Tottenham Hotspur correspondent Alasdair Gold has been speaking all things Spurs related on the latest episode of the Gold & Guest talk Tottenham podcast.
The north London club suffered another league defeat on Sunday to their London rivals Chelsea, after a second-half humiliation saw Thomas Tuchel’s side run out 3-0 victors.
Will Nuno still be at Spurs come Christmas?
Yes
No
Nuno Espirito Santo’s side are without a win in their last three games across all competitions, but saw a few of his players return to the squad following respective injuries and quarantine rules.
Heung-min Son and Eric Dier made their comebacks from injury and Argentine duo Cristian Romero and Giovani Lo Celso both returned from their Croatian quarantine camp.
Speaking about the time the Portuguese boss has actually had with his full squad, Gold had the following to say on Espirito Santo’s start to life at Spurs.
“Personally, I just think that Spurs dropped off what they were doing so well. And that is a fitness thing – we’re going to come to it about Nuno not having the amount of time, you know, he told me afterwards, to work with the full squad.
“I went away and I looked at it properly and I kind of figured out really what he meant. It’s the amount of time he’s had to work with his players. As a full squad, I think we’re talking two to three weeks.
“Because you look at it, and pre-season, the bulk of the ‘big players’ as it were, came back in the last fortnight to a week, some of them. Some of them just in the final days, you know, obviously Harry Kane and Tanguy Ndombele, their sagas meant they weren’t even part of things for the early weeks of the season, let alone pre-season.
“Then he gets a little bit of time to work with them, Spurs win three games, they’re through to the group stages of the Europa Conference League, looking good.
“Then that international break comes along, takes three players who were likely to start a lot of matches away, isolates them in Croatia, then five other players get injured.”
TIF Thoughts on Espirito Santo at Spurs…
It has certainly been a turbulent start for Espirito Santo at Spurs. Just a matter of weeks ago, the Lilywhites were soaring high at the top of the Premier League table.
However, now they sit slumped in seventh spot and with a -6 goal difference over the course of their last two top-flight games, with Harry Kane yet to get off the mark in the league.
We feel this could be a huge week ahead for the Portuguese manager, with a cup game against Wolverhampton Wanderers coming up and then a trip to the Emirates Stadium for a derby clash against Arsenal.
With Sunday’s north London derby in mind, we are interested to see how Espirito Santo approaches his team selection for the game at Molineux on Wednesday, as there is surely only so long he can continue to have excuses over his squad.
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