No room for complacency

It’s rarely worth commenting on most of the platitudes that the players come up with in interviews with the media and Tottenham’s official website in particular – ‘we’re aiming for three points’ or ‘the lads are determined to bounce back’ etc but Nacer Chadli’s comments ahead of Spurs’ game with Fulham on Saturday highlight a potential problem.

The Belgian international midfielder says his team have to guard against complacency and while that’s also obvious, it’s exactly the type of problem that led to defeat around 12 months ago.

“It doesn’t matter who we are playing, we have to have the right attitude and focus and it will be no different against Fulham this weekend,” Chadli said. “We’re at home and we want to win every game here.

“Hopefully we can make a sharp start to the game and not concede early like we have done in our last few matches. We’ve played very well at times in recent games, have created chances and scored quite a few goals as well, so if we can continue that on Saturday then I’m confident we can pick up three points.”

Nacer wasn’t part of the side when Spurs lost by a solitary Dimitar Berbatov goal in 2012-13 but his comments underline perfectly where it could all go wrong tomorrow lunchtime.