The Guardian

Daniel Levy wants Ange Postecoglou to plot a course through the storm at Tottenham and the chairman continues to hope the return of key players from injury can help to save a dismal Premier League season.

Levy has few viable external options that could come in to replace Postecoglou right away, should he wish to make the managerial change. Internally, there would be Matt Wells, the senior assistant coach, and Ryan Mason, the assistant, who has twice previously stepped up to work as interim head coach.

Spurs lost 2-1 at home against Leicester on Sunday to intensify the scrutiny on Postecoglou. It was their second successive defeat by relegation-threatened opponents after the 3-2 reverse at Everton.

Postecoglou’s team have taken five points from 11 league matches to lag 15th in the table. They are eight ahead of third-from-bottom Wolves, leading some fans to worry that Spurs might be in for a relegation battle.

It remains business as usual at the club under Postecoglou. They face Elfsborg at home on Thursday night in their final Europa League group game when they will seek to confirm direct qualification to the last 16. It has been announced that Postecoglou will meet the media as usual on Wednesday to preview the game.

The Australian has to be thankful that the axe has not yet fallen on him given Spurs are at one of the lowest ebbs of Levy’s 24-year chairmanship. That said, the club’s injury crisis, especially in defence, does provide mitigation, and the team harbour hope of glory in the cups. As well as the Europa League, Spurs are alive in the Carabao Cup, where they face Liverpool in the semi-final second leg at Anfield next Thursday, 1-0 up from the first, and there is the FA Cup, where they go to Aston Villa in the fourth round on Sunday week. That pivotal period begins this Sunday with the league trip to Brentford.

What Postecoglou also wants is support in the January transfer window. He has spoken on several occasions about the need to strengthen as he carries a list of absentees that has run into the double digits. The club did sign the goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky at the beginning of the month to cover the injured No 1 Guglielmo Vicario. However, it has been baffling that they have not moved for outfield reinforcements – particularly a centre-half, where they looked to be one short even at the start of the season, before Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven were undermined by fitness issues.

Postecoglou’s first-choice selections in central defence came off with muscular problems in the 4-3 home defeat by Chelsea on 8 December and it has long been known they would not be able to contribute in January. Yet Postecoglou has been forced to mix and match in their absence. There will be great pressure on Romero and Van de Ven to hit the ground running when they return in February.

The January market is notoriously tough, but it is possible to add players, particularly if you are prepared to overpay, accepting that needs must. Postecoglou has made it clear that he wants a new player for the front line and the focus at the club between now and the window closing next Monday is on making at least one signing.

The good news for Ange Postecoglou is that it seems relatively straightforward to recover from being Tottenham manager: his two immediate predecessors, Antonio Conte and Nuno Espírito Santo, are top of Serie A with Napoli and third in the Premier League with Nottingham Forest respectively. As the banner unveiled by Spurs fans during Sunday’s defeat to Leicester read: “24 years, 16 managers, one trophy”. Nobody really looks at Tottenham any more and thinks the problem is the manager.

But it is usually the manager who pays the price. Their last 10 league games have yielded four points. They’ve just lost to Everton, who hadn’t won in six, and to Leicester, who’d lost their previous seven. They’ve reached a stage at which it feels possible that they could lose any given fixture. The only saving grace is that they’re 1-0 up against Liverpool after the home leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final and that they’re sixth in the Europa League table, assured of automatic passage to the last 16 if they beat the Swedish side Elfsborg on Thursday.

Yet the cups are almost part of the problem, placing further strain on a squad already hammered by injury and fatigue. What may be their salvation, what may bring Postecoglou the trophy he famously always wins in his second season at a club, is also what is undermining their league form. Tottenham were without 10 frontline players on Sunday and Postecoglou admitted Pape Matar Sarr, who managed 54 minutes after missing Thursday’s win in Hoffenheim with a knock, probably shouldn’t have started.

So much is going wrong at Tottenham, it’s difficult to know where to start but, even taking all the issues with personnel into account, even acknowledging that the hand Postecoglou is trying to play is not a strong one, Sunday’s was a poor performance, and one in a string of disappointing displays. Postecoglou’s time at Tottenham can be divided into two chunks: there were the first 10 games when he was the gruff Aussie, the normal bloke cutting through the Premier League’s nonsense to take 26 points; and there are the 51 games since, beginning with the notorious nine-man high-line defeat to Chelsea, which have yielded just 64 points: 10 games at 2.60 points per game followed by 51 games at 1.25 points per game.

The midfield against Leicester was shambolic. The two more advanced players in the central triangle, usually Sarr and Lucas Bergvall, would go off pressing but because the back four is sitting a little deeper these days – as Spurs try to be less exposed – the deepest-lying midfielder, usually Rodrigo Bentancur, was left with space in front of him. Leicester, with Jordan Ayew and Bobby De Cordova-Reid taking turns out of possession to drift from the flanks, seemed deliberately to be trying to provoke that space.

The two Leicester goals stemmed from issues with Tottenham’s cover. For the first, Pedro Porro had advanced and nobody had dropped in to fill the space so that when Bentancur was dispossessed De Cordova-Reid was in vast swathes of empty grass and able to measure his cross for Jamie Vardy. For the second, Porro’s pass to Bentancur was underhit and possession lost and nobody had filled the gap left by Uruguayan, giving Bilal El Khannous space in the centre of the pitch through which to advance, before measuring a shot inside the post. Not for the first time this season there was an unforgivable openness about Tottenham that is less to do with the individual players than with the basic structure. Perhaps fatigue, the youth of the side and frequent changes of personnel play their part but those issues ultimately come back to the manager.

Yet given the way the slenderness of the squad has been exposed, it’s also fair to wonder whether the club might not have been rather more supportive of Postecoglou in this transfer window. The Czech goalkeeper Antonín Kinský has arrived for £12.5m to cover an obvious problem, although it’s not ideal for a 21-year-old to arrive and be thrust immediately into action. But it’s baffling other support hasn’t been offered, even if only on loan; if a couple of players don’t arrive before next Monday’s transfer deadline, the implication will be that Levy has already written off Postecoglou.

But even if players are added – and given Spurs’ wages-to-turnover ratio is a Premier League low 47%, there must be plenty of PSR wriggle room – it will be hard to avoid the conclusion that they should have been signed in the summer. Whatever the shortcomings of Postecoglou – at least some of which can be explained by the way the relentlessness of the Premier League addles minds as form goes awry – the ongoing pattern is the result of a club trying to do things on the cheap. It feels absurd now that they were one of the six English clubs involved in the Super League project: they currently lie 15th, undone by a chronic failure of ambition.

Ange Postecoglou admitted his future is out of his hands after a 2-1 defeat to Leicester deepened Tottenham’s troubles and saw furious supporters repeatedly call for Daniel Levy to quit as chairman.

Postecoglou, whose side are eight points above the bottom three after one win in their past 11 league games, had to be realistic. Spurs led at half-time but Leicester moved out of the relegation zone after responding with goals from Jamie Vardy and Bilal El Khannouss.

The turnaround was met with mutiny at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Anti-Levy chants were constant and Postecoglou felt unity fraying. The manager hopes that the situation will improve when injured players return, while he pointed out that Spurs are doing well in Europe, are still in the FA Cup and lead 1-0 on aggregate before the second leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final against Liverpool But he was philosophical after being asked if he is in danger of the sack.

“Who knows?” the Australian said. “When you are the manager of a football club you can be very vulnerable and isolated. I don’t feel that. I feel like this group of players are giving everything for the club. I have a group of staff that is really committed. I focus on that. My role within that is to try and support these players.

“When the guys who are coming back come back it is going to give everybody a lift. There is a fantastic opportunity this season to make an impact and I know we can. But in terms of your question, is there anything I can say about that that is going to change anything that I need to do tomorrow morning? Nothing.”

Postecoglou added: “I have felt all along that the players are still very committed to what we’re doing. That’s important to me, because I firmly believe in it and I really believe that this is as low as we’ve been so far this year but I still think that in these last three months we can do something really special.”

Spurs were unable to fill their bench and need reinforcements before the transfer window shuts. “Even one more player coming in, just in the short term will give us an opportunity,” Postecoglou said.

Ruud van Nistelrooy was delighted after Leicester halted a run of seven straight defeats to climb above Wolves to 17th place. “We were 1-0 behind but playing well,” Leicester’s manager said. “I saw a team that were 1-0 behind but not affected. We got the ball. We started the second half extremely well.”

Away from the mutinous chants pouring down from the south stand, the unmistakeable disgust with Daniel Levy and the gathering angst around Ange Postecoglou, it was possible to forget about Leicester. Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side have endured a horrible winter and, when they found themselves behind to a fragile Tottenham at half-time, they had the look of a group waiting for the sweet release of relegation.

At that stage they were on their way to their eighth consecutive defeat in the Premier League, equalling a club record set in the 2000-01 season. If history was a guide, though, then playing Spurs was good news for Van Nistelrooy. After all Leicester stopped the rot by beating them 4-2 at Filbert Street 24 years ago.

It meant there was almost a grim inevitability to how this match unfolded. In control after Richarlison’s header, it was astonishing to see an injury-hit Spurs collapse in the first five minutes of the second half, 1-0 becoming 1-2 thanks to goals from Jamie Vardy and Bilal El Khannous.

There were tired limbs, frazzled minds and, in the stands, ceaseless angry voices. Spurs fought but Leicester held on for a win that lifts them out of the bottom three, easing the pressure on Van Nistelrooy.

In doing so they might just have pulled Spurs into the relegation picture. Postecoglou’s side remain eight points above the drop zone after one win in 11 games and it would not be a surprise if this defeats brings an end to the Australian’s tenure. The venom directed at Levy certainly felt significant.

There was not much that Postecoglou could do to freshen his team up after a draining win over Hoffenheim in the Europa League. Pape Matar Sarr was back in midfield and Antonin Kinsky replaced Brandon Austin in goal, but the positives bulletins were diluted by James Maddison and Djed Spence becoming the absentees through injury.

It felt ominous when Sarr squandered possession in dangerous areas four times in the first ten minutes. The anxiety was palpable, growing when Rodrigo Bentancur joined his fellow midfielder in giving the ball away early on. It was jittery from Spurs and Leicester saw opportunities to push, a decent chance going to waste when Jordan Ayew finished tamely at the end of a move sparked by adroit play from El Khannous and Victor Kristiansen broke on the left.

There was already a sense that Leicester lacked the conviction to take advantage. Kinsky was forced to intervene when Ben Davies miscued a clearance towards his own goal but the visitors were also guilty of contributing to the mediocrity. The service to Vardy was poor and, for all that Spurs were well below their best, they still came closest to a breakthrough during the opening exchanges. It took excellent saves from Jakub Stolarczyk to deny Pedro Porro and Son Heung-min from long range.

Son, who later hit the bar with a misdirected cross, seemed to fancy his chances against the skittish James Justin on the left. But with Dejan Kulusevski tired on the right, the main point of interest tended to came from the regular chants calling for Levy to quit as chairman.

Postecoglou still seems to have buy-in from the crowd and his players. Here, meanwhile, it helped to be playing opponents as dire as Leicester. How simple it was when Porro whipped in a cross and Richarlison, starting up front with Dominic Solanke out for six weeks, darted away from Wout Faes to make it 1-0 with a thumping header.

Faes always seems to be on the brink of doing something calamitous. Then again, so are Spurs’ defenders. It was messy from the start of the second half. Bentancur clattered into Kristiansen but advantage was played and Sarr failed to react. The midfielder was dozing when Bobby De Cordova-Reid ran off him, latched on to Boubakary Soumaré’s perceptive pass and delivered a low cross which eluded Kinsky and ran for Vardy to collect his 10th goal in 18 games against Spurs.

It had taken 58 seconds for Leicester to equalise following the restart. Van Nistelrooy looked like a motivational genius. Spurs were stunned. They were still frozen when Soumaré sparked another counterattack in the 50th minute. Reid fed El Khannous, Spurs backed off and the winger accepted an invitation to thread a low shot past Kinsky from 20 yards.

Now the anger with Levy threatened to boil over. Leicester looked for a third, Vardy’s volley blocked, and there were boos when Postecoglou brought a tiring Richarlison off for Mikey Moore.

But the tweaks made sense. Son moved into the centre, the introduction of Sergio Reguilón for Sarr meant Archie Gray into midfield and Spurs worked themselves into a frenzy. Porro sent a deflected free-kick against the bar and Kulusveski almost beat Stolarczyk.

Leicester were far from secure. They lived dangerously, escaping when Porro dribbled through and shot wide from a tight angle. Postecoglou, again unable to fill his bench, looked at his right-back in disbelief. Desperation took over. A lot of Leicester players started to call for the physio. Stolarczyk was eventually booked for timewasting.

For Spurs, though, even the addition of seven minutes was not enough to stop the grumbling.

Long before he began experimenting with the mind-expanding potential of psychedelic mushrooms, Timothy Leary was a psychologist. In 1957, he came up with the interpersonal behaviour circumplex, which sought to represent personality using two dimensions: power and love. While relationships on the power axis were oppositional – that is, dominance inspires submission and vice versa – on the love axis they are reflexive: hostility inspires hostility and cooperation inspires cooperation.

This was subsequently developed by Emily and Laurence Alison at the University of Liverpool. In their 2020 book Rapport, they use animals to express the four basic characteristics: a lion for control, a mouse for capitulation, a T-Rex for assertiveness and a monkey for cooperation. None of these are intrinsically good or bad: the lion could be inspiring and supportive, but he could also be patronising or dictatorial. And nor are many people represented by a single animal.

The Alisons drew up two wheels to represent the “good” and “bad” variants, each with eight sections representing personalities as being primarily one with a secondary element of another. Good Monkey with secondary Lion, for instance, is “social, warm, friendly”.

When Ange Postecoglou arrived at Tottenham, he seemed refreshingly normal. He acted confidently and was assertive. He was frank and forthright, all characteristics of Good T-Rex. But the Premier League is a tough zoo. It can break even the most apparently robust of managers. When a BBC reporter began his interview with Postecoglou after the 3-2 defeat to Everton with “A familiar story?”, he responded by snarling: “Great way to start an interview, mate.”

Tottenham have lost five of their past six league games and Postecoglou has previously seemed irritated at having to point out Spurs’ injury problems over and over again. If anything, to suggest the defeat at Everton was a “familiar story” was underplaying it: this was far worse.

The Dr Tottenham phenomenon is well known – Spurs have long been a tonic for sides down on their luck – but even by their standards, this was extraordinary: by half-time, Everton had improved their goals tally for the season by 20%, Dominic Calvert-Lewin scored his first goal in four months and Goodison was rocking like Howard Kendall was back with Paul Bracewell running the midfield.

Few will worry too much about a manager snapping at a journalist but what is more significant is what it reveals about Postecoglou’s mindset – particularly if he is reacting in a similar way to players. Being sarcastic, punitive, attacking and unfriendly, the Alisons tell us, is characteristic of Bad T-Rex with secondary Mouse. In fact, Postecoglou ticks almost all the Bad T-Rex boxes. He’s become irritable, distrustful and resentful which is Bad Mouse with some T-Rex. And he’s always been dogmatic and demanding, represented by Bad Lion with some T-Rex.

What then has changed? Why has the Good T-Rex of 18 months ago gone bad today? “It’s the way of the world,” as Blackadder explains to Baldrick in the BBC series. “The abused always kick downwards. I am annoyed so I kick the cat. The cat pounces on the mouse … and finally the mouse bites you on the behind.” Postecoglou is under pressure, his skin perhaps not as thick as it initially seemed, and this current irascible incarnation is what happens when flaws and foibles are exposed by the Premier League machine.

It’s only fair, of course, to outline once again how the club have let Postecoglou down. The squad is short – inexcusably so given wages to turnover ratio is the lowest in the league at 47%. Fraser Forster is not compatible with Postecoglou’s preferred style; that he was the back up for Guglielmo Vicario is almost negligent and the result is a 21-year-old being signed and thrown immediately into first-team action. To lose all three frontline centre-backs at once was unfortunate but to have only three has left Spurs open to that sort of bad luck. How is the inexperienced right-back Djed Spence the first-choice back-up at left-back?

Add in that Tottenham’s policy is to sign for the future and they ended up at Everton with six teenagers on the bench and another two on the pitch. In that context, a certain inconsistency is only to be expected. The problem is that Spurs now seem to have slipped beyond that; a little inconsistency, in fact, would be welcome in the face of relentless league defeats. They shouldn’t be in a relegation battle but if they lose on Sunday to Leicester, who have lost seven in a row, maybe it’s not impossible they do slide into the mire, particularly given Postecoglou’s alarming slip into Bad T-Rex territory.

This is the greatness of the Premier League, but it is also its horror. It’s like a tale from the One Thousand and One Nights: complete the quest and great glory and the princess’s hand in marriage awaits, but for those who fail the consequences are severe. The Premier League is the richest, toughest league in the world. Every game is a test. Every aspect of a manager is constantly challenged. Stand still and you go backwards.

Postecoglou isn’t alone in giving the impression of being unnerved by the remorseless nature of the Premier League. Ruben Amorim is already making highly provocative comments about just how bad his Manchester United team appears to be.

Whether dogmatism is appropriate in any aspect of management in a league that demands constant evolution can be debated – particularly, perhaps, when the dogma in question feels like a breezy version of the hegemonic style of a decade ago – and there can be little doubt about the limitations of Tottenham’s squad. But the issue Postecoglou faces now seems more fundamental and could conceivably lead to his exit before the end of the season. Beaten down by the Premier League, he is lashing out, hostility generating hostility to create a doom spiral.

Once locked in that loop, it’s very difficult to get out. It’s easy to say a little cooperation, a little flexibility, might break the cycle, far harder to make it happen, particularly for somebody of T-Rex personality type with lion tendencies. More achievable, perhaps, is to find a way back from Bad T-Rex to Good, to replace sarcasm and argumentativeness with confidence and assertiveness. You don’t have to have eaten Leary’s mushrooms to realise grouchy dinosaurs rarely prosper.

Ange Postecoglou beleives Tottenham will be “playing with fire” if they do not bring in any new players this month after confirming that their record signing, Dominic Solanke, is likely to be out for six weeks with a knee injury.

Spurs face Leicester on Sunday having picked up only five points from their past 10 matches and have not won at home in the Premier League since the start of November. Languishing in 15th at this stage of the campaign would usually spell trouble for a Tottenham manager but Postecoglou is understood to have been given the opportunity to revive their fortunes by the chairman, Daniel Levy, having enjoyed some success in the cup competitions.

Another major reason for the Australian retaining Levy’s backing is the amount of injuries Spurs have picked up this season, with Postecoglou revealing after the 3-2 win over Hoffenheim in the Europa League on Thursday that the £65m striker Solanke is set to be missing until March, despite not requiring surgery. Asked whether there is money to spend this month to bring in any replacements, Postecoglou said it was down to the club’s technical director, Johan Lange, to “help” his squad.

“I’m not out there trying to find opportunities for the club, that’s not my role at this time. There isn’t time to do it,” Postecoglou said. “I have daily communication with Johan in particular and he’s trying everything he possibly can to get the help we need.

“I don’t think I’m stating anything other than the obvious and for me to come here and say something else would be disingenuous: this playing group needs help, there’s no doubt about that. We’re sort of playing with fire by not bringing anyone in. But the flip side of that is the club is trying to change that situation.”

Postecoglou is hoping both Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven return in time for the second leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final against Liverpool on 6 February and admitted that seeing both central defenders on their way back to full fitness had given the rest of his players “a big lift”.

But despite beating Arne Slot’s side and Manchester United at home in that competition, Tottenham have gone seven matches without a victory in the Premier League at their own stadium and their manager acknowledged that it is important to improve on their “unacceptable” league position.

“Most fans understand the situation that we are in and they are probably not happy with it but they can probably see the potential,” he said. “Our job is to try and produce consistency in our league performances that hopefully alleviates some of the negativeness around the club at the moment.

“I think the players all sense the opportunity: we’re deep in one competition, we’re in the knockout stages of another and further along in the FA Cup. We need to get some results in the league because where we are is unacceptable. But there is still plenty to play for and it’s exciting. I think they all sense that as well and they want us to get through this period so we can tackle the exciting part of the season in the best shape possible.”

From 2d ago

Jacob Steinberg has filed his match report from the PreZero Arena:

A bit more time enjoying Hoffenheim’s hospitality and all of Tottenham’s problems probably would have faded away. After all Christian Ilzer’s struggling side certainly seemed intent on doing everything in their power to ease Spurs back to good health here, displaying such incompetence in defence that it would not be wise to conclude that Ange Postecoglou is out of the woods just yet.

What to make of a neurotic victory over the team sitting fourth from bottom in the Bundesliga? The positive for an injury-hit Spurs is that they were stylish at first, going 2-0 up with goals from James Maddison and Son Heung-min. They also saw off a fightback from Hoffenheim after half-time, Son sealing the points with a clinical strike, and were resilient enough to boost their chances of avoiding a two-legged playoff to reach the Europa League knockouts by surviving a nervy finale with four teenagers on the pitch at the end.

Much more here:

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And that’s all from me. Bye!

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Jacob Steinberg has filed his match report from the PreZero Arena:

A bit more time enjoying Hoffenheim’s hospitality and all of Tottenham’s problems probably would have faded away. After all Christian Ilzer’s struggling side certainly seemed intent on doing everything in their power to ease Spurs back to good health here, displaying such incompetence in defence that it would not be wise to conclude that Ange Postecoglou is out of the woods just yet.

What to make of a neurotic victory over the team sitting fourth from bottom in the Bundesliga? The positive for an injury-hit Spurs is that they were stylish at first, going 2-0 up with goals from James Maddison and Son Heung-min. They also saw off a fightback from Hoffenheim after half-time, Son sealing the points with a clinical strike, and were resilient enough to boost their chances of avoiding a two-legged playoff to reach the Europa League knockouts by surviving a nervy finale with four teenagers on the pitch at the end.

Much more here:

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“It could be a remarkable season for Tottenham. They could win a couple of trophies,” says Owen Hargreaves on TNT. I’ll have what he’s having.

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Updated at 21.04 CET

And here’s Ange Postecoglou!

Credit to the boys. Outstanding first half, played really well. We looked a bit tired in the second half but we hung on. We had the schoolboys out there at the end. It was a great victory.

In the context of the game we knew if we could score early it would allow us to get a real good foothold in the game. Son was brilliant. The senior boys all stood up. They needed to, playing away in Europe with such an inexperienced team.

I’ve just told them to enjoy it. Irrespective of the situation we’re in, winning away in Europe gives us a good foothold in those top eight spots which will give us a week off, of respite from the schedule we’ve had, and we’re probably going to need it.

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There was some encouragement here for Spurs, more than anything in the performance of Richarlison, who only once this season has played as many as today’s 58 minutes, worked pretty hard, and looked bright in the first half-hour before fading a bit. Davies brought height and nous to their defence. Players returning from injury makes a pleasant change.

In their final league game next week they host Elfsborg, who are currently 26th. A win sends them cantering into the knockout rounds, leaving playoffs for the riff-raff.

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The latest Europa League table looks like this:

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Scott Murray will type you through Manchester United v Rangers, if you’re up for more:

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Nearly final scores: Two games (italicised) are still ongoing, with the one at Qarabag deep into stoppage time and Fenerhahce still just about in normal time. Here are the scores as they stand:

Alkmaar 1-0 Roma

Bodo/Glimt 3-1 Maccabi Tel Aviv

*Fenerbahce 0-0 Lyon

Hoffenheim 2-3 Tottenham

Malmo 2-3 Twente

Porto 0-1 Olympiacos

*Qarabag 2-3 Steaua Bucharest

Viktoria Plzen 2-0 Anderlecht

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Final score: Hoffenheim 2-3 Tottenham

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Updated at 21.02 CET

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GOAL! Hoffenheim 2-3 Tottenham (Mokwa, 88 mins)

Game back on! It’s a great cross from Kramaric on the right, and it dips onto the head of the substitute David Mokwa, who heads in from the far corner of the six-yard box!

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Updated at 20.38 CET

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GOAL! Hoffenheim 1-3 Tottenham (Son, 77 mins)

N’Soki’s terrible pass gives Kulusevski the ball in the centre circle, and it’s swiftly worked through Moore to Son, who jinks his way into space before shooting low with his left foot beyond Baumann and in at the far post!

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Updated at 20.27 CET

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GOAL! Hoffenheim 1-2 Tottenham (Stach, 68 mins)

It’s been coming, and now it’s come! Stach starts the break with a fine pass out to Kramaric from his own half and from there he keeps running. Kramaric passes on to Jurasek, and his low cross from the left finds Stach six yards out. His finish is not at all convincing, but the ball spins in at the back stick!

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Updated at 20.16 CET

No penalty!

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Hoffenheim have a penalty!

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Updated at 20.12 CET

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The players are back out! No halftimely changes by the look of things.

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Half time: Hoffenheim 0-2 Tottenham

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Ange Postecoglou believes Tottenham’s injury crisis is a warning for football and fears the situation will not improve unless clubs are allowed to deal with an increasingly packed schedule by building bigger squads.

Spurs are at breaking point before they face Hoffenheim in their penultimate game of the first phase of the Europa League on Thursday, with only 13 first-team players travelling to ­Germany. Pape Matar Sarr is the ­latest to succumb to injury and with ­Sergio Reguilón, Yang Min-hyeok, Djed Spence and Antonin Kinsky ineligible, Postecoglou is short of options for a game that will have a big say on whether his team skip the playoff round for the knockout stage by finishing in the top eight.

“We’ve been hit the hardest but it is becoming more prevalent,” the under-pressure Spurs manager said. “If you look at the teams in Europe, even last year Newcastle really suffered, and Villa to a certain extent this year. You really need a strong squad and to keep them healthy to cope with playing in Europe if you do well in the cup competitions like we have – because it’s not manageable when you’ve got three games a week for the length of time we have.

“Some of it is because we’ve done well in the Carabao Cup and that’s added extra games. People may look at us and think it’s a unique case. It’s very extreme but I don’t think it will be as ­uncommon as people think as we move along. There’s some warning signs there for others.”

Postecoglou, whose job security is waning after a desperate run, rejected the idea that Spurs need to adjust their recruitment strategy. “If you’re going to play this much football you should be increasing squad numbers,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what strategies you put in place. If you want to compete at this level and happen to do well in all competitions there’s no other way to counteract it.”

“I don’t think it’s a matter of the club’s strategy or recruiting. It’s just the sheer numbers, a scenario where we’ve got limited numbers for all competitions. You’ve got to factor international football into that. It’s not like they get a break between seasons. The calendar’s really ramped up. In the last five years the game has changed a lot from the previous 50 years. There’s going to be some issues if the game keeps changing this quickly.”

Postecoglou was unsure if Spurs, who are ninth in the Europa League standings, will make any more ­signings before the transfer window shuts. The focus is on beating Hoffenheim, who are ­enduring a dreadful season. They are 17th in the Bundesliga and in danger of making an early exit from Europe.

However, the German side may see vulnerability in Spurs, who could be forced to use Archie Gray at left-back with Destiny Udogie, Spence and Reguilón unavailable. Gray has played in a variety of positions this season and tThe 18‑year‑old midfielder struggled as part of a back three during the defeat against Everton on Sunday, but insists his confidence remains intact.

“I don’t think any negative will ever shake me,” heGray said. “I spoke to my Dad after the game and he just said you’ve got to learn from these things – if you want to be a footballer, you’re going to have those games and you’ve got to learn from them.”

Daniel Levy intends to give Ange Postecoglou the opportunity to revive Tottenham’s fortunes, with the under-pressure manager set to remain in charge for this week’s matches against Hoffenheim in the Europa League and Leicester in the Premier League, although the situation is precarious.

Levy would normally be expected to sack a manager who has presided over a league run of five points from 10 matches, as Postecoglou has done to leave the club languishing in 15th place. The 3-2 defeat at Everton on Sunday was the latest low, with Spurs 3-0 down at half-time to a team that had scored 15 goals in 20 previous league matches this season. Their rally towards the end did not obscure the faultlines.

Their form is unacceptable and Levy knows it better than anyone. But the chairman can see that Postecoglou, whose vision has generated buy-in from the fans, even if many are beside themselves with frustration, has been gravely undermined by injuries.

Postecoglou has been running with double-digit absentees (or thereabouts) for weeks and was without 10 senior players at Goodison Park, including his first-choice defence, apart from the right-back Pedro Porro. The hope, fervently held by everyone at the club, is that things will start to improve once the selection crisis eases.

No chairman wants to make a managerial change in the middle of the season, especially when there is no obvious replacement available. Postecoglou has been able to guide his team to the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup, in which they hold a 1-0 lead against Liverpool going into the second leg at Anfield on 6 February.

Spurs are ninth in the Europa League table, well set to qualify for the knockout phase. If they finish in the top eight they will advance straight to the last 16. Hoffenheim are enduring a terrible season: fourth from bottom of the Bundesliga, 26th in the Europa League. Spurs finish their group campaign with a home tie against Elfsborg on Thursday week. Remarkably, they are still the favourites to win the competition with many bookmakers. The Europa League winners qualify for next season’s Champions League.

Spurs’ only league win of the dismal current sequence came at bottom-of-the-table Southampton. Yet Levy knows that when Postecoglou’s team click with all of the main players available, they are capable of thrilling football and results. It was only two months ago they won 4-0 at Manchester City. The Carabao Cup first-leg win over Liverpool came the Wednesday before last.

Spurs have recalled the striker Dane Scarlett from his loan at Oxford in the Championship, but they are expected to send him out again this month. They were not happy with the 20-year-old’s playing time.

The final scoreline indicates a fightback from Tottenham, a spirited revival that left Everton desperately clinging on for their first win under David Moyes and showed spirit still thrives under Ange Postecoglou. The final scoreline is misleading. Spurs paid the price for an atrocious first half performance at Goodison Park as their winless sequence extended to six Premier League games.

Dejan Kulusevski and Richarlison struck in the final 15 minutes to give some credibility to the score but this, in truth, was a comfortable afternoon’s work for an Everton team in serious need of a jolt. Spurs and Moyes’ tactics gave them one.

The Scot had two days to work with the players before the home defeat by Aston Villa on Wednesday, when the shape, personnel and lack of quality in attack were all too familiar to the Goodison regulars. What a difference the rest of the week made. For the second game of his second coming as Everton manager, Moyes handed a Premier League debut to Jake O’Brien on the right of three-man central defence and switched to a 3-4-2-1 formation. The results were revelatory. From the performance of Jesper Lindstrom as a right wing-back to Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s presence up front, Everton’s composure on the ball to their willingness to put bodies on the line, the hosts were unrecognisable.

The Everton cause was helped, no doubt, by a truly pitiful first-half display by Tottenham. With Dominic Solanke injured Postecoglou claimed he had only 11 match fit players for the trip to Goodison, a ground where Spurs had not lost in the Premier League since December 2012, when Moyes was previously Everton manager. The most glaring absentees from the visiting ranks were defensive organisation and character. Spurs’ attitude was pathetic. ‘We want Levy out’ chants emanated from the away section long before Everton sauntered into a 3-0 interval lead but a basic lack of fight and effort is not on the boardroom. The boos that accompanied Postecoglou’s team down the tunnel at half-time was the sound of Spurs’ fans confirming as much.

Spurs helped Calvert-Lewin end his personal torment after 13 minutes. The centre-forward had gone 16 games without a goal prior to their visit and felt the wrath of Goodison after missing a glorious late chance to equalise against Villa. There were no signs of a lack of confidence, however, when Calvert-Lewin received Idrissa Gueye’s slide-rule pass into the penalty area, turned Archie Gray one way, then the other, and slotted a cool finish inside Antonin Kinsky’s near post. The origin of Calvert-Lewin’s first league goal for 1288 minutes was a careless cross-field pass by Pape Sarr to Lindstrom, who had already had a shot tipped away by Kinsky. Everton did not look back.

The hosts’ second was also well-worked and confidently dispatched. Iliman Ndiaye exchanged passes with Gueye, a dominant figure in midfield, and set off from the half-way line against a retreating Spurs defence. Once inside the penalty area he stepped easily across Radu Dragusin and lashed an emphatic shot into the roof of Kinsky’s net. It was Ndiaye’s first Premier League goal at Goodison since his £16.9m move from Marseille.

Everton created several openings to register a third before it eventually arrived. Calvert-Lewin was played clean through on goal by Jarrad Branthwaite’s searching ball but a heavy second touch off his third gifted possession to Kinsky. The striker teed up Orel Mangala for a first time effort that the Spurs’ keeper tipped onto a post. Lindstrom kept the ball alive and centred for Calvert-Lewin to head straight at Kinsky. James Tarkowski met a Lindstrom free-kick with a diving header but directed his attempt straight at the goalkeeper. Spurs initially dealt with the subsequent corner from Lindstrom. The on-loan Napoli winger was given a second bite, however, and delivered a deep cross to the far post where Tarkowski headed back across goal. Calvert-Lewin flicked on and the unfortunate Gray sliced the ball into his own net. Moyes’ name finally rang around Goodison once again.

The threat from Tottenham until that point had been minimal. Son Heung-min was offered sight of Jordan Pickford’s goal when played through by Ben Davies’ long ball over the top. Tarkowski intervened with a superb challenge inside the area. The Spurs captain should have levelled moments later when Pedro Porro dissecting the Everton defence with a fine ball into Kulusevski and the forward teed up Son near the penalty spot. The striker looked certain to score but placed his shot too close to Pickford, who gathered comfortably.

Postecoglou introduced former Everton striker Richarlison for Dragusin at half-time. The defender needed lengthy treatment for an eye injury just before the break when caught by Calvert-Lewin’s raised arm but the switch was necessary regardless. It sparked an improvement from Spurs, so too the later introduction of Mikey Moore, but it would be a stretch to suggest the final scoreline showed they pushed Everton to the limit. Kulusevski reduced the arrears with a superb finish after Pickford came off his line to challenge the otherwise anonymous James Maddison. The ball broke to Moore and, though his shot was charged down, Kulusevski lofted the rebound over several Everton defenders and in from close range.

Richarlison caused late palpitations among the home crowd when poking home a Moore cross in the final seconds but this was no late charge from Spurs. Postecoglou looks in serious trouble.