Keane’s unlucky break for Everton brings respite for Spurs and Mourinho

This is no time for grand architectural blueprints or bold tactical experiments. No time for building blocks or moral victories. That moment may yet arrive for José Mourinho and Tottenham, if their chances of European football evaporate in the next couple of weeks. That moment may now be imminent for Carlo Ancelotti and Everton, whose defeat here gives them a formidable climb in that respect.

But at this stage of the season, with the days ticking down and the games coming thick and fast, you get no points for style. Which is just as well, because if you did, this fractious and largely drab game would have been a persuasive argument for relegating both Spurs and Everton on the spot.

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Nevertheless it was Tottenham who emerged with the spoils: not by dint of their dazzling superiority or technical brilliance, but through a deflected Michael Keane own goal in the first half.

To be fair to Spurs, they defended well for the most part, found their rhythm after a shaky start, and looked threatening on the break. They also had the two best players on the pitch in the spiky Giovani Lo Celso and the deft Harry Kane. Lo Celso was the difference in midfield, adapting better than anyone to the game’s scrappy, broken tempo and yet still finding time to play more passes into the final third than any other attacker on the pitch.

Kane barely had a sight of goal all night but was Tottenham’s most creative presence in a team that still probably misses Christian Eriksen more than it would let on, as well as a defensive rock in the closing minutes as Everton laid siege. And yet clearly this is neither a smoothly-oiled machine, nor a particularly happy one either, as evidenced by the sight of Son Heung-min and Hugo Lloris having to be separated as they walked off the pitch at half-time.

Everton, meanwhile, continue to blow hot and cold: promising at times but here incapable of finding the telling pass or making the right decision under pressure. Their midfield four should have been able to make more inroads against Tottenham’s three, but after trying and failing to unlock the home side in the first half they curiously seemed to lose their bravery on the ball, settling in for a game of simple patterns and hopeful crosses that suited Mourinho’s Tottenham down to the ground.

There are still a few too many passengers in these underperforming squads, and indeed more than a few passengers in this game, which unfolded with a tedious incoherence. Chances were few; sublime moments notable only by their scarcity. Even Tottenham’s goal, bundled in by Lo Celso off Keane after Son and Kane had both seen shots blocked, felt aptly scruffy: the equivalent of the drunk stumbling up the garden path, trying every key in his pocket, and finally falling in through a downstairs window.

How different things might have been had Everton broken through early on. Their initial strategy was sound enough: press high, move it forward quickly and try to catch Tottenham’s back four on the turn. And Spurs were there for the taking at times: Lloris fumbling a simple near-post header, the erratic Serge Aurier occasionally losing his bearings, Eric Dier simply standing stock-still as Richarlison whistled a shot just wide on the stroke of half-time.

That was the incident that seemed to pique Lloris’s anger, as he railed at Son first for losing the ball on halfway and then failing to chase it down.

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A more clinical side than this Everton might have probed Tottenham’s fissures more surgically at this point: instead the disappointing Alex Iwobi was hooked for Anthony Gordon at half-time, Gylfi Sigurdsson struggled to get into the game and André Gomes started well but looked increasingly short of ideas by the end. These are not bad players, and yet here, under pressure to take control of the game, they looked bereft as a creative unit. This is Ancelotti’s puzzle to solve, and one that will to a large extent define his success at Goodison Park.

It was telling that it took the introduction of the 19-year-old Gordon to get Everton going again, however briefly. There were some fleeting spells of territory, and a neat back-flick by Dominic Calvert-Lewin that almost managed to surprise Lloris. But as the blue shirts swarmed forward, it was Tottenham who looked the likelier to score, Son going close on two or three occasions.

And ultimately, they saw out the game comfortably enough, emerging with a gnarled, grizzled three points. A vindication of very little, except perhaps a resolve that has frequently been absent this season. This is not a Tottenham team who yet look good enough for Europe. Even so, they may just burgle themselves in nonetheless.