A centre-back had Tottenham’s best chance at Elland Road. Jan Paul van Hecke’s stoppage-time header, tipped round the post by James Trafford, was the closest Spurs came to a goal in the 1-0 defeat to Leeds, and that tells you where this team’s real problem lies.
The defence held for 79 minutes. The midfield moved the ball well enough before the break. But once Noah Okafor scored, there was nobody in white who looked like making something happen, and the three-game winning run was over.
The international break gives Tottenham two weeks to think about it. Our view is simple: the attack is the part of this side that isn’t good enough yet, and the way it has been picked isn’t helping.
Where did the chances go at Leeds?
Spurs did create things in the first half. Omar Marmoush forced Trafford into a save with a shot that took a deflection, and Mohammed Kudus tested him with a drive. A low Kudus cross also flashed across the face of goal with nobody there to touch it in.
Look at those efforts again, though. Both were hit at the goalkeeper rather than into the corners, and Marmoush also wasted one of the better openings with a tame shot when the pass to Kudus was on. Good forwards miss chances. What worries us is how rarely this group makes the keeper do something special.
After the break it got worse. Spurs finished with around 61% of the ball and completed 420 passes to 246, yet they had seven shots to Leeds‘ 16. All that possession, and the best effort on target came from a defender’s head in the 94th minute.
Ten goals, and not many from the forwards
Spurs have scored 10 goals in 10 Premier League games, and Leeds was the fifth match this season in which they didn’t score at all. We went through the bigger picture in our piece on Tottenham’s record when they concede first, but there is a second number that bothers us more.
Go back through the three wins that had everyone talking about Europe. Against Coventry City, the goals came from James Maddison, Marmoush and Ben Davies. At Stamford Bridge, it was a Mike Penders own goal and a brilliant solo finish from Mathys Tel. Against Crystal Palace, with Jean-Philippe Mateta sent off inside 13 minutes, Archie Gray and Van Hecke scored.
That is seven goals, and only two of them came from the forwards, with Maddison adding a third from the No.10 role. The rest came from Davies, Gray, Van Hecke and an own goal, one of the wins against ten men. None of that is a criticism of the wins. But it isn’t a pattern you can build a season on.
Is a top-half finish realistic with this attack?
At one goal a game, Spurs are on course for something under 40 league goals. That might keep a side with a good defence comfortably in mid-table. It won’t get anyone into the European places, which is where the talk was heading a week ago, as we discussed when we asked whether Spurs are really back.
For this to change, three or four attackers need to chip in regularly at the same time. Kudus, Marmoush, Tel, Dominic Solanke, Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski all have the quality to do it. Not one of them has yet shown he can do it week in, week out in this team.
Too many number nines, not enough of a run
Part of the problem, in our view, is selection. Roberto De Zerbi has rarely named the same side twice this season, and the centre-forward role has moved around as much as anything. At Leeds, Marmoush started up front, Solanke came on two minutes before half-time when Tel went off injured, and Kulusevski replaced Marmoush on 65 minutes.
Wingers need to know what the striker’s runs will look like. A No.10 needs to know where the No.9 wants the ball. That kind of understanding comes from playing together, and it is hard to build when the man in the middle keeps changing.
We would pick one striker for the next run of games after the break and leave him there. If it doesn’t work after a proper chance, then change it. Right now, nobody gets long enough to find a rhythm.
What happens when Spurs can’t control the game?
The second half at Elland Road showed the other weakness. De Zerbi’s sides defend by keeping the ball. When Daniel Farke’s side pushed Spurs back and won the duels, there was no plan B, and the changes made it harder rather than easier to play through them.
The triple change on 65 minutes took off Mateus Fernandes, Marmoush and Pedro Porro, with Rodrigo Bentancur, Kulusevski and Conor Gallagher coming on and Gray dropping to right-back. That left a midfield of Bentancur, Sandro Tonali and Gallagher: plenty of legs, but not much to pick a pass through a press. Fernandes was the one player who could carry the ball forward, and he was the one who went off.
Maddison, the most creative player on the bench, stayed there. De Zerbi said he had only been back in training for a day and a half and preferred Luca Williams-Barnett’s speed one-on-one when Kudus tired. That is a fair explanation, and we covered it in full in our Leeds 1-0 Tottenham match report and the reaction pieces. But it does underline how thin the creative options are when Maddison isn’t fully fit.
Can De Zerbi fix the Spurs attack without the transfer market?
We like what De Zerbi is building. The defence has kept four clean sheets, the passing out from the back is far better than it was, and the first half at Leeds looked like the team that won at Chelsea. None of this is a case against the head coach.
But the honest read after Leeds is that the defence and midfield are ahead of the attack. Until the forwards start finishing the chances the rest of the team makes, Spurs will keep relying on centre-backs, set pieces and red cards for the opposition, and that won’t last over 38 games.
Two things can help before January: settle on one striker and give him a run, and get Maddison fit enough to start. If the goals still don’t come after that, the summer’s biggest gap will be impossible to ignore, and the January window will have to address it.
