The Athletic F.C.

Hello and welcome to The View from the Lane, the Tottenham Hotspur

podcast from The Athletic. My name's Jack Pitbrook and I'm hosting today in the absence of

Danny Kelly. I'm joined today by Dan Kilpatrick and James Moore. Thanks to both of you for joining us.

Right, there is only one place to start, one thing to talk about on today's episode,

and that, of course, is Tottenham Hotspur's two underfeet at Craven Cottage yesterday afternoon.

James, it was really bad, wasn't it?

Yeah, yeah, it was terrible.

I mean, I think we kind of had mixed feelings ahead of the game in terms of whether this was one of the matches we expected or needed spurs to get points.

But I think we were all in agreement that we certainly needed to see more of an improvement than we actually got.

I mean, the biggest concern for me really is, I think, I think, Tudor, as it turned out, got the team wrong. Hands up, hands on the table, hands up. Which one is it? Cards on the table, hands up. Both of those. Both good. Both good. That isn't a million miles away from the team I would have played. I think I would have played like a diamond, which is kind of what they ended up with. But clearly it didn't work. And I think they needed more drastic change earlier in the game than they got. I mean, when were the substitutions like an hour maybe into the game? Yeah. I think he really could have gone all in at half time and just, you're two-no-downy playing dreadfully. No one player is really offering much. Like, I think you need drastic changes at half-time, and he kind of waited out a little bit too long for me.

There was an improvement in that last half hour to an extent. It did seem to take them quite a while after the, well, I mean, there were a couple of minutes after the Rich Arlinson goal where they looked interested and then it's but that they dropped off again massively and then picked up again and basically added time.

But yeah, I mean, there's very, very little positive to take from that, I'd say.

There are a couple of glimpses from the bench of players that can be useful to Spurs in this situation.

I think Souser is probably one.

He looked quite bright and he's a natural left footer, which, as we talked about on this pod before, is a improvement on Spence or indeed Archie Gray playing there.

And I think Richarlison came on again and showed that he's been in the situation before, which is not true of most players in the squad, right?

He has kind of scrapped and really been decisive in helping to get Everton out of a relegation battle.

So he might be useful in the last 10-11 games. But no, I agree with James. It was pretty bleak, really. And on the post-Arsonal pod, James and Jay said, I think Tudor might be under a bit of pressure going into the Fulham game now. And I sort of thought that was a bit premature and maybe a bit unfair, to be honest, at the time, but I think they were right. And now I'm thinking he's, he is under pressure because I totally agree. I think he got the team really

badly wrong. And I think he made a few big mistakes in terms of how Spurs set up and how and where he positioned certain players.

I mean, notably Simmons and Solanke for me, that was kind of alarming.

And, you know, now makes me concerned about, yeah, his ability to manage his limited resources

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