FA Premier League
BRIGHTON & HOVE ALBION 1 (Trossard 17)
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 0

EVERY time he gets the ball, you half expect Gareth Bale to wind past two or three opponents and crash a long-range shot into the goal.

We know him from a showreel of moments from a time when Tottenham Hotspur had an unplayable forward who could rescue games single-handed – so it’s confusing to see him back in a Spurs shirt and looking so unlike the dancing devil he was before.

At Brighton this evening (Sunday), he had the chance to finally kick off his second spell at the club as a starting deputy for the injured Harry Kane but rarely got the pulses racing during his hour on the field, struggling to beat his man and tossing careless crosses beyond teammates.

Maybe because we all expect a goal of a season every time, the pressure is even greater and he seemed apprehensive about the easy pass. Or maybe he has lost heart from being kept so well rested under Jose Mourinho’s uncompromising regime.

Either way, Spurs needed him to quantum leap back seven years, but his listless performance sort of set the tone for the team as a whole.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that they were outplayed by the Seagulls, who must have left the pitch wondering how the scoreline had not bounced up to three or four-nil. Tottenham looked disjointed, a shadow of the team that earlier in the season had us wondering whether the decades-old wait for a league title might soon come to an end.

It’s the sort of season whereby any team in the top six could string five wins a row together and find themselves placed in a sprint finish for the prize at the end. Spurs can be among them, and Bale might spring into life and illustrate his undoubted powers – we know he can – but there will have to be an improvement on this.

Albion had hit the post as early as the fourth minute when Pascal Gross curled a shot beyond Hugo Lloris, so the warning signs were there before Leandro Trossard put the home side ahead on 17 minutes by swiping the ball into the corner of the net from close range after Spurs were undone by a web of clever passes.

There’s was no parking of the bus as Brighton went for searching for more not just in the first half but much of the second as well. By my count they were bordering on 20 attempts on goal – and good chances too.

Neal Maupay, Solly March and the man of the match Alexis Mac Allister all had near misses, before substitute Aaron Connolly somehow saw his close range shot – with the goal gaping – retrieved by Toby Alderweireld.

You may not see a better piece of last trench defending this season, but when Albion’s players began celebrating at the final whistle, Connolly was still shaking his head in bemusement. How could he have not scored?

Alderweireld looked very much the knowing gramps in the Spurs backline, alongside some unnecessarily stretched defending from his colleagues.

If Brighton’s finishing had been better, there would have been an inquest into how defenders Ben Davies, Joe Rodon and Moussa Sissoko – pushed into a right back berth ahead of Matt Doherty and Serge Aurier – could be left chasing so many shadows against a team with a very real fear of relegation.

It all seemed very unfair on Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, who motored on impressively in the Spurs midfield but sometimes looked like he was expected to do it all.

He’s a clever acquisition.

So too is Carlos Vinicius, who was given the second half to rescue the game. He was short on chances but came closer than anyone for Tottenham when he was denied by Albion keeper Robert Sanchez with a quickfire shot.

Don’t rule him out of having a bright Premier League future if Spurs can make it work.

In his press conference afterwards, Mourinho brought out some calm, cod psychology, blaming the unusual performance on emotions and feelings.

“You see the striker who is five, ten, 15 games without scoring and then he looks like he’s not a top player but he is. You see a centre-back making incredible mistakes and you think he’s an awful player and he’s not,” he said.

“You see good teams look like bad teams and vice versa. So I think that it’s just human feelings.”

Inevitably, he was asked about Bale, though.

“We lost a match and when we lose a match, we lose a match, we lose all together,” Mourinho said. “We don’t lose because of one player, or one bad performance. We lose together.”

His real answer may instead be whether he selects him against Chelsea on Thursday.

BRIGHTON & HOVE ALBION: Sanchez, White, Dunk, Webster, Veltman (Burn 72), March, Bissouma, Gross, Mac Allister, Trossard (Connolly 79), Maupay (Lallana 79)
SUBS NOT USED: Alzate, Izquierdo, Moder, Tau, Walton, Zeqiri

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR: Lloris, Rodon, Sanchez (Carlos Vinicius HT), Alderweireld, Davies, Sissoko, Ndombele (Lamela 74), Hojbjerg, Bergwijn, Bale (Lucas 61), Son
SUBS NOT USED: Devine, Dier, Doherty, Hart, Tanganga, Winks