They sought him here and they sought him there but even in a bright red Wolves away shirt, João Gomes twice proved as evasive as the Scarlet Pimpernel.
As a result, Tottenham’s outside title hopes lie in tatters and their recent revival stutters to another halt as their defensive line once again proved too easy to undo with a frisson of cunning lathered on to hours of careful planning.
In recent weeks Tottenham have plucked results out of thin air when hampered by similar below-par performances throughout the team. They now have two weeks to lick their wounds before they are next in action but Ange Postecoglou, for all his affability and geniality, has nothing up his sleeve to try to lift those spirits back to those levels that excited Spurs fans when he first arrived.
He declared, “There are no tricks; I’m a football manager, not a magician.” “These guys have worked extremely hard all year. We’ve worked really hard to get to this respectable stage, and we plan to continue doing so. It’s what it is; I’m not sure if the two weeks are a blessing. It serves no purpose to feel sorry for oneself. No matter what has happened in the past, you have to accept the blows and move on.
The next team to play is Crystal Palace. Although Roy Hodgson is still the club’s manager as he recovers from sickness, there was an awkward moment when Oliver Glasner, the replacement-in-waiting, was singled out by the cameras in the stands.
Nevertheless, the Austrian’s audacity in attending the match was repaid with a tutorial on how to defeat Postecoglou’s unique style of football.
In fact, Wolves’ run-and-hit strategy—which was started just before halftime by the five-foot-nine-inch João Gomes—was ideal for ending Tottenham’s five-game winning streak.
It appeared as though the Tottenham defense was blind to the potential killer. Pablo Sarabia was waiting to take the corner while Max Kilman and Toti Gomes were placed purposefully on the perimeter of the six-yard area, resembling massive oaks, and concerned defenders jostled them futilely.
The target of the Spanish football player, however, was hidden in the lee of the enormous central defenders and, sure enough, after being entirely overlooked during the maneuver, emerged to head in from the center of a true clearing.
Wolves deserved that half-time lead because Spurs’ lackluster play, even with captain Son Heung-min back in the starting lineup following his Asian Cup return, was too easily broken down by the most basic of counterattacks.
Hwang Hee-chan had a chance to put the visitors ahead in the sixth minute, but Guglielmo Vicario only managed to parry a shot that Nélson Semedo had put in.
After Dejan Kulusevski appeared to go through Craig Dawson and put the ball through José Sá’s legs from a very tight angle, Spurs equalized just 34 seconds into the second half. However, even that proved to be a fleeting reprieve for a squad fixated on defensive implosion.
