Daniel Storey: Arsenal loss may cost Spurs a top-four place
Tottenham Hotspur manager Jose Mourinho greets Harry Kane after the final whistle. Picture: Nick Potts/PA Wire.
Tottenham pay the price for their lack of ambition
It seemed as if Erik Lamela’s sending-off actually helped Tottenham. With nothing to lose, they finally poured forward in search of an equaliser. Arsenal, with the numerical advantage, decided that they could defend deep and sit on what they had. Harry Kane hit the post and had a goal disallowed.
But where was this Tottenham in the first 75 minutes of the north London derby? They have fired their way back into form through front-foot, attacking football and scored freely. And yet when facing an Arsenal team that have repeatedly succumbed to pressure (and were without one of their best counter-attacking weapons in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang) they sat deep and barely even tried to push forward. Erik Lamela’s fabulous Rabona was their only shot in the first hour of the match.
That plan was particularly odd because Jose Mourinho still left themselves open at the back. What’s the point in picking Gareth Bale if you aren’t going to try and service him? Yet him staying high up the pitch leaves the struggling Matt Doherty to face an overload with Kieran Tierney and Emile Smith-Rowe doubling up on him. It may have cost Tottenham a top-four place.
Burnley secure another season in the sun
Every season I fall for it. I look at Burnley’s lack of transfer activity, Sean Dyche’s stubbornness to persevere with the same formation and style, and I persuade myself this is the year that Burnley get pulled deep into trouble.
Every season that prediction looks sound. After 22 games in 2018/19, Burnley were 18th. After 22 games in 2019/20, they had lost four league games on the spin and dropped to 15th, four points above the bottom two. After 22 games of this campaign they were 17th, punished for a terrible start to the season during which they took two points from their opening seven matches.
And yet here Burnley are again. No manager is as good as Dyche at rallying his troops for a late-season surge that takes them away from trouble; he’s repeated it too many times to be a fluke. Saturday’s win at Goodison probably secures Burnley’s safety for another season.
Never normalise just how impressive this achievement is. Burnley are about to enjoy their fifth straight top-flight campaign, something this club haven’t done since 1971. At precisely the time that English football’s financial inequality makes it so hard for provincial clubs to consistently punch above their weight, Dyche has done it better than anyone else.
Allardyce experiment has failed
The suspicion when Sam Allardyce took the West Brom job was that his choice was based not on the fact they provided a realistic shot at salvaging a dented reputation but because they were the first club to ask.
So it has proved. It will take an almighty escapology act to pull West Brom out of trouble now. Their recent run of fixtures — Burnley, Brighton, Everton, Newcastle, Crystal Palace — offered Allardyce the chance to gain some momentum in their survival fight. They really needed 10 points or more; they took five.
Allardyce’s initial problem was that West Brom conceded too many goals — 24 in his first eight matches. He changed tack and tried to make them defensively resilient, and largely succeeded. But that only created a new problem: West Brom have scored three goals in their last eight league games. And there’s no persuasive evidence that he will find the right balance quickly enough.
Everton undone again by their inconsistencies
It’s probably a matter of personal preference, but there is a strong argument that coming oh-so-close to realising your potential but being undone by several frustrating flaws is less enjoyable than getting nowhere close. That is the dilemma Everton fans must wrestle with.
Everton have the fourth best away record in the Premier League this season. They beat Chelsea and Arsenal at Goodison and have taken four points from Liverpool and Leicester. They have an excellent young centre forward, the mercurial talents of James Rodriguez and Richarlison and one of the best full-backs in the country in Lucas Digne.
And yet the overriding emotion will be one of deep exasperation. Everton will likely not make the top four and may even miss out on the top six, and Saturday’s defeat to Burnley is emblematic. Carlo Ancelotti’s side have taken one point from four games against Newcastle and Burnley, lost to three of the bottom six at Goodison, and all season have contrived to burst their own bubble of self-confidence.
Sheffield United begin the post-Wilder era
For all the merits of keeping Chris Wilder or letting him go, Bramall Lane will be a worse place without him.
Football managers are long used to being made victims of their own success, but none more so than Wilder. Were Sheffield United seventh in the Championship, perhaps having been promoted from League One in 2017/18 after his second season in charge, there could be no complaints. Wilder would not change 2018/19 and 2019/20 for the world, but it did create unrealistic expectations.
This was not a straightforward departure. Sheffield United’s owners believe a director of football would allow Wilder to focus solely on on-pitch matters and his record in the transfer market is sketchy. The club signed three strikers for north of £50m in the last two years and they have scored one goal this season.
But then Sheffield United always felt like a club dancing on a makeshift stage. The training ground, the wage budget, and the stadium facilities are all Championship standard. In that context, was it really fair to expect Wilder to hold back the tide indefinitely? And does it not create unrealistic expectations of whichever manager tries to follow such magnificent overperformance?
