Guglielmo Vicario’s reaction at the full-time whistle said it all. On the end of a 1-0 defeat against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park, the Tottenham players made their way over to the far corner of the stadium to applaud the travelling faithful and the goalkeeper could only apologise for what had occurred.
The away support had nothing to cheer about from the game after such an insipid display from Ange Postecoglou’s side. Heading into the fixture in good form following seven wins from eight games in all competitions, Tottenham just never looked like leaving SE25 with maximum points in the bag
Crystal Palace, on the other hand, deserved their first win of the 2024/25 Premier League campaign after making life incredibly difficult for their opponents. Spurs just never got going and their latest defeat now leaves them eighth in the Premier League table following four wins, one draw and four defeats from their first nine fixtures.
Tottenham are struggling for consistency in the league at present, thus leaving them five points behind Aston Villa in fourth and ten points behind league leaders Manchester City. Apart from Brennan Johnson hitting the post and James Maddison forcing Dean Henderson into a one-handed save on the stroke of half-time, the Lilywhites never put their opponents under intense pressure or created clear-cut chances in their quest to get back into the contest.
Going close through Maxence Lacroix before Jean-Phillipe Mateta gave the Eagles the lead in the 31st minute, Palace had a number of opportunities in the second half to extend the scoreline at a time when Tottenham failed to lay a glove on them. Spurs were perhaps lucky it was only the one goal they lost by following a superb one-handed save from Vicario in the closing stages to deny Adam Wharton.
Immediately after the full-time whistle, the Italian international joined his teammates heading over to the away end and held both arms up for a decent amount of time to apologise to the fans. The 28-year-old knew what the team served up was unacceptable and he wanted to make that clear to the supporters
Disappointing defeat today. We didn’t expect this outcome today but it is what it is,” he said when speaking to SPURSPLAY after the game. “Every outcome has something to say and to say to us maybe we didn’t fight as we could fight today. It’s disappointing, we have to take it very personally and it has to hurt a lot.
“Fortunately in football we have another occasion in two days in a big game. Now we have to take it personally and analyse this game and go forward because in another two days we have another game.”
He added: “Yes of course they really wanted it but we have to know when you come and play away from home in the Premier League every team has a little bit more to show in front of their fans. In terms of attitude, in terms of power, in terms of taking care about things. Today they showed and we showed less than them.
For us as a team we have to improve this aspect because to win games of football it’s not about playing good football, it’s also about this kind of stuff. We have to put in there as soon as we can because we need to change this mountain of results with up and downs, up and downs. We have to be more stable in our results because we have the quality but the quality sometimes is not enough.”
It just hasn’t quite gone Tottenham’s way on the road in the Premier League this season. As good as the emphatic 3-0 win at Manchester United was, Postecoglou’s men should have obtained maximum points at Leicester City and Brighton & Hove Albion and left with at least a point in the defeat at Newcastle United.
What perhaps didn’t help their cause at Selhurst Park was the midfield selection. Eight days previous Postecoglou had switched things up at the break against West Ham and the introduction of Pape Matar Sarr in place of Maddison proved crucial to the end result.
Amid question marks over whether Sarr or Maddison would start from the off against Palace, the England international, who excelled in the midweek win over AZ Alkmaar, got the nod ahead of the Senegal ace. Tottenham completely lacked the legs and energy in the middle, leaving Yves Bissouma with quite the task on his hands trying to come out on top and stop Palace from completely overrunning them.
It was perhaps a surprise that Postecoglou didn’t have Sarr ready and waiting to come on in place of Maddison or Dejan Kulusevski at the break, instead waiting until the 62nd minute before introducing the youngster. Kulusevski just couldn’t have a say on the game as his intricate pieces of play were completely snuffed out by Wharton, Jefferson Lerma and Will Hughes, who replaced the Colombian early in the first half. Maddison fared slightly better than Tottenham’s No.21 but he couldn’t match the levels he produced three days earlier.
Mikey Moore, who also wowed in the AZ game, was handed his full Premier League debut with Son Heung-min again missing out through injury. It was a decision that went down well with Tottenham fans when team news broke at 12.45pm but the 17-year-old just couldn’t really influence the game.
He was positive in his play when on the ball, notably going on a run early on that resulted in Wharton clipping his heels and bringing him down. It just never worked for the front three, though, with Dominic Solanke working as hard as ever but only managing to have one shot on goal.
At the back, Spurs fans nor Postecoglou will want to watch Mateta’s goal back as it was very much self-inflicted when trying to play out. Cristian Romero’s clipped pass across the area wasn’t the kindest of balls to Micky van de Ven as the bounce allowed Daniel Munoz to close in and put the Dutchman in a bad position
Van de Ven’s intended pass to Destiny Udogie was subsequently cut out, with Mateta duly firing in at the back post after Eberechi Eze’s exquisite flick from Munoz’s cross. It was outstanding play by the England international and it completely took Romero and Pedro Porro out of the game.
“I think even before then we could have dealt with those situations better but it was a poor goal and we should do better at that and not concede like that,” said Postecoglou on the goal in his post-match press conference. “There was other solutions out there and again even in that moment we didn’t have to lose our composure.
“It just seems we kind of wanted everything to run smoothly and we know it doesn’t, especially in a game like today. There are still ways you can sort of overcome that but it was a poor goal to concede because the game was always an arm wrestle. It was never going to be one with bags of chances or really open so to concede like that was disappointing.”
Postecoglou was also very honest in his assessment of the match and declared that his team “didn’t get to grips with just the nature of what was transpiring out there”.
It was a game which turned into, and it didn’t surprise me, a bit of a battle,” said the Australian. “Lots of stop, starting and standing around. We didn’t deal with that really well at all. We didn’t get to grips with just the nature of what was transpiring out there. It turned into a bit of a battle. They dealt with it better than we did.”
He added: “No, I don’t want to play them at their own game. What I want to try to do is get people to adjust to playing our game. Some of it is out of control because they’re obviously going to be pretty aggressive in their approach, which is not a surprise. And how the referee deals with that, not so much in terms of the challenges but in terms of stoppages and taking their time, all of that is out of our control. But I just felt when we had control of things, we could have dealt with it better.
“We ended up doing silly things, giving away silly fouls and losing our composure, which just adds to that sort of game when you can’t get any traction. So I think we directed our frustration in the wrong way rather than dealing with like we should have.”
As Vicario mentioned above, Tottenham have to show another side to their game in order to win matches and they now have the perfect opportunity to put the defeat behind when they face Manchester City in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday evening. The north London club have been handed a daunting draw but it is a winnable match with City expected to ring the changes
Not only do Tottenham need to win to keep their silverware hopes alive, they need to claim victory to help right the wrongs of the Crystal Palace defeat, which was undoubtedly their worst 90-minute display of the season. Vicario’s reaction at full-time spoke a thousand words
