Tottenham Hotspur are out of the FA Cup having been dumped out by Championship side Middlesbrough on Tuesday night.
Spirits were high at Tottenham again after hammering Leeds over the weekend, but they served up another dud at the Riverside Stadium.
The game sat at 0-0 for more than 100 minutes, but teenage striker Josh Coburn popped up with the winner, smashing a superb finish past Hugo Lloris.
Tottenham couldn’t get back into the game and crash out in the fifth round, meaning there will be no silverware heading to Tottenham for another season.
Tottenham fans will be asking just why this performance was so poor, but it may have something to do with some tired legs.
Antonio Conte made the surprising decision to go with the exact same starting lineup that beat Leeds United 4-0 over the weekend.
Conte resisted temptation to bring in Joe Rodon, Davinson Sanchez, Emerson Royal, Sergio Reguilon or Steven Bergwijn.
It may have looked like a show of faith in his starters, but this may instead have been a lack of faith in other members of the Tottenham squad.
That’s because it took Conte until the 81st minute to make a substitution despite Tottenham seemingly flagging against a dangerous Boro side.
With that starting lineup and waiting so long to make a change, it felt a little like Conte didn’t trust certain members of his bench.
All of Rodon, Sanchez, Emerson, Reguilon and Bergwijn have had their ups and downs at Tottenham, but they presented fresh legs.
Harry Kane, Dejan Kulusevski and Son Heung-min all failed to reach their best against Boro; would a fresh-legged Bergwijn have been any worse?
With a chance to change up his side and utilise some fringe players, Conte – possibly remembering the third round struggle against Morecambe – chose to go with the same again and paid the price.
Tottenham looked exhausted throughout, failing to show any kind of sharpness whilst allowing Boro to cut through them at will.
Only Conte knows whether he intends to stay at Tottenham beyond the end of the season, but it’s becoming clear that Spurs may now be facing a major overhaul this summer.
Without it, Conte absolutely won’t have the level of quality he’s seeking at Tottenham.
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