Life has been going too well for Ange Postecoglou since taking over at Tottenham Hotspur during the summer but back-to-back defeats in the Premier League have brought the Australian coach back down to earth.
The former Celtic boss will have learned more about his players over the past week than in the three months prior as the London outfit face some tricky customers over the coming weeks, including a terrifying trip to the Etihad Stadium at the start of December.
While things went swimmingly for Postecoglou up until last Monday, he will now know all about the strengths and weaknesses of his squad and one man in particular may have played his way out of the team following a late 2-1 defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday afternoon.
Spurs' stats vs Wolves
Summer signing Brennan Johnson put the visitors 1-0 ahead at Molineux in the first half inside three minutes but a stoppage-time double-whammy from Pablo Sarabia and Mario Lemina sent Spurs packing with no points to show for their efforts.
Nevertheless, the game's balance of play wasn't unexpected, with Postecoglou's side dominating possession, ending the match with 59% of the ball to Wolves' 41%.
However, the home team had far better chances throughout, hitting 17 shots at Guglielmo Vicario's goal and having six on-target to Spurs' lowly six shots and two on-target, according to FotMob. This was the most shots Tottenham had conceded all season in one game.
Gary O'Neil's men ended the proceedings with 2.15 expected goals to Tottenham's 0.7 and, despite Spurs having the lion's share of possession, it was Wolves that always looked more threatening and even had 66 dangerous attacks to their opponent's 40, as per Flashscore.
The hosts were full value for the win and the three points in this game, while Postecoglou was left to ponder the state of his starting lineup in two weeks when Aston Villa come to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, particularly his situation at left-back.
Emerson Royal's game in numbers
After a second yellow card against Chelsea, Destiny Udogie received his marching orders, thus missing this weekend's bout at Molineux. Right-back Emerson Royal was given the nod by Postecoglou over on the left while the Italian defender served his one-match suspension, but the ex-Barcelona man didn't make a great account of himself.
In their post-match player ratings, Football.London handed Emerson a 5/10 score, docking him points for being at partial fault for the winning goal and for "offering little" to the side on his return to the team.
Having stayed on the pitch for the game's entirety, Emerson lost possession of the ball ten times and committed one foul, according to Sofascore. Furthermore, the Brazilian failed to put a single cross into the box as Spurs struggled to formulate many chances during the match. The fullback had merely 0.02 expected assists against Wolves, creating little to nothing on the left and didn't make any key passes either.
Defensively, Emerson was a major flaw in a make-shift backline, losing two-thirds of his aerial duels while winning just 42% of his ground duels. Additionally, the 24-year-old only managed to make one interception, one tackle and block one shot. Meanwhile, he was dribbled past three times, up against his former Barcelona teammate Nelson Semedo.
Emerson is a useful squad player for Ange as he can play on both the left and the right but the Brazil international showed against Wolves exactly why he shouldn't be a regular in the starting lineup ahead of Udogie and Pedro Porro.
