An inevitable point
One of the greatest mysteries of this Premier League season is how Tottenham Hotspur find that the table currently ranks them as the fourth best side in the country.
Spurs have lost almost as many games - nine - as the three sides above them combined, yet they somehow have the joint third most wins - 15 - and the third highest goal tally - 53 - albeit that is almost 20 fewer than the top two.
Tottenham's league position, albeit with others below having games in hand, is perhaps more of a damning indictment of the effects of a World Cup-ravaged season that has brought inconsistency for most sides in the table.
That is shown most clearly in the away form table. Tottenham are fourth as well in that, despite winning just five of their 15 matches on the road. Arsenal for context have won 11 of their 14, Manchester City eight and Newcastle also five.
READ MORE: Tottenham player ratings vs Everton: Romero on top but Son, Porro, Hojbjerg and Perisic struggle
The current mood in and around Spurs belies the fact that they have lost just two of their past nine Premier League matches, winning five and drawing two.
Monday night's draw at Everton had a depressing inevitability about it. If Southampton could battle back from two goals down to grab a point then a rejuvenated Sean Dyche Everton could certainly overcome the fact that they were a man down.
So it proved. Spurs never looked confident in their own abilities and appeared to have no real idea how to use an extra man against a side languishing at that point in the Premier League's bottom three.
Ahead of the game, the new acting head coach Cristian Stellini had run through the full gamut of emotions as he began his tenure at the helm.
In one moment, tears rolled down his face as he recalled a period of his life when he coached a team of refugees and asylum seekers in Turin to glory in a tournament. It was a genuinely touching tale from the 48-year-old.
In the previous moment Stellini had been on the offensive, accusing the media of punching Tottenham with their 'speculation'. Unfortunately it was facts rather than speculation, with it pointed out the club has no permanent men's or women's first team coach, a managing director of football who is banned by FIFA from managing or directing and a star player heading into the final 12 months of his contract.
This is the biggest problem for Stellini. He is a man being pulled in two different directions by opposing forces.
The Spurs fans want him to be different to Antonio Conte. They had grown tired of the dull, uninspiring performances and constantly being told how bad their club was.
Yet Stellini has been alongside the 53-year-old, on and off, for decades. That meant his pre-match press conference was spent yo-yoing between pointing out the little ways he had changed things when Conte was not around while also making it very clear that he did not want to change too much as what they had done before had taken them into fourth place.
It's also worth noting that - if as expected this interim role does not become a permanent one - Stellini is likely to be hoping for an invite to return to Conte's side at his next club. Burning that bridge does him no favours at all.
Yet he does need to find something different from his team on the pitch. There was little contrast about this performance to previous ones under Conte, barring a desire to prevent the returning Hugo Lloris from taking any long goal kicks.
Instead Cristian Romero and Clement Lenglet would stand either side of the six-yard box and the Tottenham captain would pass the ball sideways to them. The problem would often come with what came next as the ball reached the flanks or midfield.
That led to plenty of anger from the bench.
Frustrated coaches
The frustration from both Stellini and his assistant Ryan Mason was all too clear to see throughout the game.
These were the same set of players - barring Lloris - that Conte had blasted so publicly just 16 days before and the two coaches he left behind looked at times like they could easily have delivered a similar tirade.
Much stemmed from the inability to use the ball properly from those short goal kicks. It was seemingly part of a plan to draw Everton out of their shape and then for Spurs to pass the ball around them and break up the pitch.
However, how Spurs were using the ball was clearly not what had been drilled into them during the preceding week or so.
At points before and after Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg gifted another frantically miss-hit pass to the Everton midfield, Mason was reaching boiling point on the touchline. The 31-year-old was shouting at the players and at Stellini, throwing his arms outwards towards the Italian as if to suggest 'why are they doing this?'.
It brought back memories of the young coach's bewildered reaction as Conte was bringing on Davinson Sanchez against AC Milan in the Champions League. We'll probably never know whether he was as mystified by that substitution as the fans were or if he was complaining about something else.
Mason was not the only one left angry and frustrated during Monday night's match. After one Oliver Skipp run back to intercept a ball only for the young midfielder to concede a corner with a panicked pass, Stellini flung his arm down and grabbed a water bottle with such ferocity that it looked like he was going to throttle it.
Spurs' natural inclination to sit back deep and panic has been a trait of their play for far too long. Numerous managers and head coaches have said very clearly over the years "I don't ask them to play like that".
Harry Kane admitted during Mourinho's era that the players naturally fall into the habit far too easily.
"It's never been the manager saying that (we should sit back), it's been us on the pitch having a mentality where we want to drop and hold on to to the win," he said then. "The most important thing is us as players to go and take responsibility."
On Monday night, Lloris said: "When you look at the way we managed the end of the game, it should have been better. Especially in possession.
"We could have kept them away from our goal with good pressure but we started to drop as a team on the pitch. We dropped the intensity and the red card didn't help the situation because the belief was back in that team and until the end they pushed, and they got the goal.
"But if you look at the overall performance, this is the most important thing. A lot of positive things, even if we could be able to create more chances. The only regret is that last 20 minutes. 1-0 up, we have the legs and the quality to go for the second goal. But we cannot play again, we have to move on, recover because Saturday is going to be a tough game."
If there was a positive it was that for much of the game Spurs did scrap with Everton, they did not roll over.
The only way the hosts could find a way through amid the din of Goodison Park was a 90th minute rocket from distance from Michael Keane. That equaliser will make it feel like a defeat and heighten the emotion but Lloris had only one other real save of note to make, tipping over Idrissa Gueye's shot in the second half.
The expectation was that the atmosphere and the battling tendencies Dyche demands of his players would prove too much for Spurs with their 'soft underbelly'. That wasn't actually the case on the night.
The problem was more going forward and an inability to stick to the plan set out by their coaches, particular after Abdoulaye Doucoure was sent off for a needless push into the face of Harry Kane.
"It’s not easy to speak with a player [during a game], but it’s about their feeling into the pitch," Stellini told football.london. "We knew very well the strongest skill of this [Everton] team - long ball, second balls and set-pieces were aspects we needed to take care.
"We did well for all the game, but 11 players you have to control the game with the ball. We have to do it 11 against 11 but when you have a team like this in their stadium it’s never easy.
"With 11 against 10 it has to be easier than this. We were struggling to find the right way to speak to the players to find the right solution to keep them calm. You have to be calm within the game, you have to have control, to be calm. You have to be lucid. This is what we tried to do with the players."
He added: "I think we didn’t lead the game after the red card. We had the chance to control the game better than we did, because you have one extra player you have to lead the game, move the ball side by side.
"But sometimes we were rushed, frantic. We have to improve in this aspect, we know vey well. It’s a long process, we don’t change it in one night. We change it in a long process.
"[The key is] keeping the ball, moving the ball quickly and finding the space to attack. This is the way we play the game with an extra man - you have to do much better. It’s about intention to keep the ball, to wait to find the right moment to score.
"We had some chances but we didn’t find the way to score. It’s ok, but also you need players ready to move and to respect the plan. The plan was clear in my idea, and with one extra player we can do it better than this, absolutely."
The Tottenham retreat has become the Tottenham way and it's either going to take a revolutionary coach or a complete change of player personnel to rid the team of this desire to sit back and suffer.
How to help a player like Son Heung-min?
There is a belief among some in the Korean culture that the number seven is a lucky one.
So with the fact that Tottenham's number seven signed for the club seven years, seven months and seven days ago, we should really be discussing Son Heung-min hitting his 100th Premier League goal today.
Yet instead luck was not on his side. The 30-year-old was so ineffective against Everton it's difficult to remember a single moment of note in which he had any influence on the game.
How has one of the Premier League's best - a reigning Golden Boot holder - and a man so consistently a saviour for Spurs in the past found his form to be dropping off a cliff?
Son has always been a man to mark new beginnings. He scored the first goal under Jose Mourinho, the first goal under Nuno Espirto Santo, the first goal under Conte, the first goal for Jurgen Klinsmann as South Korea boss recently as well as the first goal in the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in both the Premier League and Champions League.
Yet he was unable to mark Stellini's first game in charge with another landmark goal.
Everyone has been trying to find a reason for Son's drop-off in form, with plenty of theories suggested.
Conte's influence can seemingly be removed now from the discussion as the South Korean also struggled on Monday after the former Chelsea manager's exit. He was also in the best form of his life last season under the Italian.
Others have suggested that Ivan Perisic's arrival has pushed Son into positions that don't suit him. However, for much of Monday evening, Spurs were playing in something of a 3-5-2 with Son up front with Kane, or in advance of him with Kulusevski deeper and sticking out on the right of the midfield.
Son flourished in that role alongside or in advance of Kane under Mourinho so it's difficult to blame the formation on this occasion or Perisic this time with the Croatian attempting to find the South Korean in a number of moves.
Some might suggest the pressure of being the Golden Boot winner and having to improve on that terrific season after returning home as a hero on the summer tour to Korea might have got to him.
However, Son lives with that pressure of being a national hero and an example to his compatriots every day. He shoulders the South Korean captaincy and comes up with the goods almost every time for them.
It's more likely that it's simply a confidence problem for Son right now that has become deeply embedded and that's highlighted by him struggling with some of the basic things he does so well most of the time.
He is no longer Tottenham's secret weapon and he's being marked tightly, which is resulting in him struggling to find the space he needs to flourish.
Whoscored's player ratings had him marked as Tottenham's lowest ratings on the day (6.3), with the attacker dispossessed twice and having two unsuccessful touches. Even Son's difficult display paled though in comparison to Lucas Moura's eye-catchingly awful cameo.
The Brazilian came on for Son in the 81st minute, ran around like a headless chicken for seven minutes before launching into a completely unnecessary wild lunge on Keane that brought no complaints from Stellini or any of his team-mates as the red card was brandished.
Lucas will now miss the next three matches and that could open the door for Arnaut Danjuma to finally get some minutes or even potentially academy star Romaine Mundle, who was fully promoted to the first team last month and is in talks with the club over a new contract with his deal running out this summer.
The exciting winger, who can also play at wing-back and on either flank, turns 20 this month and has grabbed the attention of the coaching staff in recent weeks with not only his performances for the U21s but also his displays in training.
For Danjuma, he will be hoping to finally get a chance to prove that his transfer was not a complete waste of everyone's - including his - time. It was notable that he barely even warmed-up in front of an Everton crowd that will certainly hold a grudge after he snubbed them at the last possible moment to instead sign for Spurs.
"Danjuma is one player. We obviously have three important players up front and today we used Lucas and then when we had 10 players after the red card we couldn't change," said Stellini after the game about his lack of game time. "Danjuma is a good player, his effort is fine. We are happy with him. He just needs to wait for his time because in our squad it's not easy to play in the front three. It's not easy for him. We understand him but we are happy."
Stellini said ahead of the match that everyone would have a fresh slate under him but that is yet to be seen with the Netherlands international.
In Son's defence, Kulusevski and Kane were little better than him. The Swede showed plenty of potential and with his turns and driving runs looked the man most likely to make something happen but he never actually did.
He was dispossessed three times and gave it away twice with unsuccessful touches. As with Son, this season is yet see the Kulusevski of last season. At just 22-years-old that inconsistency is more to be expected though.
Kane was very quiet, other than in two key moments. First, he squabbled with Doucoure off the ball, going in for a challenge after the whistle which led to the shirt-grabbing and face palm that resulted in the Everton man's dismissal. The focus by some on Kane going to the ground after being struck in the face was all rather redundant for a red card that nobody disagreed with, including Dyche.
Kane's second moment was his ridiculously calm penalty in the midst of a Goodison Park that booed him and called him a cheat, and the Everton players trying to put him off. He placed a perfect penalty inside the left-hand post, sending Jordan Pickford the other way, and it's notable that the striker has scored the three spot kicks since that fateful one at the World Cup. He's responded in the best possible way.
Yet the most worrying thing for Tottenham is just how uninspired he looks right now by the club's direction. When Kane touches the ball is when Spurs show their most quality, when he takes it, beats a man and spreads the play in a way no other player can see or is capable of doing.
Everything is placed on Kane's shoulders with no creative midfielder behind him to pull the strings.
He revels in that sometimes and it often looks too easy for Kane and that's perhaps his biggest problem. He looks like a man without a challenge. He will always crave goals but he looks utterly unimpressed with all things Tottenham Hotspur right now and it's difficult to disagree with him.
If Spurs are to stand any chance of tying him down to a new contract then something must fundamentally change within the club and how they approach matters on the pitch next season.
An awkward next game
There is something entirely awkward about Spurs welcoming Roberto De Zerbi and his Brighton side to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday.
Other than the fear that the Italian's exciting Seagulls will eventually overtake Tottenham if they win the game and then their other two matches in hand, it will be the clash of styles that will have all eyes drawn to it.
De Zerbi has got Brighton playing very good football and he's got them scoring goals, something they weren't always able to do under Graham Potter.
There's every chance that Brighton will showcase the kind of football that Spurs chairman Daniel Levy promised the fans two years ago but has been unable to deliver and in front of 62,000 home fans that's going to be even more glaring.
Levy has been abroad in recent days and whether he returns in time to see a manager Tottenham have a clear interest in - despite his hefty buy-out clause - taking on his team remains to be seen.
The problem Spurs have is that football.london understands initial contact with De Zerbi's camp has produced little in the way of positive indications that the Italian is desperate to swap his stable project at Brighton for the current chaos of the north London outfit right now.
Whether that changes in the months ahead, if Tottenham are willing to be more convincing, is another thing but, as with his predecessor Potter in 2021, there appears to be a reluctance to swap the security and progress of a club moving the right way in Brighton for one in Tottenham that lurches from one idea to the next with little in the way of joined up thinking or strategy.
Spurs will have plenty of options this summer for their managerial vacancy but they will also have competitors for their signatures with the jobs open now elsewhere, and in the summer in Italy and Spain.
Mega-spending Chelsea especially are likely to go after who they want and throw money at them, which will only make Tottenham look more ponderous in the process.
Julian Nagelsmann, De Zerbi and Luis Enrique would all get Spurs playing in the right way, while other arguably less high profile options such as Feyenoord's Arne Slot and Brentford's Thomas Frank could also make a positive imprint on the club.
football.london understands Tottenham have explored the possibility of Vincent Kompany as a youthful option, despite his relative inexperience. The Belgian's trusted colleague Simon Davies has been making a positive impact within Spurs as head of coaching methodology and he will certainly have been extolling the virtues of the 36-year-old Burnley boss.
Kompany's lack of experience may count against him and with the free-scoring Clarets well on course for promotion it's no given that he would want to end that project any time soon.
Graham Potter and Brendan Rodgers have both entered the job market again and have been previous candidates for the Spurs job but how much their recent experiences have knocked them down the pecking order is another thing and the latter has been an option that Levy is understood to have swerved on a couple of occasions in the more recent past for one reason or another.
There is an irony that the one man the fans can be heard calling for seems at this moment to be an outlier for the role. Twice during Monday night's match the travelling Tottenham fans sang loudly "Mauricio Pochettino, he's magic you know" at Goodison Park.
Bringing back the Argentine would seem the obvious answer but nothing about a potential return seems as cut and dried as it would seem, with some reservations from both sides. It's difficult to see a more popular decision though that the under-fire Levy could make than swallowing his pride as he was seemingly prepared to do in 2021 after Mourinho's departure only for PSG to block any exit for Pochettino.
For now it's all about what impact Stellini and Mason can make. Spurs fans will worry that Stellini will struggle to shake things up too much, although that exact reason appears to have been a large part of the appeal for the club in handing him the role.
The thinking seems to be that any new manager, coming in without a pre-season, would likely need at least four or five games before the team start to adapt to what he wants. There were only 10 left when Conte left the club, although it's worth pointing out that when the former Inter boss joined Spurs they did not lose their first Premier League match under him until three months later.
Stellini made it clear that things would not change overnight with him and Lloris pointed to the continuity after the match.
"Cristian knows very well the players, he knows well the club. He's just here to give continuity and try to finish the job as good as we can," said the captain. "It is also the responsibility of everyone, not only one people more than the other. It's players, coaching staff, medical staff, all the people involved to create the right energy.
"Last week [in training] was very good. [It was] positive and we have to stay positive and try to recover the energy and obviously results and wins give you more confidence, especially in this period that is very decisive."
On Stellini he added: "He gives continuity of the style of play that we used to have the last 18 months, but the focus is on this final sprint. We have to forget about the past. There was ten games left with the willingness and the target to finish strong.
"We got one point. The best way to give credit of this point is to win the next two home games. We know home games are very important, but step by step, I don't want to look too much forward because every game is a battle and you have to keep the energy and focus on Brighton."
Mason was very vocal on the sidelines and it will be interesting to see how much his philosophy seeps through into Stellini's decision-making in the remaining matches. Spurs scored 14 goals in the six Premier League games the then 29-year-old was in charge of in 2021, winning four of them.
His voice will be heard more in Conte's absence and how much Stellini compromises between two different styles will define what comes next for his team.
After that Spurs need to be shaken up. Whoever comes in needs to put smiles on the faces of not only the players and staff but also within a fanbase that is growing more and more disconnected with the club with every passing week.
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