Tottenham’s slump in the final half-hour of Wednesday’s 3-2 win over Eintracht Frankfurt will have done little to convince Antonio Conte of his squad’s strength in depth, as the pre-World Cup grind continues with a visit from Everton on Saturday.
Spurs stopped playing after Frankfurt were reduced to 10 men on the hour, and they got worse as the game ticked towards a conclusion and Conte used all five of his substitutes.
There were mitigating factors, including a desire to conserve energy amidst the most hectic of schedules, but the introductions of Yves Bissouma, Oliver Skipp, Davinson Sanchez, Lucas Moura and Bryan Gil disrupted Spurs’s shape and rhythm.
This was understandable, and the move to five substitutes will inevitably give more matches the disjointed feel of friendlies.
Conte, though, has repeatedly talked up the need to maintain the “balance” and “identity” of his side when he makes changes to his preferred XI, and the head coach is likely to have been concerned by the way levels dropped after the likes of Eric Dier, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg and Heung-min Son came off.
Midfielders Skipp, who is still working his way back to match fitness, and Bissouma will surely be more influential in the second half of the campaign after several weeks with Conte over the winter break while Hojbjerg and Rodrigo Bentancur are in Qatar.
But there is no escaping the fact that Sanchez, Lucas and Gil are among those who generally decrease Spurs’s level when they play, even if the latter won their second penalty in a lively cameo on Wednesday.
Conte is not a tinkerman by nature but he was expected to rotate more this season, given the relentless schedule and an encouraging summer in the transfer market.
Instead, 13 games in, he has barely shuffled his pack and by and large rotated just three positions: left centre-half, where Ben Davies and Clement Lenglet are battling it out; left wing-back, where Ryan Sessegnon is pushing Ivan Perisic for a place; and the right of his front three, where the signing of Richarlison from tomorrow’s opponents has increased the pressure on Dejan Kulusevski.
The other eight positions are more or less set. Emerson Royal has missed just two games, one through suspension, and Bentancur just one. Son has played in every game and Cristian Romero has missed three through injury. Hugo Lloris, Eric Dier, Hojbjerg and Harry Kane have all started every match, and there is little to suggest that will change tomorrow.
Conte’s determination to use the same 15 players, even as the fixtures pile up, may go some way to explaining Spurs’s dogged yet slightly underwhelming start to the campaign. While a win tomorrow would move them to within a point of leaders Arsenal, and they are top of their Champions League group, they are yet to hit the heights of the second half of last term, and it has been easy to wonder if part of Conte’s big strategy is to conserve energy for after the World Cup.
Even so, his reliance on a core group cannot continue indefinitely over the course of the campaign if Spurs are to avoid injuries and burnout.
In the eight games before the break, he will surely have to be more willing to rotate, even if it means replacing one of his most trusted players. The big question is when, with Wednesday’s game illustrating that there is no good time to allow levels to drop.
Conte will be forced into at least one change tomorrow, with Emerson suspended and likely to be replaced by Matt Doherty.
Kulusevski is set to be available again after a hamstring strain, although Richarlison is a minor doubt to face his former club with a knee problem. Bissouma could replace the Brazilian, prompting a return to the 3-5-2 system used at Brighton last Saturday, and the Malian is likely to be one player who increasingly comes into Conte’s thinking.
If Spurs are to maintain their form, there will surely have to be others, too.
