Few footballers do melancholy quite like Hugo Lloris. To him, the highs are but fleeting, including the ultimate one of lifting the 2018 World Cup as the captain of France. “I don’t want to say that I’ve forgotten about it but, for me, it belongs in the past,” he said in February 2019.
The Tottenham goalkeeper and captain gave his World Cup replica to Mauricio Pochettino, his club manager at the time, who kept it on display in his office. So where is the trophy now Pochettino has left Spurs and been replaced by José Mourinho? “I think it’s somewhere in the building,” Lloris replies. Wait, what?
Lloris is an introspective thinker and he has always felt more quotable – more comfortable, even – when ruminating on misfortune. This is what seems to stay with him, what he holds most keenly and, perhaps, it is what makes him the professional and competitor he is. The 33-year-old has been occupied by plenty of darkness this season.
He describes the Covid-19 crisis as like a movie “and then the movie became reality so it made it a bit scary”. But before the pandemic changed everything, Lloris and Spurs had hit a wall. They had rather ridden their luck at times and then it ran out, pressing them into a six-game winless streak when they exited the FA Cup and Champions League, and fell to eighth in the Premier League. Injuries bit hard, the squad looked stretched and unbalanced and Mourinho was doing that thing where he laments problems, problems, problems – none of them his fault.
Why has it been such a difficult season on the field? Lloris sighs deeply. “Wow, it’s difficult to explain and I should not go too deep,” he says. But when he does answer, he tells the story of a club that had consistently punched above its weight, giving everything for so long and somehow reaching the final of the Champions League last June. When they lost to Liverpool, it was a shuddering setback and it felt like the end of something, an adventure, a cycle; certainly for Pochettino.
“There is a risk when you go over your potential,” Lloris says. “Last season, we went on an incredible run in the Champions League and we finished the season on our knees. You don’t have time to recover from one season before you have to start a new one. And then there was the accumulation of things that provoked the situation and then a lot of injured players, the change of manager. It’s difficult to stay stable and to be always looking at the top. There is sometimes one season when everything goes against you.
“Maybe the consequence when you play four years making a huge effort to compete with the top teams and finish in the top four [every season], it’s a lot of accumulation and one season there is everything you cannot control. It can happen.”
Lloris feels more positive now. Before the shutdown in mid-March, Spurs had four long-term injury victims – Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Moussa Sissoko and Steven Bergwijn – which added up to a lot of missing firepower. They were expected to return in mid-April or a little later; in other words, the original season was almost done for each of them. Vive la difference. The quartet is now fit and it is possible to make a strong case for Spurs as having the squad most transformed by the break in play.
“There’s always winners and losers,” Lloris says. “It’s the same when you talk about the teams fighting against relegation. At that time, we were all in different form. It is true that we were not at our best but it belongs to the past.
“We are more or less all fit and this is a big difference. We’ve been quite unlucky in terms of injured players. It affected us a lot. So it’s like a new season that is going to start. The feeling is getting there. It is only a question of time, a question of confidence too, because the only way to get better is to win games and keep winning. This is the only feeling that will help the team to improve and to reach the level we all expect.”
As always, Kane will be the pivotal figure and not only because Mourinho considers him as the squad’s only senior No 9. Kane ruptured a hamstring tendon at Southampton on New Year’s Day, the most serious injury of his career, and it will be interesting to see how quickly he can pick up the pace. Spurs resume at home to Manchester United next Friday night.
“In Harry’s mind, he is ready and that’s the most important thing,” Lloris says. “He recovered very well from his bad injury and he is the one really looking forward to getting back into the competition. Everyone knows his targets, his ambition and his willingness to win.”
Lloris’s story this season also takes in a lengthy injury lay-off. The elbow dislocation suffered in the 3-0 humbling at Brighton in early October was gruesome, one of those when everybody in the stadium looks away, and it was a day when everything appeared broken for Spurs. Pochettino would limp on until mid-November before the club made the change.
“I’m always in touch with Mauricio and his staff, they represent more than my ex-manager and coaches,” Lloris says. “We are talking about a friend relationship and I will follow the news to see his future. Do I hope he stays in England? To be honest, I just want him to be happy and to be at the place that he deserves.”
Lloris was fit a week or so ahead of schedule and Mourinho put him straight back in for the home win over Norwich on 22 January, even though Paulo Gazzaniga had saved a penalty in the 0-0 draw at Watford in the previous game. The goalkeeper missed two more matches in early March with a groin problem and he says he has used the pause “like a pre-season”, to reset his fitness for what promises to be a frenetic finale.
Spurs are seven points off fourth-placed Chelsea and four behind Manchester United in fifth, knowing that fifth place would be enough for Champions League qualification if Manchester City’s looming suspension from the competition is upheld next month.
“We are not in a good position,” Lloris says. “We don’t have the right to lose games and even more when you face a direct opponent like Manchester United. We are going to start again with a very important game, maybe a decisive game for the future. There is a lot to win and lose in these last nine games. It’s the final sprint, you can win or lose everything.
“We don’t know about the decision for Manchester City but we just want to finish as high as we possibly can. To finish strong this season will help us to prepare for the next one because there is a lot to work on to improve under our new manager.”