Jakarta –
Antonio Conte’s departure did not necessarily improve Tottenham Hotspur’s appearance. Facing the end of the season, Harry Kane et al’s chances of qualifying for the Champions League next season are getting steeper.
Tottenham just fell 2-3 to Bournemouth in the Premier League continued, Saturday (16/4/2023). Having excelled in the first half, Cristian Stellini’s team then failed to maintain the momentum and ended up losing painfully in injury time.
The bitter result prevented them from climbing into the top four of the Premier League standings. Spurs are stuck in fifth place with 53 points from 31 matches, three points adrift of Newcastle United and Manchester United who have more games remaining.
Since being handled by Stellini, Tottenham cannot be said to have risen. Of the three matches that have been undertaken, they alternately won, won and most recently lost.
“It’s very difficult, because actually we deserved to win, and we have the chance to do it,” said Stellini, quoted by the club’s official website.
“When you can’t create chances you can say ‘okay, we didn’t play well enough’, but we did well, because we scored the second goal, and we had a good chance through Richarlison,” Stellini explained.
The Italian coach was not making this up. Tottenham appear dominant, but less effective. They had eight shots on goal from 24 attempts, but only two resulted in goals. Meanwhile, Bournemouth had six shots on target from just nine attempts, and successfully scored three goals.
This loss is even more pronounced if you look at the remaining seven matches that Cristian Stellini’s team must play. Five of them are competitors in the race for European zone tickets, namely Newcastle, MU, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Brentford.
This inconsistency needs to be addressed by Tottenham immediately, especially when considering the opponents in the rest of the season. If they slip up, instead of qualifying for the Champions League, they could actually spill into the mid-table and fail to appear in Europe next season.
(adp/bay)
