The Table Doesn’t Lie: When did Tottenham become so boring?

Tottenham are fourth in the table after beating West Ham at the weekend, but their season hasn’t been pretty.

20. Crystal Palace (preseason prediction: 11th, difference, -9)
19. Bournemouth (8th, -11)
18. West Ham (10th, -8)
17. Leicester (15th, -2)
16. Stoke (16th, –)
15. Swansea (17th, +2)
14. Everton (7th, -7)
13. Brighton (20th, +7)
12. Arsenal (6th, -6)
11. Southampton (9th, -2)

Crystal Palace, who have spent the early season constructing a terrible little enclave for their fans in the seventh circle of hell, demand some attention. After six matches, the Eagles have no points and have scored no goals, and their next two games are against Manchester United and Chelsea. The situation doesn’t look good.

However! All hope is not yet lost. Traditionally, 40 points is considered the benchmark for survival, but it’s rarely that high. Over the past five seasons, the average points total required for survival (a point more than the 18th-place team) is 36. That number is probably a little skewed, since teams whose relegation is confirmed before the final day often give up, artificially deflating their points total.

But anyway, let’s say Palace need 36 points to avoid the drop. That means they need 36 points from 32 matches, or 1.125 a match. Over a full season, that’s 42.75 points, which would have been good for 14th place last season (which is, coincidentally, where Palace finished). If they lose their next two matches, as expected, Palace will need to average 1.2 points a game to reach 36, good for 45.6 over a full campaign, or 10th place last season.

These are achievable targets given the talent in the side, however haphazardly it might be assembled. Christian Benteke is a proven 15-goal-a-season striker, Wilfried Zaha will add some much-needed quality when he returns from injury and Mamadou Sakho will improve the defense significantly when he’s up to full speed. Ruben Loftus-Cheek has impressed so far under the circumstances, and could form the basis of a solid midfield alongside Luka Milivojevic and Yohan Cabaye.

Is Roy Hodgson the man to get the most out of this slightly top-heavy team? It doesn’t really matter, because his job is the same as the job of Sam Allardyce before him and Alan Pardew before him and Tony Pulis before that. His job is to do just enough to keep them in the division. He’s certainly capable of that. There are better teams, but there are also at least three that are worse.

However this season plays out, the lesson is that the people in charge of the club have little to no idea what they’re doing. A lot of Premier League teams have done a lot more with a lot less than Crystal Palace. If they survive, and it’s still a realistic possibility they do, it’s become clear that under the current leadership Eagles fans can hope for little more than a Sunderland-esque parade of narrow escapes.

10. West Brom (12th, +2)
9. Newcastle (14th, +5)
8. Burnley (19th, +11)
7. Huddersfield (18th, +11)
6. Watford (13th, +7)
5. Liverpool (3rd, -2)
4. Tottenham (4th, –)
3. Chelsea (5th, +2)
2. Manchester United (2nd, –)
1. Manchester City (1st, –)

Tottenham squeaked past West Ham 3-2 on Saturday, surviving a late Hammers onslaught after Serge Aurier was sent off for a second yellow card for an exceptionally stupid challenge on Andy Carroll in the 70th minute, with his side leading 3-1.

The win sees Spurs move up to fourth in the table on 11 points, behind only Chelsea and the Manchester clubs, and one place ahead of Liverpool on goal difference. It was also the latest piece of evidence in an increasingly compelling case Mauricio Pochettino’s side are among the most boring in the league.

This development is surprising for the same reason it’s possible, which is that Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Christian Eriksen are very, very good. So good they can be reliably left to their own devices while the remaining eight players on the pitch get on with the much less interesting task of keeping a clean sheet, or not, as was the case on Saturday.

There are two questions. First, is this boringness a feature or a bug? That is, are Tottenham simply taking their time to get up to speed, or does Pochettino’s preference for defensive solidity over attacking flair mean the most we can expect from his team in terms of entertainment value is whatever morsels of inspiration Kane, Alli and Eriksen throw our way? (Which morsels, by the way, are not to be sniffed at, as Roy Hodgson, among others, would surely be unhappy to remind you.)

Next: Ranking every Premier League season

There’s plenty of evidence it’s a bug. Namely, any number of the whirlwind attacking displays Spurs have offered up in the past couple of years. After all, they did score the most goals in the league last season. Then again, 13 of them came in the last two matches of the campaign, against a Leicester side with nothing to play for and a Hull one that had been relegated a week prior. But this isn’t really about goals. Tottenham managed three at the weekend, and no one’s likely to describe their performance as “exciting” or “expansive” or even “Liverpool-esque in its ratio of excitement to incompetence.”

The evidence it’s a feature begins with the evolving roles of Heung-min Son and Mousa Dembele. Son scored 21 goals in all competitions last season, and played so well the Kane-Alli-Eriksen trio appeared to have been rechristened as the Kane-Alli-Eriksen-Son quartet. The 25-year-old has started only two league matches this season, both as a left wing-back, as Pochettino’s preference for a back three has made his route to the starting XI increasingly difficult. Spurs see enough of the ball their wing-backs are often essentially playing as wingers anyway, but the balance of the attack is thrown ever-so-slightly off when one of the front four is saddled with the tactical responsibilities of a wing-back. Also, Son is not a wing-back.

Then there’s Dembele, who’s getting old and coming off surgery and apparently no longer able to start every week. This hurts Tottenham’s excitement quotient because of course it does. Dembele is an exquisite, improbable player, huge and silky and powerful and delicate. His runs through midfield are not only a pleasure to watch in their own right, but they also vastly increase the quality of Spurs’ transition from defense to attack, sucking in defenders and leaving more space for the front three. When Dembele’s not in the starting XI, the next man up appears at this point to be Moussa Sissoko. Which, well, hm, yes, ok, Moussa Sissoko.

There’s not a great deal Pochettino can do about Dembele getting old, but perhaps he should have seen it coming. Indeed, in light of Dembele’s shrinking role in the side, it’s worth dwelling for a moment on the club’s summer transfer activity. They bought two center-backs, a right-back to replace Kyle Walker and Fernando Llorente, who replaces Vincent Janssen (on loan at Fenerbahce) as Kane’s backup.

This despite the fact center-back was the area in which they were least in need of depth, with Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen ably supported by Eric Dier and Kevin Wimmer (who left for Stoke after never really being embraced by Pochettino). They tried to sign Ross Barkley, but not, by the looks of it, very hard (and with good reason, at the price Everton were asking).

This is not to criticize the players Tottenham bought. Davinson Sanchez has looked good, as has Aurier, idiotic nonsense tackles notwithstanding. Llorente hasn’t really, but let’s not overthink the importance of a 32-year-old substitute, at least not until Kane gets injured. (And in Tottenham’s defense, the group of players willing to move to a new club for the express purpose of sitting on the bench isn’t particularly accomplished). Then there’s Justin Foyth, who’s 19 and yet to play in the league, but will probably slot into the team seamlessly when his time comes, because Pochettino is a very good manager and his is a team set up for defenders to thrive.

Taken together, this adds up to a strong case Pochettino wants his side to be more effective than electric. All of which leads us to the second question about Tottenham being boring: should anybody care?

This is a difficult question when applied to a club whose identity has for so long been based on their being exciting and bad. And so their doing things like they did at the weekend — grinding out wins, even when they’re not playing particularly well — has mostly generated a positive response. Indeed, there’s a school of thought that among Pochettino’s many achievements in his three-plus seasons at Spurs, his biggest has been to instill in a young team the mean streak necessary to be legitimate title contenders.

And so it’s hard to be overly critical, given the progress the club have made in recent seasons. But if this new, improved, winning Tottenham means the end of the spirit of the old, fun, losing Tottenham, it’s worth pointing out, with regret, that something good has been lost as well as gained. To dare, it seems these days, is to don’t.