As Tottenham Hotspur, on average the youngest team in the division, emerged onto the pitch at White Hart Lane on Tuesday morning Australia time, they looked especially resplendent in their tight white shirts.
Spurs are a team of sharp haircuts and ease on the ball, a well-oiled and well-gelled team manicured into a supremely seductive title contender by manager – and handsomely coiffured man – Mauricio Pochettino.
They walked out beside another set of players, who make up the second-oldest team in the division. They, West Brom, were clad in blood red, rather ominously, and took to the pitch in very much the manner their own manager has instilled; that of a band of soldiers, slightly bedraggled – looking at you, Jonas Olsson – mirthlessly prepared for what must be done, dreadful and arduous though it may be.
Tony Pulis is very far from coiffured, not that you can tell when his iconic cap is pulled as tightly down over the forehead as it usually is. As Pochettino, smartly scarved and buttoned, reclined aesthetically into his seat, Pulis, tracksuited and zipped, was already prowling his technical area, a physical extension of his team, echoing with his fits and starts his side’s own manic marshalling of Dele Alli, Christian Eriksen et al.
Before ten minutes had elapsed, on the telecast, Pulis’s voice was heard barking hoarsely at his players; Tottenham were settling in, sweetly knocking the ball around, probing and toying, and Pulis was audibly concerned. Harry Kane had nearly scored, after neatly combining with Alli to scythe straight through the packed Baggies defence.
Eriksen had spun in a free kick within five minutes, only just off the mark, and skimmed another off the top of the bar a few minutes later. There was a points gap to make up on Leicester, Spurs knew that, and West Brom were in the way.
As it turned out, Spurs found it impossible to shift the Baggies, a boulder of a team that was stubborn and unyielding. Tottenham tried to sashay gracefully around it and found themselves squashed to one side. They tried to elegantly leap over it, but fell short, knees skinned.
They tried, eventually, to punch their way through it – when it comes to Alli, very much in the literal sense – but left the pitch with bruised knuckles, egos, and with their title chances mortally wounded. Leicester City require just three points from their remaining three matches to clinch the Premiership.
West Brom sit in 13th place, ten points from the drop zone. This was a performance, in the end, to be proud of, and now the Baggies are one of only four teams to have taken points from Spurs in both home-and-away fixtures. But this season has been a wearying walk into the wind, with teeth gritted, and the end result of it is satisfactory only in the sense that it has ensured Premier League football next season.
That is what Pulis does – in fact, it’s just this. His teams concede few and score fewer (only Aston Villa have scored fewer league goals this term), but boy, do they grind. He has mined new depths of bloody-minded attrition this term, playing four centre-backs across the defensive line multiple times this season, including against Spurs.
In Claudio Yacob, he has one of the league’s most potent irritants, and few can blame Alli for wanting to thump him. In the draw with Spurs, it was an extremely common sight to see six West Brom players spanning the entire width of the field as a colossal rampart of a defence, with three holding midfielders crunched up in front of them.
And yet, Pulis is an essential Premier League character. His teams are ugly, unprogressive and aggressive, but they’re familiar, like an old pair of boots, or a piece of embedded shrapnel; you almost feel attached to them. And it does seem cruelly fitting that this youthful Spurs project would falter here, against this band of craggy tryers, all but ending their title run.
There is plenty of time for this side to take the league by storm, and they’ll have to beat these Pulis monsters, at these crucial junctures, if they’re to do so. Right now the blood and thunder – or thud and blunder – frightens them a little, riles them into wayward action and sloppiness. League champions must remain unruffled when faced with the antics of players like Yacob.
And Pulis, god love him, should always have a place in this league. Aside from the essential speed hump his teams provide, the man is a highly accomplished manager, who routinely does with ease what so many find desperately difficult. His brief spell with Crystal Palace even showed his ability to craft an exciting, penetrative team, while still staving off relegation with aplomb.
His West Brom provides a necessary service, a harsh, mandatory exfoliation for a league that can become too indulgent and encrusted with grand ideals. Leicester scored five goals over their two fixtures against the Baggies, although they won just one of those games. At times, the Baggies boulder can appear immovable, but obstacles like these must be scaled if a league title is to be snatched. His methods are lamented, his tracksuit and cap are ridiculed, but if you can’t pass the Pulis litmus test, you aren’t worth much in this league.
This time next year, Ange Postecoglou expects Tottenham to be in the Premier League title race.
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