The Athletic

All it took for Dejan Kulusevski to become one of the best players in the Premier League was to go back to his roots.

Back in the summer Kulusevski was at a crossroads. He had worked hard in Ange Postecoglou’s first season as Tottenham Hotspur head coach without ever quite playing his best football. He never seemed a natural fit for what Postecoglou wanted from a winger — someone to play high and wide, stretching the play, even if that meant seeing less of the ball.

So Postecoglou started to think of a solution.

When he got the Spurs job in summer 2023, he had looked into Kulusevski’s history as a player. Past the Kulusevski who had played on the wing for the Premier League club under predecessor Antonio Conte. Past the Kulusevski who played out wide in Italy for Juventus sides managed by Max Allegri and then Andrea Pirlo. And past the Kulusevski who played his first full Serie A season on the wing, with loan club Parma in Roberto D’Aversa’s 4-3-3.

Postecoglou had looked to Kulusevski’s time at his first professional club, Atalanta, also in Italy. And he saw that long before Kulusevski was pushed out wide, he had played through the middle. And not just as a No 10 who created chances between the lines. But as a No 8 who drove forward with the ball, fulfilling his desire to be deeply involved in the game.

So why not do that again, and for good? Kulusevski had filled in as a No 8 during Postecoglou’s first season, especially last December when James Maddison was out injured. Moving him there permanently could solve three issues at once: the need for Brennan Johnson to play high and wide on the right, Spurs’ lack of dynamism in the centre of the pitch, and Kulusevski’s personal desire to be as involved in the games as possible.

Not everything has gone right at Tottenham this season. They go into tomorrow’s game away to Manchester City just 10th in the 20-team league table. Their most recent game was a 2-1 home defeat against Ipswich Town — the visitors’ first league win of the season at the 11th attempt and first in the top flight since 2002 — which has destroyed what was an improving mood. But there have still been quite a few high points, such as the victories over Manchester United, City (in the Carabao Cup) and Aston Villa.

In all of Spurs’ good moments this season, Kulusevski has been clearly their best player, head and shoulders above the rest. While their stars of 2023-24 — Son Heung-min, Maddison, Cristian Romero — have struggled for consistency, Kulusevski is the only one of the current squad who could argue he has been on top of his game since the campaign kicked off in August.

Go through all the best moments of Tottenham’s season, and Kulusevski has been integral to every single one.

The 4-0 against Everton in August started with his clever lay-off for Yves Bissouma’s opening goal. September’s come-from-behind win at Coventry in the Carabao Cup — which started a five-game winning run — was turned when Kulusevski took control of the game and set up Djed Spence’s equaliser with two minutes of the 90 left.

When Spurs beat United 3-0 at Old Trafford just over a week later, their best away victory under Postecoglou, Kulusevski scored the second with a flying volley reminiscent of his hero and Swedish countryman Zlatan Ibrahimovic. He was the best player on the pitch that day by a distance.

They eventually thumped West Ham 4-1 on October 19 but were 1-0 down and going nowhere when Kulusevski changed the game, surprising goalkeeper Alphonse Areola with a powerful low shot to his near post from the edge of the box. Tottenham were suddenly level late in the first half and never looked back.

When they beat City 2-1 in the Carabao Cup, one of the decisive factors in the game was Kulusevski’s energy, his ability to drive forward with or without the ball. Spurs’ early opener that night came from one such run, a thrilling counter-attack before he crossed perfectly to Timo Werner. He assisted Pape Sarr’s eventual winner too, doubling the lead, and in the second half City could never relax with Kulusevski threatening to slice through them on the break.

And then when Villa visited four days later, the goal that put Tottenham 2-1 up came from a genius reverse pass from Kulusevski through to Dominic Solanke to finish. They went on to win 4-1.

This is a personal highlight reel comparable to any other player in the Premier League this season. It is hard to imagine where Spurs would be if they did not have his drive and creativity in the middle of the pitch. They would have been even more subject to the variations of form of their less consistent players. Which probably doesn’t bear thinking about.

So what is it about Kulusevski that makes him so good?

We can start with his physicality.

Kulusevski has always been an unusual sort of athlete. He is powerful rather than fast. One of the reasons why he looked slightly unusual as a winger was that he never had the lightning-fast top speed you would expect from someone playing out wide in elite football. When Tottenham first signed Kulusevski on loan from Juventus in January 2022, some wondered why their new winger wasn’t faster in transitions.

But there is more to power than just pace. If you watch Kulusevski up close, you are blown away by how strong he is. He can hold off defenders with ease and never gets knocked off the ball. In a Spurs team still adjusting to being without Harry Kane 15 months after his departure to Bayern Munich, he is one of the few players (along with striker Solanke), who can reliably hold onto the ball under pressure in the opposition half.

This is testament to Kulusevski’s own hard work on his physique; the morning gym sessions before training, his reluctance to ever take a day off. Kulusevski is obsessive about his own body — Cristiano Ronaldo is another of his heroes. He also loves to read books and watch documentaries about winners in other fields, recently mentioning basketball duo Michael Jordan and the late Kobe Bryant. Like many modern athletes, Kulusevski is painfully careful about everything he eats. He tests the pH value of water (a way to determine its quality) before he drinks it.

Perhaps Kulusevski’s most important physical trait is his running power. Even if he is not the fastest, when he gets going he is very difficult to stop. And he has the capacity and hunger to keep making those forward runs, with or without the ball, over and over.

“He has an unbelievable capacity to run, on and off the ball,” Postecoglou told reporters in early October. “His physical numbers are ridiculous and he has the quality to hurt teams with that.” After seeing him rip through West Ham two weeks later, Postecoglou said Kulusevski was “relentless in his running capacity”. There is certainly something unforgiving about his physical output, as he keeps bursting forward through the opposition lines, forcing players on the other team to go to areas they do not want to go.

The other side to this is Kulusevski’s ability to win the ball back.

It was painfully clear at the end of last season that Spurs’ press was fading. They needed more aggression in the middle of the pitch, someone to harass the opposition and win the ball back before they could put it over the top of the Tottenham defence. No wonder Postecoglou was such a big admirer of Chelsea’s Conor Gallagher, before his move to Atletico Madrid. But Kulusevski has managed to solve that issue himself. From his new midfield position, he leads the league for possession regains in the final third with 16. Bryan Mbuemo of Brentford and Bournemouth’s Antoine Semenyo are next-best with 12 each. At times, Spurs’ press has looked better than it ever did last year.

But Kulusevski is more than just a cardio monster who never stops running. He is also a brilliantly creative footballer, technically precise, inventive, just as able to wiggle out of small spaces as to burst through large ones. Of course he has always had that ability, which is why he played as a No 10 as a youngster. But now that he is a No 8, he is getting the ball in central areas more than ever before. And he knows how to use it.

For much of last season, Maddison was the creative brain of this team, but he has struggled in this one and has even been on the bench in recent weeks. So responsibility has fallen to Kulusevski to play that role, picking the perfect pass through to the runners beyond him. Tottenham often face narrow low blocks, with very little space between or behind the opposition lines. The pass has to be perfect. Just like it was for Spence that night in Coventry. Or for Werner against City. Or Solanke in the Villa game.

Maybe we are guilty of just looking at outcomes here rather than processes. But rank everyone in the Premier League by chances created this season and Kulusevski is joint-top, on 30, with Andreas Pereira of Fulham (Chelsea’s Cole Palmer is one behind with 29). Look at chances created from open play and Kulusevski and Palmer lead with 25. Or at completed passes in the opposition penalty area, where only Fulham’s Alex Iwobi is ahead of him, 36 to 34.

So far, this is the most creative season of Kulusevski’s career. He is averaging 3.1 chances created per game, up from 2.2 and 2.0 in his previous two Premier League campaigns. He is more involved in sequences leading to shots than ever before as a Tottenham player: 6.7, compared with 6.1 and 5.4.

This is exactly what Kulusevski wants. He has always thrived on a sense of responsibility, always sought to be the one who seized control of the game and dictated it. He wants to be the leader on the pitch, involved in everything. This is why it has meant so much to him to be Sweden’s captain in recent months.

This is also why the specific role Postecoglou gives to his wide players never fitted naturally with how Kulusevski wants to play the game. Even though he was deployed there more often than Johnson was last season, it was the Wales international signed from Nottingham Forest that summer who was the better fit for the position.

“With Deki, the way we get our wingers to play probably doesn’t suit him,” Postecoglou said about Kulusevski in a media session earlier this month. “Not his skillset, more his personality. He’s a player who’s much more engaged in the game when he’s constantly involved. Bringing him to the central area means he’s constantly doing that.”

Postecoglou knew that staying high and wide and running in behind was not Kulusevski’s natural game. “At times with us last year, when he was on the wing, and with the way our wingers play, you’re not involved all the time,” Postecoglou added. “There’s a discipline in keeping your position. Sometimes not receiving the ball is part of that process. We put our wingers where we do to pin back oppositions. I could see he was… not frustrated, he just wanted to give more.”

That is exactly what Kulusevski has done in this season’s opening months. He took roughly eight touches per game in the central third of the pitch (the space between the two wings) during 2023-24. Now, his average is over 14. This graph shows how much more he is creating in central areas now compared with last season.

Kulusevski is revelling in his new licence to attack where he wants to. “They can’t know how to defend me when I don’t even know where I am going, because it’s all instinct,” he smiled in an interview with Spurs’ media team after that West Ham win. “Finally, I have that freedom. My team-mates trust me, the coach trusts me. Because when I play like this, this is my position, it’s all instinct and I can hurt defenders in every kind of way.”

For years, Kulusevski had been a hard-working winger in teams who liked to play out wide, from Parma to Juventus to Conte’s Tottenham. “It’s not that he can’t play out wide,” Postecoglou told reporters. “He got put in that position because he was effective out there — particularly in teams that played counter-attacking football, which allowed him the space to run at people.”

But for a team who want to play the way Spurs aim to, Kulusevski needs to be in the middle of the pitch. Just as he was as a youngster coming out of the academy ranks at Atalanta. “I looked at his background, when he was growing up, and when he first broke into the first team,” Postecoglou said. “That was his position.”

Kulusevski was 16 when Atalanta signed him from his first club, Brommapojkarna in Stockholm, for 100,000 euros. (£83,000/$105,000 at current exchange rates). He emerged into Italian national consciousness when he drove Atalanta to the Primavera (under-19) championship in 2018-19. He was their standout player that season, arguably the best player of his age in the country.

If you watch the final, against Inter at the Ennio Tardini stadium in Parma, you see something very familiar.

With seven minutes left and the game goalless, Atalanta clear their lines and Kulusevski bursts forward to win a loose ball that should never have been his. Skipping past one opponent, the 19-year-old drives on through the middle of the pitch, more energetic than anyone else on it. Deep in Inter territory, he pauses, looks up and stabs a pass that takes five opposition players out of the game. Ebrima Colley runs onto it, finishes well, and the title is on its way to Bergamo.

That is the Kulusevski — physically dominant, desperate for responsibility, desperate to be decisive — that we have seen at Tottenham this season. Postecoglou knows that for a player so committed to achieving greatness, there is no limit to how good he can be. “If you speak to him, he’s got pretty lofty ambitions for himself as a player, and what he can do,” Postecoglou said when talking to reporters earlier this month. “The exciting bit is that I think there’s a lot more to come.“

Pep Guardiola knows exactly what City are likely to be up against if Kulusevski plays at the Etihad on Saturday evening.

There is a viral clip of him in the post-match press conference after City beat Spurs in January last year. “Kulusevski”, Guardiola says before blowing out his cheeks dramatically. “What a player.”

And after Kulusevski orchestrated that cup win over the Premier League champions last month, this reporter wanted to get Guardiola’s thoughts on one of my favourite players. How good did he think Kulusevski had been that evening? “Really good,” Guardiola smiled. “He’s a really, really good player.”

So, what did he like about him? “Everything.”

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Additional reporting: Anantaajith Raghuraman

(Top photos: Getty Images; design: Kelsea Petersen)

International breaks are usually quiet periods for Premier League clubs, but Monday turned out to be a busy day at Tottenham Hotspur.

In the morning, the Football Association confirmed Rodrigo Bentancur had been banned for seven matches and fined £100,000 in relation to comments he made about club captain Son Heung-min while the former was in his native Uruguay over the summer.

A couple of hours later, Tottenham announced they had “remastered” their brand identity. For anyone left confused by that phrase, don’t worry, you were not alone.

The Athletic has broken down what this ‘remastering’ means, how fans have reacted to it, and the potential impact it will have.

What does “remastering brand identity” actually mean?

The phrase “remastered brand identity” sounds like it belongs in a press release from a 1990s boy band reuniting after 25 years. What it actually means is Tottenham have slightly tweaked their badge.

The last time they did this was in 2006 when they removed their Latin motto ‘Audere est Facere’ — ‘To dare is to do’ — and the THFC monogram, a stylised version of their initials (Tottenham Hotspur Football Club). The motif of a cockerel standing on a football became more prominent, while streaks of yellow and red were taken away to ensure the only colours in the badge were white and navy blue.

A copper statue of the cockerel was first placed on top of the West Stand at the old White Hart Lane ahead of the 1909-10 First Division season, while the bird has featured on Spurs’ shirts since the 1921 FA Cup final when they beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0.

Now, the club have also removed the words “Tottenham Hotspur” from the bottom of the badge, which gives it a more simplistic look (this is how it has generally appeared on the shirt itself since 2006 anyway) and they have also created a silhouette version. One of the main reasons teams across different sports have done this over the past few years — Aston Villa and Juventus are two recent examples in football — is to make it easier to produce their logo digitally on replica shirts and other various pieces of merchandise.

After ditching the THFC monogram nearly two decades ago, Spurs have now decided to bring it back with a refreshed look. It has not been added to the new badge but will be reused — you can probably imagine waking up on your birthday or a future Christmas and being gifted a coffee mug with those initials across it.

Spurs have produced new colourways, patterns and hallmarks, too, which can be linked to key features of the club’s heritage in their section of north London, including the Seven Sisters trees and Bruce Castle. Just in case you were interested, Paxton Purple, Hot Terracotta and Elm Green are the names of some of the new colourways that will be introduced. The final change has been to turn the club’s font into a “dynamic, variable family of fonts”. The text has been expanded slightly and there is now a lowercase version.

So, perhaps unsurprisingly, it turns out that a “brand remaster” is a fancy way of saying they have made some minor cosmetic changes.

Ange Postecoglou’s side face Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday, so the first real opportunity for fans to see these sparkly new updates around the stadium will be when Spurs host Roma in the Europa League next Thursday.

How have they done this?

Tottenham’s new badge is the result of a nine-month partnership with Studio Nomad, which describes itself as a “strategy and brand experience company”. According to its website, Studio Nomad’s other clients include Sky Sports, the Premier League, the Women’s Super League, Nike, Rolls-Royce and Disney+.

Tottenham say they spoke to over 300 current and former players, coaches, key members of staff and fan groups during the process. It seems like their plan was to determine what the most iconic images of the club’s history are and then give them a facelift.

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Why have they done this?

As previously mentioned, lots of clubs have modernised their badges so they are easier to replicate on shirts and merchandise. On their website, the club mention a “particular focus on clarity in digital environments”.

The last time Spurs updated their badge, almost two decades ago, Facebook had been around for only a couple of years and Twitter (now called X) had just been created, while other popular social media platforms including Snapchat, TikTok and Instagram hadn’t been launched at all. Part of Tottenham’s strategy is clearly about having a badge that can be reinterpreted to suit different online platforms.

“This is a club that drives, that forges, that innovates, that is relentless both on and off the pitch,” says executive director Donna-Maria Cullen. “This phenomenal exercise has been about bringing it all together, defining it, taking it to the next level.

“The reimagined brand embraces all the excitement, all the innovation and shows that we’re going to be brave, we’re going to be exciting and we’re going to have some fun – this is where we should be with our brand right now. We have taken aspects from our history, our emblems, our imagery and we’ve taken them forward — we’ve now got something that we have built from listening to everyone at the club, on and off the pitch, and the consistent message coming through. This is something that everyone can unite behind.”

What has been the reaction from the fanbase?

The primary responses on social media appeared to be a mix of indifference and confusion.

But Martin Buhagiar, chair of the Tottenham Hotspur Supporters Trust (THST), tells The Athletic: “We have two board members from the THST who sit on the club’s fan advisory board (FAB) and they were spoken to about this a few months ago, but with no indication of when it was going to be released.”

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“I liked the shield badge from the 1980s and 1990s, so when I heard they were changing it, I hoped they would go back to that design. I was fairly underwhelmed (by what the club came up with). I watched the video and was expecting something grand, but they just removed the words Tottenham Hotspur. I’m not that concerned by it because I know what the badge means and I know all about our identity. My issue is why now and what’s the purpose of it? We are all surprised by the timing. This seems like something you do in the summer, before the season starts along with a new kit.

“I remember the (former) Hull City owner (the late Assem Allam) a few years ago wanted to call them Hull Tigers. The board at Spurs know about the traditions of this club and they would never seek to change the name, the colours or the badge drastically, so we are grateful for that.”

(Top image: Tottenham Hotspur FC)

Three things happened in 2019 that set the course for the modern future of Tottenham Hotspur.

First, the opening of the new stadium on April 3. Then the defeat in the Champions League final to Liverpool on June 1. And, finally, the sacking of Mauricio Pochettino on November 19.

Over 2019, the club was transformed, striding into the new decade unrecognisable from how it started that year. This was the year that made the modern Tottenham and nothing that has happened to them since — no hiring, no sacking, not even selling Harry Kane — can remotely compare.

You can view any of those three events in isolation, but put them all together and they are three sides of the same triangle. Pochettino’s dismissal only makes sense because Tottenham had moved stadium and then lost the Champions League final just months before.

I am sure some readers will say: no, please, anything but this. Anything but yet another pensive reflection on the Pochettino era. Anything but another relitigating of the events of 2019, or the strategic choices made by the club at that time. Anything but another discussion of the summer 2019 transfer window, and whether Tanguy Ndombele and Giovani Lo Celso were the wrong players or the right players at the wrong time. Anything but this. Surely Spurs fans have suffered enough recently. The defeat to Ipswich Town was only nine days ago.

And yet despite all that, this fifth Pochiversary is still worth marking. Whether you want to think about it or not it is still real, the unavoidable shadow, the sound still ringing in your ear. It is something that has to be confronted and understood, even if that feels like staring directly into the sun.

How do we even begin to assess an event this big? The simplest way would be to look at what Tottenham have achieved in the five years since sacking their greatest manager of the modern era. And the answer, frankly, is not very much.

Spurs’ best league finish in these last five years was fourth, in 2021-22, when Antonio Conte arrived in November and then supercharged the team up the table into the top four, but burnt them out in doing so. They came fifth last season, having faded at the end of the campaign. But they have never truly been consistent or competitive in the league. Certainly nothing to compare to their run under Pochettino himself (fifth, third, second, third, fourth).

Well, what about the cups? Spurs have at least reached one final in the last five years, in the Carabao Cup in 2021. You can be forgiven if you don’t remember it as clearly as you feel like you should. It was played in front of only a few thousand fans at Wembley, at the beginning of the end of pandemic restrictions. It also took place at the end of a week in which Tottenham had signed up for the European Super League, sacked Jose Mourinho, appointed Ryan Mason and then withdrawn from the European Super League. It almost felt like an after-event.

Beyond that? Spurs got to the semi-final in the League Cup under Conte in 2022. They have done absolutely nothing of note in the FA Cup for six years now. They did lose two semi-finals under Pochettino, to Chelsea in 2017 and Manchester United the year after. Both were painful defeats that have left a lingering sense of frustration. But at least they made it there.

And in Europe? Spurs have had two utterly forgettable Champions League campaigns since Pochettino was dismissed. The first one, which Pochettino himself started, ended with last-16 elimination to RB Leipzig in 2020, just before the pandemic. The second, under Conte, ended with him replacing Dejan Kulusevski with Davinson Sanchez, the moment that lost him the faith of the crowd. Spurs lost 1-0 to AC Milan in the last 16 without ever making any impression on the tie. It made you wonder what the whole point of being back in that competition even was.

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Put it all together and the total is not very much. Of course, the last five years have not been plain sailing off the pitch. The pandemic hit at the worst possible time, less than one year after the opening of the new stadium. It cost them an estimated £200million ($250m) in lost revenue before the stadium fully reopened in August 2021. While the pandemic impacted clubs at every level, it was especially painful for one who had just opened a new £1.2billion stadium and was relying on increased matchday revenues.

But this is more than just a bad-luck story. And November 19, 2019, was about more than just replacing one manager with another. The change was necessary and inevitable by that stage. The vibes at the club had been broken by the defeat to Liverpool. No one had returned from pre-season with any enthusiasm or motivation. The team had gone stale and the summer signings (including Ndombele and Lo Celso) had arrived too late to make a difference. The players were fed up and Pochettino had lost his energy. The milk had gone sour and there was little Daniel Levy could do to make it good again.

Some fans argue that Pochettino should have been backed and retained, but the moment to back him was the summer of 2017 or 2018. The whole Pochettino project effectively ended with Moussa Sissoko’s handball in Madrid. With hindsight, it would have made more sense to part ways that night, win or lose. Ending it six months later was a blessing for both parties.

Perhaps the mistake was not in sacking Pochettino, but in throwing out the logic of Pochettino. It was more than just a managerial change, it was a pivot in the organisation’s whole strategy. After five years of patience and organic building, Tottenham started to act differently. They had just opened the best modern stadium in world football. They had just reached the Champions League final. They saw themselves as a ‘superclub’ and wanted to act accordingly. How better to achieve those goals than to replace their manager with Jose Mourinho?

So much of what has happened at Tottenham in the last five years can be viewed through that prism. The Amazon documentary, the European Super League, the appointment of Fabio Paratici and then Conte — these are the moves of a club that wants to be among the biggest in Europe.

It has only been in the last 18 months that Tottenham seem to have remembered how they got to 2019 in the first place. The appointment of Ange Postecoglou in 2023 was an attempt to get back to some of the values of the Pochettino era. Appointing a manager for whom this job was the peak of their career, rather than a payday after their earlier achievements. Trying to play a style of football that the fans wanted to see. Generating the unity between players, fans and club that had been missing.

At points under Postecoglou, you can sense some of that energy and togetherness is returning, but there have been plenty of moments recently — not least Ipswich — when the team has failed, and it has felt as if all the angst and frustration of the last five years has risen to the surface. No one knows how the Postecoglou era will work out but it has no chance if the players, decision-makers and fans do not show patience.

The question is whether the last few years have left everyone too restless to try. Is there any way back onto the path they turned off five years ago?

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(Top photo: Pochettino in November 2019; by Justin Setterfield via Getty Images)

Tottenham Hotspur are expecting midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur to be hit with a lengthy ban over comments he made relating to team-mate Son Heung-min.

Bentancur was charged with an alleged breach of Football Association (FA) rules in September over the comments.

The 27-year-old apologised after saying that South Korea international Son and his cousins “all look the same” on television programme Por la Camiseta, which is broadcast in his native Uruguay.

Bentancur said of the Spurs club captain, “Sonny, or a cousin of Sonny, they all look the same”. He later issued an apology to Son on social media while also doing so privately.

“Sonny, brother! I am sorry for what happened, it was a joke in bad taste,” Bentancur wrote. “You know that I love you and I would never disrespect you or hurt you or anyone. I love you brother!”

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Bentancur was accused of acting “in an improper manner and/or used abusive and/or insulting words and/or brought the game into disrepute.” The FA added in a statement that the charge further constitutes an “aggravated breach” under FA Rule E3.2, as it allegedly involved references to nationality, race, or ethnic origin.”

The exact length of the suspension is yet to be communicated but is expected to be significant and take in a number of matches.

Tottenham’s upcoming Premier League games include meetings with Manchester City, Fulham, Bournemouth, Chelsea, Southampton and Liverpool while they also face Manchester United in a Carabao Cup quarter-final in December.

Speaking later in September, Son said that Bentancur had “almost cried” when formally apologising for his comments.

“The process is with the FA and that’s why I can’t say much about it, but I love Rodrigo,” Son said. “I repeat: I love him, I love him.

“We had a lot of good memories, we started playing together when he joined. He apologised straight afterwards, you know, when we had a holiday.

“I was at home and I didn’t even realise what was going on. He just sent me a long text message that you could feel was coming from his heart. Afterwards, when he came back to the training ground for pre-season, he just like felt really sorry and almost like cried when he apologised publicly and also personally as well. It felt like he feels really sorry.”

Bentancur has featured in 10 of 11 Premier League games for Tottenham this season, missing the 4-0 victory over Everton due to a head injury sustained in the previous match, a draw against Leicester City. He has also appeared in three of their four Europa League matches.

(Malcolm Couzens/Getty Images)

Tottenham Hotspur have played a cruel trick on their supporters this season. Every time Ange Postecoglou’s side appear to take a huge step forward, they stumble the following week.

It happened just before the October international break, when they recorded what felt like a statement 3-0 victory against Manchester United at Old Trafford only to then throw away a two-goal lead over Brighton to lose 3-2 in their next fixture. In their first game after that window, Spurs ripped West Ham United apart 4-1, then feebly lost 1-0 at Crystal Palace.

Getting beaten 2-1 at home by Ipswich Town — the promoted visitors’ first top-flight win since 2002 — on Sunday, a week after demolishing top-four rivals Aston Villa 4-1 on the same pitch, is the latest instalment in this series.

Tottenham have only won back-to-back league games once this season. It is a pattern which they need to correct quickly if they want to be successful and fulfil Postecoglou’s so-far-factual statement that he “always wins trophies” in his second year at a club.

The underlying data suggests Spurs are a much better team than this time last year, when they won eight of Postecoglou’s first 10 league games following his summer arrival from Scotland’s Celtic. They score more goals and do not concede as many. They win the ball high up the pitch regularly and have become better at playing out from the back. Their squad has more quality and the players in it are fitter.

But it is difficult to keep preaching about the different ways they have improved when they have lost five times in 11 outings. This is still a young group overall, with significant room for growth, but the expectations are higher now.

Tottenham have a bizarre habit of letting their visitors take the lead — which feels unsustainable if they want to challenge for a top-four finish.

Since the start of last season, they have conceded the opening goal at home on 14 occasions — more than any other Premier League side, apart from Manchester United. They seem to enjoy making life difficult for themselves. Sammie Szmodics’ overhead kick was an impressive piece of skill but Jens Cajuste should never have been allowed the time and space to weigh up a cross into the box, and Brennan Johnson should have done more to challenge the Ipswich forward for the ball.

To give them some credit, Spurs have recovered from conceding the first goal to win 10 times (this includes away fixtures) under Postecoglou, which is the joint-most in the league, with Manchester City. They had a “mountain to climb” on this occasion though, because Ipswich scored a second.

The move for that goal actually started when goalkeeper Arijanet Muric’s pass was intercepted by Pape Sarr. Tottenham had around five players in and around the penalty area but Son Heung-min’s cross was cleared and Ipswich then cut through them on the counter. It was baffling how Spurs first threw away a great chance and ended up conceding.

Postecoglou constantly tinkers with the make-up of his midfield. In recent weeks, he has preferred Sarr to partner Dejan Kulusevski instead of James Maddison, while either Yves Bissouma or Rodrigo Bentancur acts as the holding midfielder. Sarr is combative in midfield and his runs from deep stretch defences, while Maddison’s creativity is his biggest asset.

On Sunday, Postecoglou did not make his first substitution until the 66th minute, when Sarr picked up a knock and was replaced by Timo Werner. And although Maddison played poorly in Thursday’s 3-2 Europa League defeat to Galatasaray in Istanbul, he should have been given more than 10 minutes to make an impact yesterday.

Spurs had 66 per cent possession in the game but apart from Pedro Porro’s corner which led to Bentancur’s goal, they did not give Ipswich too many problems. Ipswich manager Kieran McKenna said in his press conference that the pace of Liam Delap and Omari Hutchinson on the counter prevented Tottenham from completely trapping his side in their own territory.

Ipswich kept Tottenham at a safe distance and forced them to shoot from long range. Getting Maddison’s passing range on the pitch before his 84th-minute arrival would surely have helped them pose a bigger threat.

There have been too many times during this campaign when Postecoglou has described his team’s performance as passive. Is it an interesting quirk that all of their victories in the league have been by at least three goals, or is it a sign that when opponents frustrate them and prevent them from playing expansively, they struggle to find alternative ways to score?

The display against Ipswich was a mirror image of that Palace defeat and the second half of their 1-1 away draw with Leicester City in August.

Postecoglou rejected the suggestion that his squad are finding it difficult to juggle the Premier League and Europe. They did not return from Turkey until Friday morning, but he believes they are finishing games strongly, which would not be the case if they were fatigued. Although he did speak about how up and down their form has been.

“That’s down to me,” Postecoglou said. “That’s my responsibility. The inconsistency we’re having this year, ultimately it comes down to me and my approach and it’s something I need to try and fix and see if I can help the players in that area.”

This is the third international break in a row Tottenham have gone into on the back of a defeat.

Postecoglou now has a couple of weeks to fix things before they face Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium on November 23 in the clubs’ next match.

It wouldn’t be a huge surprise if they beat City for the second time in a few weeks, following the recent Carabao Cup tie. But while this team are capable of producing some thrilling performances, any chance of significant progress is being held back by their inconsistency.

(Top photo: Clive Rose/Getty Images)

Tottenham Hotspur fell to a shock 2-1 defeat to Ipswich Town on Sunday afternoon.

Sammie Szmodics put the visitors ahead in the 31st minute. The ball dropped to him in the area and he hit an overhead kick, firing the ball past Guglielmo Vicario. Liam Delap then poked the ball home to double Ipswich’s lead.

Spurs seemed to have halved the lead in the 49th minute, only for Dominic Solanke’s goal to be chalked off for a handball by the video assistant referee. Rodrigo Bentancur pulled one back in the 69th minute, but Ipswich held out and collected the three points.

Here, The Athletic’s Jay Harris analyses the game and what it means for Spurs.

What does this defeat say about Tottenham?

Before kick-off, Tottenham supporters would have been forgiven for getting carried away thinking about where their team could be in the table after this weekend’s round of fixtures.

With Chelsea and Arsenal facing each other later, if Tottenham won they would have leapfrogged their London rivals and jumped into the top four. Spurs have been guilty of erratic performances this season but following up last weekend’s victory over Aston Villa by beating Ipswich would have been a strong sign they are becoming more consistent.

Instead, they head into the second international break in a row on the back of a defeat. They have lost five out of their 11 league matches. It will especially sting that Crystal Palace and Ipswich earned their first, and only, league victories this season over Spurs.

Things will not get any easier when the players return from international duty. Spurs’ next game is away at Manchester City before they face Fulham, Bournemouth and Chelsea. They had a great opportunity to build momentum on Sunday but failed to take it.

Slow starts are not sustainable

Tottenham’s bizarre habit of letting their opponents take the lead continued on Sunday afternoon. Since the start of last season, they have conceded the opening goal on 14 occasions at home — more than any other side apart from Manchester United (also 14). It makes you feel like this team only moves out of second gear when faced with jeopardy.

Most of the time, they find a way out of trouble. Tottenham’s squad is deeper and the players are much fitter than last season. Opponents struggle to match Spurs’ intensity for 90 minutes, which means gaps open up in the second half. The prime example came in last month’s 4-1 victory over West Ham United when they scored three times in 15 minutes after the break. Under Ange Postecoglou, they have recovered to win after conceding first on 10 occasions in the league, the most alongside Manchester City.

The problem is that constantly giving your opponents an early advantage does not feel sustainable. It means Spurs have to chase the game and commit more players forward. This risks leaving them exposed defensively, which is exactly what happened for Ipswich’s second goal. Pape Matar Sarr intercepted Arijanet Muric’s awful goal kick but when Ipswich recovered the ball lots of Tottenham’s attacking players were caught out of position. They ended up causing their own problems.

Is Son fully fit yet?

Son Heung-min has struggled with his fitness this season due to a persistent hamstring injury. He was perplexed when he was taken off after an hour during the 4-1 victory over Aston Villa last weekend but Postecoglou insisted that was always the plan as they carefully manage his workload. Son produced a fantastic assist for Brennan Johnson against Villa and showed flashes of his brilliance against Ipswich on Sunday but it is clear he needs more time to regain his sharpness.

Son looked electric in the opening 10 minutes. He whipped a cross into the box from which Johnson should have scored and then he weaved past multiple defenders before curling a shot that Arijanet Muric saved.

In the second half, as Spurs grew frustrated in their search for an equaliser, he was guilty of shooting from long distance on multiple occasions. Muric tipped the South Korea international’s first effort over the bar but the rest were not even close to being on target. The 32-year-old is still one of this team’s best players but it is important to remember as he grows older that it will take him a bit longer to return to his top level after injury and he cannot save Tottenham every week.

What next for Tottenham Hotspur?

Saturday, November 23: Manchester City (Away), Premier League, 5.30pm UK, 12.30pm ET

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(Top photo: Henry Nicholls/AFP via Getty Images)

The Football Association (FA) has charged Tottenham Hotspur in relation to homophobic chanting during their Premier League game against Manchester United in September.

The Athletic reported from the game that the “Chelsea rent boy” chant — a homophobic slur aimed at the west London club’s current and former players and fans — was heard coming from the Spurs fans’ section at Old Trafford around the same time as Mason Mount’s introduction as a substitute.

Another chant, relating to striker Dominic Solanke and Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta, was also heard.

An FA statement confirming the charge said it’s alleged that Tottenham failed to prevent fans from “using words… with either an express or implied reference to sexual orientation”.

The two breaches of FA Rule E21 for misconduct in relation to crowd control are alleged to have taken place in the 49th and 76th minute of the match, which Tottenham won 3-0.

The north London club said they were aware of the “abhorrent homophobic chanting” in a statement following the game.

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The statement added: “We will be working closely with the police and stewards to identify anyone instigating or joining in with the chanting — we shall take the strongest possible action in accordance with our sanctions and banning policy.”

In January 2023, the FA added homophobic chanting to its list of rule breaches and said it can pursue action against clubs whose supporters use them at matches.

In 2022, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) confirmed that it considered the term a homophobic slur and therefore a hate crime.

Spurs have until Wednesday, November 13, to respond to the charge.

(Mike Hewitt/Getty Images)

Tottenham Hotspur vice-captain Cristian Romero has avoided a serious injury but forward Richarlison faces a “little while” out with a left hamstring problem.

Romero and Richarlison sustained injuries during Tottenham’s 4-1 Premier League win over Aston Villa on Sunday. Both had to be withdrawn in the second half, with Richarlison playing fewer than 20 minutes having come on early in the half for Son Heung-min.

Richarlison posted about his injury on social media earlier on Wednesday and Spurs head coach Ange Postecoglou gave an update on his squad when speaking ahead of Thursday’s Europa League game at Galatasaray.

“From the weekend, Richarlison, unfortunately, injured his hamstring, we’re still getting all the information, but he’ll be out for a little while,” Postecoglou said. “Romero… nothing too serious, hopefully, so still a chance for the weekend.

“Timo (Werner) has been carrying a bit of a groin complaint, which is still there, so he didn’t travel. Mikey Moore picked up a bit of a virus yesterday, so we left him at home as well. Everyone else who is fit and eligible is here.”

Romero had injured himself when he fouled Villa’s Matty Cash, with both players having to go off and the Argentine booked. Richarlison appeared to suffer his problem while setting up Dominic Solanke for Spurs’ third goal.

“Difficult moment that will be overcome again,” Richarlison posted. “Was very happy training and playing. And suddenly the injury comes again. Hard to talk at a time like this. I only ask that you pray for me and that God gives me protection.”

Tottenham are already down one central defender with Romero’s first-choice partner Micky van de Ven not expected to return until after the international break with a right hamstring injury.

Following the trip to Turkey, Tottenham host Ipswich Town on Sunday ahead of the November break.

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Angeball is working: The numbers suggest Spurs are improving on last season

(Photos: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)

Think back to this time last year. After 10 Premier League games, Ange Postecoglou looked like he could walk on water.

Tottenham Hotspur had started the season, started the whole Postecoglou era, better than anyone could ever have expected. Eight wins, two draws, 26 points, top of the table, on top of the world. They were playing a brand of football their fans had been dreaming of for years — dazzlingly bright light after years in the footballing darkness.

It felt vaguely miraculous. Everyone was prepared for early-season teething pains, a learning curve, getting used to life without Harry Kane. But Spurs had skipped all that. They started as if they had been doing this for years. Postecoglou looked like he had fixed the whole football club within weeks of arriving from Scottish champions Celtic.

Compare that to where Tottenham are today.

You can just take a quick look at the league table. At this point in 2023, Spurs were two points clear of Arsenal and Manchester City. They were picking up points so fast, they were on track for a 98-point season — which would have been their best ever, by a distance.

But now? Spurs are seventh, with 16 points, 10 fewer than they had 10 games into last season. They are seven points behind champions City and nine adrift of first-placed Liverpool. Last season they were leading the field, with only open road ahead of them. Now there are faster cars they will somehow have to catch up to.

The honeymoon period of Postecoglou at Tottenham — which lasted almost three months — is over. The halo effect has dissipated. The Australian has lost his sheen of divinity. He stands in front of Spurs fans now as a flawed, human figure, as contested as any manager in the club’s past. Many of the fans still love him. Some are impatient with him, as the reaction to last month’s away defeats at Brighton and Crystal Palace showed. Plenty are caught in the middle.

But just because Tottenham have not started this season as well as they did the previous one, it does not necessarily follow that they are a worse team today than they were last November. In fact, take a look under the bonnet and you will see that Spurs are better now than they were at this stage of last season. More shots, more xG per game and more goals scored; fewer shots conceded, fewer xG conceded, fewer goals conceded. They lose the ball less in their own defensive third, and win more high turnovers than ever before. By every useful metric, they are a better team now than 12 months ago.

Remember that 2023-24 was about more than just those first 10 games. As thrilling as they were, Spurs probably overperformed during that hot-streak start. Half of their eight wins were by single-goal margins. They benefited hugely from a VAR error against Liverpool in one of those four matches. And when things went wrong — starting with the 4-1 home defeat against Chelsea a year ago today — they took months to recover.

What stands out about that Monday night now, with the benefit of hindsight, was how brittle Tottenham were.

They lost Micky van de Ven to a hamstring injury and James Maddison to an ankle problem, while Cristian Romero and Destiny Udogie were both sent off. Of course, any team would suffer from losing four in-form first-teamers during one game under any circumstances. Especially given that Van de Ven would be out for two months and Maddison almost three. But Postecoglou soon found himself having to call on players who would not otherwise have been starters: Eric Dier, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, Emerson Royal, Giovani Lo Celso, Bryan Gil. None of those five are still at the club (although Gil is only out on loan, at Girona in La Liga).

The team today is far more recognisably Postecoglou’s than it was last season.

Tottenham have not had a crisis comparable to that one so far this year, and when they have had injuries they have coped. They look less reliant on their best individuals than they were last season.

Van de Ven got injured early on against Manchester City a week ago but Radu Dragusin has comfortably slotted in for the two games since. Son Heung-min has missed games — and has not always looked 100 per cent when he has been available — but Spurs have found a way to score goals in his absence. Maddison, on whom the team almost looked too dependent at the start of last season, has not started the past two games. But with a different tactical balance, his colleagues found a way to win them both.

To see how much stronger the squad is now, just compare that Carabao Cup win over City last Wednesday with the FA Cup defeat against them in January.

That Friday night, City brought on Belgium internationals Jeremy Doku and Kevin De Bruyne in the second half. Postecoglou brought on reserve midfielder Oliver Skipp, Maddison to end his long lay-off and then teenager Dane Scarlett. City scored the winner with two minutes left.

Last week, Postecoglou turned to Udogie after Van de Ven’s first-half injury, then Yves Bissouma at half-time to help his team regain a footing in midfield, then Ben Davies to protect Romero, and finally Richarlison and Mikey Moore to maintain Spurs’ threat on the break. Spurs won 2-1, and should have scored more goals in the second half than they did. The difference in depth is there for all to see.

So last week, Postecoglou was asked whether Spurs were a better team now than they had been during their eye-catching start to his debut season. He admitted that he knew last season’s miraculous early form would never last, and that Tottenham are far more robust now.

“We’re more consistent in our football, more consistent in our performances,” Postecoglou told reporters. “The results last year were great and we were playing with a lot of enthusiasm and real energy. I knew that wasn’t sustainable and pretty quickly we found that out, for several reasons. Whereas this year we’ve already had injury disruptions and handled them a lot better. We’ve got a more well-rounded squad to handle what’s ahead of us. We’ve got a heavier games programme, but we’ve held together. We’re in a better place — but we need to be.”

So what does this better place look like?

Check out this table for starters, which shows how Tottenham compare between this season and the previous one. In all the key metrics, they are better now than they were then…

Let’s start with the ball.

‘Angeball’ is nothing if it is not a plan for proactive attacking football. It exists to create chances and score goals. And at times last season, it looked perfectly calibrated for that. But as the season went on, Spurs started to get bogged down. They stopped cutting through opponents, and by the end just resembled any other Premier League team who wanted to keep the ball and play through the thirds.

Of course, 10 games into this season is not a big data set, and we know from last year’s experience that it is not necessarily predictive of the remaining (almost) three-quarters of the season. But, so far, Spurs are the best attacking team in the division.

They have scored the most Premier League goals, with 22, ahead of Manchester City (21) and Chelsea (20). If you think that is too subject to variance and would rather look at expected goals (xG), you will find Spurs are also top there — their 20.13 xG (or 2.01 per game) puts them narrowly ahead of City (20.07), with a gap to third-placed Liverpool (18.43). Or if you want to look at simple total shots, Spurs are second to City, with 172 to their 197.

Compare this to the recent past and you can see the huge improvement.

If Spurs stay just above 2.0 xG per game, that will be by far their best record in the time for which we have solid data. Last season, they averaged 1.81 xG per game — this is 11 per cent better than that. Even in the peak Mauricio Pochettino years, the average was significantly lower: 1.72 in 2017-18, 1.68 in 2016-17.

So what explains Spurs’ improvements?

When Postecoglou was discussing this last week he said that “players have developed in the last 12 months to another level” and he mentioned two in particular: Brennan Johnson and Dejan Kulusevski.

Last season, those two effectively rotated at the same position on the right wing, although Johnson played a few games on the left, and Kulusevski filled in as a midfielder during the autumn injury crisis.

This time, the thinking has been much clearer. Johnson is the first-choice right-winger, trusted to play high and wide and stretch opponents. Kulusevski has made himself first choice as the right-sided No 8, driving Tottenham forward through the middle of the pitch. Johnson has seven goals already in all competitions and is showing the confidence that comes with always being in the team. Kulusevski also looks liberated by the new role. With two goals and five assists in 15 appearances, he has been comfortably their best player.

This simple change has unlocked Spurs overall. If you look at this graphic below using The Athletic’s playstyle metrics — which outlines how a team look to play compared with Europe’s top seven domestic leagues — you can see they are more efficient in their use of the ball this season. They circulate the ball less (Circulate: 68 out of 99) and attack faster (Patient attack: 83 out of 99). And with a more orthodox winger on the right, rather than someone who always wants to drift inside, they play more through wide areas, progressing the ball through the middle far less often (Central progression: 35 out of 99).

That graphic also points to another big improvement from last season to this one: they are far better at chance prevention (measured by non-penalty xG conceded per 90) than they used to be.

Looking firstly at goals conceded, Spurs are on 11 from their 10 games, joint-fourth best in the league behind Liverpool, Nottingham Forest and Newcastle. If we go by xG conceded per game, they are a bit further back in seventh, although on shots conceded they are joint second-best, alongside Liverpool and behind only City.

This is an even more dramatic improvement than in Tottenham’s attacking numbers. Last season, they were too defensively porous to achieve anything, especially vulnerable against both set pieces and counter-attacks. They conceded 61 goals, more than twice as many as Arsenal (29), even more than Crystal Palace (who finished 10th), Everton (15th) and Manchester United (eighth). Conceding 1.7 xG per game was their poorest return in Opta history, even worse than the brief Nuno Espirito Santo era (1.42), the start to 2019-20 that doomed Pochettino (1.50) or Jose Mourinho’s share of that same season (1.44).

But now that number has come down to 1.16, and Spurs have a solid defensive base again. They have clearly tightened up on set pieces, and even though they conceded from a corner against Aston Villa on Sunday, their overall record in those situations is better than it was last season — they have scored more than they have conceded on set pieces so far.

There have been moments when Spurs have been cut through on the counter — especially against Leicester and Newcastle at the start of the season — but they are better in these situations too. This was something Van de Ven pointed to during a press conference before the Europa League game against AZ Alkmaar when asked to compare 2024-25 Tottenham with last season’s version.

“This season, we have more control of the games,” Van de Ven said. “Last season, you saw in a lot of games that we lost control a little bit. Also, when we lost the ball we were quite open and got a lot of counter-attacks. We know better positions for the players and I think players help each other more than maybe we did last season.”

This is clearly a reference to Spurs’ organisation without the ball, and by eye this is better now than it was last year. Tottenham’s PPDA figure is also down, meaning that they press with more intensity and allow opponents less time on the ball.

Put all of this data together and you can see they are far better at both ends of the pitch than they were last year. They are comfortably in xG credit, in the sense that their xG-for far outstrips their xG-against.

The next graph shows that Spurs’ xG credit now is better even than it was in the peak Pochettino years. The only time it was better than it has been this season was during Antonio Conte’s part of the 2021-22 season, as he took over a team going nowhere in early November and propelled them up into a fourth-place finish. This is what a team functioning well looks like. Far more so than going on a hot streak, like Tottenham did at the start of last season.

Remember too that these figures are for Premier League games.

So far this season, Spurs have had 10 of those, with another five in the cups — two in the Carabao Cup and three in the Europa League. They have won all five of those latter fixtures, a feat of resource allocation that Tottenham never had to concern themselves with in 2023-24.

So where will this take them?

Of course, this team are still far from perfect. Their away form is inconsistent, winning just one of their five league games on the road. That may eventually be the difference between finishing in the top four and not. Only time will tell whether the second-half collapse from two up at Brighton to lose 3-2 was a freak occurrence or something more fundamental.

But what we can say from our limited vantage point is that Tottenham look more complete, more robust, more identifiably belonging to the manager than they did last year. They have the depth to change games and maybe even to survive bumps along the road. They are better with the ball and without it than they were last season, and going forward they are better than any Spurs team of recent years.

Nobody knows where this season will end up but if there is another disaster along the way, like that Chelsea game one year ago, they look better equipped to survive it.

And while they have not flown out of the blocks this season, they might just be picking up speed.

Additional reporting: Mark Carey, Duncan Alexander

(Photos: Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)

English non-League side Harborough Town have announced the signing of former Tottenham Hotspur and Queens Park Rangers midfielder Sandro.

Sandro had retired from football in September 2023 at the age of 34, having also played for Internacional, West Bromwich Albion and Antalyaspor, as well as the Brazil national team.

Harborough manager Mitch Austin told the club’s website that he had a “chance conversation” with Sandro which led to the 35-year-old signing for the seventh-tier side.

Harborough have made headlines in recent weeks after beating National League South side Tonbridge Angels in the first round of the FA Cup, setting up a second-round tie against League One Reading on November 30.

“What an unbelievable signing for the club, I really cannot express how I am feeling,” Austin, a Tottenham fan, said. “I had a chance conversation with Sandro a couple of weeks ago and we got talking about football, told him about Harborough Town FC and the journey we are on and he has been messaging me ever since to sign on.

“Totally unbelievable and gobsmacked is how I would describe this signing. These sort of signings don’t happen every day but when you get a chance to sign an ex-professional footballer who has played at the highest level in the Premier League and Internationally with Brazil, you just cannot turn it down.”

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Sandro: 'I get goosebumps just talking about Tottenham'

Sandro made 105 appearances for Tottenham and told the club’s official podcast that he was working on his coaching badges when he retired. He was part of the Spurs side which reached the quarter-finals of the Champions League in 2010-11.

Sandro also spent time in Italy later in his career, playing for Benevento, Genoa and Udinese in 2018 and 2019. He then spent time at Brazilian side Goias and Portuguese club B-SAD.

“Credit to Sandro, he has kept himself really fit and is an absolutely great guy, down to earth, who when the chairman and I met with him came across very genuine, polite and humble, you could really sense there was a real desire to get the signing done on his part, I am absolutely delighted to have him at our club,” Austin added.

“I think the players and staff around the club can learn great things from him and develop and watch his professionalism and understand what is needed if they want to progress and play at the highest possible level of the game. However long he stays we will all become better for it.”

(Jamie McDonald/Getty Images)