Tottenham’s collapse against Brighton on the 6th of October marked the club’s worst start to a Premier League season in 16 years (GiveMeSport).
The result at the Amex Stadium was a gut-punching end to a five-game winning run. It certainly had echoes of Spurs’ 3-3 draw to Southampton in 2023 which saw Antonio Conte implode and go into an international break almost certain he wouldn’t be in the job by the time club football returned.
Yet this time around, questions, for the most part, aren’t surrounding Ange Postecoglou’s job but rather how his team will respond to this result upon their return from international duty.
While it is Tottenham’s worst start to a Premier League season since 2008, it’s fair to say they haven’t been that bad whatsoever. Postecoglou’s men got off to a stumbling start to his second season in charge, amassing just four points in their opening four games.
The prevalent issue behind these results was the fact they couldn’t make use of the piles of chances they were creating. In those four games, Spurs only managed to score six goals, four of which came in the same game against Everton, all despite having 25 shots on target (Premier League).
This issue was evidently addressed within the following five-game winning run, scoring 13 goals in that time, you can then add the two scored in that blistering first-half against Brighton before the eventual collapse (Sky Sports).
All-in-all Tottenham have certainly been on the up in the past few weeks, which probably made the result on the South Coast much sorer. But there’s no doubt that the result coming after five consecutive wins, paired with the nature of the loss, makes their response all the more important.
If Tottenham could get back to winning ways in games which include two important derbies against West Ham and Crystal Palace, as well as a Europa League visit from AZ Alkmaar, the Brighton result could go from being the end of a consecutive winning run into a “one loss in however many games” type of situation.
A run like that would do Postecoglou and his players the world of favours before they host Manchester City in the League Cup on Halloween week.
Looking at the bigger picture, you do have to question how important early season form really is. All we need to do is look back twelve months. Tottenham began the season 10 games unbeaten before an abysmal game against Chelsea, followed by frequent injuries and interruptions threw their form off the face of the cliff for the majority of the remainder of the season.
It was always going to be a slow start as Postecoglou began implementing more of his core ideas and new players. The team’s improvements from the opening four games of this season are evidence to suggest that the Brighton result could be more likely to be a lesson than it being damaging.
But this is Tottenham Hotspur, so we will just have to wait and see.
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