Are injuries to blame? Postecoglou’s Tottenham heading for worst league finish in 16 years

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Everton v Tottenham 

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On Sunday Tottenham make the trip to Merseyside with a desperate need for all three points. Ange Postecoglou’s team have now gone five league matches without picking up a win and that solitary victory – a 5-0 win over Southampton – happens to be their own three points won since late November. Since then, Spurs have dropped from sixth in the Premier League table to where they now sit in fourteenth position, just seven points above Sunday’s hosts that have spent much of the season fighting off the threat of relegation. In no uncertain terms, Postecoglou’s side have had a disastrous league campaign to date and will need to make some drastic changes soon. 

How bad have Tottenham been this season? 

While Tottenham fans will need no reminders of their horrid run of form to date, it’s worth noting just how precarious a situation the North London club are in at this moment in time. With just 24 points from 21 league games in the Premier League, Postecoglou’s side are in the midst of what will likely be the club’s worst league campaign in recent memory. As we can see in the table above, which shows where Tottenham were at this stage in the season over the course of the last 15 years, this downtick in form in the English top-flight is somewhat unprecedented. In fact, the last Tottenham manager to have picked up so few points after 21 league games was Harry Redknapp during the club’s 2008/09 campaign when his side had just 20 points to their name. However, back then Redknapp was able to somewhat turn things around ang guided the club to a somewhat respectable eighth-placed finish after losing just four of their remaining 17 league games and picking up an impressive 31 points. And if Postecoglou’s side have any hopes of getting back towards the top six, they may need to attempt a similar and somewhat miraculous end to the season. 

What’s gone so wrong for Tottenham this season? 

Perhaps the most obvious reason why Tottenham have simply fallen apart this season is due to the high volume of injuries that Postecoglou and his backroom staff have had to contend with. Since the start of the league campaign, no less than 14 of Tottenham’s senior players have picked up an injury and that has resulted in them missing a combined 97 league games this season. Some of these players, such as Fraser Forster or Wilson Odobert were only back-up players for the starting XI, but Spurs have also lost a number of key players too. Star forwards Richarlison and Heung-min Son have missed 15 and three league games respectively, while central defensive pairing Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven have missed a combined 21 league games through injuries this season.

When we compare that to Tottenham’s league rivals, we can see the true extent of their injury crisis. As the table above shows, Tottenham sit top among the traditional “Big Six” clubs in the Premier League, with Arsenal in second place, then Manchester City and Manchester United in third and fourth respectively. Liverpool and Chelsea, who’ve enjoyed largely impressive seasons to date, have managed to avoid anywhere near the same extent of injuries that have dogged Tottenham this season, but it is worth noting that local rivals Arsenal have had an almost identical number of senior players missing this season. But, unlike Postecoglou’s side, they’ve clearly coped far better with their setbacks and remain within touching distance of the league title race.