Kepa pays penalty as Son earns point for Spurs in thriller against Bournemouth | Premier League

Credit Tottenham for their resilience. Credit their character for coming back into the game. Credit them for battling their way to a point that never really seemed plausible until Son Heung-min converted an 84th-minute penalty. But let nobody get carried away: this was a game that raised more questions for Spurs than it answered. It was not a performance that should reassure anybody.

The daffodils were out in front of the flats on the Seven Sisters Road. There was some warmth in the sun. Fans uncertainly cast off their thick winter coats. Finally, Tottenham’s injury crisis is beginning to ease. At last Ange Postecoglou has had some time to work with his squad. Spurs had won league games on three successive weekends. Even with a 1-0 defeat by Manchester City in their last league game, it might have been possible to believe that winter is over, that renewal has begun.

Then came Thursday and a miserable performance away to AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League. That it was only 1-0 at least offers some hope for Thursday’s second leg – and that Postecoglou can maintain his much-vaunted run of always winning a trophy in his second year at a club, but on that the entire season hangs. And nobody can be too bullish after another weirdly sloppy home display.

Cristian Romero has always been an erratic presence but even by his occasionally unreliable standards, the first four minutes were desperate. Twice his attempts to play out from the back got Tottenham into trouble, presenting chances to Evanilson and Justin Kluivert. Only a pair of fine saves from Guglielmo Vicario prevented Bournemouth taking an early lead. It is not just the Argentinian; the vast majority of Tottenham’s problems would disappear if they stopped giving the ball away needlessly in their own half.

That at least was not the source of Bournemouth’s 42nd-minute opener, although that the ball was given away in the opposition half is perhaps not an inconsequential variation on the theme. Milos Kerkez intercepted Pedro Porro’s pass, surged forward and crossed deep for Marcus Tavernier to score with a controlled volley at the back post. Kerkez immediately turned to his manager and, after they had pointed at each other in mutual admiration, exchanged a double high-five in celebration. The execution of some tactical masterplan? Perhaps, although inducing Spurs to give the ball away felt more a case of waiting than anything complicated, the goal then resulting from the directness of the Hungarian’s run and the excellence of the cross.

Although a penalty shootout victory took Bournemouth past Wolves into the sixth round of the FA Cup last week, they have been a little out of sorts recently, losing three of their previous four league games, a run that had dropped them into the mass of sides just outside the expected Champions League qualification slots. With 10 games to go, everybody in the top half has a realistic chance of a top-five finish – a broad grouping that, notably, does not include Tottenham.

That’s why frustration is mounting at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the greatest lower mid-table arena in the world. Without Dejan Kulusevski, they look desperately short of creativity. Postecoglou picked a functional midfield of Yves Bissouma, Pape Matar Sarr and Rodrigo Bentancur but if the intention was to add an extra curtain of protection, it didn’t work and left Spursreliant on their wingers for creativity.

The introduction of Lucas Bergvall and Son half-time, then James Maddison on the hour, offered greater attacking threat but also made Spurs look terribly vulnerable to the counter. Although Son had a shot deflected against the base of a post and Sarr dragged inexplicably wide after neat work from Maddison, Kluivert had already had one goal ruled out for offside when a shift of body weight took Kevin Danso out of the game as he slipped in Evanilson to dink home Bournemouth’s second.

When Sarr did eventually score two minutes later, it was a mishit cross that looped in off the far post. Bergvall had hit a post seconds earlier and Kluivert then hit a post from another breakaway as the game collapsed into a reckless openness. Nobody embodied that more than Kepa Arrizabalaga, whose careless lunge at Son conceded the penalty that brought the equaliser.

Perhaps to an extent that is simply the nature of Angeball, but picking up the scraps from chaos doesn’t seem a plan likely to create consistently positive results. The problem is that Spurs are consistent at the moment, just not in a good way: they have taken six points from nine home league games since beating Manchester City 4-0 at the Etihad in November. Is that enough to keep Postecoglou in the job next season? Perhaps not in isolation, which is why Thursday is such a big day in the history of the club.