Real optimism prevails

There was a wave of pessimism about the pre-season in which the club appointed Nuno Espirito Santo as its head coach having previously been reportedly turned down by Antonio Conte, who said when he was finally appointed in November, “Last summer our union did not happen because the end of my relationship with Inter was still too recent and emotionally too involved with the end of the season, so I felt that it wasn’t yet the right time to return to coaching.”

The season began with uncertainty about Harry Kane’s future and the “will he/won’t he” move to Manchester City saga. Harry didn’t have a proper pre-season and didn’t start our season. His first Premier League start came in our third game. Harry scored two goals in our first Europa Conference League game and in England Internationals, but his first league goal came on 17th October at Newcastle. It had been seven years since Harry took so long to open his Premier League account and that was nearly the start of his career. Whilst our goal-scoring record under Nuno was not good, Son Heung-min was already ahead of Harry by the time he scored his first Premier League goal, and of course he would end the season in front and have a share in the Golden boot.

Son had scored our winner on Matchday One against Champions Manchester City. We played them at a good time, but we won all three games 1-0 in August, topping the fledgling league. Nuno even won the Premier League’s manager of the month award! Spurs Odyssey published a souvenir edition of our Premier League review as Arsenal were bottom of the league! Dele Alli scored his 51st and last Premier League goal for Spurs on the sixth anniversary of his first goal in our win at Molineux. Dele even captained the side in our home game against NS Mura, and scored a penalty, but very sadly, we had already seen his best days and in January Spurs were happy to let him go to Everton.

September was overshadowed by the passing of the legendary Jimmy Greaves, who had never recovered from the massive stroke he suffered years earlier. Greaves was remembered respectfully by home and away fans when we played Arsenal, but that was the third of three league defeats in September, all to London sides. My headline was, It’s a “No to Nuno” from me. Nuno’s bubble had burst. In October, he alienated more than half his squad by leaving his first eleven at home when the “B” team proved incapable in Holland away to Vitesse. We were even failing to impress in a third-tier European competition.

Nuno had been hampered by the loss of South American players at times. International teams were playing three games at times to catch up after the Covid crisis. Indeed, due to injury on International duty we missed summer signing Romero for three months between November and February. After that we saw Romero at his very best for most of our successful run-in.

Nuno’s last game was an ignoble 3-0 home defeat to a Manchester United side which had a dreadful season. In came Conte and the formation switched from an ineffective 4-3-3 to Antonio’s resolute 3-4-3. In his first league game at Goodison Park we drew 0-0 and had no shots on target. The side so badly lacked midfield creativity. Conte fielded a weak side when we lost away to lowly NS Mura in perhaps our most embarrassing European defeat ever. The coach said he needed to see more of the squad he had inherited in action.

In December we would forfeit our place in Europe due to Covid, but by then Conte had won three games, having drawn his first Premier League game. Antonio went on to be unbeaten in his first nine league games, which included a draw at home against Liverpool and a sensational 3-2 win at Leicester when Steven Bergwijn scored those two goals in added time. We also reached the semi-final of the Carabao Cup but came up against a Chelsea side which has reached five finals in the last year under Thomas Tuchel’s leadership. Now that Real Madrid have beaten Liverpool, Chelsea are no longer reigning European Champions, but they do still hold the title of World Club champions.

Spurs were able to concentrate on the Premier League, although we did suffer a Fifth Round FA Cup defeat away to an in-form Middlesbrough side. Apart from Dele, players such as Ndombele, Lo Celso and Bryan Gil were farmed out on loan, whilst we acquired Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski in January. These two signings proved to be sensational additions to the team. In the absence of the injured Oliver Skipp, who had been having a great season, Bentancur proved a more than able partner for Hojbjerg in front of the defence and added a good degree of creativity. Bentancur had two assists in our last day game at Norwich, for example.

Kulusevski has made no less than 8 assists and scored five league goals in his 18 Premier League game career so far. Together with Kane and Son, “Kulu” has been part of an excellent front three. Kulusevski’s second goal at Norwich was a “worldie.” Harry and “Sonny” broke the Premier League record during the season for their combined involvement in 41 Premier League goals (so far). Harry has out-scored Son in all competitions this season (27 to 24),but Harry has 17 Premier League goals this season. Harry now has 183 Premier League goals and 248 club goals. That is just 18 behind Greaves’ 266 record and bearing in mind all the signs are that Harry will be staying, he will surely become our all-time record scorer next season. Kane has climbed to fifth place in the all-time Premier League scorers’ list.

There were blips on our path to claiming the last Champions League place, but there were sensational results such as another added time winner as we completed a league double over eventual Champions Manchester City when Harry Kane scored his second goal in a 3-2 win. Kane’s late goal even seemed to upset fourth official Craig Pawson! Having also drawn both our games against Liverpool, we showed great form against the top two sides.

We won 8, drew 2 and lost just one of our last eleven games, unbeaten in our last six. One of those wins was in front of a full house (62,027) against Arsenal in a great atmosphere. It was Arsenal’s first visit to the stadium in front of a proper crowd. They buckled, and when they lost four days later at Newcastle we were in charge of our destiny before we thrashed Norwich 5-0 where Son scored a stupendous 23rd league goal of the season to tie with Salah for the Golden Boot.

Antonio Conte inherited a minus 7 goal difference from Nuno. His league record of plus 36 gave us a more than respectful plus 29 at the end of the season. We had clean sheets in our last three games, and Hugo Lloris (ever-present in the league for a second successive season) kept 16 clean sheets in League games.

“Sonny” swept the board regarding the club’s player of the season vote, but because of the inconsistency of many outfield players, particularly in the early part of the season, Hugo led our players’ list almost until the last day of the season, when he was pipped by Bentancur (by a very fine margin). Emotionally, I would have to make Son our player of the season too.

An atmosphere of real optimism prevails among Spurs fans, due to the strong likelihood that both Conte and Kane will stay to pursue personal and club ambitions, and thanks to the news of a £150 million investment into the club by ENIC. Already names of possible signings are circulating, and we could be in for an exciting 22/23 season. How will you occupy yourself during the close season? Perhaps activities found on this page will be of interest?

Remember, there are now Over 25 years of archives at Spurs Odyssey, where you can find reports on our games at all levels, including our under-21 and under-18 teams.

Don't forget to check out the players' current figures re. appearances, cards, goals scored and accumulated ratings to date below.

...if you want to read reports of the matches played during this season, then links are on the Spurs Odyssey Fixtures/Reports page here. By working your way back through the previous month's figures, you can review the performances over 20 years!