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Ipswich Town‘s struggles continued as they suffered their fourth consecutive home defeat, this time at the hands of Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday evening. The 4-1 loss not only dented Ipswich’s survival hopes but also exposed their defensive fragilities.
Spurs, although not entirely convincing, secured a much-needed win. Despite taking a two-goal lead through Brennan Johnson’s strikes, Tottenham’s lack of defensive cohesion were evident, and Ipswich briefly had hope when Omari Hutchinson scored.
The match got off to a lively start, with Liam Delap repeatedly charging at Archie Gray, making him look every inch the gifted midfielder gamely filling in at centre-back. Within the first 30 seconds, Delap had drawn a smart low save from Guglielmo Vicario, and Jaden Philogene’s goalbound follow-up struck an offside Omari Hutchinson on the back.
Another thrust had Delap squaring across a vacant goalmouth, and he then headed a Kalvin Phillips free-kick against the post. However, the opportunities passed, and Tottenham rallied to take the lead. Gray, unusually deployed as the right-sider of the two central defenders, picked out Son Heung-min with a glorious long diagonal. Faced by Ben Godfrey and Dara O’Shea, Son jinked both ways to create room for a low cross that Brennan Johnson turned in for his eighth goal of the season.
Eight minutes later, Johnson, making his first start in a little over a month after recovering from a calf injury, had another. Son, again, was the provider, slipped through this time by Rodrigo Bentancur. While Son is not yet back to his best, he made the most of being up against a full-back as heavy-footed as Godfrey, who was withdrawn at half-time.
Tottenham’s two-goal lead was precarious, and Ipswich had hope when Hutchinson swept in Jack Clarke’s first-time pass. Obviously, the truth is that Ipswich are simply not good enough defensively. Any team that concedes at over two goals a game is going to struggle.
James Maddison’s quick feet set up Djed Spence to fire in his first league goal via a deflection off Luke Woolfenden, making the game safe after 77 minutes. Dejan Kulusevski then bent in a fourth seven minutes later, sealing the win for Spurs.
Ipswich protested that Jacob Greaves was down after a minor clash of heads with Dane Scarlett, but that was not why they lost. Spurs could approach the game with a sense of profound calm, knowing that this match didn’t matter much beyond trying to find their rhythm ahead of the European League game against AZ Alkmaar.
At the start of play, seventh place and likely Conference League qualification were 11 points off. That could, in another context, be pleasantly relaxing, but for a team of Tottenham’s aspirations, having nothing riding on the final third of the season is indicative of extreme underachievement.
As it turned out, while this win was probably a useful runout in terms of getting more minutes into the legs of returning players, it was not a game that revealed much about the Tottenham project beyond its inconsistency – flashes of brilliance coupled with glaring weaknesses.
Now with 12 Premier League games remaining, strange things might happen, but Ipswich should probably start preparing for a return to the Championship from here.
