Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

[EJG1980]

Nice, great result Spurs! First half was one of those where we were in control, playing good football up to a certain point, and then not quite being able to break down a deep and well drilled defence. Then a scrappy set piece and we find ourselves behind.

Second half was much the same except we went up a gear or two in the final third and started getting through to create good chances, with much better crosses, cleverer through balls, a quicker tempo, and then the goals flowed. Kept it nice and tight at the back too as I don't recall any big Villa chances.

Important too to follow up the result and performance against Man City with another good one. A bit of extra credit for the team too as all our first choice players had that taxing match against Man City, while Villa rested their whole first eleven against Palace.

Solanke has been playing very well and getting through an immense amount of work up front, but it's good to see him getting his reward with a couple of goals today. Perfectly timed run and beautiful deft finish for his first. That Maddison free kick was fantastic too.

Shout out for Pape Sarr too, who has been quietly building up his form this season and this was another very good performance from him, a really good all around midfielder with a bit of everything when he's on top of his game. Joint man of the match today with Solanke (I've edited this a couple of times swapping between them, so joint it is ).

Just like the Man City match the injuries are the only downer. Must be a new record for Richy, going off injured after only being subbed on 20 minutes earlier, poor bloke. Romero off with a sore foot too, let's hope that's nothing too serious and not an innocuous looking injury that turns out to be really nasty.

Dragusin did well against City and again today though, so he's doing his standing no harm while filling in for the first choice players, and Ben Davies was once again Mr. Dependable when he came on, very good performance (and great tackle to start the move for the goal that put us ahead).

And to top off the day, Spurs Women got a last minute goal to win their match too.

Edit: no news on Richy or Romero yet, but apparently we think Mickey van de Ven should be back after the international break, which is much better news than I was expecting. If he can keep to that schedule he'd only miss two more matches.

[fallenangle]

It was indeed a great day for Spurs, both the mens (AV) and womens' teams (WH) winning is always a good thing.

Really enjoyed the highlights of the AV game on MotD - the classic Madison free kick goal was the cherry on the cake.

Beating AV is just the sort of thing we needed to do to get us back up there competing for a top six place with them and the other likely candidates vying for that fourth place or better.

I noticed that as of yesterday we have some very good Premierships stats: currently most goals scored and better GD than any side except Liverpool. That's quite encouraging.

[EJG1980]

Well that match against Galatasaray was a bit nuts!

I've got no problems with the starting lineup, with so many players unavailable for this match and others who are only just back from injury, it was always going to be a mixed team in terms of youth and experience.

The first half was poor, we gave the ball away so much, even when under no pressure, so many of Gala's chances came from us giving the ball straight to them. The one bright spot was the excellent move for the Lankshear equaliser, and at least that was a wonderful moment for him. But we didn't get any momentum from equalising and we continued to constantly shoot ourselves in the foot. No surprise when Gala retook the lead and then increased it, and it could have been worse than 3-1 at half time.

Amazingly I think we started the second half even worse. It felt like we were giving the ball away and giving up a great chance to Gala every thirty seconds, and how it remained 3-1 I do not know! Then Lankshear picked up a second yellow to reduce us to ten men and you thought "Okay, it's one of those nights, can we just go home now?".

I think Gala must have thought it was over too, because they slightly took their foot off the gas and, to our credit, we actually gave it a right good go and I thought we were the better team for the remainder of the match when it was 11vs10. Beautiful goal from Solanke to make it 3-2, but alas we just couldn't quite conjure up what would have been a remarkable equaliser.

With the fact that it was our third match in eight days, had a lot of players missing, and Gala being full strength and having had a full week of rest, I was expecting a tough night. But even taking all that into consideration, the team didn't have an excuse for being as sloppy as they were for the first 65 minutes. A good reaction once down to ten men though, to the point where I was genuinely thinking we might nab a draw. Like I said, a bit nuts.

Having already won the first three matches, a defeat tonight wasn't the end of the world, we're still very well placed to qualify. Hopefully we should have a few back from injury for the Ipswich match at the weekend, I read there's a reasonable chance of Romero and Werner being back.

[fallenangle]

I was keeping an eye on the score and when it went to 3 - 1 and Lankshear was sent off I thought that was it and just hoping they'd do damage limitation and it might not result in an embarrassing score. When I checked hoping that it wasn't that and saw Solanke had pulled one back with plenty of time in hand I too believed we might even get a draw. But no, not to be.

As you said: not the end of the world, we're still in the top seven of the qualification league. More pressure now though to get a good result in the next games against Roma and then Rangers. Tough but doable.

[EJG1980]

That's the story of the season so far, a great 4-1 win against high flying Aston Villa one weekend, and the next weekend we follow it up with a 1-2 loss to an Ipswich team that hadn't won all season. And with Forest losing, we could have possibly gone 3rd today had we won, and would at minimum have moved into the top 4 (depending on the Chelsea vs Arsenal result).

A tad frustrating, to say the least!

We didn't do enough to win today though. Had a very early chance where Brennan Johnson should have scored, but after that Ipswich played it very well; packed the defence which we struggled to break down to create meaningful chances, and then hit us on the break / capitalised on our iffy moments at the back.

Our intensity and attacking play did improve a bit in the second half, but we didn't push on enough after Bentancur pulled the goal back. I was hoping we'd be absolutely bombarding them after that but we never really got a full head of steam going, and once again we didn't give the Ipswich keeper anywhere near enough work to do (besides catching practice on our crosses that constantly went too close to him). Solanke did have a very good chance to equalise right at the death, but unfortunately couldn't get the power into the shot.

Gah. Ah well, if we keep the rollercoaster going we should beat Man City in the first match back after the international break

Edit: yup, would have been 3rd if we'd won today, bugger it.

Looking at the league table though it's incredibly congested at the moment, which suggests to me that there's a hell of a lot of inconsistent teams in the league, not just us. Chelsea in 3rd only separated from Man Utd in 14th by 4 points. One result for us the difference between "languishing" in 10th and "flying" in 3rd.

[fallenangle]

I was going to post almost exactly the same thing as in your edit. I thought the Chelsea v. Arsenal game would most likely end in a draw and with a 'guaranteed' win over 'lowly' Ipswich we'd be sitting in 3rd place on goal difference. Didn't happen.

If we'd not lost to Crystal Palace we'd be clear in third place and only one point behind MC. Didn't happen.

So frustrating but so Spurs.

16.11.24 EDIT
Not Spurs related but just have to mention that third goal for England against Greece earlier this week - from the build up to the final finish one of the best goals I've seen in a long time.

16.11.24 Later EDIT
Spurs Women just now well beaten 3 - 0 by Arsenal. Not a great a great game and difficult to see any positives for Spurs. They have a good attacking line up but the supply to the front players is almost non-existent, they leak goals through casual mistakes at the back and lack controlled aggression and belief when challenging for the ball, particularly in the midfield.

Not good. They could see themselves in a relegation battle from the WSL if they don't pick up some points soon.

[EJG1980]

Spurs Women just now well beaten 3 - 0 by Arsenal. Not a great a great game and difficult to see any positives for Spurs. They have a good attacking line up but the supply to the front players is almost non-existent, they leak goals through casual mistakes at the back and lack controlled aggression and belief when challenging for the ball, particularly in the midfield.

Not good. They could see themselves in a relegation battle from the WSL if they don't pick up some points soon.

I managed to turn on the match just in time to see the first Arsenal goal, and it went downhill from there! It definitely seems a step down from how they were playing whenever I watched them last season. It reminded me a bit of watching Spurs vs Arsenal men’s teams in the early 2000s, when the gap between the teams was massive and we’d be thinking it was a great result if we could grind out a draw.

It’s a shame we weren’t able to sign Grace Clinton permanently in the summer as that’s some real quality lost from the team, though of course that wouldn’t help us with the problems at the back. 21 goals conceded is at least 7 worse than every other team, barring bottom of the table Palace, and even they have let in less with 20 conceded.

Little bit of news on the men’s team, Wilson Odobert had hamstring surgery this weekend so is probably going to be out several more months recovering and rehabbing from that. Terrible luck for a young kid. Also the second season in a row that we’ve bought a backup winger who ends up missing almost the whole season through injury, Solomon last season and now Odobert.

Edit: that Harry Kane pass to Bellingham in the England match I miss seeing him do that for Spurs!

[fallenangle]

Spurs Women definitely missing Grace Clinton, that's why I mentioned in an earlier post Spurs trying for some sort of loan deal in January (assuming the same transfer rules apply) for Chloe Kelly. Fantasy womens' football team of course but I have a selection of players in the WSL I'd love to see at Spurs like Rachel Daly (AV), Guru Reiten (Chelsea), Lauren Hemp (MC), Alex Greenwood (MC), Lucy Bronze (Chelsea) and others............................................ ...........

Yes, that HK pass was class. I was amused by the fact the commentators/pundits (ITV) suggested that if he gives up being a pure striker for England he'd still be first choice for the creative midfielder role. Well spotted.

[EJG1980]

Gonna be a tough one today with Romero and Mickey van de Ven both missing (and the second year in a row we play Man City away with both first choice defenders out!) so I'd be delighted if we can match last year's result of a draw.

Eveliina Summanen scored an amazing long range goal for the women's team in their win against Villa today:

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Gonna be a tough one today with Romero and Mickey van de Ven both missing (and the second year in a row we play Man City away with both first choice defenders out!) so I'd be delighted if we can match last year's result of a draw.

Or we could just go out and casually thrash them 0-4, whatever, no big deal. Absolutely superb, what a performance

[fallenangle]

Hell yeah! Brilliant win; particularly liked the second Maddison goal where he won the ball on the right side edge of the box, passed it to Son then kept on running right through the MC defence to receive it back on the left side and scored.

TBH MC were unlucky not score at least one in response but thanks to a bit of uncharacteristically poor finishing, our goalie, great, consistently good defending from Ben Davies and Dragusin (both rightly praised on MotD) we kept the sheet clean. Yay!

Now if we can only keep the momentum going.........................................

That Spurs WSL goal by Eviilna Summanen was similar but even better than that Liverpool goal against Spurs I posted here several weeks ago. Great stuff too.

[EJG1980]

Oh ffs.

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It seems that the football gods noticed that Spurs fans were a bit too happy after the weekend, so decided we needed a quick kick in the nuts. Big period coming up for Fraser Forster.

[fallenangle]

Yep, heard GV had broken his ankle too. If (when?) we get something good from this season there will be nobody who can claim it was just lucky.

FF is a very decent goalie and top notch on his day but I'd be surprised if Spurs did not look to buy or get on loan an additional, quality option in the January window.

[EJG1980]

Vic said on an Instagram post from his hospital bed that he did it during the first half of the Man City game and played on for another 60 minutes, only confirming it was a fracture when they assessed him after the match!

I'm hoping (with my 100% non-expert layman's guessing) that it can't be a huge fracture if he was able to play on it for 60 minutes and get through the match, so with luck it might be on the lower end of healing time needed compared to if it was a really bad fracture.

Agree about January, if for no other reason than an injury to Forster would mean we'd be down to keepers who've never played a single competitive minute for us.

Very experienced ex-Real Madrid and PSG keeper Keylor Navas (who played 17 times for Forest in the PL last season) is out of contract and available, so could be signed right now even though we're outside the transfer window. Dunno if he'd wanna come in on a short term deal just to be an emergency backup, though getting paid to train at a PL side for a few months is surely better than just keeping fit at home for free.

Edit - from Ange's press conference it sounds like there are no plans to do any kind of emergency extra keeper signings:

Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou on goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario's injury and how long he will be absent: "It's not going to be weeks, it's going to be months. He's had surgery and with surgery, there are certain timelines and because it is Vic.

"I don't like giving timelines so early in the process on something like that because it puts undue pressures on the player and also, maybe some expectations. I think once we get the past the rehab stage, we will have a clearer idea."

On Fraser Forster and whether he is ready to fill Guglielmo Vicario's spot: "That's why he's here. Fraser played Carabao Cup, he's played a couple of European games and that's the reason we played him, it's the reason we have him in the squad. He's ready to go."

On whether the club will sign a free agent goalkeeper following news that Guglielmo Vicario would miss months after undergoing ankle surgery: "No, that is not going to happen. That's why we've got a squad of players. I don't think us signing a free agent now is going to help us. If I hadn't named Fraser [Forster] in the European squad, that would've been a radical decision.

"When you're left with two and they couldn't play in Europe, then you would kind of look at it but unless something else happened, that's why we've got four goalkeepers.

"Young Luca [Gunter], who to be fair has been injured and is not ready, but Fraser I've known for a long time and he's such a strong character within the group and he's ready to play. Brandon [Austin] is improving all the time. Alfie [Whiteman] has also sort of been at the club for a while and whatever has been asked, the training capacity that they bring, we are more than capable with what we've got."

[fallenangle]

That's a very confident statement about the inexperienced squad goalie standbys. I just hope it doesn't come back to bite him.

He might try to blood one of them just to see where they are. But looking at the fixtures in all competitions I can't see when that would be anything but a gamble. It would be terrible for a young goalie to make a mistake and blow our chances in the Carabao Cup or giving away points in the Premiership which eventually cost Spurs a top four place.

I'd swear there were rumours that Spurs were looking for another goalie fairly recently long before the GV injury..Of course even a proven top ranked purchase would take time to bed in; just remembering Hugo Lloris's early antics at Spurs.

Interesting times.

[EJG1980]

I think the plan will be to play Fraser Forster every game and never have to test how good the reserve keepers really are! The only time I can think he might give one of them a go is if we do well enough in the Europa League that we're guaranteed qualification with a game or two to spare, and then maybe one of them gets a run out in a remaining dead rubber match.

I also think that his words are probably to make sure that he doesn't dent the reserve keepers confidence just in case he needs to use them in a one off match; probably wouldn't be good for them if the first thing Ange says when asked about it is that he needs to bring in an emergency keeper.

I think if Forster actually did get injured, I'd be surprised if Ange didn't bring in an emergency keeper (which I believe you can do outside a transfer window if all your experienced keepers are injured), but you never know, he does see the other keepers in training each day and maybe he truly does think they could step in if needed. Hopefully we never have to test that theory and Forster stays as fit as an ox until Vicario returns

Yeah, I've got a vague idea that I saw rumours that we'd be looking for a new younger goalkeeper for backup / competition in the summer, someone who could challenge Vicario for his spot a little, as a long term solution to replace Forster.