MY ACCOUNT
Matt Doherty has had his fair share of critics since joining Tottenham — and his stint in North London now appears to have reached a pivotal point.
Deprived of a Premier League start until January, the 30-year-old wing-back has now been given the nod in three straight top-flight outings by Antonio Conte.
Ahead of Spurs’ trip to Brighton this evening, we consider whether the ex-Wolves man can still salvage his career in the capital.
Early struggles
Doherty arrived from Molineux in the summer of 2020 having enjoyed a richly successful spell in the West Midlands.
Racking up over 300 appearances across the best part of a decade, he was a key part of the side who earned promotion to the Premier League before featuring in 74 of Wolves’ 76 top-flight games in 2018-19 and 2019-20.
At Tottenham though, it has been much tougher going.
Employed on the right of a back four by Jose Mourinho, Doherty struggled to replicate his attacking threat and frequently found himself exposed defensively in an inconsistent side.
The arrival of former boss Nuno Espirito Santo this summer looked set to offer the Irishman a reprieve — but that period did not go to plan either.
Doherty made only one league appearance prior to the 48-year-old’s November sacking, leaving his future at the club in serious doubt.
Unlikely turnaround
When Antonio Conte was announced as Nuno’s successor, Doherty must have wondered if he would even be given an opportunity to impress.
He had to show great patience, limited to only fleeting substitute appearances in Conte’s opening nine Premier League clashes.
Yet since coming off the bench to set up Steven Bergwijn’s equaliser in a dramatic 3-2 win at Leicester, Doherty has now been given the nod in five of Spurs’ last eight league matches.
Both a Premier League and Serie A winner as a boss, Conte has a reputation for getting the best from forward-thinking wing-backs as part of his favoured 3-5-2 formation.
Doherty’s recent form — including a goal and assist against Leeds, before setting up two more against Everton nine days later — suggests he could be the 52-year-old’s latest success story.
Improving quickly
Conte went on the record after the 5-0 thumping of Everton with how impressed he has been by Doherty’s progression.
He said: “For sure, Matt is a player that improved a lot from when I arrived. We work hard on the tactical aspect, on the physical aspect, with the video and with analysis.
“During this process, there are players that improve more quickly than the others and Matt, I think he improved a lot in these four-and-a-half months.
“Now he is showing also personality, to be confident. For me with this system, the wing-backs are very, very important. So to have this improvement is good.”
With the race for fourth set to go down to the wire, Doherty now appears poised to play a leading role in Spurs’ crucial final 11 outings.
Work to do
However, for all of that positivity, last Saturday’s 3-2 defeat to Manchester United acted as a reality check for both Doherty and his team-mates.
Though it was Cristiano Ronaldo’s brilliant hat-trick which ultimately proved decisive, the visitors lacked the fluency of previous performances.
After the game, Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville suggested that wing-back remains a problem area for the North Londoners.
Neville said: “I think to play that system, you have to have good wing-backs in it and I think [Sergio] Reguilon and Doherty, the quality is not there in both sides of their game, defensively or going forward.
“I think if they had better wing-backs, they’d be doing a lot, lot better.”
Clearly, it is going to take more than a couple of impressive performances for Doherty to confound his critics.
But with the trust of his manager now seemingly secure, the next two months should see him get plenty more opportunities to silence the doubters.
