Antonio Conte and his Tottenham team have five games remaining in the 2021/22 Premier League season to achieve their Champions League dream. Dropping down to fifth last Saturday following Arsenal's victory over Manchester United and their draw away at Brentford, Spurs now find themselves two points behind their north London rivals with time running out.
Now having played the same amount of fixtures after the Gunners played their game in hand one week ago, the battle for fourth looks set to come down to the north London derby on Thursday, May 12. However, Tottenham are going to have to address their form prior to then after only managing to earn one point from a possible six in their last two matches against Brighton & Hove Albion and Brentford.
Perhaps looking like six points on paper going on their fantastic form and success in front of goal prior to then, Conte's side have worryingly not looked like scoring in their past two fixtures at such an important time in the season and have failed to register a shot on target in the process. Struggling to even create chances for Harry Kane and Co in and around the box, their current woes are reminiscent of the final few weeks of Nuno Espirito Santo's reign and it is a major concern at such a vital time in the campaign.
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The onus cannot be solely on Kane, Son Heung-min and Dejan Kulusevski to fire Tottenham to a Champions League place, with their wing-backs so key to how Conte's system operates. Getting so much joy from the wide areas in the past two months with Matt Doherty really stepping up to find his best form in north London, his absence through a season-ending knee injury has been a huge blow to the side.
Since then the other wing-backs have not stepped up to the plate and the numbers from the Brighton and Brentford games are extremely damning. Emerson Royal did not put a single cross into the box against the Seagulls nor did he make a single attempt to dribble the ball forward
On the opposite flank, Sergio Reguilon did not attempt a single dribble forward and his one attempted cross did not find its intended target. The Spaniard also had a lower passing success rate than anyone in the Tottenham XI barring Kane, with just 61.5% of his 26 passes completed.
It came as no surprise to see Ryan Sessegnon return at the Brentford Community Stadium last Saturday at left wing-back after taking his place on the bench recently following his return from injury. But it also wasn't a shock to see him substituted in the 74th minute after offering very little down the left flank, with a wayward cross from a good position that sailed high over the crossbar not long before his exit summing up his performance.
As per WhoScored, Sessegnon attempted eight crosses against the Bees but none of those were accurate, and the youngster did not make a single dribble forward. Emerson, on the other hand, made one dribble in the 0-0 draw and had one cross that was not accurate, while both failed with their one long ball.
Asked in his post-match press conference about the importance of having top wing-backs in his system, Conte said: "Now I repeat is not fair to speak about the situation that we can improve or not. I think I'm very happy to have this group of players and I'm trying to exploit every single player and improve every single player.
"I think also for this reason today with five games to play we are talking about Tottenham are in the race for the Champions League [places]. Don't forget that in November, the people has not to forget in November the big trouble that Tottenham was in.
"Now to stay with five games to go the possibility to stay in this race means the players improved a lot and we are doing a great job. But we have to know in this last month maybe if we gave 120% maybe it's not enough, we have to try to increase and go 150% to try to reach this target."
Now more than ever Conte needs his wing-backs on song again with a place in the Champions League on the line. It is also about the long-term future as well for the wing-backs in question as the head coach, providing he is still at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium come August, and Fabio Paratici could quite easily look to upgrade both positions this summer.
After all, a new right wing-back was a priority for Tottenham in the January transfer market but they failed to strengthen there. Wing-backs are a crucial part of Conte's system working and he will not be happy about what he has seen over the past fortnight.
Tottenham need so much more right across the pitch if they are to seal a return to Europe's premier competition after two seasons away. There needs to be a big improvement by the time Leicester City make the trip to the capital on Sunday afternoon or it could be Arsenal heading to the Champions League instead.
