One less day’s rest, four goals conceded, and a clean sheet: Tottenham will not appear at the Parc des Princes full of confidence. This week, Spurs suffered greatly on the pitch of Arsenal, the Premier League leaders, and lost the north London derby (4-1). A serious but logical setback considering the poor performance of Thomas Frank’s team.
Spurs are not in good shape. With just three wins in ten games and defeats against Aston Villa, Chelsea or Newcastle, the Londoners have very little on their record before facing the solid Gunners, who could move six points clear of Chelsea if successful. It’s true, and it’s well deserved.
Since the first minutes of the match, Mikel Arteta’s troops imposed their rhythm and cornered their opponents. If they fought back as best they could, especially given the heavy contact, Spurs finally broke it in the 36th minute through Belgian Leandro Trossard’s goal. Five minutes later, Eberechi Eze scored his first goal of the night after a slalom in defence.
There is no offensive danger
Kevin Danso’s exit and replacement by Xavi Simons in the first half made Tottenham even more unbalanced. After just 35 seconds of play, Eze surprisingly found himself alone on the edge of the box to end the suspense. He even added a third in the 76th minute with a simple right-footed strike given the collapse of the Spurs defence, who only consoled themselves with Richarlison’s superb strike from 40m.
However, overall performance is still weak. Because with 0.07 expected goalthe production of teammate Wilson Odobert, a former champion of PSG this Sunday, is starving. They also give up possession of the ball, making poor choices and technical misjudgments. Defensively, the results were no better. With four goals conceded and 17 shots conceded, Guglielmo Vicario is in high demand.
The only thing that was enlightening was the physical impact made by Spurs, who tried to react despite their weakness on the day. However, there was nothing convincing at the start of the highly anticipated duel at the Parc des Princes against Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League. Especially since the Paris team took advantage of an extra day of rest after their easy win against Le Havre this Saturday evening (3-0).
