Sandro Tonali has admitted Tottenham were too slow from the start at Elland Road, and that for ten minutes in the second half Spurs “created probably nothing” as Leeds took over the game.
The 1-0 defeat on Saturday ended a run of three straight Premier League wins and four games unbeaten. It was also a bad afternoon for Tonali personally. Roberto De Zerbi named him among the senior players who fell below their level, and Tonali didn’t argue with that when he spoke to Tottenham’s official website after the game.
His verdict was short and honest: “I think it was tough.”
What did Sandro Tonali say about the Leeds defeat?
The midfielder made it clear that Spurs weren’t caught out by anything they hadn’t prepared for. “We knew everything. This week we trained a lot to play this game,” he said. “From the start we played a little bit slow. We made a lot of mistakes on the ball and I think we conceded a few chances.”
That matches what we saw. The first half was cagey and low on quality, and the biggest talking points were at the other end of the pitch: Leeds had a penalty shout turned down by VAR when the ball appeared to hit Mateus Fernandes’ arm, while Jayden Bogle escaped a red card for the challenge that forced Mathys Tel off.
Leeds came out quicker after the break, pressed high and kept Spurs penned in. Noah Okafor eventually settled it with 11 minutes left, shortly after coming off the bench for Lukas Nmecha.
“They press really high, especially here”
Tonali pointed to the Leeds press, and to Elland Road itself, as the reason Spurs struggled to play. “They press really high, especially here in this stadium,” he said. “And I think sometimes when you find this team, you have to show all your personality. You have to play with the ball much better.”
He also didn’t limit the problem to what happened in possession. “You have to improve everything, not just with the ball, but without the ball as well,” he added.
The ten minutes that cost Spurs
The most revealing part of his answer was about the spell in the middle of the second half, when the game turned. “I think the 10 minutes in the middle of the second half, it was really tough for us,” Tonali said. “It was for me and for the team, everything was difficult, the press, we conceded a few chances and we created probably nothing in these 10 minutes.”
That is exactly the stretch that worried De Zerbi too. In his post-match press conference he said “Today I didn’t see the same Micky van de Ven, the same Sandro Tonali, the same Kudus”, and he went on to apologise for the second-half performance rather than lean on the Bogle decision. Tonali was one of the players who fell short in our Tottenham player ratings vs Leeds as well.
Was it tiredness, or were Leeds just better?
Tonali compared Saturday with the four games before it, and admitted he wasn’t sure yet why this one went so differently. “The last four games were different. Apart from 10 minutes against Coventry, and the second half against Man United, all the four games were really positive for us. But (Saturday) was different,” he said.
“I don’t know if we played like this because we played four (previous) games really well, or I don’t know if we were tired, or they played so good. I have to watch it back, but we can learn everything about this game.”
Spurs now have two weeks before Ipswich Town come to N17 on Saturday 21 November, and Tonali feels the side need more consistency from game to game.
Verdict: Tonali is right, and Spurs need him to set the tempo
There is something refreshing about a senior player saying “we created probably nothing” instead of hiding behind a refereeing decision. Tonali could easily have pointed at the Bogle tackle. He chose to talk about slow passing, mistakes on the ball and a team that didn’t show enough personality under pressure.
The fix starts with him. When Spurs are good under De Zerbi, the midfield moves the ball quickly enough to beat a high press, and Tonali is the one who sets that rhythm. At Leeds it never came. Away from the football, he has already spoken about his lifelong love for AC Milan; on the pitch, what Spurs fans want after the break is the midfielder who helped drive the three wins before Elland Road. Against an Ipswich side that has struggled to keep teams out, a quicker tempo from the first minute would go a long way.
