Five things we learned from Tottenham’s 2-1 Carabao Cup win over Coventry City
Tottenham Hotspur came from 1-0 down to win 2-1 this evening in the Carabao Cup, with Djed Spence and Brennan Johnson both finding the back of the net in the final ten minutes.
Let’s take a look at the five things we learned from the tie:
Spurs are in the hat… somehow
Do they deserve to be? No. Were Coventry the better side? By a mile. Does that matter? A bit… but we move anyway. Despite looking down and out with 10 minutes to go, Spurs rallied just in time to find two late goals and book their place in the fourth round. The draw will take place next week after the Liverpool vs West Ham game.
Postecoglou is putting pressure on himself
We have seen it happen to every Tottenham manager in the past 10 years. You cannot make eight changes to your starting XI away against a lower-league team and expect to have an easy time of it. Postecoglou was asking for trouble, especially after guaranteeing a trophy in his second season. The wolves really would have been out for him had Tottenham lost tonight.
I know you have to make some rotations in these games, especially with mid-week fixtures for the next couple of weeks. However, you simply have to leave some experience and quality on the pitch too. One of Maddison or Kulusevski should have started that match, while one of Romero or Van de Ven should have been at the back. Taking off Udogie, who was Tottenham’s only good player in the first half, also seemed a strange move. Hopefully, Ange will learn from that mistake.
Red Djed Redemption
One nice silver lining from a woeful, woeful evening was the latest chapter in Djed Spence’s redemption arc. After being left out of the Europa League squad, I’m not quite sure how Spence didn’t start the game tonight, to be honest. He came on at half-time to fill in at left-back and, although he looked a little clunky at times on his weaker side, he really grew into the game.
It was Spence’s tenacity on the byline that almost led to a Dejan Kulusevski goal in the dying minutes. Kulusevski then turned creator and set up a toe-poke finish for Spence to actually level the scores. Djed was a real menace down that side for the final 20 minutes or so and should hopefully get some more trust and more minutes out of Postecoglou in the next round.
No shots, no chances, no quality
Tottenham ended the first 45 minutes with zero shots on target, and zero shots off target – against Championship side, Coventry City. Whatever way you look at it, that is not good enough. All the invention and relentless attacking from the early Postecoglou days seems to have vanished and Spurs desperately need to get back to basics. It also shows how far behind the second-string XI are in terms of quality. In the second half, Spurs managed to up the tempo a little, but it wasn’t until the final 10 minutes that they looked like a decent football team.
What’s with all the cut-backs?
I understand that Postecoglou’s system is geared to getting the ball out wide to the left and right wingers, before either blasting it across the face of goal or cutting it back for an on-rushing midfielder. But I have never seen Spurs cut the ball back into no-man’s land so much in my life!
Every time the away side actually got in behind, they seemed to cut the cross back only to discover that not a single midfielder was there waiting for it. It was real amateurish stuff at times. Ange will, once again, be fuming at the quality of the end product out there.
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