The Guardian

Ange Postecoglou is not ready to write off Tottenham’s Premier League campaign just yet despite more dropped points on Sunday.

Spurs were held to a 2-2 draw at home to Wolves after they conceded with three minutes left on another difficult afternoon that saw Destiny Udogie become the latest player to limp off.

With Rodrigo Bentancur also booked late on and set to serve a one-match ban when Newcastle visit on Saturday, Tottenham could be without 10 players. However, Postecoglou will not give up hope of being able to climb the table amid some crucial cup fixtures in January.

“It’s still fairly tight. I just feel that at some point we’ll get a relatively healthy squad and when we do that, we’ll be able to perform at a high level consistently,” Postecoglou insisted. “We’ve already shown this year we can beat anyone. There’s a chance there you can go on a run, but at the moment that’s secondary to the first bit. I can see how hard they’re trying and if we were at our sharpest, we would have got that third goal and maybe a fourth.

“I mean we were inches away at times from getting the goal we needed and I think we’re just lacking a little bit of that dynamic movement that we need. A lot of these guys, they’re finding some form of energy to still be out there trying, but you know we’re certainly not as sharp as we can be.”

Given the efforts of his players across a hectic December, Postecoglou has given the squad Monday and Tuesday off ahead of this weekend’s fixture with Newcastle, but again suggested they need reinforcements in the January transfer window.

Postecoglou added: “Yeah, it was always planned. We kind of knew this is the first week where we don’t have a midweek game, so I think the whole group probably needs a couple of days just to get away from everything and recover.

“It’s been fairly intense for a real small core group of players, particularly over the last four or five weeks and I think it’ll do them good to have a couple of days to themselves, with their families, and give them a chance to recover mentally as much as physically.

“I’ll just keep going. We’ve got work to do and try to get some help for these players. Our role is to try and give them everything we can, the support we can to perform at their best.”

A home game against relegation-threatened opposition ought to mean only one thing for Tottenham. Instead, there was an impossible-to-ignore sense of foreboding before and during plenty of this one. It is simply the period that Ange Postecoglou and his players are living.

Spurs trailed to Hwang Hee-chan, who started his first Premier League game for Wolves since August. They equalised through Rodrigo Bentancur. They missed a penalty, Son Heung-min the culprit. And then they led through Brennan Johnson. All inside the first half. They had the openings in the second period to make it 3-1, to soothe the nerves that were almost audible inside the stadium.

Everybody knew that there could be a late sting and not just because Wolves have been revitalised since Vitor Pereira replaced Gary O’Neil as the manager and promptly beat Leicester and Manchester United. And so it came to pass.

It was a slice inside from Rayan Aït-Nouri followed by the killer ball up to the substitute Jørgen Strand Larsen who took a touch and lashed high inside the near corner of the net.

There were boos from the frustrated home support upon the full-time whistle, who have seen their team win just once in the last seven league matches; an overall feeling of soul-searching. The result here was everything to Postecoglou and, for once, he probably did not care how it came. Once again, it would elude him.

Wolves have become something of a bogey team for Spurs. They had won on three of their previous five trips to this stadium and they travelled with a spring in their step, the bounce under Pereira pronounced.

Pereira heard the Wolves fans chant his name five minutes before kick-off and there were further choruses of it after his team went ahead in the early running. What was most noticeable was how much time and space Hwang had when Aït-Nouri rolled a short free-kick towards him just outside the Spurs box.

Johnson claimed he was blocked from getting out by Santiago Bueno but the lack of intensity from those in white was a worry. Hwang’s first-time curled finish was a beauty. At that point, it was easy to fear for Spurs.

The home crowd felt a little soporific. Too much Christmas turkey? Or too much time watching this team try to cover the spaces in front of the back four, to defend against the transition? They needed a lift and they got it when Bentancur attacked a Pedro Porro corner to flash a header home.

It was a strange first half. Spurs grew into it and finished on top. And yet they were loose at times, throwing a couple of slapstick moments into the mix, especially the one when Dominic Solanke and Bentancur banged into each other inside the Wolves box and went to ground. They had eyes on the same shooting opportunity after a Dejan Kulusevski cut-back. The offside flag would go up against Kulusevski.

Postecoglou’s team missed chances. Radu Dragusin headed inches wide from a Porro corner in the 24th minute. Yves Bissouma lashed high on 39 minutes and there was the Son penalty miss shortly afterwards.

The captain had endured a couple of wobbly moments, drawing murmurs from the crowd and he watched José Sá spring the right way to deny him from the spot. The kick had been awarded for a needless challenge by André on Johnson.

Johnson would make Son feel better before half-time. Son had just been thwarted by a fine tackle by the former Spurs defender Matt Doherty when Kulusevski checked inside from the right and went back to Johnson. It was a dynamic incision by Kulusevski. Johnson’s conversion was low and true.

Wolves’s prospects took another knock when Matheus Cunha failed to reappear for the second-half. He would be spotted on the bench with ice under his left knee. The Brazilian had been in the mood from the moment he executed a flair back-heel with his first touch. He roamed from the left, supremely confident on the ball, offering the impression he was certain about making something happen. Wolves would also lose André to what looked like a muscle problem.

Spurs had to reshuffle, too, their defensive injury woes compounded when Destiny Udogie pulled up with hamstring trouble shortly after the second-half restart. On came the lesser-spotted Sergio Reguilón.

The second period was a slog, one of the abiding images coming when Son was among the players withdrawn by Postecoglou. Son was a case study in dejection, head bowed, walking off at low speed. He had waited for what seemed an age before taking his penalty. This action took him rather longer.

Spurs had the chances to extend their lead. Solanke got away before showing too much of the ball to Bueno. Pape Sarr, on as a substitute, could not execute the final action after a fine run. Solanke could not get a touch to a cross from another substitute, Timo Werner. Kulusevski could not finish after good work by Solanke.

Wolves remained in contention. They had created little after the interval, save for an Aït-Nouri shot that Porro blocked. But this is Spurs, a team with a rare vulnerability about them. Wolves knew that one chance could change everything. When Ait-Nouri made it for Strand Larsen, it did.

Sarr might have scored in stoppage-time only to misdirect a header when well-placed and it said everything when Bentancur was booked for a crude hack at the Wolves substitute Rodrigo Gomes. Bentancur has only just returned from a seven-match ban for a racial slur against Son. Now he is banned for another game for accumulating five yellow cards.

Hello world!

Welcome! It’s going to be another packed afternoon as the festive fixturefest continues, so let’s get stuck straight into the fixtures, shall we?

Premier League

Crystal Palace v Southampton

Palace have only won one league game at home this season, and that was in October. Southampton, who don’t have any away wins to their name at all, would dearly love to keep that run going. Here’s Palace’s Oliver Glasner on this time of year:

It’s unusual but I never complain. As soon as I signed here I knew what would come. I told my family it will be Christmas [working]. Very often it’s, when you work in Germany, off for one week, 10 days but I also didn’t go home then, we always go somewhere in the south for warm weather and this time it’s different. But this is a good experience and I choose this life so nobody to blame. Here, many years ago, the Premier League decided to play over Christmas because the fans love it and everything we do we do for our fans.

Hmmm, I’d say that last point is debatable. Best not get me started on that one.

Everton v Nottingham Forest

Everton are eighth in the last-four-games form table, with no defeats and only one goal conceded, but Forest are top of it, the only side with a last-four-games 100% record. Here’s Sean Dyche on Everton’s upturn:

I have massive respect for players. When they’re delivering as they are doing, the willingness, the desire to work as a team, is a powerful thing. I think we’re showing that. But it’s one game at a time. I’ve always believed in that mentality, but it’s nice when you’ve got an underbelly of desire from a group of players who want to make a difference. I think we’re slowly but surely building. Now it’s about taking the next games on and trying to turn draws into wins but, if you can’t, then still not getting beaten and staying true to that mentality.

“Underbelly of desire” is a lovely phrase. I think I’m going to keep that one. It might even make a good adults-only Harry Potter sequel.

Fulham v Bournemouth

Fulham are joint top of the both-teams-score-in-our-games table – in fully 77.8% of their league matches this season both sides have got on the scoresheet (Leicester, Brentford and Brighton have matched them), but at home it’s 88.9% (with only Brentford keeping up in this one). The only time any side failed to score at Craven Cottage this season neither did, and that was their last home game, against Southampton a week ago. Here’s Marco Silva (who was pleasingly effusive about Alex Iwobi: “He’s been great. Last season he was top and this season he’s doing much better”) on the Bournemouth challenge:

What a battle it’s going to be. Iraola’s doing a great job, it’s always a tight game against them, competitive games, it’s going to be another one. They’re a really physical side, their front line is top level, they have pace, capacity for both full-backs, they are intense off the ball, aggressive and it’ll be a great challenge for us and we want to make it the same for them too.

Leicester v Man City (2.30pm)

I’ll keep you updated with significant developments in this one, but it’s also got it’s own liveblog with Scott Murray at the helm:

Tottenham Hotspur v Wolverhampton

Never mind the Vitor Pereira bounce, Wolves have been better than Spurs for ages: across their last eight games, for example, a period that includes a run so bad it got the last manager the sack, they have won 12 points to Tottenham’s seven; even over the last 12 they’re 14-13 up. Is this the first game this season they’ve gone into as favourites? Here’s Ange Postecoglou keeping his chin up:

I get where people kind of look at my situation and think ‘Jeez, he needs to do something or else he is in trouble,’ but I don’t think that way. It’s not how I am wired. I’m not concerned about that aspect of this role. What excites me about this role and what I love about doing what I do is the possibilities you can create something special and that’s what I am going to try and do. Our league position is not great but it’s super tight and we’re not that far off. There’s still everything to play for, for us this year to make it a season where we can have success.”

West Ham v Liverpool (5.15pm)

Rob Smyth will be here in due course to take you through this one, so let’s not steal his thunder, eh?

Championship

Blackburn v Hull

Bristol City v Portsmouth

Coventry v Millwall

Derby v Leeds (5.45pm)

Middlesbrough v Burnley (8pm)

Norwich v QPR (12.30pm)

Oxford Utd v Plymouth

Preston North End v Sheff Wed (12.30pm)

Sheff Utd v West Brom (12.30pm)

Stoke v Sunderland

Swansea v Luton

Watford v Cardiff

League One

Birmingham v Blackpool

Bolton v Lincoln City

Charlton v Wycombe (12.30pm)

Exeter v Crawley Town

Huddersfield v Burton Albion

Leyton Orient v Cambridge Utd

Peterborough v Barnsley

Reading v Mansfield

Rotherham v Stockport County (12.30pm)

Shrewsbury v Northampton

Stevenage v Bristol Rovers

Wrexham v Wigan

League Two

Bradford v Chesterfield

Bromley v Swindon (12.30pm)

Carlisle v Accrington Stanley (12.30pm)

Cheltenham v Notts County

Colchester v Doncaster

Fleetwood Town v Harrogate Town

Grimsby v Port Vale

Milton Keynes Dons v Crewe

Salford City v Morecambe

Tranmere v Barrow

Walsall v Newport County

Scottish Premiership

Celtic v St Johnstone

Dundee Utd v Aberdeen (5.15pm)

Hibernian v Kilmarnock

Motherwell v Rangers

Ross County v Hearts

St Mirren v Dundee.

December was always going to be a tough month for Ange Postecoglou and Tottenham. Spurs faced crunch domestic and continental meetings with the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool, Rangers and Bournemouth, and failed to win all four. Of the eight games this month, they have won two, beating Southampton and Manchester United, and the latter they did their best to throw away.

Next up for Postecoglou’s side is Sunday’s home game against Wolves. On paper, a meeting with a relegation-threatened side should pose little threat to Spurs. However, Wolves come into the weekend’s trip to the capital following back-to-back league wins over Leicester and Manchester United. Vítor Pereira has made the desired impact having succeeded Gary O’Neil at the Molineux helm earlier this month, watching on as his side have scored five times and conceded none.

This will be a true test for a Spurs side that lost their fourth centre-back in Radu Dragusin to injury during the Boxing Day 1-0 loss to Nottingham Forest. With the injuries piling up owing to Postecoglou’s relentless gameplan and intense training sessions, Spurs ended the defeat at the City Ground with a centre-back partnership of Archie Gray and Yves Bissouma, two central midfielders by trade.

Even if Spurs were at full strength, they’d have struggled to contain one of the Premier League’s form players. Matheus Cunha was again influential as Wolves beat United, scoring a second-half “Olympico” from a corner, the second Ruben Amorim’s side have conceded in eight days, before providing the assist for Hwang Hee-chan’s late strike. With the January transfer window fast approaching, it’s no wonder the Brazilian has been attracting interest from a number of the Premier League’s big hitters.

Wolves can ill-afford to lose a prized forward who has been directly involved in 14 of their 29 league goals this season, scoring 10, in the new year as they seek to consolidate a top-flight spot. Even prior to Pereira’s appointment, Cunha’s performances were effectively single-handedly keeping Wolves in with a shot of beating the drop. He was scoring the goals he perhaps shouldn’t, Thursday’s goal a case in point.

Cunha’s overperforming his expected goal haul by 6.02 is the biggest overperformance in the division. He should, given the quality of the chances presented to him, have scored just four league goals this season. While it’s not sustainable, Cunha’s final third showings are a core reason behind the 29 league goals Wolves have scored in 2024-25 – just one short of defending Premier League champions Manchester City – and are now outside of the relegation zone by a point.

The 25-year-old is the driving force for this Wolves side in the final third having completed the fifth most dribbles (38) and made the 11th most key passes (33), the former key for a Wolves side is averaging the seventh lowest possession return (46.6%) as they aim to ease pressure on the defence. It’s this ability to ghost past a marker that’ll undoubtedly prove key in Sunday’s game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Not only do Wolves have a very good record at Spurs, winning four of their last six trips to the capital, but Postecoglou’s side remain without key players at the back. Even at full strength, Spurs would have struggled with Wolves’ lightning-fast counters. Indeed, only Sunday’s opponents have scored more goals from counterattacks (10) than Wolves (7) at the time of writing.

This is a Spurs side that very much struggles with transitions. Without the pace of Micky van de Ven at the back, opponents find it easy to turn defence into attack, breaking the lines with a single pass given Postecoglou’s desire to commit men forward. For this Wolves outfit that is able to break forward at speed, with Cunha the catalyst in the final third, it could get ugly for Spurs in the capital this weekend.

Tottenham’s injury crisis has deepened after Ben Davies suffered a setback in training, twhich may leave Ange Postecoglou without a fit centre-back for Sunday’s visit of Wolves.

Spurs were already without Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven and the Welshman for Thursday’s 1-0 defeat at Nottingham Forest, but their problems were compounded when Radu Dragusin was forced off with an ankle problem.

It meant Tottenham finished the game with the midfielders Archie Gray and Yves Bissouma at the heart of defence, and they could continue against Wolves after Davies suffered an untimely setback. “He is ruled out,” Postecoglou said of the 31-year-old. “Unfortunately he had a setback in training so he’ll probably be out for a couple of weeks.”

On Dragusin, Postecoglou added: “A bit early to tell. He obviously tweaked his ankle last night and felt he couldn’t continue. We’ll have to wait and see.” The full-back Djed Spence received a second yellow card on his return to the City Ground on Boxing Day to leave Postecoglou short of options in defence.

He said: “We’re in a tough spot and we have been for a while. We’ve been kind of getting through it for quite a while and keeping our fingers crossed we don’t get any more issues, but the nature of football and fixture scheduling we’ve had, we’ve always been on a fine line of being able to get through. It’s another test for us but it is what it is, and whatever we need to deal with, we’ll deal with and get ready for Sunday.”

Postecoglou acknowledged this period is the worst he has faced in his lengthy managerial career, with Spurs potentially without nine players for the match against Wolves. “There’s always been issues at different times but not to this extent,” the Australian said. “I think we’ve had close to pretty consistently 10 first-team players not available for a significant run of games. Definitely a first for me.”

While there is a hope Dragusin could recover to face Wolves, if the Romanian international is absent there are limited options for Postecoglou, who was again asked why there is no winter break this season. He added: “I don’t know. I mean Yves has never played there [defence] so I am not sure why I would put him there. I had to put him there on Thursday because I had no one else, but we’ll see.

“I think you are seeing with the league this year and that’s probably why it is so congested because a lot of teams – probably not to our extent – are affected by injuries. It is quite easy to pinpoint why. The workload players are expected to perform at, but I guess that’s one for the authorities to sort out.”

Guglielmo Vicario, Van de Ven, Romero, Davies, Spence, Mikey Moore, Wilson Odobert and Richarlison are definitely absent for Sunday’s fixture.

The mist rolled in from the Trent to the point where it was sometimes difficult to make out which Spurs player was running down which blind alley in the second half. But what is crystalline clear is Nottingham Forest’s momentum which, after Anthony Elanga’s third goal in successive games, has lifted them into third place in the Premier League.

Nuno Espírito Santo, Forest’s former Spurs manager, has organised his team so well that they now have 34 points from 18 games, the same tally they had at this stage in 1987-88, back when Brian Clough was manager, back in the days when lifting the European Cup was a recent memory.

No manager in Premier League history (with at least 50 games under their belt) has seen his games average more than the 3.6 goals that have flown in during Ange Postecoglu’s reign. Not against Nuno, though. Forest’s fourth consecutive Premier League win came with a clean sheet, and only Liverpool and Arsenal have conceded fewer than their 19 goals in this season’s top flight.

The focus will fall on Tottenham’s continued failings and, after Sunday’s 6-3 demolition by Liverpool, they have now won only twice in nine games. This was their first defeat on a Boxing Day in 17 games but, with Djed Spence sent off in stoppage time for a second yellow card against his former club, the questions will be arrowing in at Postecoglu once again. That is another defender missing for their next game, at Wolves on Sunday, and the Spurs manager needs to find answers soon.

The proliferation of backdrop stories made this a fascinating match-up even before a ball was kicked and it was soon just as intriguing on the pitch. The game was set for a clash of styles – and this favoured Forest no end.

Even as Spurs dashed and probed, dominating possession, Nuno’s current team looked poised to inflict damage on the counterattack. Brennan Johnson, forming an all ex-Forest right flank with Spence, was given a warm welcome back to the City Ground as he was ruggedly felled by Elliot Anderson; Forest were clearly up for the fight.

When Elanga scored, it did not come against the run of play, even if Spurs, with their territorial advantage, might have claimed to be controlling the game. When he has a team playing how he wants, Nuno knows how to control games without the ball.

From one break, Callum Hudson-Odoi came back inside from the left and shot just over with his right foot. Who would have thought he had that in his locker? Then a lightning fast counter culminated in Elanga dipping a shot just over.

The goal, when it came, epitomised the precision under pressure that Forest possess, even at pace. Good pressing midway in their own half allowed Morgan Gibbs-White to pick up the ball and drive forwards in a situation he so often thrives in. He must dream about this, like a labrador puppy chasing a tennis ball in his sleep. The England man travelled a third of the pitch before dispatching the perfect through pass, right in behind Destiny Udogie, so that Elanga did not have to break stride as he opened up his body and cut the ball, left-footed, just over Fraser Forster and into the far corner.

Johnson came close to equalising before half-time when, showing a superb first touch to receive a pullback from the byline, his shot from close range required an excellent save from Matz Sels. Spence flashed a cross-shot across the face of goal; Son Heung-min’s free-kick rippled the side-netting, but from the wrong side for Spurs.

With Udogie back at left-back and Rodrigo Bentacur shielding the back four, Spurs’ absences might have been less keenly felt against lesser opponents. With the goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario and the defenders Ben Davies, Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero still out, however, Postecoglu was given more substance for his argument that new signings will be required in January.

Forest could have been two goals to the good before, reverting to five at the back and with Spurs dominating the ball and the territory for the final half-hour, the game felt more in the balance.

Forster had palmed out Elanga’s cross for Gibbs-White to come steaming in for his shot to be blocked and the loose ball somehow stay out of Spurs’ goal.

For all their dominance, though, the nearest Spurs came to an equaliser was when Pape Sarr’s cleared shot was returned into the box for Johnson to take a neat touch, eight yards out, only for Sels to save at his feet.

Ange Postecoglou has confirmed Tottenham plan to be active in the January transfer window. Spurs have been beset by injuries and suspensions over the past month and have fallen to 11th in the Premier League amid inconsistent form.

A thrilling 4-3 win over Manchester United in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals last Thursday was followed by a humbling 6-3 loss at home to Liverpool on Sunday and Postecoglou confirmed before Boxing Day’s trip to Nottingham Forest that the club aim to boost the squad.

“We’ve been planning,” he said. “A lot of it was going to be around where we’re at around this time. Fair to say we’re still a little bit short in a couple of areas and we need to reinforce. January’s trickier in terms of what sort of players you can bring in. For us, ideally – for any club, I guess – you want to bring in people who are going to make you stronger.

“I think the fact that, obviously, we’re still in the Carabao Cup semi-final, still got Europe, FA Cup, we’re in all the competitions, it’s not like our schedule’s going to ease up at any stage. So, I think it makes sense. We will try and reinforce. Where and what number we’ll have to wait and see.

“You don’t just want to panic and bring in anybody that you don’t think will help our cause in the back half of the year, but I think we’ve already shown we are pretty methodical and prudent about our work. We’ll make sure we’ll bring somebody in who is going to help us.”

The absentee list includes Guglielmo Vicario, Cristian Romero. Micky van de Ven and Postecoglou said: “I can’t be critical of this group of players at the moment in any sense. I think it would be unfair for anyone to because what they’re doing is they’re giving absolute maximum effort.

“That’s backed up by the physical parameters you put against what they’re doing. They’re trying to do it in the way that I’m asking them to. So how can I be critical of that? I think that would be hypocritical of me. The players are doing their part. They’re doing it to the maximum of their ability and it’s a credit to them. I still think in the long term that’s going to hold us in good stead.”

For Dejan Kulusevski and Tottenham, there were a good few moments during Sunday’s 6-3 home defeat against Liverpool when the nerves jangled, when their faith in who they are under Ange Postecoglou had to have been tested. Most obviously on 61 minutes when Mohamed Salah scored for 5-1.

A few minutes before that, the Liverpool goalkeeper, Alisson, had played a long straight ball upfield and suddenly the outstanding Dominik Szoboszlai had a one-on-one with the Spurs goalkeeper, Fraser Forster, which he could not take. Trent Alexander-Arnold would work Forster from distance a little bit later. Luis Díaz then had a chance.

Liverpool were rampant. They had torn through all game from all angles and, at that point, it was easy to think they were hellbent on something more than victory – on ending Postecoglou’s project as a going concern. Maybe, just maybe, it was a time for Spurs to close ranks, to shut down the spaces, to be secure in defence. What must it be like to wear the club’s white shirt and live this white-knuckle ride?

“I said to myself [at 5-1]: ‘If you want to play, play now,’” Kulusevski said. “It’s easy to play when you’re winning. It’s easy to play when everything is going good. If you want to be a man, step up now and do your best. And that’s what we did.”

In other words – no, it was not a time to take a backwards step. For Postecoglou, it is not a part of the deal. It’s who we are, mate. Credit to Kulusevski, who is having such a fine season. He drove his team, fashioning a couple of openings, then making it 5-2 with a nice volley. Díaz would blow another one-on-one at the other end before Dominc Solanke scored for 5-3.

“Honestly, at 5-3, I said that we’re going to do it,” Kulusevski said. “It was so frustrating to see the ball go in [from Díaz] for 6-3 and after that the game is over. I really thought that it could happen, something special.”

Spurs is the only place in world football where a 5-1 deficit does not mean the players lose hope. In Ange-ball they trust. On one level, it is a beautiful thing. It is why Spurs are among the most watchable teams in England. And yet on another, it can come to feel ludicrous. When can one have too much Ange-ball?

Maybe after the 41st minute of Sunday’s game, when James Maddison had made it 2-1 in a grievous affront to the run of play? Spurs had to get to half-time with no further damage. What they simply had to avoid was getting sucked upfield, leaving gaps and letting Liverpool run through for 3-1. No prizes for guessing what happened, Szoboszolai the gleeful beneficiary.

Kulusevski knows there have to be moments when Spurs are more solid, more savvy, when they consider the broader context. It would not be a betrayal. In this case, it took in how they were stretched in the absence of eight players – nine if you included Destiny Udogie, the first-choice left-back, who was fit enough only for the bench and did not come on.

Postecoglou relied on the XI that he started against Manchester United in Thursday’s 4-3 Carabao Cup quarter-final win. Arne Slot, by contrast, had heavily rotated his Liverpool team for their victory at Southampton in the same competition 24 hours earlier. Liverpool are carrying only two injuries. They were always going to be fresher and sharper.

It was put to Kulusevski that control during matches was something Spurs ought to seek. “If you want to get a result, maybe yeah,” he said. “You have to think about how are we physically? Who’s playing? How many games have we played the last week? Who are we playing? Have they rested for one week or something? You have to put everything in because it is like life – it’s not just black and white. It’s a lot of factors going into it.”

In the end, it is about whether Spurs’s approach is sustainable. “No, maybe not,” Kulusevski said. “But you have to improve, you have to find ways. Maybe we should have let them have the ball more but that’s not how we play. We went out, we gave everything. It didn’t work. Maybe we learn for the next time.”

It is also about compromise. “Of course, we have to do it,” Kulusevski said. “We have to learn because we conceded six goals. I can’t sit here and say that we’re doing something perfectly. We’re not. We have to change a little bit for the better, always try to change for the better.”

Spurs were surely fortunate that Liverpool eased off from the 65th minute. At 5-3, it was as if Slot’s team decided to push again because a two-goal victory margin would have been scant reward for such a powerhouse performance. They really did call the tune to that extent.

Next up for Spurs is the trip to Nottingham Forest on Boxing Day; a meeting with their former manager Nuno Espírito Santo, which will be rich in narrative strands. Top of the bill will be the clash of styles.

Arne Slot urged his players to keep their foot on the accelerator after Liverpool extended their lead at the top of the Premier League to four points with a wild 6-3 victory against Tottenham. Although the manager felt his team produced their best attacking performance in an away game under him, he was not happy with a drop in intensity at 5-1 that gave Spurs brief hope of a comeback. The score was pulled back to 5-3 and Liverpool, who ended up capitalising on Chelsea’s draw with Everton earlier in the day, were reminded that they must maintain their focus if they are to win the league.

Arne Slot warns against complacency despite Liverpool’s six-goal display

Ange Postecoglou’s unserious Spurs exposed by serious Liverpool

Liverpool are serious about this. They’re not in London for souvenirs or sightseeing. They had a game four days earlier, they’ve got another in four days’ time, and so all they really want for Christmas is to get in, get the points and get out. They’d rather do it clean. But they’ll do it dirty if they have to.

Above all, they know exactly what they want. Luis Díaz wants to spin off his man and run from deep, and Ryan Gravenberch wants to plug the gaps and get the ball moving, Dominik Szoboszlai wants you to commit, but not until he’s put you half a step off balance first, and Mo Salah wants to be Mo Salah. They can go short or long, hit you from every angle, hurt you from every bit of the pitch. Nine Liverpool players made a key pass in this game, including the goalkeeper and both full-backs.

Tottenham are not serious about this. They win spectacularly, and then they lose spectacularly, and it doesn’t really matter because over the past couple of years they have engendered a culture in which progress is basically divorced from outcomes. League positions are of no consequence. Champions League qualification is not a target, because the entire success of this multibillion-pound operation is geared around whether a middle-aged Australian man feels his ideas have taken root this week or not.

There are clear and tangible advantages to this approach. Most importantly, it’s a lot of fun. This is expressive football with no compromises, a young and essential energy, and occasionally the ultimate rush. When it destroys the quadruple champions or puts seven past Manchester United in two games, it feels like total vindication, and who doesn’t love one of those? This is the entertainment business, there are Tunnel Club packages to be sold, and being the Premier League’s top scorers is a pretty persuasive pitch if you’re not really fussed about who wins.

But there are also disadvantages to being an unserious team, and perhaps you glimpse them most sharply when you come up against a serious team. A team that don’t take a weird solace in denying their rivals the league, or entertain bizarre superstitions about maybe winning the FA Cup when the year ends in a one. A coach who believes his job is to make his players look good, rather than the other way around.

Let’s take, by way of illustration, the last five minutes of the first half. James Maddison’s goal against the run of play has just threatened to transform the complexion of the game. Liverpool only lead 2-1 despite subjecting Fraser Forster to a 40-minute HIIT workout. They wanted this clean. Now, if they can only get to half-time and regroup, a tiring Tottenham have the chance to make things dirty.

At this point, the ball rolls towards Trent Alexander-Arnold in the right-back position. Obviously Djed Spence doesn’t know that three passes later the ball will be in the Tottenham net, otherwise he probably wouldn’t have sprinted 50 yards up the left wing in a futile attempt to press him. Obviously Radu Dragusin – who here looked more like a boy band member playing centre-half in a Soccer Aid game – thinks he’s going to win the low-percentage header against Szoboszlai. Otherwise he wouldn’t charge towards the ball and leave a huge space behind him for Salah to attack.

The real question is: why do they think these things? How have Tottenham been so unlucky as to end up with so many international footballers who seem to make terrible decisions at key moments? Are they just bad players, incapable of reading a situation? Or have they been slowly stewed in a culture where total commitment is an acceptable substitute for judgment? Where the acid test of your quality is not what you did, or what actually happened, but how loyally you stuck to the ideology?

The last 20 minutes, as Tottenham fought their way back from 5-1 to 5-3, felt the most instructive of all. Spurs kept trying to raid the Liverpool area. Liverpool kept clearing it, except when you’re playing Spurs every clearance is also a through ball. And amid the carnage of the second half, there was also an immense and ominous coolness to them, the unerring ability to execute under pressure the thing that is required, and to keep doing it over and over. This is the difference between a serious and an unserious team.

And there is nothing inevitable about this. Tottenham and Liverpool may feel gulfs apart, but in reality they are the eighth- and seventh-richest clubs in the world, fishing in the same water. Tottenham could have had Arne Slot in 2023. Tottenham could have had Díaz in 2022. Tottenham could have assembled a proper backroom structure years ago, instead of leaving their fate in the hands of a spiralling succession of celebrity managers.

But none of this happened, and so what we get instead is salesmanship, the same pot of stasis relaunched in new, more addictive flavours. It’s all going to click soon. At least they didn’t do Arsenal a favour. Ange always wins a trophy in his second season. Europa League, you never know. If you don’t rate his methods, you’re probably racist against Australians. Mikey Moore is going to be one hell of a player. And best of all: only six more years until the year ends in a one again.