Spurs Had Seven Shots. What Happened After Half-Time?

For 45 minutes at Elland Road, Tottenham looked capable of extending their winning run.

They had arrived with three consecutive Premier League victories behind them. Roberto De Zerbi’s team were finally finding results after a difficult start to the season, and the first half against Leeds United gave them little reason to abandon that confidence.

Omar Marmoush and Mohammed Kudus both tested James Trafford. Leeds had their own attacking moments, but neither side had taken control.

At half-time, the score was 0–0. Both teams had attempted three shots.

By the final whistle, the picture had changed completely.

Leeds had taken 16 shots. Tottenham had managed just seven.

Noah Okafor’s 79th-minute goal gave Leeds a 1–0 victory on 7 November, ending Spurs’ three-match winning run. Yet the defeat itself wasn’t the most revealing part of the afternoon.

It was how quickly Tottenham’s ability to create chances had faded after the break.

Three wins had given De Zerbi something to build on

To understand why the Leeds performance mattered, it helps to look at what Tottenham had achieved in the previous weeks.

On 9 October, MATCHIQ examined their expensive summer rebuild. After spending more than £300 million, Spurs had collected just two points from their opening five league matches.

There had been promising moments, but they rarely lasted. Tottenham could move the ball into attacking positions without consistently finding a useful final pass. They could play well for half an hour, then struggle to maintain the same level.

De Zerbi needed more than new players. He needed them to function as a team.

The victories over Coventry City and Chelsea suggested that work was beginning to pay off.

Against Chelsea, Tottenham enjoyed long periods of midfield control and kept the opposition under pressure. Their results had improved, and so had parts of their football.

There was still a concern about the way they scored.

Across those two victories, Spurs benefited from four long-range goals and an opposition own goal. The finishes were excellent, but they did not establish that Tottenham could regularly create good opportunities for their forwards inside the penalty area.

Then came Crystal Palace on 31 October.

Tottenham won 2–0 and attempted 34 shots. Archie Gray and Jan Paul van Hecke scored from close range following set-piece situations.

That was meaningful new evidence. Spurs were finding ways to threaten the goal beyond spectacular shooting.

There was one important condition: Palace had played with ten men since Jean-Philippe Mateta’s dismissal in the 13th minute.

The performance deserved credit, but it left a further test. Could Tottenham create similar pressure when an opponent had eleven players and could challenge them throughout the pitch?

Leeds offered that test.

Tottenham were still finding openings before half-time

Leeds began the game aggressively. Tottenham gradually settled, found space to play and worked their way into attacking areas.

Marmoush forced Trafford into a save with a deflected attempt. Kudus also had an effort stopped.

Neither shot seriously troubled the goalkeeper, but they showed that Spurs could move the ball forward and finish attacks.

De Zerbi later said he believed his team had created two or three good chances during the first half. That was his assessment rather than a statistical count of clear-cut opportunities.

The important point was that Tottenham were competing.

Their attacking problems had not disappeared, but Leeds were not yet dominating the game.

Then, in the 34th minute, Jayden Bogle challenged Mathys Tel near the ankle. VAR examined the incident and did not recommend a red card.

Tel eventually had to leave the pitch, with Dominic Solanke replacing him in the 43rd minute.

That forced Tottenham to change their attack earlier than planned. Solanke offered a different kind of movement and connection from Tel, and the other players had to adapt.

But the injury alone cannot explain everything that followed.

The more significant change came after half-time, when Leeds began taking control of the contest.

Leeds turned Tottenham’s possession into a problem

The difference between the two halves was striking.

Before the interval, Leeds and Tottenham had three shots each.

After it, Leeds attempted 13. Tottenham managed four.

The home side began finding opportunities inside Spurs’ penalty area. Dominic Calvert-Lewin had a header blocked, Nico Elvedi was unable to finish the follow-up, and Ao Tanaka later shot over after Calvert-Lewin helped create another opening.

Sean Longstaff also forced Antonín Kinský into an important save.

These chances arrived before Okafor came off the bench.

Leeds were already putting Tottenham under pressure. What they still needed was a goal.

De Zerbi was critical of his own players afterwards. He felt Tottenham had failed to win enough individual contests, occupy the right positions and make good decisions after the interval.

Those observations point towards a problem that goes beyond finishing.

If a team cannot keep possession when opponents close down its receivers, it becomes harder to build the next attack. Even a promising move can end with the ball travelling back towards its own goal.

Squawka’s post-match tactical analysis described Leeds pressing more aggressively man-to-man in the second half. It also noted that Tottenham were relying heavily on wide routes rather than progressing through the middle.

One incident captured the danger.

Kudus was carrying a Tottenham attack forward when Tanaka won possession. Leeds immediately moved the ball the other way, and Tanaka eventually received a chance inside the box, which he put over.

Tottenham had been preparing to attack. Within moments, they were defending another dangerous situation.

That is why the second-half problem cannot be explained simply by saying their forwards failed to shoot.

Too many attacks were becoming difficult to sustain before a worthwhile shooting opportunity arrived.

Having the ball wasn’t the same as controlling the game

Tottenham still finished with around 61% possession.

They also recorded four shots on target, five attempts from inside the penalty area and 18 touches in Leeds’ box. The home side had 21 penalty-area touches.

Spurs were not completely shut out of attacking territory.

The difference was how much danger each team produced from its opportunities.

Opta recorded 2.02 expected goals from Leeds’ 16 attempts, compared with 0.77 from Tottenham’s seven.

Leeds were getting into shooting positions more often and creating the better overall chances.

Squawka also calculated that just 22% of Tottenham’s attacking actions came through the central channel, one of their lowest proportions of the season.

That analysis suggests Spurs were having difficulty connecting midfield with their forwards through the middle. It does not independently prove that their shape caused the defeat.

But it offers a useful explanation for De Zerbi’s complaints about positioning and decision-making.

When a midfielder receives the ball with an opponent closing in, he needs a teammate close enough to offer another pass. If the next player is too far away or already marked, the attack can become a difficult individual contest.

And against Leeds, Tottenham were losing too many of those contests.

De Zerbi tried to change it

In the 65th minute, De Zerbi introduced Conor Gallagher, Rodrigo Bentancur and Dejan Kulusevski.

Three minutes later, Gallagher finished a promising move with a shot narrowly wide.

That chance showed Tottenham were still capable of creating danger. Their second-half attack had not stopped entirely.

Yet the substitutions failed to produce a sustained shift in pressure.

Leeds continued creating chances, and Daniel Farke made his decisive change in the 77th minute. Okafor and Harry Wilson came on together.

Less than two minutes later, Wilson helped release Okafor, who moved beyond Bentancur and finished past Kinský.

Tottenham were behind.

Van Hecke nearly rescued a point with a late header, but Trafford made the save that preserved Leeds’ lead.

Could De Zerbi have responded earlier to Leeds’ pressure?

One option worth examining would have been to move Archie Gray closer to Mateus Fernandes when Tottenham tried to build through midfield.

That would have given the player on the ball a shorter passing option, with Solanke available to connect the next pass and Kudus maintaining width on the right.

It could have reduced the need for midfielders to escape pressure individually.

But it would also have brought a cost. With Gray operating deeper, Spurs would have had one fewer player positioned further forward. Losing the ball in central areas could still have exposed them to counterattacks.

And if Leeds followed those movements man-to-man, Tottenham would have needed good timing and movement to take advantage of the space left elsewhere.

It was a possible solution to test, not a guaranteed answer.

De Zerbi also had genuine personnel restrictions. Tel had gone off injured, while James Maddison had completed little full training before the match, according to the manager.

Simply demanding another substitution would not have solved those problems.

The concern is older than this defeat

When MATCHIQ examined Tottenham’s two victories in October, the conclusion was not that their improvement was false.

It was that better results and stronger midfield performances had not yet settled the question of repeatable chance creation.

The Palace victory provided evidence of further progress. The Leeds defeat exposed another limitation.

Tottenham could compete in the first half. When Leeds raised the pressure after the interval, Spurs struggled to maintain their connection between midfield and attack.

There is a fair argument against reading too much into one defeat.

Three consecutive wins were genuine progress. Palace had been overwhelmed, Chelsea had struggled to regain control, and even at Leeds, Tottenham had opportunities to score.

One difficult away match cannot erase all of that.

What it does show is that De Zerbi’s team have not yet demonstrated the ability to produce the same attacking connections when an opponent changes the conditions of the game.

Tottenham host Ipswich Town on 21 November. That match provides another opportunity to examine how their midfield supports the forwards, whether possession leads to chances inside the box, and what happens when the opposition begins pressing more aggressively.

The question isn’t whether Spurs can take more than seven shots.

They have already shown they can.

It is whether the passing, movement and support that produce those opportunities can survive a difficult second half.

At Elland Road, Tottenham had enough football in them to compete before the break.

They couldn’t keep playing that way afterwards.

That is the part De Zerbi still needs to fix.