Joao Palhinha scored in the 82nd minute to give Tottenham Hotspur a 1-0 win at Molineux, ending a league winless run that had stretched back to December 28.
The result halted a 15-game drought in the Premier League and ended Tottenham’s wait for a league victory since December. The scoreline belied a bruising afternoon: goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky preserved the slender lead late on by tipping a Joao Gomes free-kick over the bar and colliding with the post as he made the save.
Tottenham’s afternoon was further complicated by injuries to two of their most influential attacking players. Dominic Solanke suffered a muscle injury just before half-time, and Xavi Simons left on a stretcher just past the hour after hurting his knee. The win at molineux came under the pressure of shifting permutations elsewhere — at one stage late in the match Spurs were four points away from safety while West Ham United were beating Everton in another 3pm kick-off.
Roberto De Zerbi, who took charge on March 31 replacing Igor Tudor, said he had been surprised by the players since he arrived but warned the performance still fell short of his standards. He said working with the squad every day showed him they were professional and suffering through a difficult run, and that his immediate task was to give them confidence and order on the pitch.
De Zerbi praised the first half but admitted he was unhappy with the second: he said the team needed to play like they had in the opening 30 minutes and to create more chances and shots on goal. Those assessments underline the fine margins in a match settled by a single strike and a single crucial save.
The victory matters because it breaks a psychological barrier as much as a statistical one. Tottenham had not won a Premier League game since December, and the ending of a 15-game winless run removes the urgency of immediate panic while exposing new problems — namely injuries to Solanke and Simons and a lack of cohesion in later stages of matches.
The tension in Tottenham’s recovery is obvious: De Zerbi says he has seen enough to be surprised in a positive way since his appointment, yet he also stressed he “didn’t like the second half at all” and that the team “have to play better, much better than the second half.” Those two truths sit uneasily together. A manager can be encouraged by attitude and still face an uphill task fixing tactical and fitness issues that showed up at Molineux.
What comes next is clear and immediate. De Zerbi must steady a squad hit by two attacking injuries and translate the first-half promise — the kind of football he wants when Spurs looked the livelier side — into a full 90-minute template. If he succeeds, the win will look like the moment a run of form turned; if he does not, this will read as an isolated relief in a season that only recently looked bereft of Premier League wins.
For now the players who produced the goal and the save will be praised, but the manager’s closing challenge is unambiguous: sustain the spirit he has seen, fix the second-half lapses, and replace the missing attacking options without losing the fragile momentum this single victory has restored.
