Spurs’ World Cup stars return with a win: 3 things we learned

While they just returned to training this week, Spurs’ World Cup stars produced two goals to lead them past a feisty Newcastle.

A wild first half made way for a cagey second, but Tottenham came out on top in their Premier League opener against Newcastle thanks to headed goals from Jan Vertonghen and Dele Alli. The Magpies caused some worry late, but couldn’t capitalize on a couple juicy opportunities. Here are three things we learned from the match.

Harry Kane still hates August, or is still not fit

Harry Kane scores goals 11 months out of the year. He scores them from all situations, through any number of different styles. Sometimes when his teammate scores, he still scores. He just doesn’t score in August.

For the man who was fastest to 100 Premier League goals, it seems odd he’s never found the back of the net in the opening month of the season. It hasn’t prevented him from putting up prolific numbers, but after a summer when, if you haven’t heard, Spurs acquired zero players in the transfer window, the club and their supporters were hoping to see him get off to a better start than in years past.

Spurs may have prevailed, but they did so without their star getting a goal. More alarming than the lack of goals was his overall performance. Kane spent the tail end of last season playing through an ankle injury, and his productivity fell of a cliff. His shots per game and xG both dropped off significantly. This match seemed like more of the same, as he never tested the keeper. There wasn’t much burst from the England captain, and there are lots of questions about this Spurs squad if he’s not able to recreate the form of the past couple seasons.

Spurs obviously depend on Kane for his goalscoring, but his pace and versatility help open up the other players in attack. It remains to be seen if this is just a notorious slow start from the striker, or if its a harbinger of things to come.

Questions remain about Newcastle’s attack

No one expected Newcastle to go straight from promotion to a mid-table finish. Nevertheless, Rafa Benitez worked his magic and pushed the club to 10th place by focusing on strong, organized defending. They were never able to find a striker that could put enough pressure on defenses to push them further up the table.

While Newcastle will never be throwing around massive sums of money in the transfer window, they did go out and look to acquire players that could, ya know, actually score some goals. Yoshinori Muto and Solomon Rondon came into the side to bolster the attack, but neither started.

Joselu got the call as the number 9 and rewarded his manager’s selection with an early goal on a beautiful cross from Matt Ritchie. That was about the only real chance he had, and he made way for new addition Rondon for the final half hour.

Rondon’s appearance created a period where Newcastle really pressured Spurs. There were a couple frantic moments in front of goal — which Hugo Lloris dealt with admirably — but their best chance came when Rondon had his shot deflected onto the crossbar. A missed tackle by Ben Davies left Rondon standing alone just inside the top of the box, but Jan Vertonghen denied him with an excellent block. Muto came in shortly after, and Newcastle threatened but never created a real chance, and it cost the Magpies points.

The middle of the table is littered with clubs who fancy themselves able to flirt with the Europa League spots. Newcastle want to build on their strong finish last season, but if they want to take a step forward, they’ll need to be more dangerous in front of goal. There are certainly positives to take, but someone has to lead the line and finish chances, or Newcastle could find themselves down the table.

Maybe Spurs’ new signing was the friends they made along the way

The past few days have been fraught with questions about Spurs transfer strategy. They became the first Premier League team to not add a player in the summer window since 2003. The club had clear holes to fill, and decided to just not fill them.

Manager Mauricio Pochettino has said this was a bold strategy, but most have written this off as positive spin on a failure of a summer. However, it does seem like Poch has a plan to cover his weaknesses with the personnel in house.

Central midfield was a big question mark for Tottenham, but this match featured both Christian Eriksen and Dele Alli dropping deeper as true midfielders to cover that area. Dele Alli generally plays as an attacking midfielder, even as almost a second striker next to Kane. Today he was doing the dirty work in the center of the park, and his goal came on a run from deep in midfield. Eriksen’s most comfortable as a 10, but he too dropped deep, often picking up the ball from his center-backs to begin the attack.

Starting the match in a more attacking role was Lucas, who joined the club last January but rarely saw starts last campaign. He had a few bright moments in attack using his pace to frighten the Newcastle defense. There was even a late appearance from Luke Amos, a young Spurs academy grad who looks like he’ll deputize at defensive midfielder for the first team this season.

Whether Poch really believes not signing any players was a bold move, it seems like there was at least some planning that went into the decision not to panic buy a depth player late in the window. If Eriksen and Dele thrive in slightly modified roles, while players like Lucas and Amos make contributions while playing significantly more minutes than last season, then people will quickly forget about this transfer window.