As another aimless long ball sailed over his head, Roberto Soldado just couldn't take it anymore and somebody was going to pay. In an act of pure frustration, he swung his elbow back hard into the chest of Phil Jagielka, leaving the England centre-back winded and on the deck. While Soldado was undoubtedly very fortunate to avoid punishment for his loss of discipline, anyone who watched all one hundred minutes and nine seconds of yesterday's match could see where he was coming from.
Although Tottenham dominated the opening forty-five minutes with their high press pinning Everton back in their own half, Andre Villas-Boas' side never really looked like scoring. This is becoming a recurring theme this season with Spurs only having scored nine goals in their first ten league matches. This is despite having taken more shots and completed more successful dribbles than any other team in the Premier League with only Manchester City ahead of them in the possession statistic.
"Away from home their support has been amazing; we play with no fear and we need that atmosphere at White Hart Lane". One week after taking the unusual step of criticising his own team's fans after an unconvincing victory over Hull, Villas-Boas would have hoped for a better performance to give more weight to his claim. In fairness to Villas-Boas, the statistics do suggest that Spurs are more free scoring away from the Lane since he joined the club in 2012. Last season, Tottenham were one of two teams that finished in the top ten in the league that scored more goals away from home than at home and only Swansea scored less goals at home than Spurs last season of the top ten. However, this was probably more attributable to Gareth Bale, Aaron Lennon and Jermain Defoe getting more space to counter attack than anything to do with the fans.
Andros Townsend has done a reasonable imitation of Bale since the Welshman departed to Real Madrid in the Summer. Like Bale, Townsend is a powerful winger who cuts inside from the right wing to shoot with his left foot. Both players tend to eschew a pass to a player in a better position in favour of taking a shot from distance. This can be frustrating for teammates and fans but if you are consistently scoring spectacular goals like Bale did last term, speculative efforts are far more tolerable. Bale unleashed plenty of those but he also scored more goals than any other player in Europe from outside the box in 2012/13. Townsend has matched Bale's volume with an average of 4.4 shots per game (only Luis Suarez has more) but so far hasn't come close to matching his efficiency. Townsend's only league goal has come from a mishit cross and yesterday, none of his five shots from distance came particularly close to troubling Tim Howard. This is not to suggest to Townsend is a bad footballer, he is quite a promising one and has shown plenty to promise this season. He has that rare ability for a winger to be able to beat left-backs by coming inside or by bursting past them on the outside with his right foot but Bale's 21 league goals and general attacking brilliance are obviously missed.
Villas-Boas has a couple of high quality solutions to this goals problem in his squad. Christian Eriksen looked extremely promising in his first couple of appearances for the club and it was a surprise that he was only introduced with five minutes to go. Eriksen possesses an ability to play between the lines and provide the sort of creativity that was sorely lacking yesterday. Sky commentator Martin Tyler pointed out on more than one occasion that Soldado was making runs in behind the Everton back four and was becoming visibly frustrated that passes weren't arriving. The fact that Spurs have the lowest number of offsides in the Premier League would indicate they haven't been arriving all season. Eriksen would certainly help in that regard. Erik Lamela has only been used sparingly since being signed for £26 million from Roma but he did score 15 goals in Serie A from the wing. However, there doesn't seem to be an obvious solution to the lack of a deep-lying playmaker in the squad and Spurs are too reliant on long diagonals from Michael Dawson to start attacks.
Yesterday wasn't without positives for Villas-Boas as Jan Vertonghen looked extremely comfortable at left-back and conclusively won his battle of the Belgians with Kevin Mirallas. Vertonghen consistently got beyond Mirallas to create overlaps on the left flank and harried him aggressively when Mirallas received the ball in his own half, winning a couple of turnovers. Vertonghen is one of those players who always looks like he has time on the ball but his ability to perform his primary duty of defending remains open to question and he was extremely fortunate not to give away a penalty for a completely needless push on Seamus Coleman.
As the outstanding Jonathan Wilson has pointed out before, Tottenham's strategy of playing a very high defensive line demands a goalkeeper who can anticipate a through pass and come off his line very quickly to snuff out the danger. Hugo Lloris never fails to impress in this aspect of the game and he is one of the primary reasons for Spurs having only conceded five goals in their opening ten league matches.
