Tottenham Hotspur’s defensive injury crisis just went from bad to worse after Ben Davies was substituted in the second half of Spurs’ 1-0 loss to Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium on Thursday. Davies joins Cuti Romero and Micky van de Ven on the trainer’s table, leaving Radu Dragusin as the only senior central defender still healthy at the club.
Spurs turned to teenager Archie Gray to deputize at left central defense for the remainder of the second half, and while he put in a decent enough (if nervy) performance, it’s hardly the kind of thing you want to see with two matches a week for the next month and a looming match against Chelsea on Sunday.
In his press conference after the match, Postecoglou confirmed that Davies pulled his hamstring against the Cherries, though he declined to state how long he might be sidelines.
“It looks like he’s done his hamstring. Him and Radu have played every game. It’s the one position we can’t rotate. He’ll obviously be out for a period of time now, we’ll just have to wait and see how long it is. It’s a consequence of having the squad we have at the moment.”
When asked about whether Spurs would address central defense in January’s transfer window, Ange stated the obvious:
“Mate, it ain’t going to help us against Chelsea on Sunday and that’s all I’m thinking about.”
Postecoglou also didn’t try to hide his disappointment with not only the result, but with Tottenham’s overall performance.
“Very disappointing. We started the game well. Started the game the way we wanted to and started controlling it but we give away a poor goal, a really poor goal. Again. That allows the opposition to, and it is a difficult place to come to anyways, sit back and play the football they want. To counter-attack and we have to open up. It is disappointing and not good enough. It is not something that is a one off. We have done that now three or four times and paid a price for it.
“Like I said, we started the game well but football is a game where you try to control it and dictate it to play the way you want to but when you give goals away like we did tonight, and we have done that consistently not just with set-pieces but just in general this year, it just gives the opportunity then for the opposition, particularly a team like Bournemouth, to play on the counter which is what they want to do. We have to open up. They can sit back. Just really disappointing it has happened again. Something for me to mull over and do something about.”
Ange can mull over it all he wants but he only has three days until Chelsea comes to North London. The good news is that yesterday Ange hinted that Cuti Romero might be back in time to play. Let’s hope so, otherwise we’re looking at Dragusin-Gray in the back line again, and either Yves Bissouma or a youth player as the failsafe if something (else) were to go wrong.