Like everyone else I've struggled to understand how the Spurs seem to be less than the sum of their parts (some really good individual players but a team that sleeps walks through games then wakes up and shows flashes of its potential). I wonder if the problems this year are an unfortunate coming together of factors that have the team physically and mentally fatigued. Conte's training regime has always been intense and combined with a season that crammed in the World Cup in the middle, perhaps it has left a talented team running on empty. And if you look at how many injuries Spurs have had compared to the rest of the Premier League you might also argue that instead of making the team fitter, Conte's pre-season drills which drove players to exhaustion have had the opposite of the intended effect (the team has been less fit, not more). This was a season Conte needed to back off (in light of the WC) but he took an approach which has broken the team down. You add to all that the mental tiredness of the three ring circus that is the Spurs (is Conte staying or going, the mental grind for the WC players, is Harry Kane staying or going, is Son through, the relentless negativity). You can go into all the technical analysis you like, you can talk about the type players who are needed to make the system work, but it comes down to one overarching theme-Spurs as a group are collectively physically and mentally broken down.
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