Jose Mourinho boldly suggested last month that he was reluctant to fix Tottenham’s leaky defence for fear of blunting their free-scoring attack.
“I know how to do it,” the Spurs manager said ahead of the win over Brighton. “But to do it 100 per cent, I am going to take away from the team some qualities that we want to keep.”
Sure enough, Tottenham’s first away clean sheet in the Premier League since New Year’s Day 2019 was matched by a blank at the other end in Saturday’s drab goalless draw at Watford.
The visitors had Paulo Gazzaniga’s second-half penalty save from Troy Deeney to thank for the long-overdue milestone but, following a committed rearguard in the 1-0 defeat to Liverpool, Mourinho is finally making his mark on the defence.
“You only see us improving,” said centre-half Toby Alderweireld. “In the Liverpool game, I think we defended very well. Saturday, in a difficult moment we defended very well and a clean sheet, the first one in a while, so we’re going in the right direction.”
Japhet Tanganga has been part of the solution and the 20-year-old started a third consecutive match at Vicarage Road in an unfamiliar left-back role.
“He’s played three good games and Saturday on a yellow [card] quite quickly and a difficult opponent [in Ismaila Sarr], so that’s not easy, but I think he handled it very well,” said Alderweireld.
Conversely, Spurs have now failed to score in 195 Premier League minutes since Harry Kane hobbled off with a torn hamstring at Southampton on New Year’s Day.
While Mourinho made obvious attacking sacrifices against Liverpool, as Serge Aurier and Tanganga doubled up at right-back and Spurs defended in numbers, the visitors were more enterprising at Watford but sorely missed a finisher.
Lucas Moura and Heung-min Son seem to have swallowed Mourinho’s rhetoric about their inadequacies at centre-forward and both missed good chances, strengthening the manager’s case for a new target man this month.
In Pictures | Watford vs Tottenham | 18/01/2020
Brazil forward Lucas, who had a one-on-one opportunity with Ben Foster saved, said: “[It’s] frustrating because it was a good opportunity to score. I was waiting for this opportunity and I couldn’t enjoy and score. It happens. What can I say? I need to keep on working and wait for the next game.
“For sure, I want to score, I work to score and I try to score every time, but for me the most important thing is to win games. We know that we don’t have a player like Harry Kane, he’s the only real striker in the squad. When I play in this position, I try to do my best and try to give the team my characteristics. I think everyone is trying to score and to win games.”
For Mourinho, the answer to success at both ends of the pitch may ultimately lie in the middle. The Portuguese continued to experiment with his midfield on Saturday in the hope of finding a winning formula, with Harry Winks and Giovani Lo Celso his eighth different pairing in 15 matches. While tidy, they struggled against Watford’s physical trio of Etienne Capoue, Abdoulaye Doucoure and Nathaniel Chalobah and failed to provide a platform for the forwards.
With Christian Eriksen edging towards a move to Inter Milan, Gedson Fernandes making a late debut and club-record signing Tanguy Ndombele nearing fitness, Mourinho is sure to try more combinations, perhaps starting with Wednesday’s visit of bottom-club Norwich, as he searches for the best balance.
With one League win in six attempts and eight points shy of fourth place, it is possible that the rest of Spurs’s season could ultimately become a period of trial and error, but Alderweireld is confident they will start winning again soon.
“I think we just try to improve our game — and I think we are,” he said. “If you see the last three games, we’re improving and that’s the way to go. If we work like this, play like this, I think the three points will start coming.”
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