Tottenham October review: a crunching slide tackle and winning ugly

Winning ugly – October 6 – 20

It’s strange times to be Spurs fan. The club is homeless, not playing great, the manager is disgruntled; yet, all of this coincided with their best ever start to a Premier League campaign.

The main reason for the discrepancy is the manner in which Spurs have been getting results. It has been efficacy rather than aesthetics – typified in the Cardiff City game. Neil Warnock’s side may have been bottom of the table and down to ten men for the majority of the second period but they still had opportunities to take something from Wembley.

As long as Spurs keep adding to the win column there won’t be too many complaints. Winning ugly is somewhat of a new phenomenon for Poch’s Spurs side – and dare I say, the sign of champions.

A capricious keeper – October 20 – 24

Hugo Lloris must be getting rather used to going from hero to zero.

A couple of phenomenal saves denying Marko Arnautovic gave Spurs all three points against West Ham before a reckless lunge versus PSV Eindhoven cost his side dearly just a few days later. The host’s late goal all but threw away Tottenham’s hopes of progressing to the next round and the finger of blame was firmly pointed at Hugo.

What made it harder for fans to take was a similarly rash decision by Hugo led to a Barcelona goal just a minute in the fixture. Poch stood by the keeper through the drink driving debacle and would expect better in return from the experienced stopper.

Calls for Paulo Gazzaniga to start between the sticks seem premature. Hugo is still one of the world’s best but it’s an unforgiving game with a short-term memory and every mistake he makes from now on will be subjected to extra scrutiny.