The 90(+) Minute Team

Tottenham Men survived a first half onslaught of shots and tackles to win away at Aston Villa 0-4 | Previewing the home matchup with Brighton

If you still needed a reason to believe that Tottenham Men can (and will) pull off top 4 this season, this past matchday should suffice. Previous incarnations of this team might have withered under the pressure of having every single one of our top 4 rivals lose their matches, especially with Spurs themselves going up against a team like Aston Villa that was in desperate need of a bounceback--but not this squad. Not under Conte. We took care of business, and in rather resilient fashion, too.

Since this match had Narrative-with-a-capital-N all over it even before kickoff, I'm going to eschew my usual recap style and instead touch on the major talking points of the match.

45-minute vs 90-minute teams

I'm honestly surprised I've never heard this term used before in commentary, but I was struck by the NBC commentators calling Aston Villa a "45-minute team." In other words, a team that struggles to put together a complete, consistent 90-minute performance like the best teams in the league do. To give an example of what a "90-minute team" performance might look like, cast your mind back to Tottenham's thrilling stoppage-time win at Leicester City. That was the match where we recorded our highest xG to date for the season, but Leicester had scored two goals against the run of play, along with a couple of pretty superb goal-line clearances to keep us from finding an equalizer, let alone a winner--until the very depths of stoppage time. Enter, Bergwijn. He brought a new meaning to "impact sub" that day, but he didn't do it alone, and together the team pulled off the kind of near-impossible result that would have been unthinkable under Nuno earlier in the season. It was a match we didn't deserve to lose, and we didn't. Oh, and this was even before our hugely influential January signings had joined the squad. (Did I just want an excuse to reminisce about this amazing moment in recent Spurs history? Maybe!)

I guess when I think back on the handful of Aston Villa matches I've watched closely this season, that "45-minute team" descriptor does seem justified. It might not always be one full good half and one bad half; sometimes it might be a strong end to the first half and a continuation in the second half, only for them to fade in the closing 15, or maybe a bright start followed by a flat middle and a resurgent end. Either way, opposing teams will know by now that if you can survive Villa's hot period in a match, you will likely come out on top. And that's exactly what Spurs did on Saturday.

Despite Spurs going up 0-1 in the 3rd minute thanks to a Son goal, Villa quickly took control of the game and had the majority of possession and chances for the rest of the first half. In fairness to them, they pressed Spurs pretty effectively and carried out a clear tactical plan from manager Steven Gerrard (side note:  it never ceases to feel weird to refer to players I grew up watching, like Gerrard and Lampard, as current PL managers). They forced quite a few set-piece opportunities, which anyone who's watched Spurs over the last few weeks will know are one of our few remaining defensive weaknesses. Our captain Lloris was a big factor in why we were able to withstand the deluge of Villa shots in the first half; he pulled off seven of his incredible eight saves in the first half alone. I'll talk about our actual Man of the Match later on, but I truly feel like Hugo deserved the award for his heroic performance in goal. At the very least, he fully earned his clean sheet on the night.

Ineffectual refereeing in response to overzealous tackling

Unfortunately, I cannot give full credit to Gerrard and his team for their first-half dominance because a big part of their strategy was to essentially maul our players. Even in the moment, I felt like referee Graham Scott had let the game grow out of his control by failing to discipline any of Villa's hard--often reckless--tackles, and I was genuinely concerned that someone was going to break a leg. And sadly, with the benefit now of hindsight, I know that fear was rational. Doherty didn't have his leg broken, but according to reports, he did have his MCL ruptured and will now be out for the rest of the season. I actually feel quite emotional thinking about what a blow this is to the team and to Doherty personally, since he was experiencing something of a comeback in recent weeks after a tough first season-and-a-half with the club. I never want any player to experience an injury (even rivals), but it feels particularly unfair for a season-ending injury to happen to Doherty now, right when he was hitting his stride and becoming an important part of Conte's wingback system. Best wishes to Matt as he recovers.

Individual man management for a whole team effort

Doherty is a key example of the transformation Conte has made across the Tottenham squad since he arrived. After his initial assessments of the players were completed, he has almost unerringly selected the same starting XI (except for when injuries have necessitated adjustments), and quickly got these players up to a standard of fitness and mentality that has made them into a cohesive unit. I mentioned the team's resilience at the top of this post, and that's an area of massive improvement we've seen in the squad compared to their performance under previous managers. Every player knows their role, they execute it with precision and passion, and they understand that when a setback occurs in a match, their heads must not drop. It's why we've been able to secure results in matches where we've conceded an early goal or suffered a frustrating equalizer, and it's the reason we were able to come out after halftime and shrug off the challenge of the first half to start fresh.

Contrast that attitude with Gerrard's Villa squad, who very much did drop their heads after Kulusevski scored our second goal. The winning result never felt in doubt after that goal because there was a noticeable drop-off in our opponent's will to mount a comeback. I don't think anyone who saw the first half would be surprised to hear that the Villa players, who were already looking exhausted just before halftime, simply ran out of steam to continue their high press in the second half. In post-match interviews, Gerrard came across as at least having a decent grasp of tactics and some vision for how he wants his team to play, but his relative inexperience next to Conte was glaring in the execution of those objectives. Many fans, myself included, looked on at Aston Villa with a bit of jealousy in the past two transfer windows because they were able to secure the services of some exciting players relative to their existing squad. Sadly for them, these individually brilliant players don't always connect well on the pitch. It kind of reminds me of Lampard's Chelsea team last season. For Gerrard's sake, you would hope he can manage (no pun intended) to rectify this imbalance quicker than Lampard did at Chelsea, lest he get the sack too. Of course, the expectations are quite a bit less elevated at Aston Villa than they are at a club like Chelsea.

For a final note on cohesive team efforts vs sporadic individual brilliance, I want to give a special shoutout to the aforementioned Swede, Dejan Kulusevski. It's taken him basically no time at all to fully integrate into Spurs' front three, and he looks right at home next to two inarguably world-class players in Kane and Son. No doubt he is on his way to being world-class himself at the rate he's going--and he's still so young. It just brings me a lot of joy to see these three forwards linking up with such selflessness and partnership, and to see them playing for the team I love.

Son Heung-min, Golden Boot challenger

And now to give some appreciation for another member of the unstoppable front three, let's talk about Sonny. I do not want to hear another word about him having an inconsistent season. Friends, gather round while I lay down some cold, hard facts.

• He has already hit his goal tally from last PL season, 17 goals, which was itself a career-best for a league season. (He does have four fewer assists so far, but there are still seven games left to match that number.)

• He has the most non-penalty goals of any player in the league this season, also 17, because a) he's only first-choice penalty taker when Kane isn't on the pitch and b) who are we kidding, Tottenham rarely gets penalties awarded.

• For this past match specifically, he had 100% efficiency on his shots, and out of the top 10 PL goal-scorers this season only Vardy has been more efficient with his shots.

• This is not a stat but it is still an incontrovertible truth:  Son bleeds lilywhite and blue.

So let's celebrate this clinically lethal finishing performance from Son, celebrate his first PL hat trick since we beat Southampton away 2-5 last season, and celebrate him getting firmly back into the Golden Boot race. I have no personal beef with Mo Salah, but he needs to watch his back, because Sonny is coming for him.

And just a few stray observations from the match:

• Romero was key in matching Villa's physical intensity in the first half, and kudos to him for not picking up a yellow card (he's still on watch). With the referee's disciplinary decisions seeming so lopsided, this feels like a minor miracle.

• Doherty's injury forced an early substitution as well as some tactical readjustment at HT, and boy would I like to hear Conte's halftime talk just once, to get the full Conte experience. As for Doherty's replacement, Reguilón didn't necessarily make an argument for being the first-choice LWB again, but with Doherty now out for the rest of the season, Conte's options are even more limited. Regui and Sess simply have to get fully fit and stay fit.

• It is a bummer to see Bergwijn still being reserved for such a late substitution, considering the dominant scoreline. I would have liked to see him on for Son and then Lucas on later for Deki, especially since they would seem to be the more like-for-like swaps. Either way, Bergy deserves more time on the pitch.

Back home for Brighton

*obligatory complaint about the 6:30 AM Central Time kickoff*

On the real though, I'm going to take the early wake-up in stride this time because I am just that excited to see Spurs play again. It's nice to be at the business end of the campaign and still have it all left to play for, and it helps that the team is in its best form of the season by far. Life as a Spurs fan is good.

Brighton fans are probably not feeling as good after their promising start to the season went majorly off the rails. Before beating Arsenal on Saturday (I had to squeeze that in again), they hadn't won a match since February 12, and only had one draw in that stretch, a scoreless stalemate against Norwich. They just haven't been scoring many goals at all. But they're nowhere close to being at risk of relegation, despite the string of bad results, so boosting their goal difference won't be of huge concern.

I (mostly) watched their match at Arsenal, and for the majority of the match, they looked very deserving of their win--though perhaps that says more about Arsenal. However, the 89th-minute goal from Odegaard sent Brighton into a panic and produced some of the most frantic, shambolic defense I've seen in a long time. They were very lucky not to concede an equalizer. Which isn't to say that Arsenal played particularly well; their finishing was atrocious. Interesting observation:  Arteta only used two of his subs... but this preview is supposed to be about Brighton, so let me get this back on track and hold the Arteta slander for a future issue.

There's a reason everyone gets to make the jokes about Brighton winning the xG battle, and that's because they aren't chintzy with their shots. They clearly don't believe in making the perfect the enemy of the good, which would be fine--if they had more clinical finishers on their team. Neal Maupay (who incidentally didn't feature against Arsenal and is frequently in and out of Brighton's starting XI, but always seems to start against us) is many things, most of them uncharitable for me to say, but an efficient finisher he is not. He's more of a concern when it comes to stoppage-time set-piece nightmare scenarios. Danny Wellbeck has been featuring in their forward line often in recent matches, but only has three goals on the season. And frankly, Bissouma is the player we're supposed to be most worried about when it comes to Brighton, but he was downright anonymous in our last matchup in mid-March.

If I don't sound terribly concerned about this match, it's because I'm not. Doherty's injury is definitely a blow to the team, but I trust Conte to put the fear of god into Reguilón and/or Sess to pick up the slack and keep the ship steady. Royal will obviously be featuring regularly again and I know he's had some poor performances this season, but it's way too early in his Spurs career to be writing him off. He has to be given a chance, just like Doherty was. And since our front three is rapidly approaching Scary Good form (if they're not already there--it's up for debate), I have no doubt that we can outscore Brighton regardless of who is playing at wingback. Join me on the positivity train! Final stop is top 4.

COYS