Spurs commence their 2022/23 Champions League campaign against Olympique Marseille of France on Wednesday night, kick-off at 8 pm BST. This Group D curtain raiser is our first Champions League match since March 2020, where a depleted Spurs missing Harry Kane and Heung-min Son crashed out to RB Leipzig in the last sixteen 4-0 on aggregate.
Luckily, we will be able to count on the services of the deadly duo this time around, but whether or not we will see both take to the field remains to be seen, with matches now coming thick and fast, both continentally and domestically.
Indeed, Antonio Conte has decisions to make as far as rotation is concerned. Given that this is our first match of the group, we need to get off to as fast of a start as possible, making it likely that we do see both Kane and Son from the off
However, with Richarlison impressing against Fulham (as he has done in every other appearance he has made this season, in all fairness to him), will we see him or Kulusevski displace our beloved double act, or is it a shoot-out between the Swede and the Brazilian for the last spot in our front three?
Conte is yet to address the media ahead of the match, but it would be safe to assume that we will be unable to rely on the services of Lucas Moura and Bryan Gil, who have been out of action for the past few weeks, and are showing no imminent signs of returning to the matchday fold. Given that neither has yet to start this season anyway, this isn’t a significant issue, as we live in a world where neither is seriously threatening the aforementioned attacking quartet.
Nevertheless, Conte has a mini-selection headache regarding the backline and midfield pivot. Does he rest one of Hojbjerg or Bentancur to bring in Bissouma? I would expect him to resist this temptation, with an added emphasis on retaining Bentancur in particular due to his ability to beat the opposition press. With Marseille renowned for their intensity, his slick passing ability and tight ball control will be vital to playing through them.
Moreover, will Conte be tempted to shuffle the wing-backs? I can’t see Royal being dropped, as he has started every game this season, and his conservative style may come in handy against the visitors’ press. Regarding the left-flank, I can foresee Perisic’s European experience and pedigree being called upon, with the fresh legs of Sessegnon on standby from the bench if needs be.
I would stick with the same back three that saw out the victory against Fulham, as Marseille’s frantic pressing style is likely to cause Sanchez problems on the ball when we play out from defence. Therefore, the more comfortable passing outlets we have from the back, the better. That said, you could flip a coin as to who starts between Lenglet and Davies; although the former’s passing out from the back is likely to come in handy, as well as his experience in Ligue Un and the Champions League.
Our opponents have few injury issues to contend with. According to Sports Mole, Dimitri Payet is likely to miss Wednesday’s encounter with a calf problem. Defender Samuel Gigot is out with an unspecified injury, with strikers Cedric Bakambu and Bamba Dieng also absent following their omission from Marseille’s Champions League squad.
The report thus states that we can expect to see many an ex-Gunner in the visitors’ line-up, with Sead Kolasinac, Alexis Sanchez, Nuno Taveres, and Matteo Guendouzi all expected to start. Anyone in attendance Wednesday night, have your boos at the ready…
Although Marseille is the lowest ranked club in Group D, ranking in 35th place, after Spurs in 11th, Sporting Lisbon in 24th, and Eintracht Frankfurt in 29th according to Euro Club Index, they are no mugs, having ended up as last season’s Ligue Un runners-up and Europa League Conference League semi-finalists. They have also kicked off their domestic campaign like a house on fire, with five wins and a draw from their opening six games in Ligue Un (read more on our opponents in a piece I wrote yesterday here).
As always in the Champions League, a tough match awaits, but if our levels vaguely resemble anything like the stuff we served against Fulham on Saturday (bar the wastefulness in the final third and defensive lapses), then we should have too much for Les Olympiens. COYS!
Pathetic, imagine paying to see this crap. Only one attacking option from the bench. 6 bloody defenders watching from the bench. Any youth players?. Down to 10 men and still can’t get a shot on goal
Finally, thank you Ritchie
Now we are cooking
All I’ve seen of the second half is a frozen screen. I can watch other crap in which I have no interest on Paramount+, but all the CL matches provide on frozen screen experiences. Avoid this service if you can. I paid for this? Horrible. It’s like buying mild and finding it’s curdled and undrinkable. It’s like… well, the examples I want to write here shouldn’t be written anywhere.
Think yourself lucky TK. That was as far as it gets from beautiful. Once again so lucky that the opposition was unable to do much better.
I’d love to have seen Richarlison’s first two goals at our club. lost forever.
And, by the way, there is worth in watching horrible matches. It reminds us of how important it is to play the right way. So our club won it’s opening match of the CL and people say UGH! that was ugly. lol. Want football to provide sublime pleasure? You need to watch a beautiful match. But I’ll watch any match, but apparently not with Paramount+ streaming. Man, they suck to high heaven and lowest hell and all in between.
That wasn’t pretty football by any stretch of the imagination. We’re a long way from beautiful football. We have to play pretty football before we can aspire to play beautiful football …. it’s a process. At the moment we seem to be playing boring, uninspiring football, unless the opposition is down to ten men. The first half was a shambles; nobody running off the ball, no attempt to apply and kind of pressure, and a complete inability to perform the basic art of the game …. passing the ball to a team-mate. But the result was fine!
MotM was Sonny for his burst of Sonny speed that sent the opposition down to 10 players.
Possible competition for MotM was Richarlison for his two quick headers snapped into the goal.
But FFS, half a match against this bunch and being kept away from the goal so successfully until almost the 80th minutes.
By the way, I was able to watch the whole match in video, even though the evil corporate blood suckers at Paramount+ don’t seem to care about the fact that I couldn’t see the match. I reached their customer service number and spent 59 minutes (said so on my smart phone) with someone who was very pleasant and completely useless and unable to help me. The service rep had not only never heard of THFC but thought football could only mean American football and how dare these foreigners try to steal the name of “our American sport.”
The rep also said that soccer was a sport for school children and girls.
Beware America. I prefer countries where they know futebol, like Brasil.
What’s up the Queen Elizabeth’s black and blue hands? Does it come from trying to knock some sense into the Bonnie Prince Charlie?
Oh, should we send a going away card to Tommy Tuchel? Maybe Poch will end up at Chelsea. Hope not, though. I’d hate to start hating Poch.
Geof,
I’m not sure that beautiful football grows from pretty football, but rather from substantially fundamental football. Pretty football gives an illusion of beauty, but is filled with fundamental shallowness. This is why Neymar isn’t Pelé. His career has tried to transform the pretty into the beautiful, and that’s a hard trick to accomplish. It would take a master illusionist. Real beauty requires real dedication to learning one’s craft–not just the moves, but the sense of the game–and developing the sense that winning doesn’t really provide satisfaction if it’s been done on the sly.
I’ve often thought that the man who borrowed the hands of God ended up in treatment for severe drug problems because he won the biggest competition of his life through borrowed hands–that is, the falsely borrowed hands of God that cheated Argentina to victory. He relied in the end on Fidel Castro to keep his heart beating.
Prettiness has an odd relationship with beauty. This is why Plato disparaged the artists and playwrights for their use of literary cleverness to give the appearance of a flirtation with the gods.
A multiple step–over dribble is pretty, but doesn’t necessarily get anyone closer to beauty.
Wastes energy, too.
Anyway, I’m open to hearing a perspective that pretty is the pathway to beauty, if only for a football team. But cheating and boring everyone to victory conveys neither the pretty nor the beautiful.
I watched the match on the radio!
It looked okay to me… Not pretty nor ugly. Just okay.
Thank you Richarlison. You made it all worthwhile……
Now, bring on the City!
Is it possible for Spurs to be boring, bad, ugly and yet still beat them?
Will we see a highly entertaining Haaland (City) Globe Trotters run rings around the boring, boring, Tottenham (not-so-Hot-Spur) Totterers? And yet watch the Spurs gain all 3 points anyway……..
Any way we can win this one, is a win, not lose situation to me.
Then again, we may well play well, and loose! Just to confuse!
That’s true, HT. The first half was shamefull, it really was, given that we were home. We just rolled over. Son won the game in the second half by forcing a red card. You can play brilliant football and still lose. You can play terrible football and still win. That’s football, and …. gotta love football.
Lose! Not Loose!
We’re still unbeaten this season, we’ve won our first CL game, we restricted our opponent to 3 shots all game – only one on target, it’s another clean sheet – and words like “mediocrity” are being used.
How quickly people forget what life was like under Nuno.
Sure it took a while to break them down, but Marseille was an in form team and if anyone was just expecting them to roll over, that was never going to happen. It was always going to be a matter of wearing them down.
In the end, they cracked and we won. Seems like the game plan worked. Now on to City.
BS …. I should have read your comment before I made a comment to HT.
If you’ve watched the game you must know that they did not roll over, we did. We could not compete in any aspect of the game in the first half.
We did not break them down and they did not crack …. they had a man sent off. That changed everything and saved the day.
Yet again, we were very poor. First shot on target was Richarlison’s superb header in 80th minute after man rightly sent off in 48th minute.
There is no decent link up play between defence and attack. We have workmanlike defenders and midfielders but no one who can create or pass with effect. (Eriksen had an outstanding game for Man U.)
Emerson tries hard but he is not a winger and is unable to cross the ball. Perisic is a good wing back.
We seem unable to pass the ball forward and spent the first half knocking the ball sideways and backwards. Lloris’ distribution is still very poor sometimes hair-raising and stupid putting defenders under unnecessary pressure.
All in all, it was a much needed win with two enjoyable goals and celebration from Richarlison.
Man C. will be the strongest test yet.
ww …. That just about summed it up. The first half was embarrassing. What the hell is wrong with Lloris. I groaned with frustration every time he had ball in hand. He continually gave the ball away, kicked it straight out of play, or threw it to someone who was already closed down.
I really don’t want to think about this game anymore.
BS you wanted fringe subs to be played yet you then say they were an inform team, the red card changed the game in our favour.
They had 10 men for 45 minutes.
Now don’t bite my head off, ok! do it I don’t really care, my thoughts…
1st half, meandering along, 2nd gear max, letting em have the ball, no real threat to us, actually making the Froggies look good, how many saves did our GK make? mind a number of times if our passing had been better in their pen area, who knows?
2nd half came out with more intent, keep ball get in behind their open defence, job done red card followed….but that in itself went against us, whereas prior they were open, now close shop don’t let em pass, so a lot more difficult.
Kulu came on, certain difference to our approach, we kept the ball moving and when it was moved quicker, our thinking also, result with patience = 2 goals, from 2 excellent crosses by Perisic n Hoj, finding the never stopped moving Richarlison, 2 great headers.
Never once thought we would lose or draw this game only win. COYS
Once again we were crap, according to this site anyway, once again we we won. Whisper it softly but just maybe Conte has a better understanding of football than the people slagging off the team.
The real test now is man city. This will be where the bar stands
Could our club have performed better than they did? Does it matter given that THFC won?
They certainly could have performed better than they did, and I think it matters .
Someone commented on Lloris. Thanks for doing so. The man was a risk waiting to bite us yesterday. That play when he punched the ball away when he easily was able to catch it. That’s a mental mistake and a man of his experience shouldn’t be doing that. His passes and goal kicks are not at a world class level. These things ought be said and acknowledged.
With Lloris acting like someone who’s forgotten these aspects of the game, why shouldn’t we be worried? Yesterday’s message–and we’ve seen this before–is that Lloris is on the way out as a world class GK and Paratici needs to finds someone to replace him for next year.
Lloris has passed his sell by date. He’s playing like an old man whose mind can’t keep up with the the pace of the modern game.
Watching Lloris seems like watching me pretend to know how to play football. I mean the me now, who is moving into the late 70s and has no spring left in his step.
In the end, Son saved the team from possible embarrassment with his usual other-worldly pace. Richarlison saved the team from possible embarrassment with the decisive nature of his headers and his unending energy.
The team is moving in the right direction, but has quite a distance to go to reach its potential. Our current level includes too many dismal stretches, but few of the disastrous stretches we saw with Esprito Santos and José the man whose same lives in infamy. This is improvement, but it cannot slow down now. We’re not there yet as a team.
Let’s get out of the group level with the most points to stay alive so our lads have international matches in which they can come together in a coordinated effort that isn’t there quite yet. We need to go deep into the competition so that we have an even more beautiful game in us next year.
This is a team that is getting better, and of that we should be pleased. They may be capable of beauty if they gel and grow together. Still a couple of players short, but the group we have can pull of some really beautiful football. I’m not taking pretty, I’m talking elegance and grace in knowing what we’re doing
Agree with everything you’ve said there mate, some cracking arguments advanced there – Lloris saves us on occasion with saves you wouldn’t think are humanly possible, but his distribution is abhorrent. It puts us under constant pressure and starves our attackers, he’ll be phased out soon enough I’d expect. Whilst I’d love us to have a go for Henderson in the summer, it seemed that Pickford has been on our radar for a while – I’m quite indifferent to this, but his distribution is unbelievable….perhaps that’s what’s got the recruitment team so fixated on him? Either way, Lloris needs phasing out, great servant to the club but his days at the highest level are numbered. Shouldn’t be captain either.