Late Wolves double downs sorry Tottenham as attack stutters without James Maddison
Wolves 2-1 Tottenham (Sarabia 90+1′, Lemina 90+7 | Johnson 3′)
Wolves scored two stoppage-time goals to condemn an injury-ridden Tottenham to their second consecutive loss.
Pablo Sarabia cancelled out Brennan Johnson’s early strike in the 91st minute, before Mario Lemina stole behind the Spurs defence to grab all three points at the death.
It means Ange Postecoglou’s side have lost back-to-back Premier League games having been unbeaten less than a week ago, looking heavily affected by their key absentees.
Spurs had been forced to make four changes due to injury and suspension, including three of the four starting defenders.
Eric Dier started his first game of the season in any competition, while right-back Emerson Royal was deployed at left-back and left-back Ben Davies in a central pair.
Yet all the change didn’t appear to matter early on, as Johnson scored his first Spurs goal after just two minutes and 15 seconds. He snuck in between the Wolves centre-backs to complete a sharp move orchestrated by Dejan Kulusevski and Pedro Porro, whose cut-back was inch-perfect into a crowded six-yard box.
Despite the defensive alterations, James Maddison was the most sorely-missed of the absentees.
Postecoglou’s side clearly struggled for inspiration without their creator-in-chief, switching to a 4-3-3 to accommodate Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg in midfield. They managed just two shot on targets all game despite controlling nearly 60 per cent of possession.
And as the game went on, Spurs increasingly missed Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero at the heart of defence, with Wolves spurning the better chances of the game as they ratcheted up the pressure.
Perhaps the most egregious of their catalogue of misses came from Hwang Hee-chan, the form player coming into this game, as the South Korean drilled a close-range shot wide on 54 minutes. That came less than a minute after Matheus Cunha curled over the bar from just inside the area in acres of space.
Eventually the responsibility fell to substitute Sarabia to score just his second goal in English football, latching onto Cunha’s smart pass to drill a left-footed strike inside Guglielmo Vicario’s near post.
The late, late show from Lemina then ensured Gary O’Neil’s side collected a well-deserved three points, having comprehensively outplayed their north London opponents.
Given Maddison and Van de Ven are both ruled out until at least January, alarm bells should be triggered by this Spurs performance. They looked largely toothless, reliant on poor finishing from their hosts to keep their lead until added-time.
