Crystal Palace
Édouard 83, Olise 90+1^2RATINGS
Crystal Palace (4-3-3): V Guaita 7 — J Ward 6,
J Andersen 6, M Guéhi 6, T Mitchell 7 — J Schlupp 6,
L Milivojevic 5 (J Mateta 60min, 6), W Hughes 7
(J Riedewald 75) — J Ayew 7, C Benteke 6 (M Olise 68,
8), O Édouard 7.
Booked Viera (not on pitch).
West Ham United (4-2-3-1): L Fabianski 6 —V Coufal 6,
C Dawson 7, I Diop 7, B Johnson 6 (A Masuaku 45, 6) —
T Soucek 6, D Rice 8 — J Bowen 6, M Lanzini 8
(M Noble 88, 6), S Benrahma 7 (N Vlasic 71) —
M Antonio 7.
Booked Johnson, Masuaku.
Referee D England.
Attendance 24,351.West Ham Utd
Antonio 22, Lanzini 25, 45+5 (pen)^3Michail Antonio admitted that his
recent barren spell had weighed
heavily on his mind but the West
Ham United forward is confident that
a frustrating period is now behind
him after a Covid-enforced lay-off last
month helped him refocus.
Antonio’s importance to David
Moyes’s side is clear. As the only
recognised senior centre forward in
the squad, his goals — he scored five
in his first five league appearances of
the campaign — contributed to West
Ham’s positive start. The 31-year-old
was unable to maintain that form,
with his goal in the Boxing Day defeat
by Southampton, on his return after
IAN WINROW
Covid break helped me clear my mind and find
isolating, ending a run of nine games
without scoring.
The opening goal in Saturday’s
ultimately hard-fought victory — a
performance that Antonio said has
demonstrated that Moyes’s side have
the resilience to remain in contention
for a Champions League place —
made it two in three games and took
his season tally to eight league goals,
adding to the player’s belief that he is
nearing a return to his best form. The
forward proved a constant threat and
his intelligent run also created the
space for Manuel Lanzini to collect
Declan Rice’s pass and add the
second.
“It affected me massively,” Antonio
said. “It was frustrating; I am a person
who always wants to score goals and Ialways believe I should score goals.
But I managed to get my first one,
then an assist last week and got the
goal again at Palace so hopefully
I can keep having goal
contributions to help the
team.”
Antonio believes his
enforced spell on the
sidelines has helped him
recover form. “That
sparked me into
life,” he said. “I
had Covid and I
came back so maybe
just having the break cleared
my mind. I didn’t have the
option to really think about
football as I had to isolate at
home so that might be thesituation because first game
back was Saints [goal], second
game was Watford [assist] and
then Crystal Palace [goal].
Sometimes it is just time.”
At Selhurst Park,
Antonio’s close-range
effort was quickly
followed by Lanzini’s
superb finish, with the
Argentinian scoring his
second from the
penalty spot in first-half
added time after Luka
Milivojevic, the Crystal
Palace captain, needlessly
handled.Antonio would not be averse
to competition for his placeAt the end of this match, settled in
Tottenham Hotspur’s favour by a late
headed goal from Davinson Sánchez,
it was unusually difficult to answer
the question of whether the winning
side had played well, or badly. For
much of the afternoon Tottenham’s
performance felt a little mechanical,
even robotic. The reliance on the
wing backs, Emerson Royal and
Sergio Reguilón, to deliver balls into
the box was apparent, as was the lack
of an imaginative creator in central
areas. Faced with a narrow, compact
defensive block, Spurs did not so
much unlock Watford, or break them
down, as go round them, repeatedly.
Looking at the 15 chances that
Tottenham created (see graphic,
right), you can see four arrows from
the right corner to the centre of the
box — all deliveries by Royal — and
one from the left: Son Heung-min’s
late assist. (Reguilón, a more potent
crosser than Royal, was kept quiet by
the admirable right wing back Juraj
Kucka.) The others are passes leading
away from goal, or preceding hopeful
long shots, with one exception: Lucas
Moura’s lofted pass over the top for
Son, whose volley was well saved by
Daniel Bachmann — the one time in
the match that Spurs undid Watford
down the middle.
If you were being particularly
uncharitable, you could reprise the
famous Thomas Edison quote and say
Tottenham’s display was 99 per cent
perspiration, 1 per cent inspiration.
And yet Spurs had 21 shots here, and
even before Son swung in that late
free kick they had created chances
worth 1.4 expected goals from open
play — more than enough to win this
game on an ordinary finishing and
goalkeeping day.
performance against Liverpool in
the 2-2 draw last month, when
Conte was forced by injuries
and absences to start both
Dele and Ndombele in a 3-5-2.
Spurs played really well in a
performance in which they
repeatedly cut Liverpool open
down the middle — albeit against a
very different type of defence — and
Ndombele played exactly the kind of
incisive forward pass that was
missing here to assist Kane’s goal.
But it is clear that that display left
Conte unmoved, and is hard to see a
future for Dele and Ndombele at the
club: asked last week about the
latter’s role and importance in the
squad, Conte would only say,
damningly, “he’s a midfielder”.
Conte is one of the best coaches inJAMES GHEERBRANT
Chances created by TottenhamTOTTENHAM V WATFORD10 1GG Monday January 3 2022 | the times
thegame
Conte puts faith in system,
The tactical direction of this team
under Antonio Conte is interesting.
So far Conte has largely ignored his
two most talented midfield passers,
two players with the vision to unlock
a massed defence, Tanguy Ndombele
and Giovani Lo Celso, and Dele Alli,
a more mobile type of No 10 who
makes those runs attacking the box
from central areas. (Lo Celso got
some late minutes here, but
Ndombele and Dele were not
summoned from the bench.)
Conte’s preferred central
midfielders, Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg
and Oliver Skipp, offer a lot of thrust
but not so much cut. It is quite a
reversal for Tottenham, who have
gone from sometimes appearing to
have too many No 10s in the last days
of Mauricio Pochettino and the early
reign of José Mourinho, when
Ndombele, Lo Celso, Dele and a deep-
dropping Harry Kane clustered in that
space, to playing with none at all.
Adding another layer of intrigue is
the memory of Tottenham’sthe world and has earned the right to
make these calls. And it is worth
saying that he is not the first Spurs
manager to be unconvinced by Dele
and Ndombele.
Ultimately, it comes down to the
difference between individual
creativity and systemic creativity:
Conte wants to build a team who
have a repeatable tactical method
to create chances, and do not rely
on the imagination of individuals.
And it is working so far: Spurs have
gone from creating an average of
0.68 expected goals a game from
open play under Nuno Espírito Santo
to 1.41 under Conte. That is an
enormous improvement in such a
short space of time.
This was a much improved Watford
performance after the 4-1 home
defeat against West Ham United, but
the Africa Cup of Nations still looms
at a difficult moment for a team who
have lost their past six matches.
Watford have managed to retain
Nigeria’s Emmanuel Dennis, who was
substituted at half-time
with what Claudio
Ranieri, the Watford
manager, called “a
little problem”, but
they are set to lose
the defenders
Adam Masina
and William
Troost-
Ekong, and
Imran Louza,
the central
midfielder,
who all
started this
game, to the
tournament.
Louza has been
a regular starter
in recent matches
and Ranieri could
be forced to turn
back to Ozan
Tufan, who
has not been
convincing so far.
But it is the loss of
Masina, Louza’s
Morocco team-
mate, which feels
particularly acute,
with Danny Rose,
the only other senior
left back, out with a
knee injury. It looks
inevitable that Watford
will dip into the January
transfer market for
cover in that position.Watford 0
RATINGS
Watford (5-3-2): D Bachmann 7 — J Kucka 8,
C Cathcart 7, W Troost-Ekong 7, F Sierralta 7,
A Masina 5 — I Louza 6 (T Cleverley 90+2min),
M Sissoko 6, K Sema 6 (C Hernández 90+10) —
E Dennis (J Pedro 45, 8) 5, J King 7.
Tottenham Hotspur (3-4-3): H Lloris 6 — D Sánchez
7, E Dier 6, B Davies 6 — E Royal 6, O Skipp 7
(H Winks 70, 7), P-E Hojbjerg 6, S Reguilón 6
(G Lo Celso 83) — L Moura 6 (B Gil 90+1), H Kane 6,
Son Heung-min 6. Booked Skipp.
Referee R Jones.
Attendance 20,392.Tottenham
Sánchez 90+6^1Reguilón tries to find a way past Kucka at Vicarage Road but was largely keptConte has not found much use for
his most talented midfield passers