What’s the reality of this Tottenham team, supremely unlucky or unforgivably naive?
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Ange Postecoglou has a good side in there somewhere, but also one addicted to danger, impulsive and impatient. Pedro Porro hit the post in the 94th minute. It was an opportunistic shot from a tight angle, about 20 yards out. No kind of angle for a shot, really. But it was struck well, fierce and swerving viciously away from David Raya in the Arsenal goal, who probably wouldn’t have saved it. The frame was still rattling several seconds later.
![[Son Heung-min celebrates his goal with Radu Dragusin, but Tottenham typically coughed up their lead in four mad minutes.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8bf0dcd0fb11c87f5c9f32c19f3e46ab4ac326e4/0_98_3238_1943/master/3238.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
So, here’s a thought exercise. What are the consequences if Porro’s shot goes in? Does it make this Tottenham team any better? Does it change our assessment of their season so far? Does it render the club any better run or better coached? It shouldn’t, right? A hopeful pot-shot going an inch to the left shouldn’t mean anything beyond itself.
But of course a miracle goal in injury time of the north London derby changes everything, from the title race to the mood music around Arsenal to – very possibly – the trajectory of Tottenham’s season. And the reason for pointing all this out is that it’s becoming increasingly clear, 18 months into the new Spurs era, that this is a project whose success or failure is going to turn on stupidly fine margins.
Here Ange Postecoglou’s side had a golden opportunity to do the funniest thing imaginable, which was to beat Arsenal 1-0 with a goal from a set piece. Instead they suffered one of their characteristic bleak episodes, those few pulsing minutes when the lights start flashing, and the room starts spinning, and the voices, and the voices, and the voices. Arsenal scored two largely undeserved goals in four minutes just before half-time, and that was enough to seal Tottenham’s 12th defeat of the season in all competitions.
