After Selhurst, There Are More Questions Than Answers

I think it was Harold Wilson who famously said that "A week is a long time in politics." He supported Huddersfield Town and not Tottenham Hotspur but he could easily have been referencing seven days in the life of our club.

It only seems five minutes ago that West Ham were despatched, followed by an efficient home victory in the Europa League against AZ. As is quite usual for Spurs though, it all came crashing down yesterday in South London.

I don't think too many fans would have been disappointed with the starting line-up. In fact, in among the return of the Premier League regulars Ange selected Mickey Moore for his first league start in place of the chronically out of form Timo Werner. 

Mateta, the only one in the ground shocked how bad Spurs were.

We've recently seen the absolute classic Spurs performance at the Amex where they were terrific in the first half only to completely fall to pieces after half-time when Brighton upped the tempo. This week was different though because it was piss poor from start to finish. This would have been bad enough had it been the Crystal Palace of last season, but this year so far they hadn't won a game and have looked a shadow of themselves.

I have to go to work on Thursday night so I haven't got time to list everything that went wrong on the pitch. You couldn't give any body more than a five out of ten and then you'd be being generous. I mean Johnson hit the post, both Maddison and Kulusevski forced Henderson into half-decent saves but that's about the long and short of it. Meanwhile at the back they were frankly all over the place.

You'd think after all these years I'd be used to this. And the fact that I am probably tells you all you need to know. I should know better and stay off of social media after results like these because obviously the keyboard warriors are out in force. Online there's a growing feeling that this is mainly down to Ange. I don't buy this personally. Regardless of tactics, the players have to take responsibility, especially the senior ones, the so called 'Leadership Group'.

I'm not saying that Ange is totally faultless, but comparing him to the last two or three managers is pointless. Both Mourinho and Conte had prime Harry Kane and Son and couldn't win anything. And generally played mind numbingly poor football to boot.

Now being as its October and there's yet another International break on the horizon, club fixtures come thick and fast so before Villa next weekend there's the little matter of Manchester City at home on Wednesday in the Carabao Cup.  

Guardiola, now he's won a bit in his career, has said he'll have to seriously rotate his starting line-up, but will Spurs do the same or go close to full strength? My guess would be as good as anybody else's, in other words I have no idea. If it was me, I'd go as strong as possible because to win this match would be a real boost for the season. And it would get us one step closer to losing to Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool in the semi final, the usual outcome. Either that or we'll actually get to the final and sack Ange a couple of days beforehand.

Despite the efforts of ENIC, Spurs win the League Cup in 2008