Georginio Rutter’s 95th-minute equaliser felt absolutely crushing in the moment, with Tottenham’s failure to capitalise on a generally good Premier League performance opening the door for West Ham United.
Had the happy Hammers prevailed against a weakened Crystal Palace still feeling the effects of a Florentine night out last Thursday, Spurs would’ve been four points adrift of safety.
Fortunately, the most abject of matches played out in south London, with the spoils shared in the absence of a goal. Neither side were worthy of scoring, even if the struggling Brennan Johnson twice came close in the first half.
Anyway, West Ham’s point means they haven’t escaped our clutches; we’ve all been able to at least hope that our situation is salvageable. There was reason for genuine encouragement from Saturday, with Xavi Simons supplying a much-needed spark and Spurs performing with impressive competence out of possession to stifle a Brighton team that are distinctly creative in the build-up phase.
However, last week’s promise will count for nought if we don’t beat the already-relegated Wolverhampton Wanderers this weekend.
When did Tottenham last beat Wolves in the Premier League?
Dele was the match-winner of our most recent league victory at Molineux. | Marc Atkins/GettyImages
There’s suddenly a sense of optimism in north London. A few weeks ago, this looked like a fixture the Lilywhites would almost certainly struggle to claw anything from, but Rob Edwards’ side have run out of puff after an impressive upsurge before the March international break, having beat Aston Villa and Liverpool at Molineux.
Still, none of us can get carried away. We’re still winless in the Premier League this calendar year, having failed to see out a game that was absolutely there for us last time out. Moreover, our last goalscorer in a Premier League victory away at Wolves was Dele Alli.
The much-adored impish Spurs star scored from the penalty spot in a 1-0 victory at Molineux on the second weekend of the 2021/22 season. Nuno Espírito Santo was at the helm, and Harry Kane was pushing for a move to Manchester City at the time. The disgruntled Kane appeared off the bench, and would, of course, remain in N17 for two more outstanding individual campaigns.
Since then, we’ve knocked Wolves out of the Carabao Cup on penalties but won just one of eight meetings. Wolves have won five, including the previous three on home soil.
Historically, this is a ground where Tottenham have found victories hard to come by, and this group of players have little idea how to win football matches at this point in time.
While Edwards’ bottom-dwellers have been battered in back-to-back games and are dealing with a couple of notable absences, I’ve seen enough stodgefests at Molineux over the years to know that De Zerbi’s men will have to fight tooth and nail for an imperative victory this weekend.
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