On Nov. 23, Tottenham Hotspur notched what would be most teams' season-defining victory, smacking the ever-loving crap out of Manchester City 4-0 on the road. Even in light of the well-documented tailspin City was in the midst of at the time, Tottenham's performance that day was a perfect exhibition of manager Ange Postecoglou's whirlwind of chaos. It was also a much-needed salve after the opening months of the season, which had seen Spurs' offense, once the best in the Premier League, routinely let down by a shorthanded defense that continuously conceded ill-timed goals, leading to a procession of narrow defeats.
That salve was short-lasting, as Tottenham's season went from mildly frustrating to complete shambles soon after the win over City. In the two months since, Tottenham has won exactly one Premier League match—a 5-0 thrashing of bottom-dwelling Southampton on Dec. 15—to go with two draws and a gobsmacking eight losses. The run has dropped Spurs from the table's sixth spot to its 15th, much closer to the relegation zone (eight points) than the top seven (16 points). While the schedule has not done the side any favors—in that span, Tottenham has played games ranging from tricky, like Fulham and Bournemouth, to exceedingly tough, like Liverpool, Arsenal, and the mighty Nottingham Forest—the biggest culprit for the collapse has been the team's nightmarish injury situation, and Postecoglou has not had the answers for how to deal with it.
Sunday's home match against Leicester City showed just how depleted Tottenham is: 10 first-team players entered the match either out or hobbled. The backline, especially, has been decimated. Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven, on their day one of the league's strongest center back pairings, have both been out since Dec. 8 with hamstring injuries. Destiny Udogie is out until at least mid-February as well, robbing Spurs of its best left back. The crisis has forced Postecoglou to start Radu Dragusin, a perfectly fine backup who is absolutely not good enough to be an everyday starter in the Premier League, and either a youngster (18-year-old Archie Gray) or the walking corpse of Ben Davies, a left back by trade who isn't particularly good at even that.
The injuries have made it impossible for Tottenham to put up anything resembling a competent defense. The club has kept only one clean sheet in this swoon, the aforementioned Southampton win. And so, even though Tottenham scored first on Sunday via a 33rd minute Richarlison header, it wasn't particularly shocking that Leicester, hardly any powerhouse, clawed back in the second half and ended up winning 2-1.
The first danger sign came within a minute of the second half's beginning, as Bobby De Cordova-Reid got into a bit of space on the right side of Tottenham's defense and slotted a low cutback towards Jamie Vardy in the box. Spurs goalie Antonin Kinsky (playing for the excellent but injured Guglielmo Vicario) came out to try and nab the ball but couldn't get a grip on it, and Vardy was able to control the spillage and blast home the equalizer:
Vardy always seems to get up for Tottenham games, having scored nine goals against them in his career, and he seems to love antagonizing them beyond the scoreline; after scoring, Vardy pointed to the Premier League badge on his jersey and signaled a one—referencing Leicester's magical 2016 title win—and a zero towards the Spurs fans, referencing Tottenham's title-less trophy cabinet.
That gesture might have sparked a different side to power up and get the lead back, but instead Tottenham capitulated four minutes later, through an all-too-simple Bilal El Khannouss shot from distance:
Small credit where it's due: After Leicester took the lead, Tottenham was the better and more dangerous side, but it amounted to nothing, thanks to some poor finishing and a steady, if sometimes overrun, Leicester defense keeping the ball mostly out of truly dangerous zones. Postecoglou always has Spurs playing at full tilt, but the quality just isn't there at the moment, and it's possible his go-go-go system is doing more harm than good, opening his side to counter-attacks and potentially also worsening the injury crisis.
The question now becomes: How does Tottenham address this? The obvious answer would be to fire Postecoglou, but it is not that simple. Though the Greek-Australian manager is stubborn, and that stubbornness might have cost Tottenham points in some of its come-from-ahead defeats this season, he does seem to be a very good manager overall, and it's hard to fully fault him for the team's performances during this injury-ravaged stretch. Maybe even more to the point, it's not clear how much better a potential replacement manager could do given the present state of the roster. Tottenham appears to recognize that, for now, as ESPN reported that Postecoglou will not be sacked this week.
More than a vote of confidence, the decision to stick it out with Postecoglou reflects that the club's true point-of-no-return is still on the horizon. With aspirations for the European positions already dashed and the threat of relegation still a virtual impossibility, all that really matters for the rest of Tottenham's season is its fate in the cup competitions. To that end, Feb. 6 sees Tottenham travel to Liverpool for the away leg of the League Cup semifinal, the first leg of which Spurs won, 1-0. Should the team hold onto that advantage and make it to the final, the promise of a trophy, even a relatively chintzy one like the League Cup, would presumably be enough to justify an extended stay of execution for Postecoglou. And winning that competition, giving the club its first major trophy since 2008, would most certainly keep Big Ange in the job heading into next season, when hopefully better injury luck and some more investment could return Tottenham to the upward trajectory everyone thought they were on coming off of last season.
It's a shame things have come to this for Postecoglou, whose system, even with its flaws, can be the most exciting in the Premier League when everything's clicking. Still, for as good and likable as he is, he has not adapted to the realities of his squad during this run, and a loss at home to Leicester could easily have been the thing to end his tenure, if not for the fortuitous timing of the League Cup semifinal. Regardless of how exactly you apportion blame for the team's travails, it is certain that Postecoglou is now coaching for his job, and that the deck is stacked against him. For a team that can hit heights few in England can match on a single-game basis, that's a dire place for Tottenham to find itself, but this is as close to a lost season as it comes in soccer, and someone always pays the price for that, deservedly or not.
