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Brighton and Hove Albion took a massive step towards securing Premier League football for another season by defeating Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 at the Amex Stadium on Sunday.
The victory was Brighton’s first at home since June. Meanwhile, it will be bitter pill to swallow for Tottenham fans as it follows their awful defeat at the hands of Liverpool on Thursday.
It didn’t take Brighton long to score. They took the attacking impetus from the off. After a nice move involving Alexis MacAllister and Pascal Gross, the latter cut the ball back to Leandro Trossard, who slammed home from close range.
Tottenham Hotspur had almost 80 minutes in total to find an equaliser. However, Jose Mourinho’s side looked devoid of any attacking quality without the injured Harry Kane.
Brighton did slow down in the second half, but even a tactical switch from Mourinho didn’t help. The Seagulls’ defence of Lewis Dunk, Ben White and Adam Webster held firm, and Graham Potter’s men secured a huge win.
Here are 5 talking points from Brighton’s win over Tottenham Hotspur.
#1 Brighton are almost certain to survive for another season
It’s hard to play down exactly how big this win was for Brighton. After the only other side seemingly on a slide – Newcastle United – won big on Saturday, the Seagulls could’ve been forgiven for looking over their shoulder into the drop zone had they lost here.
However, with tonight’s win over Tottenham Hotspur, Graham Potter’s men are now seven points clear of Fulham and are only two points away from 14th place Wolves.
Brighton have always been a strange side to judge this season. Before Sunday, they had just three wins to their name and yet, they’ve never seemed truly out of a game, even against the Premier League’s big guns.
But of course, wins are what matter and on Sunday, they outfought, outthought and outplayed Tottenham Hotspur for the entire game. Had Toby Alderweireld not performed a miracle block late on, this would’ve been a far more comfortable win, too.
Pep Guardiola recently labelled Graham Potter the best British manager in the Premier League. While it’s hard to agree with that given the existence of Dean Smith, David Moyes and Brendan Rodgers, it’s clear he’s doing something right if he can get his team playing this way.
#2 How much longer can Tottenham Hotspur tolerate this mess?
It seems hard to believe now, but Tottenham Hotspur were actually top of the Premier League in December, and a title challenge looked very much on the cards. However, since they were defeated by Liverpool on December 16h, Jose Mourinho’s side have been on a major slide.
Sunday’s defeat to Brighton now means that Tottenham Hotspur have won just two of their last nine Premier League games, and one of those wins came against basement side Sheffield United.
In that time, Tottenham Hotspur have scored just ten goals, conceded eleven, and on Sunday, they looked absolutely devoid of any attacking ideas.
Sure, they were without Harry Kane – more on that later – but right now, Tottenham Hotspur are playing worse football than they were in the latter stages of Mauricio Pochettino’s reign at the club.
And all of this brings up one question – how much longer should Tottenham Hotspur persist with Mourinho if the football is this bad and the results aren’t coming? The Portuguese was brought to North London to win trophies, but with displays like this, it won’t happen any time soon.
#3 Tottenham Hotspur looked completely toothless without Harry Kane
Thursday’s loss to Liverpool may well be considered a turning point in Jose Mourinho’s time as Tottenham Hotspur manager. Not only did his side completely collapse against a resurgent Reds side, but Harry Kane also picked up his seemingly annual ankle injury.
After Kane went off on Thursday, Tottenham Hotspur looked completely toothless and failed to register a meaningful attack outside of Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg’s goal.
That was forgivable due to Kane's departure from the game at half-time. However, Sunday’s performance was somehow even worse than the one Tottenham Hotspur produced three days earlier.
Mourinho’s side looked thoroughly devoid of any kind of creativity. Forwards Son Heung Min, Gareth Bale and Steven Bergwijn looked cut off from the rest of the team. None of the passing sequences seemed to work, and Tanguy Ndombele was forced to drop far too deep to be effective.
Tottenham Hotspur fans are worried about how this side would function without Kane for a while, and it looks like we’ve got our answer. Without the England captain, not only are Spurs shorn of their main goal threat, but they’re also shorn of their main creative hub too.
Unless Tottenham Hotspur can arrest this slump, Kane will look to move to a more successful club in the summer. If that happens, it’s a pretty damning verdict on not only Mourinho, but on club chairman Daniel Levy too.
#4 Is Gareth Bale finished as an elite-level player?
With Harry Kane shelved following his ankle injury, Sunday’s game was seen as the big opportunity for Gareth Bale to come back to the forefront for Tottenham Hotspur.
The Welshman was greeted as a returning hero when he arrived back in North London from Real Madrid in October but has since looked like a shadow of his former self.
The argument has always been that after spending so long as an unused player in Madrid, it would always take Bale time to get back to full speed. However, he’s now been at Tottenham Hotspur for four months and, outside of the odd flash, the old spark just hasn’t been there.
Sunday’s game was another example of that. The effort was there for Bale, but his pace appears to have gone. He doesn’t find himself in as dangerous positions as he once did, and he no longer has the ability to change a game at the drop of a hat.
The old adage states “never go back,” and unfortunately, it seems like Bale’s second stint at Tottenham Hotspur is destined to go down as another example of that.
If he can’t turn it around quickly, the Welshman is probably finished as an elite-level player, whether he’s at Tottenham Hotspur or Real Madrid.
#5 How big is the Chelsea game now for Tottenham Hotspur?
Tottenham Hotspur’s next game – a London derby with Chelsea – was always going to be a big one, given the history between the clubs and Chelsea’s history with Jose Mourinho. Now though, it’s suddenly gotten a whole lot bigger.
Chelsea picked up their first win under new boss Thomas Tuchel on Sunday, and while they didn’t look brilliant in beating Burnley, they certainly looked better than Tottenham Hotspur did against Brighton.
The last time these two sides faced off, they were both hugely in the ascendency and looked like title contenders. And of course, they put on a pretty damp squib of a game, eventually drawing 0-0 in a result that seemed to favour both sides at the time.
Now though, both London sides come into the match desperate for a win. Chelsea will feel that, on Sunday’s evidence, Tottenham Hotspur are there for the taking. And Spurs – theoretically at least – are like a wounded animal, backs to the wall and looking for any positives to cling to.
If Tottenham Hotspur fall to defeat, their hopes of any kind of title challenge – and any challenge for the top four – are probably going to be dead in the water. However, if Chelsea lose, then what does it say about Tuchel’s hopes for resurrecting their season?
All London derbies are big games, but none will be much more pivotal than this one.
