Even the official Premier League X account is mocking Tottenham who remain mired in a relegation battle following Sunday’s 2-1 defeat against Fulham.
Spurs missed the opportunity to put some distance between themselves and fellow strugglers West Ham and Nottingham Forest, who also slipped to defeats over the course of the weekend, and delivered another insipid performance.
Igor Tudor’s side remain four points outside of the drop zone after they failed to recover from two first half goals scored by Harry Wilson and Alex Iwobi.
Richarlison halved the deficit with more than 25 minutes remaining, but Spurs rarely threatened an equaliser and were condemned to a 13th defeat of a miserable campaign.
After the game, the Premier League’s official account appeared to delight in the north London club’s continued struggles by posting a clip of goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario aimlessly hoofing a free-kick out for a goal kick with none of his teammates in sight.
The post, which has now been deleted, was accompanied by a caption which read ‘Just how the play was drawn up’ much to the consternation of Tottenham staff who, according to the Daily Mail, complained to Premier League staff.
Tudor, meanwhile, defended his tactical tweaks after a second successive London derby defeat, but promised to find a winning formula for his faltering group.
Injury-hit Spurs are without a victory in 10 Premier League matches, which has equalled a club record set back in the 1993-94 campaign.
Tottenham were second-best for an hour at Craven Cottage and while a triple substitution by Tudor sparked a late rally, it was too little, too late. The Croatian had moved away from his favoured 3-4-2-1 system to a flat back-four formation against Fulham.
Pushed to explain why he made that decision, Tudor insisted: “It’s not about system. System is not important at this moment. The last thing that is important is the system.”
Tottenham were without 10 players for this London derby with captain Cristian Romero still suspended and multiple key individuals like Destiny Udogie, Lucas Bergvall, Mohammed Kudus, James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski sidelined.
Pedro Porro and Kevin Danso returned from injury to feature at Fulham, but Spurs are not set to get anyone back for Thursday’s crunch fixture at home to Crystal Palace.
At a time when Tottenham are low on options and short of goals, the midweek return of Europa League hero Brennan Johnson, who was sold for £35million at the start of January, will be a painful reminder of the club’s poor winter transfer window business.
‘The situation was complicated because we know how many players (are out),’ Tudor reflected.
‘Now the players are coming back. One thing is when you have a complete team then you can choose. One situation is when you cannot choose, you know, because you need to choose the quality to score the goal.
‘You need to have quality players to score the goal otherwise you cannot defend all the time, but when you are in a bad moment, you put the players, but then you lack defending and running and winning the duels.
‘So, what to do? That’s the big question in the future to choose what is right for this team. To find a formula of what we want to be and what we can be in this moment.
‘That’s very difficult to understand, that’s the thing. To understand because you have the quality, but also football is a sport of running and duels.
‘I have a sensation that Fulham players were always running and even with the brain. They arrive before us, they predict and we are always late on everything. That’s the problem.’
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