For some perspective on Tottenham’s start to the season, it’s worth recalling how they started the last one. Four league games in, they won the first three but lost the fourth, losing 3-0 away to Crystal Palace. Just then, the faint and fleeting feeling that something useful might come out of Nuno Espirito Santo’s experiment vanished, and everyone remembered why it had been considered a nondescript assignment to begin with.
A year later, there is a very different way in which Tottenham started. There are no such lingering doubts about Antonio Conte’s ability to get the job done. The composition of the team he inherited has been improved through smart business. Finishing in the top four is more of an expectation than just an ambition. Spurs even have a point more than at the same stage under Nuno.
Some things aren’t that different, though, and for some, with every passable but not quite convincing performance from Tottenham, there are growing fears that they will be exposed again. Is it fair?
Not for the first time this season, Tottenham were second best for long stretches in a 2-0 win over Nottingham Forest on Sunday. As against Chelsea and Wolves previously, a sluggish first half needed to be improved after the break. And surprisingly, it was the newly promoted side, rather than their Champions League-caliber opponents, who dominated the ball. Forest finished with 55% possession. Sometimes that figure swelled to close to two-thirds.
In that respect, and in a league where it’s now fairly common to see one team holding the ball while another relies on the counter-attack, it was jarring to watch Tottenham play in a way more often associated with underdogs.
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Maybe that’s why Steve Cooper thought Forest deserved more of the game. “The performance was good,” he said after the game. “We really picked up Spurs’ game, got into good areas to threaten the goal. For all the play and the territory we had, we didn’t convert it into enough attempts on goal, but there were a lot of good things from our game today.”
Conte, meanwhile, saw positives in the way his players responded to the challenges posed by Forest.
“We did well to overcome the moments we suffered,” he said, admitting that Cooper’s bold brand of playing on the front foot had caused his side’s problems. “In the first half we didn’t use our midfielders much. We wanted to go from one country to another. It was easier for Nottingham Forest to put us under pressure and make us a little bit uncertain.”
Yet for all the talk of another underwhelming Tottenham performance and the questions of when exactly this team would get going, at the final whistle it was hard to remember many clear options for Forest. Those long spells of possession enjoyed by Cooper’s side either failed or resulted in a speculative pot shot, only a few of which were exercised by goalkeeper and captain Hugo Lloris.
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And while you’d be hard-pressed to describe Forest’s dominance of possession as comfortable for Tottenham, it was hardly uncomfortable for them either. Spurs played like a team happy to give the ball away and play at speed in the space left at the back, knowing the pace of Son Heung-min and Dejan Kulusevski would make it difficult for a back three who were still Championship players last season. Harry Kane’s early start in the first leg also helped, forcing Forest to come out and play.
A look at the xG charts tells an interesting story, even after Kane’s penalty is removed, with 0.85 for Forest compared to 1.42 for Tottenham. However, the penalty should not be overlooked entirely, especially when discussing Spurs’ response to the spot kick. A team that in the past might have fallen apart instead came together, finally began to dominate and take control of things, with Kane eventually scoring the decisive second goal.
No one is pretending this is Tottenham at their best. There is plenty of room for improvement, not least in Son’s individual form. Still waiting for his first goal of the new campaign, last season’s joint Golden Boot winner is “suffering” due to his drought, Conte said. His supernatural finishing ability seems to have suddenly deserted him, at least for now.
Whatever the individual form, the collective is more important and there are signs of tangible progress. Compare Tottenham’s start this season to the corresponding fixtures last season. Defeats at home to Southampton and Wolves were turned into wins, while instead of losing at Stamford Bridge, Spurs picked up a respectable point. If the performance could have been better, the results are a near-perfect record.
Antonio Conte stands up for Richarlison (Mike Egerton/Pennsylvania)
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In fact, it’s already Tottenham’s best start from four games into a league campaign since they finished runners-up in 2016-17. Only one manager has finished above Mauricio Pochettino this year and now he himself is in the hole at Spurs. Conte will want to see better, more dominant performances sooner rather than later, but given his own pedigree and that of his player, he can be confident that they are in place. Until then, points will do.