are mere PR, but to me at least, they didn't sound like the kind of rote, club publicist-approved answers that you usually get from players on their media duties. It sounds like Harry had put a lot of thought into these answers and is at least somewhat emotionally invested in the outcomes of this season and planning for the next.

Which leads me to some quotes from the second interview he did, also with Sky Sports:

I think on the pitch you know I always give 100%. I always give my all for the team and for the club. I think off the pitch to have those conversations with the chairman and the staff here and try to give my opinion on some of the things that I think can help us just be more consistent and more successful in the culture that we try to set.

I feel like from a culture point of view we've been too up and down over the last few years so in any great team, any winning team, you know they have a way of doing things and whoever comes in, or is added to that, they kind of fit in straight away and know the standards. Ours have been a little bit loose I feel like, and we need to find a way to create that environment that drives success.

We need to discuss some of the standards around the team and the training ground, which we need to get back to. We had [standards] those in place when Mauricio Pochettino was here, so internally we need to do that. The chairman [Daniel Levy] will make a decision on what he thinks is best for the club, in terms of the coach and who he wants to bring in, the players to go and who he wants to bring in.

I always think you're never too far away from being competitive with the right people, but also, you're never too far away from dropping down to 10th or 11th place in the Premier League because that is the standard.

It's an important moment for the club, to feel a connection again with the fans, who I know have been frustrated with these moments. We need to try to build that relationship back up and try to push all in the same direction.

A lot of those quotes reinforce what he'd said in the previous interview, but significantly confirm that Daniel Levy is heavily involved in the manager selection. And speaking of who that manager could be, Harry was asked his opinion following the Crystal Palace match...

That’s down to the club. If I end up speaking with the chairman towards the end of the season, then I’m sure he’ll fill me in on what he’s thinking. But ultimately we’ve got three more games, we don’t want to look too far ahead and get too carried away. The club will make the best decision for everyone, for the players, the fans, for the club in general, so we’ll just have to wait and see what that is.

But when pressed about the potential for current interim manager Ryan Mason to take over on a permanent basis, he did not demur:

I think we’re all behind him. We know the club is in a situation where I spoke about getting some of the values back. I feel like Ryan brings all those attributes. He’s been here through the academy, he knows what it’s like as a fan, he knows what it’s like to play here. With that attitude and that desire, he brings a great enthusiasm to the coaching role here.

Ultimately it will be down to the chairman and the club what they decide. But for these three games, we’re fully behind him to try to improve and to try to win and see what happens.

My personal theory:  if Harry does indeed have it in his heart that he wants to break the PL goals record at Tottenham, his boyhood club, he knows that he will be playing at Spurs for at least a couple more seasons to break that record, and therefore he is willing to show a bit more patience when it comes to the competitive timeline to win a team trophy. If he had already decided to leave Spurs to find immediate trophy success and continue his pursuit of the goals record elsewhere, he wouldn't be talking so freely and specifically about the rebuild project at Tottenham, much less backing Mason to succeed. These quotes certainly don't sound like they're coming from a player who has one foot out the door.

As for the Mason question, I know this is a subject that the fanbase has mixed opinions on. I certainly understand and am sympathetic to the argument that Mason doesn't yet have enough first-team management experience to take over permanently, but I would remind folks that Spurs' supposed main target, Julian Nagelsmann, also began his managerial career at a young age. Only time could tell if Mason has the potential to be a coaching prodigy on the same level as Nagelsmann, but wouldn't it be fabulous if we had such a figure who was homegrown, so to speak?

In fairness, Nagelsmann's first head coach job was at TSG Hoffenheim, not exactly in the same tier of club as Tottenham, but Hoffenheim have struggled to achieve European qualification ever since Nagelsmann left, for what it's worth—sometimes a club has to take a chance on an unknown quantity.

And in a Spurs context, Mason is not a completely unknown quantity. Not only has he gained valuable experience managing in actual Premier League games (some of which were against top clubs like Manchester United and Liverpool) as well as a League Cup final against Manchester City (in which we held our own, despite what some revisionist history from fans would have you believe), he also has experience with the Academy from his previous role as head of player development for the U17s to U23s. Since he already has familiarity with many of the current Academy players, he will be well-poised to assist their transition into the first team training setup when appropriate, and will also be aware of how important a priority the growth of the Academy is (in contrast to Conte's dismissive approach). If you look at Nagelsmann's career for parallels, he also had a prior history with Hoffenheim that allowed them to feel comfortable promoting him to head coach.

If we revisit Kane's quotes about the need for a cultural reset (or rather return) at the club, Mason's credentials are further bolstered. He was a member of Pochettino's playing squad and will be very familiar with both the training and motivational strategies used to help that squad transcend their relative level of talent.

While Mason's results record with Spurs hasn't been flawless, I do feel like the style of play has been much closer to "the Tottenham way" under his management than we've seen under any other manager post-Pochettino. In many aspects, he represents a compromise between an all-out attacking style and the negative approaches of Mourinho and Conte. He's been realistic about the limitations of the current squad while still remaining responsive to actual game states with his substitutions. Besides the decision to bring in Lucas Moura in the Liverpool game, I have largely agreed with his selection and substitution picks. And I appreciated that we got to see a glimpse of his pragmatic side with the strategy for the Crystal Palace game, including the decision to drop one of Spurs' most tenured players in Eric Dier.

Overall, his two stints as interim manager so far (with a few games left to go) have shown him to be a progressive and tactically astute manager who appears to have a good relationship with the players as well—which has made all the difference. And he's demonstrated firsthand that he can handle the pressures of managing a top Premier League club, because he's literally doing it. There's no hypothetical about it. The only aspect he has not been given a chance to experience yet is the responsibility of contributing to player recruitment, but as he has been flexible with his tactics and deployed the team in several different formations, I don't doubt that he could make the most out of any profile of player brought in.

Side note:  Mason also has the vital advantage of not making me want to rip my hair out when I listen to his press conferences. That's a massive upgrade over the likes of Mourinho's combative screeds and Conte's resentful word salad, to say nothing of Nuno's bland platitudes.

If Spurs do go the more "establishment" route with Julian Nagelsmann I definitely won't complain; he would be an exciting and invigorating choice. I'm just saying that I wouldn't be upset if Mason were given the permanent role. At some point, he deserves a chance to really prove himself, and I think he's made a decent argument for why that opportunity should be with Spurs. And like I always say, there's one asset you cannot buy when it comes to managers, and that is loyalty to the club. Mason has it in spades.

Leave a comment below and let me know how y'all feel about the possibility of Ryan Mason taking over on a permanent basis next season. Everyone is going to weigh the pros and cons differently!

Aston Villa preview

The first of Mason's three remaining games this season is up next on Saturday. We travel away to Birmingham to face Aston Villa, a team who have been in a good run of form since Unai Emery took over (including beating Spurs 0-2 on our own turf), but have struggled in their last two matches; both were 1-0 away losses. They've struggled to score in general over the last few weeks.

This fixture has big implications for European qualification. Villa are just three points below us in the PL table, and our goal difference advantage currently stands at just four goals, so a win would bring a helpful boost to the points gap. Their remaining schedule is quite tough, with Liverpool away and Brighton at home left to play, while Spurs have the relatively easier prospects of Brentford at home and Leeds away. Though there is a possibility that Leeds will need a result on the final matchday to stay up, so we can't take that one too lightly. Brentford's European dreams could effectively be over if they lose their next match against West Ham, so that fixture could be less fraught.

Fitness allowing, I would expect to see Emerson Royal starting again since he made such an immediate improvement to our defensive stability. Lenglet is also a question mark, but hopefully his late departure from the last game was precautionary more than anything. If he isn't able to start, we would likely see a return to the static back-3 with Ben Davies at LCB and Ivan Perišić returning to the lineup at LWB.

Otherwise, I wouldn't be surprised to see the exact same starting XI from the Crystal Palace match. Mason should probably be a little quicker with the attacking substitutions this time, however. Aston Villa haven't given up multiple goals to an opponent since their 2-4 loss to Arsenal back in mid-February, so fresh legs will be necessary to cause them a variety of defensive problems to solve (or not!).

The refreshing thing about having Ryan Mason in charge is that I no longer dread matches this season, but rather look forward to seeing what solutions he comes up with for the unique questions posed by each opposition. That's what football should be, a physical and mental contest of equally determined teams, not an inevitability because of the stubbornness of one side's manager. Onward and upward.

COYS

Thank you for reading!

If you’re enjoying the newsletter, make sure to sign up for a free subscription to receive new issues in your inbox, or upgrade to a paid membership to unlock additional bonus content every month. You can also buy me a Ko-fi for a one-time tip. Your support keeps Spurs Across the Pond running and is much appreciated.

You can also find me on Twitter and podcasting at N17 Women and The Tottenham Depot.