Spurs had a breakthrough season which has given hope to the supporters about the future under Pochettino which was rewarded in the Euros as it gave chance to 11 players from the Spurs squad to give their all for their national teams , second highest in the league after Liverpool which featured 12 in the Euros. With Man City, Man Utd and Chelsea all having new manager at the helm, they will take time to settle and with Spurs already in tune with Pochettino’s tactics, Spurs can go into the next season with a hope of repeating last season’s showing.
But as in the last season, Spurs suffered a meltdown in May and the title challenge crumbled, Spurs players were affected by the bad end to the season that reflected in their performances in the Euros. Fatigue and bad form resulted in the bad showing of the Spurs contingent in the highly successful tournament in France, let’s see why did it go wrong for Spurs this Euros:
England had five Spurs players in the final squad and barring one game, all five started for the three lions. Barring Eric Dier who was the lone shining light for them this Euros cemented his place in the national team for the recent future. Danny Rose was decent considering the average performance from the rest of the squad. He wasn’t at his best and need to contribute more defensively in the future.
Kyle Walker was brilliant in the group stages but was poor against Iceland and his weakness to switch off during games was crucial for the unexpected loss for the three lions. Dele Alli couldn’t live up to the expectation and looked out of place in the three man midfield that Hodgson played with. Harry Kane was the worst England player along with Joe Hart and looked completely jaded and burnt out as the forward has made over 100 appearances for Spurs over the last two seasons scoring 59 goals and deserve a rest now.
In the Belgium squad, Toby Alderweireld has been their best defender and has even scored a goal for the red devils. Jan Vertonghen was sadly injured Midway and is out for three months now which may become a problem come next season for Spurs. Moussa Dembele has just made one appearance and has hardly done anything to grab a place in the starting lineup. Hugo Lloris has done well for the hosts as also Ben Davies for Wales in their fairytale campaign. Kevin Wimmer couldn’t get into the Austrian team and managed just there minutes and overall, it was a disappointing Euros for the Spurs players.
Getting to play in meaningless – form destroying, career-limiting jingoism driven summer tournaments for managers who don’t give a sh** for the well being of the player is not a reward. nor is it a great honour. It appears -(if we can get through the last two games) that Tottenham will start a very important season with 6 players tired – 4 exhausted and only 1 injured (so far) as a result of participating in this nonsense.
If we focus on the England contingent from Spurs I feel it was only Kane and Alli who were notably below par. Dier, Walker and Rose were good. This is in relation to the England squad as a whole. Kane looked tired and slow and Alli was just off the pace with everything, not terrible but not as good as his club form had shown through the season. I thought Walker was outstanding early on and pretty good throughout. To blame Walker for an Iceland goal is unfair. He is not a centre back, he is not a giant in the box to head balls away, it is not the function of a wing back to do that. Did every defender who failed to clear a set piece cross that resulted in a goal get criticised – I think not: Alderweireld against Wales for instance? The tide of disappointment that resulted from England’s collective failure has focused undue criticism on Spurs players. We could look at things like a winter break as other nations practice or even reducing the Premier league to 18 or even 16 teams. It’s all too easy to find scapegoats. Someone should look at why Harry Kane played 134 games in two seasons with just two weeks off; or will we all get carried away with the usual lack of sympathy that is applied to Premier League players who are perceived as pampered and overpaid?