Premier League crisis club of the week 2023/24: Tottenham Hotspur
- 90min's 'Premier League crisis club of the week series is back for 2023/24
- After a storming start to the season, Tottenham were plunged back into the darkness with defeats to Chelsea and Wolves
- Key injuries and suspensions threatening to derail Spurs' early momentum under Ange Postecoglou
Another week, another Premier League club in crisis.
This time it's a team who had been flying high throughout the first ten gameweeks of the Premier League season before everything started going wrong.
That's right, this week's club in crisis is Ange Postecoglou's Tottenham Hotspur.
What's the crisis?
From the only unbeaten team in the Premier League to losing to two mid-table teams in the space of six days - it's not been a great week for Tottenham.
The Lilywhites looked like they were gearing up to wipe the floor with Chelsea last Monday in the opening half an hour of the game, scoring inside six minutes and having another soon disallowed.
But then the bad things started happening.
Cristian Romero saw red for a daft challenge on Argentina teammate Enzo Fernandez inside the box, allowing Cole Palmer to score the resulting penalty and equalise.
Micky van de Ven and James Maddison were both brought off in first-half added time with severe injuries before Destiny Udogie made things even trickier for the hosts with a red card of his own.
To top it all off, Nicolas Jackson then helped himself to a hat-trick. Yep, a lot went wrong.
All those injuries and suspensions led to a rather drab performance at Molineux on Saturday too, with Spurs succumbing to two stoppage time goals in a 2-1 defeat.
Why are they in crisis?
Tottenham's starting XI has been exceptional thus far this season but it was only a matter of time before the lack of quality depth reared its ugly head.
With eight players out injured, including speed demon Van de Ven and key creative outlet Maddison, and both Romero and Udogie suspended for Saturday's defeat at Wolves, it's been laid bare just how thin Postecoglou's squad is.
The forced reintroduction of Eric Dier and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg gave Spurs fans a glimpse of past performances under Antonio Conte last season, and it wasn't pretty.
What can they do to rectify it?
The obvious answer is go out and sign some players in the January transfer window. More specifically, new arrivals who can adequately fill in for Van de Ven and Maddison in particular if they're ever out injured.
Manager Postecoglou also needs to find a way to not play Dier and Hojbjerg until those replacements are found. The pair clearly don't fit the style of football Ange is trying to implement at Spurs, with their lack of pace and sluggishness out of possession proving counterproductive in their brief outings so far.
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