The Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links for Monday, October 28

Hi, all!

Once again, that’s Spurs women head coach Juan Amoros at the top.

Ramble of the Day

For the Spurs men’s team, yesterday’s loss to Liverpool presents a situation where there are positives to be found in a negative. The players looked like they wanted to play football — and do so together, a nice change of pace from the results of the recent past. The story of that change, if you ask me, can be tracked back to Thursday evening. Why, you ask?

Mauricio Pochettino answered that question a week before Thursday’s events, telling members of the media pre-Watford: “When you receive a text from the players inviting you and the coaching staff for a dinner – only two things can happen: It’s because they want to say goodbye. Or because they feel they love you and they want to show they are with you. I think it’s the second.” That dinner seemingly happened the Thursday before Liverpool, with photographic evidence courtesy of the paparazzi. It opened up the players to further scrutiny, as they were seen outside of work uniforms.

Son Heung-min showed up in perhaps the best item of clothing anyone wore to dinner: a wonderful coat whose details I have yet to track down. Harry Kane took a simpler approach, picking a good color combination but maybe not the best shapes. Pochettino may have been bested by Son in the coat department, but I bet his is nice, too, even if the lighting can’t prove it. Dele went for the trendy logo display, sporting a Dior shirt and a Louis Vuitton mid layer and one of his own hats on top.

Christian Eriksen put in no effort. Harry Winks put in a more tasteful low effort look. Érik Lamela continued his run of dressing like a most unique looking model in clothes that may look out of place in his real life setting, but Lamela isn’t competing with mere mortals for style points. He’s in a different competition altogether. Jan Vertonghen wasn’t nearly as interesting (but who, other than Dele, could be?), but might also be sporting a good coat.

In a way, it spoke to each person’s form. Son stood out both at dinner and on the pitch; Eriksen may not have tried; and like at dinner, Lamela did not compete with his teammates. Almost everyone dressed up, though — they were in sync on that, and they were relatively in sync on the field at Anfield.

While the dinner was a predictor, it also must have done the work it set out to. It has proven the greatest of theories, which I will now phrase the way Andy Murray did when he beat Rafael Nadal soon after his wedding: food works. (Or, at least, a meal at Novikov does.)

tl;dr: Spurs played more like a group against Liverpool than they had in a while, and it’s obviously because they shared a meal together.

Links of the Day

Chennai City’s Katsumi Yusa was racially abused by a referee during an International Club Cup match against the Bashundhara Kings.

Leicester has opened a garden at the site of the helicopter crash that killed five people last year.

Manchester United’s Paul Pogba will not return from an ankle injury before December.

Today’s longer read: Andrew Dampf on the Italian law preventing female footballers from being designated as professionals and the lasting sexism in Italian football for the Associated Press