Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
I cannot help but feel a little element about our current form.
We seem to be deploying the same tactics in the past several games with mixed results. We either get the goals needed to win the game (in a brief 10-minute spell) or we don’t.
Talking to some friends after the win over Crystal Palace, while we were obviously happy with the three points, none of us were confident about our performance.
We talked about a number of things, like how we always seemed to want to score the ‘perfect goal’ and taking one too many touches around the box. Our quick passing football from earlier in the season seems like a distant memory now.
Nobody seems to want to take a shot, or put the ball into a dangerous position – unless we are chasing the game in the 70th minute. It’s almost like we are afraid of making mistakes. It took an individual moment of sheer determination from Brennan Johnson to wake us from our sideways and backwards way of playing.
There is also not enough fluidity up front. While we have floating players like James Maddison and Rodrigo Bentancur, the front three always stick to their spots and never switch with each other during the 90 minutes, making it easier for opposition defenders to anticipate their moves.
We need to get over the fact that we do not have our ideal starting XI and play to the strengths of the players available.
Anna Howells can be found at Spurs XY, external