Alasdair Gold has dubbed Tottenham Hotspur’s run of conceding first in nine straight games “pathetic”.
Gold laid the blame at both the players and Antonio Conte’s door with him expecting much more than the recent defensive performances they’ve produced.
It’s a terrible run that stems back to October 19, when Spurs lost 2-0 to Manchester United, with the month-and-a-half-long Premier League break seemingly not enough time to shake Tottenham out of the rot.
The last outing saw it take only 15 minutes for Vitaly Janelt to open the scoring for Brentford before Spurs had to yet again stage a second-half comeback to salvage a 2-2 draw.
Speaking on the Gold and Guest talk Tottenham podcast, Gold hit out at Spurs’ defensive fragilities and questioned what the Italian manager is doing to stop the rut after speaking to him after the draw.
“I asked Conte afterwards about that, and honestly, he grimaced, he smiled a bit maniacally, it was a bit like I don’t know what I’m doing or what to do about this.”
“It’s pathetic, it’s really pathetic. These players, whatever you think of them, they’re not that poor that nine games in a row, they should be conceding the first goal.
“And he is a coach who coached some of the best defences in the game, so he should be able to coach them to be stronger mentally than that.”
TIF Thoughts on Gold’s comments…
Tottenham’s abysmal run is beginning to cost them their once comfortable Premier League top-four place as only two wins in the previous six games have seen United close the gap to just a point with a game in hand.
Conte may well be running out of ideas with an audacious attempt to start Japhet Tanganga at centre-back against Ivan Toney in his first Premier League appearance since January 2022, completely backfiring with him hooked off at 2-1 down.
Spurs could well have the perfect chance to turn it around against either Aston Villa or Crystal Palace, with the latter failing to score in their Boxing Day defeat to Fulham.
If not, they could find themselves in serious trouble with Arsenal and Manchester City twice to come in the next four Premier League games.