February 13, (THEWILL) – Tottenham Hotspur’s chances of finishing in the English Premier League’s top four were dealt another big blow after a humiliating 2-0 loss at home to Wolves, with the visitors leapfrogging them in the rankings.
Spurs needed a solid performance and result after their horrible 3-2 loss to Southampton on Wednesday, but they were unimpressive once again, falling to seventh place in the table.
Hugo Lloris failed to clear a Wolves free-kick twice before the ball fell sweetly to the unmarked Raul Jimenez, who smashed a shot into the top corner after six minutes to open the scoring in favour of the visitors.
Spurs’ first big chance came when full debutant Rodrigo Bentancur connected with Son Heung-min, but the new man was unable to collect the ball cleanly in his stride, and his ensuing shot trickled into Jose Sa’s arms.
The wasted opportunity was punished when Lloris and Ben Davies failed to clear their lines once more, allowing Leander Dendoncker to bury the ball from close range.
Kane came close to halving the deficit moments later, but his long-range effort went wide, while Jimenez pushed Lloris into a leaping save on the 20th minute mark.
Antonio Conte was dissatisfied with his team, so after 28 minutes, he substituted Dejan Kulusevski for Ryan Sessegnon as Spurs changed their formation. Their improvement showed when Son fed Kane on a swift counter, but Romain Saiss made a fantastic last-ditch recovery attempt to deny the England captain.
Spurs were on the verge of scoring a third goal when Davinson Sanchez made another blunder, but Lloris was quick off his line to stop the approaching Jimenez.
As Tottenham attempted to claw their way back into the game, Jose Sa again denied Kane, while Harry Winks saw a deflected effort strike the post and Kulusevski’s half-volley rolled to the wrong side of the post.
Late on, Romero and Kane came close again, but Spurs failed to pose enough questions to Wolves, who deservedly took all three points back to Molineux.
Wolves climbed above Spurs into seventh position as a result of their outstanding performance, and Bruno Lage’s side are now just three points behind the top four with a game in hand over fourth-placed West Ham. Meanwhile, Spurs have now lost three games in a row, and Conte’s side will need to turn things around quickly if they are to keep their European hopes alive.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
