A genuinely awful season provides Tottenham Hotspur and Ange Postecoglou with one more chance for redemption: the Europa League, where the Premier League’s 14th-place side may still qualify for next season’s UEFA Champions League and possibly save the manager’s job.
Eintracht Frankfurt is up next in the quarterfinals, and they are already on track to qualify for the Champions League since they are now third in the Bundesliga with eight games remaining. Domestic results, meanwhile, have slumped since Omar Marmoush signed for Manchester City for $72 million in the January transfer window. Eintracht had won three consecutive league games before his departure (with 15 goals and 9 assists), but they have won only three of the last ten (3W-3D-4L).
With Marmoush, they had the third-best attacking record in the Bundesliga (42 goals in 18 games). Without him, they are only ranked ninth (13 goals in 10 games). Hugo Ekitike, a 22-year-old French attacker, has stepped up with five goals and two assists in 13 outings (all competitions), while World Cup star Mario Gotze, 32, has three goals in four games.
Only time will tell how much good came out of Spurs’ 3-1 victory over last-place Southampton on Sunday, as they were clearly the stronger team in the first half but couldn’t seal the win until the last seconds of stoppage time.
Even the brightest spot of the day — Brennan Johnson’s first-half brace — went dark when a quarrel over the late penalty kick resulted in Mathys Tel scoring his first Premier League goal and Johnson sulking for failing to complete his hat trick. A sequence that succinctly summarizes Spurs’ season.
It would be just as suitable to win the club’s first trophy since 2008 while finishing in the bottom half of the Premier League and with a substantial percentage of the fanbase wishing to fire the manager.
