Tottenham Hotspur put in a woeful display this afternoon against a hard-working Leicester City side, with the visitors running the Lilywhites off the park throughout.
Let’s take a look at the five things we learned from the 2-0 defeat –
Dropped points three times in a row – Crystal Palace. Liverpool. Leicester City. After so much great work against Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea, Spurs have undone their hard-fought progress over the past weak with some soft performances. No sooner than the Lilywhites were labelled as title contenders, they fell away again. Too early to be dramatic but the players need to refind their early form once more after what was arguably their worst performance of the season.
The old Serge Aurier – What on Earth was he doing? I thought that we had seen the back of this Serge Aurier but he certainly reared his head this afternoon. With the Leicester attacker going nowhere, he decided to ignore the ball and shove his man in the back for the simplest of penalties. After such a great start to the season, he did not cover himself in glory there.
More subs a bonus – This is the first time we have seen the new sub rule in a Spurs game, with an extra two spots on the bench. It certainly can’t do any harm in terms of options and keeping the squad morale up. For example, there were spots for Vinicius, Winks and Bale today when normally there may only be room for one.
Dele misses out – It seems to be one step forward and two steps back for Dele Alli at Spurs this season. Just as he clawed his way back into the matchday XI and got two cameos on the pitch, he is dropped again. Even with the two extra spots on the bench, there was no room for him today. Very strange and perhaps sends mixed messages to the man himself.
Bale is back – Gareth Bale returned from illness to make the bench today for the first time in a couple of weeks. The Welshman missed games against Crystal Palace and Liverpool and will now have to work his way into Mourinho’s starting XI plans again.
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