It feels like a small point in the story of Tottenham’s increasingly volatile season, in which the successes seem only to buy temporary breathing space and the setbacks lay immediate waste to any momentum, but it is one that talks to the apocalyptic fear among the fanbase.
What does Harry Kane make of it all? The answer is we do not know and it is because the team’s talisman has stopped speaking to the media.
This is not meant to sound like a journalist’s quibble. The reason for mentioning it is because it is so out of character. In every season of his career so far, Kane has routinely given his pre- or post-match thoughts. Essentially, he is a good bloke who is happy to engage with supporters via the press, even in difficult times – which is always a marker of character.
Not any more. The matter was brought into plain sight when Kane dodged media duties during the November international break, which is highly unusual for an England captain. And it has carried on that way back at Spurs. The pandemic has affected the access that journalists are given but this does not give Kane a pass. Surely he has to break cover during the upcoming international window?
It has been impossible to ignore the suspicion that Kane has kept a low profile because he does not want to be put on the spot, to face questions he might struggle to answer honestly. Or, more precisely, a particular question. It is the one that has tracked him in recent seasons but now presses with greater urgency and discomfort. With his 28th birthday coming up in July, does he think he has to leave Spurs to fulfil his ambitions?
The club’s position is that Kane is not for sale. Moreover, with a contract until 2024, the chairman, Daniel Levy, is in control. Everybody knows a deal with Levy is practically signed in blood. But, at the very least, there was plenty for Kane to ponder as he trudged off the field on Thursday night after 120 soul-sapping minutes in the Europa League extra-time exit at Dinamo Zagreb. Ditto, José Mourinho.
There is a reason why the crisis always tends to come quicker to Mourinho than other managers. It is because with him the result can often feel like the only thing. Mourinho brings trophies to clubs straight away and then he leaves. There is never the sense he is shaping a squad for the longer term, possibly with young players. At Spurs, he has loaned out most of them.
The playing style is built to win first and entertain second, although this, frankly, is optional. The way Mourinho analyses matches is clinical. He is not bothered about possession statistics, action areas or expected goals. To him, it is purely about big chances created. If his team can do that once or twice at the right time – and, ideally, score – then nothing else matters.
The upshot is that when the result is not there, Mourinho has little to fall back on and when the attitude is not there, either, as was the case in Zagreb and in the derby defeat at Arsenal on Sunday, it leads to questions about the end of the road having been reached.
Kane stayed silent on Thursday night but the captain, Hugo Lloris, did not. In a searing interview with BT Sport he laid bare his frustrations and two things stood out. First, that Mourinho’s message to attack Dinamo and not sit back on the 2-0 first-leg lead had been clear. “But the opposite happened,” Lloris said. And, second, that there are players, mainly out of the team, who are not giving their all, presumably because they are disillusioned.
It has led to a damaging lack of togetherness, to players hiding – to borrow the word Mourinho used after the Arsenal game – and to responsibility being left to only a handful of stalwarts.
“One thing is to come in front of the camera and say: ‘I’m ambitious,’” Lloris said. “The other thing is to show [it] every day in training sessions and to show every time on the pitch. If you follow the team only when you are in the starting XI it causes big problems for the team because you pay. We had a great moment in the past because we could trust the togetherness that was in the team. Today, I’m not sure about that.
“On the bench there is an influence to have, to push the others. In training sessions the same. Everyone has to be ready to help the team when the moment comes. It is not only to stay on the side and complain.”
It is hugely worrying to think Mourinho’s message is not getting through because players are not listening or, to take it to the extreme, they do not want to hear it; they do not want to play for him. When that happens, it tends to lead to only one thing.
Managing a squad rather than just a starting XI is fundamental and it is an uplifting feeling when a reserve can step up. Witness Thomas Tuchel’s joy and that of everybody at Chelsea when Emerson Palmieri came on as an 89th-minute substitute to score in their Champions League win against Atlético Madrid on Wednesday night. Every player has to find the motivation from within but it is the manager who sets the tone.
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Spurs go to Aston Villa in the Premier League on Sunday night but the game Mourinho has circled in his diary is the Carabao Cup final against Manchester City on 25 April. Win that – however unlikely it seems at present – and he would have delivered yet again. Would it be enough though, particularly if Champions League qualification were again to elude the club?
And so the tension bubbles. Kane wants more than this, so does Son Heung-min, who has still to sign his new contract, so does Levy, so does everyone. It was left to Joe Hart, the reserve goalkeeper, to provide a moment of light relief when he was forced to apologise for a post sent in error from his Instagram account. “Job done,” it read, in the wake of the 3-0 defeat against Dinamo. If only.
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