Tottenham Hotspur FC 2013/14

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Here's a thought for Spurs' January player buying/loan targets - how about Kyle Walker and Kieren Trippier both of whom are out of favour at their respective clubs and apparently not averse to going elsewhere for game time?

Right back and left back sorted until the end of the season with two experienced players bringing that to the table even if they are past their best.

Won't happen but you can but dream of such an imaginative temporary solution to the defence problems.

[EJG1980]

I've seen many a rumour about what we'll be doing, so it'll be interesting to see what we actually do, especially with Ange being very vocal in press conferences that "we need help" with regards to squad numbers with all the injuries. Even Son mentioned in an interview about how he hoped the club would be able to sign a few players in January.

Whatever they do the main thing is they need to do it quickly, no haggling and leaving deals until the last minute to try and squeeze down the price a tiny bit more. We've got 8 matches in January before the transfer window closes, it'll be no good if we've played 6 or 7 of them before the signings have come through the door.

[EJG1980]

During his press conference yesterday Ange mentioned that a bug had been going around the Spurs training ground and he only had about 7 players take part in first team training

Supposedly Fraser Forster is definitely out so we'll see the debut of Brandon Austin in goal for his first ever competitive match for Spurs, 20th appearance of his entire career and first since 2021.

No word yet on whether anyone else is definitely out, supposedly lots of last minute checks on players being made this morning. Even if Austin does end up being the only surprise name, we're still going to have a lot of players on the pitch less than 24 hours after they were too sick to train. We shall see when the starting eleven is officially announced at about 11:15...

My only hope at this point is that we're secretly in a Hollywood movie, and this is the point where the decimated football team who look to be beyond hope pull off some wins of miraculous proportions

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1 - 2 loss against Newcastle, not that unexpected after a poor first half but with only one goal in it, followed by a good second half, you'd have hoped they would have pulled off a draw.

Pity.

Let's just hope the cup game against Liverpool is different, very different.

Happy New Year.

[EJG1980]

With the injuries, then illness in the squad, Newcastle in superb form, I was fearing the worst today. Big credit to the effort put in by the team though as I came away feeling we absolutely deserved at least a point from the match. Especially players like Dragusin and Gray, who were apparently bed ridden all week and in normal circumstances wouldn't have been anywhere near the pitch today.

[EJG1980]

Let's just hope the cup game against Liverpool is different, very different.

Yup, that's different enough for me

Excellent performance tonight. Considering we lost 6-3 (and it could have been more than six!) to the same team a couple of weeks ago, top notch effort to go from that to getting a 1-0 win.

Brilliant debut from Kinsky in goal, no mistakes, looked very assured passing out from the back, dealt with everything that came his way, including a couple of potentially tricky situations. Made a really good save from Nunez right near the end. Seriously impressive to come into a new club, play your first match after 3 days, in a big semi-final, against the best team in the country, and put in a performance like that. He seemed ultra calm and not phased by the occasion at all. Couldn't have wished for a better debut.

Up front we didn't make too many clear cut chances, but we did have a couple of moments that I was crossing my fingers we wouldn't regret; the Porro double miss after Alison's mistake at the back, under pressure from the superb Bergvall, couldn't believe he didn't score. Then Dominic Solanke was so unlucky to be a toenail offside when he scored after Porro's superb through ball put him clear.

We got half lucky with the Bergvall non-sending off. Nine times out of ten his second foul would have been a yellow, so that was a nice stroke of luck. But his first booking should never have been a yellow card, and even Alan Smith said it was borderline whether it was even a foul, so that balanced out the non-yellow for the second foul.

Bergvall, as mentioned, was superb all evening. Great performance from an 18 year old. I said I thought he looked like he had something about him during pre-season and could end up forcing his way into the team this season, and now we're starting to see very good performances against top notch opposition. A long way to go for such a young player but he's got a load of potential.

Other honourable mentions to Spence and Solanke, close runners up to Bergvall for MOTM (but the goal tips it to Bergvall). Loved that Solanke got a reward for his tireless effort doing the donkey work with his brilliant assist for the Bergvall goal. But every player worked hard tonight and put in a shift to get us over the line.

Liverpool will still be favourites to go through as they're still way ahead of us and our record at Anfield sucks, but having a lead to protect going into that match is an unexpected bonus so hats off to our patchwork team for getting it.

Fingers crossed Bentancur is okay after his injury, not 100% sure what happened but I think he somehow whacked his head on the floor and knocked himself out. Looked nasty, whatever it was.

Edit: just saw an update on the Bentancur injury, Ange said "I don't want to speak, all I know he was conscious. He has been taken to hospital. It's not my area, it's not fair on people around him. It was a head injury". Which doesn't really tell us much but hopefully he's just had a nasty bang on the head and nothing more.

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Different enough for my liking too and very welcome result and performance as you described.

It is a pity that away goals don't count double in this competition as there would be much more pressure on Liverpool at Anfield if they did. One away goal and they would have had to score three to beat us, which is why, unlike some, I have always thought it better to play second legs away from home. But no such advantage this time and with our historically bad record at Anfield its going to be a big ask to get a win there.

I think we can do it.

I'm hoping that Liverpool are showing signs that over the last month or so they're running into a less good patch (3 draws and the loss tonight) which may be a catalyst with the number of tricky games they have before the second leg. We'll ignore our Premiership 6 - 3 loss to them and their 5 - 0 demolishment of WH of course .

But if NF in the Premiership can hold them to a draw or better, as they may be capable of doing, it just might be enough to dent their confidence again to our later advantage.

Indeed pity about the injury to Bentancur, which sounded serious but fingers crossed it is nothing worse than a bit of concussion.

[EJG1980]

Thankfully Bentancur released a message on Instagram last night saying that he was fine and thanking everyone for their messages, so that's a bit of good news. Definitely wasn't expecting such a quick all clear after they took eight minutes to get him off the pitch!

Yup, we can definitely go to Anfield and get a result, tough as it will be. One good thing about the month gap between the two legs is that hopefully we should have some of our injured players back by the time of that match... as long as we don't get any new injuries to replace them! I was gonna say that we could have some new signings for that match too, but apparently anyone not registered as a squad member for the first leg can't play in the second, so any new January signings would miss the second leg.

Edit: further Bentancur update from Ange, Bentancur looks to be all clear but as he suffered a concussion we'll be following the protocols and he won't play any matches for the next two weeks. Considering how serious it seemed when it happened, that's a good result. Assuming the two weeks starts from the day he whacked his head he should be available for the Hoffenheim match on the 23rd.

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Less said about the FA Cup game against Tamworth the better. We won but hats off to Tamworth because they could have nicked it in normal time.

I just had this feeling we might make this game hard going but being taken to extra-time with barely an attempt on goal in the first half and no goals in the second half either........................embarrassing.

You can guarantee Arsenal supporters are going to be needling Spurs fans and the team on Wednesday about that performance.

[EJG1980]

Liverpool, one loss in all competitions all season, top of the Premier League by six points with a game in hand, top of the Champions League group stage with six wins out of six, Spurs can play well enough to get deserved 1-0 win against them.

A few days later...

Tamworth, 16th in the 5th tier of English football, semi-professional team with most players having day jobs, lost 7-0 to the mighty Barnet earlier in the season, Spurs can play poorly enough to be unable to beat them in 90 minutes.

Future editions of illustrated dictionaries will have a photo of the Spurs 2024/25 squad next to the word inconsistent.

So, yeah, not a day to remember. Still, if it's a choice between being embarrassed but staying in, and not being embarrassed but going out, I'll take the former!

Hopefully it goes on to be one of those things where we can look back and say "Amazing, we could barely scrape past Tamworth, yet then we went all the way and won the cup."

Gotta do a lot of hoping as a Spurs fan at the moment! Villa away in the next round isn't an easy tie, but, at least they're a team we've had some good results against recently, 4-1 and 4-0 wins for us in our last two games against them.

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I think the Villa game is the type of game we need - something that is not going to be easy and the whole team has to be up for it and also prove that the Tamworth game was just a glitch.

Going back to the Tamworth game, for the last time, I do think Ange played the wrong cards. If it were my choice I'd have played our best side available from the start. Hopefully blitzing the opposition, only then, once done, saved them for the Arsenal game by then bringing on the less used/younger players to see what they can do.

Wed/Thurs Edit

Again a not unexpected loss but, also yet again, a lack lustre first half and better but far from great second half against Arsenal. Could have grabbed a draw but with our luck at the moment even that didn't happen.

Still with Everton and Leicester to come in the Premiership we won't have any better chance of getting some much needed points. Certainly hope so.

[EJG1980]

Wed/Thurs Edit

Again a not unexpected loss but, also yet again, a lack lustre first half and better but far from great second half against Arsenal. Could have grabbed a draw but with our luck at the moment even that didn't happen.

Still with Everton and Leicester to come in the Premiership we won't have any better chance of getting some much needed points. Certainly hope so.

Yeah, the first twenty minutes or so were especially horrible, Arsenal were camped in our final third so much I didn't know what the other end of the stadium looked like. None of our senior players are the types who will try to grab the game by the scruff of the neck when the chips are down, it was quite telling that players who looked most like they were trying to do that were Gray and Bergvall, two 18 year olds.

Those Everton and Leicester matches are huge now, as you rightly say we're now all looking at them as a chance to finally win some points, but if we were to lose them... suddenly you're feeling the breath of the relegation zone on your shoulder. 8 points to 18th places Wolves at the moment, but if we keep losing and the teams behind us get a couple of unexpected wins, 8 points can vanish very quickly.

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Don't use the 'R' word - every season, even good ones, I don't feel we're safe until Spurs have 40+ points under their belt. We 'only' need 14 for that and if we can't get at least 5 wins from the remaining 17 games then the Ange Experiment will well and truly have failed.

What is particularly galling/annoying/perplexing is that we're still in second place in the Premiership as regards the number of goals scored, only Liverpool have scored more. But also we have the best goal difference of any team outside the top six. MU are above us but their stats are unquestionably poorer by a large margin in comparison. But the fact is we've lost 11 games, they've lost only 9 and that's why we're where we are despite the otherwise top six standard performance stats.

[EJG1980]

Yeah, I've seen quite a few times this season where they'll bring up a stat about Spurs and you think "How have we done that when we are where we are in the table?".

Most recent was just before the Arsenal match when they mentioned that the team with the best defensive record away from home in the whole league was... Spurs. We'd only let in 9 goals away from home all season, and even after losing to Arsenal we still had the joint least goals conceded away from home. Yet, we'd lost 6 of our 10 away matches.

The conundrum is, what do you trust more: Do the underlying stats prove that we've been very unlucky with the results, and in most normal seasons we'd be way higher up the table? Or do the results prove that no matter how good the stats are, there are fundamental flaws with this way of playing that will always torpedo you?

And it's even harder to judge because of all the injuries. After 11 matches we were only 3 points behind 3rd place, then the injuries got really bad, and just 10 matches later we're 17 points behind 3rd place. I think it's undeniable that they're our biggest problem at the moment above everything else, I find it really hard to believe that if we'd had a normal level of injuries we wouldn't be way higher in the table.

Speaking of injuries, our curse continues, as Dominic Solanke was injured in training yesterday and will be out for the next six weeks

It's almost unfathomable at the moment, the injury situation. At least Richarlison is back, but he's going to be rusty and not fully match fit. We really need him to hit the ground running, and stay injury free himself! If we could grind out a win today up at Everton that would be such a big boost in the current circumstances.

Edit: it appears I was out of date, Brennan Johnson and Timo Werner also both injured now

At least Ben Davies is back, so we now actually have two central defenders in central defence again. Richy is indeed back too but only on the bench. I am really happy to see Archie Gray getting a chance in his actual position of midfield though, though I wish it was as part of a full strength side.

Half time edit: well I think that's gonna be that, even with the circumstances of all our injuries this is the kind of result that gets a manager sacked when you're in the position we're in. Could have been worse too as Kinsky has pulled off two or three good saves. Son did fluff a couple of good chances to make it 1-1, but I'm not sure how much it would have changed things. Just crossing my fingers that the score doesn't get too embarrassing in the second half.

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I was forgetting the match today was an early start and now wish I hadn't come here and checked on the score. Really, really bad whatever the final result.

Just watched Spurs Women put in a mediocre performance beating Leicester 1 - 0 thanks to an early OG.

First match in five weeks so there is some excuse but whilst they had lots of possession only one, very good, shot on target. That bounced down from the cross bar and was judged not to have crossed the line. Otherwise half the players didn't look match fit, they found themselves in trouble by being too casual playing out from back probably a dozen times and none of the players were really connecting with each other. Too slow generally but particularly in build up and attack with none of them seem to be getting to and winning the the ball when they should done.

In short poor football and just lucky Leicester were not much better.