Spurs: Japhet Tanganga may have blown his chance with Antonio Conte | OneFootball

Antonio Conte’s Tottenham Hotspur side continued their impressive Premier League form under the new leadership of the Italian coach on Sunday afternoon, with Spurs dispatching a struggling Norwich City side 3-0 at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Goals from Lucas Moura – a spectacular long-range strike – Davinson Sanchez and Heung-Min Son ultimately sealed all three points for the Lilywhites.

However, the 52-year-old’s side did not have things all their own way in the fixture, with the Canaries boasting the larger share of possession and completing 192 more passes than their hosts.

And, while the result does see Conte’s men move into fifth place in the Premier League standings, there will nevertheless have been a couple of individual performances that the former Inter Milan manager will have been concerned by – none more so than that of Japhet Tanganga.

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67% duels lost

Despite being awarded a considerable amount of minutes during Conte’s limited time in charge of the club, the 22-year-old has failed to truly impress under the Italian, earning SofaScore match ratings of 6.8, 6.4 and 6.5 in the fixtures against Leeds United, NS Mura and Brentford respectively.

It was a similar case on Sunday afternoon, with the £17m-rated right-back – who was deployed at right wing-back – enduring a rather torrid time up against Brandon Williams.

Indeed, over his 62 minutes on the pitch, Tanganga made just one tackle and one interception, while also failing to block any shots or make a single clearance, as well as being dribbled past by an opponent once.

The £25k-per-week defender also lost four of his six attempted duels – a failure rate of 67% – conceded two fouls and completed just 21 passes – the same number as Hugo Lloris between the Spurs sticks.

These returns saw the England U21 international who Gary Neville dubbed a “special” talent earn a disappointing SofaScore match rating of just 6.5, before being hooked for Matt Doherty midway through the second half.

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The Evening Standard’s Dan Kilpatrick was also clearly not impressed with the performance of the 22-year-old, stating in his match ratings: “Run ragged by Brandon Williams after the interval and it was no surprise when he was hooked for Doherty – 5.”

As such, with Conte possessing two other very viable options on the right-hand side of his backline in the shape of Doherty and Emerson Royal, Tanganga could well have blown his big chance under the 52-year-old with yet another below-par display against Norwich.