Thursday 29 December 2016 12:29, UK
Tottenham's 4-1 win at Southampton on Wednesday made it three wins in a row to take Mauricio Pochettino's men to within a point of the top four. Adam Bate looks at why the Premier League table obscures the fact that Spurs are still a side on the up...
For the second season in a row, Tottenham are preparing to travel to Watford for their 19th Premier League game of the season. A year ago, there was a real buzz about their exciting young team and a 2-1 win at Vicarage Road took them into third spot in the table.
This time around, they go there with more wins and more points than last season. They have scored more goals and conceded fewer at the other end too. These are the statistics of a side on the up. And yet, Spurs are currently fifth in the Premier League.
It's an indication of the task Tottenham face in trying to engineer progress under Mauricio Pochettino. While working with a smaller budget than their major rivals, as well as building a stadium in the hope of closing that financial gap, they must keep getting better too.
The problem is that everyone else is attempting the same thing and Spurs do not operate in a vacuum. So when Chelsea win 12 on the spin, it matters. When Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal and Manchester United all have more points than a year ago, it stymies their efforts.
As others recover lost momentum, the pressure is on this Tottenham team and affects the way their efforts are perceived, both inside and outside the club. Even modest improvement can spark criticism. Any dip, however brief, becomes a cause for concern.
Harry Kane has not got the headlines this season with some questions over his form, but it was his brilliant header that gave Spurs the lead at Southampton. It was his eighth Premier League goal of the season. Only half a dozen players in the country can better that.
For Kane, read Christian Eriksen, another who has received underwhelming reviews. His corner for Kane's goal was his fifth assist of the campaign. But for Oriol Romeu's deflection that technically denied him an assist for Heung-Min Son's third, he'd be second in the Premier League on that list.
Elsewhere, Dele Alli covered more ground and made more sprints than anyone else at St Mary's in a two-goal display that earned him the man-of-the-match award. The initial fuss over Alli might have died down, but he is on course to better last season's goal tally as well.
Such stories suggest that expectations are rising for Tottenham's talented team. Of course, that was always the way this was going to need to work. Pochettino does not have the resources to bring in ready-made stars of the calibre of the players he has helped to create.
Consider how much it would cost to sign Toby Alderweireld or Mousa Dembele now, let alone Kane or Alli? Instead, Spurs must look to add depth through their acquisitions without being able to promise such signings a starting spot in a fairly settled line-up.
Moussa Sissoko and Victor Wanyama both started against Saints with Vincent Janssen involved from the bench, but they were all bought to supplement rather than star. The contract renewals of the main men might not fuel the fire like transfers, but these are the key to their hopes.
Both Kane and Hugo Lloris have agreed new long-term extensions already this season, deals that will bring continuity. It is encouraging that these have been completed when players could earn significantly more elsewhere. The players themselves see what is happening.
Clearly, they believe they are part of something and in the right place to develop under Pochettino. It reinforces the words of Danny Rose in the summer, surely the club's most improved player, when he explained how the Argentine's coaching was crucial to his form.
"As daft as it sounds, I had never had a manager work on me until Mauricio Pochettino came to Tottenham," said Rose. "It was not until the current manager came that I had anyone who has taken time out to work on me as a left-back and try to help me improve."
Given the team's disappointing Champions League exit and a glance at the Premier League table, it would be easy to ignore these improvements. After all, a side that was targeting the title in the spring now sits outside of the top four after 18 games of the season.
But win at Watford on New Year's Day and Spurs will be on 39 points at the halfway stage and on course for a best ever Premier League points total. That it might not be enough says more about the difficulty of the task ahead of them than it does about the efforts of Pochettino and his players.
