Following on from the bore draw against Bournemouth, Tottenham Hotspur were back in action today as we welcomed Arsenal to White Hart Lane for the North London Derby.
Gulp – after the Bournemouth display I was looking forward to this game so much, I forgot to do a match thread, so apologies are in order to the fine folks of Vital Spurs.
It was certainly a bright start with both sides looking to attack (and both seeming unable to defend) and as the visitors opened the scoring 16 minutes in, Spurs responded quickly with Son Heung-Min drawing us level just three minutes later.
The chances for both sides kept coming, but it was 1-1 at the break and as the second half progressed, it looked like it would end up a point apiece. Spurs had the better chances really, but Arsenal made more of the second period and had greater control.
With nine minutes left, Toby Alderweireld popped up to give us the bragging rights as he got his head on the end of a Sonny delivery and that was the game. More than deserved by the end of it, and without woodwork, we might have seen another goal or two.
Three points, bragging rights and something to smile about again.
Unused Spurs Subs:
Vertonghen, Lamela, Sessegnon, Gazzaniga, Ndombele, Gedson Fernandes, Tanganga.
Unused Arse Subs:
Papastathopoulos, Torreira, Maitland-Niles, Holding, Macey.
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Have Your Say – “Unrealistic Expectations” – Can Spurs Fans Demand More Of Jose
White Hart Lane
Premier League
12/07/2020 5:30 pm
Attendance: 0
Referee: Michael Oliver
| Tottenham Hotspur | Arsenal | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Son Heung-Min (19), Alderweireld (81) | Lacazette (16) | ||||||
| Lloris | Martinez | ||||||
| Aurier | Mustafi | ||||||
| Alderweireld | David Luiz | ||||||
| Sanchez | Kolasinac | 84 | |||||
| Davies | Bellerin | 84 | |||||
| Sissoko | Ceballos | ||||||
| Winks | Xhaka | ||||||
| Lo Celso | 84 | Tierney | 84 | ||||
| Lucas Moura | 82 | Pepe | 70 | ||||
| Kane | Lacazette | ||||||
| Son Heung-Min | Aubameyang | ||||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Bergwijn | 82 | Saka | 70 | ||||
| Skipp | 84 | Willock | 84 | ||||
| Nelson | 84 | ||||||
| Cedric Soares | 84 | ||||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 15 | Goal attempts | 13 |
| 9 | On Target | 4 |
| 6 | Corners | 5 |
| 16 | Fouls | 11 |
| 5 | Yellow Cards | 3 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 37 | % | 63 |
Well played lads.
Jose out
Shocked and what a result, I got it wrong. Well done to the players and jose
I thought central mid and the defence played well, starting to look like a defence, both Gooners wing backs got short changed today, and maybe if we had made slightly different decisions in front of goal we could have had at least 2 more, never mind well played lads. COYS
Better performance, pleased we won…
Moura was MOTM, i wish he could play like that everyweek.
At last… A decent match with some proper, positive, attacking intent from Spurs.
And, hey presto! We win…
Good solid all round performance I thought…….
Up the Spurs!
Good solid performance. Could’ve, should’ve had at least 2 more. Happy with attempts on goal. Wasn’t a classic but a good match positive result. Aurier needs to go, yet again his mistake cost us the goal and being out of position (ball watching) nearly bagged them a 2nd.
Winksy yet again found wanting. On at least 3 occasions out muscled or out classed at 3 times gave away silly fouls as he was turned easily. On 3 occasions from good attacking positions he went backwards.
Otherwise good soild performance. Davies, Sonny, Lucas, Dave and Toby all excellent.
COYS.
It was good to see some of the players having a go from distance, Davies attempt would have been a spectacular goal of the season contender had Martinez not made an equally spectacular save.
Great performance rom the Cherries tonight, just a shame it allows Manu the opportunity to move into the top which means having to endure that smug grin from Solskjaer.
*into the top 4
Agreed ND – Aurier costing us again and definitely has to go! Agreed on Winks aswell – we need a proper DMC in that CM area for sure especially against the top sides! Thought Moura was quality including playing 2 excellent balls to HK10 which he should most probably have buried – guess you could argue the GK made 2 top saves! Great result – let’s see what happens in the last 3 games and where we end up!
sweetest victory of the season for me……arses got jose and the players riled when they mocked us v sheffield…jose told them we will be waiting for them….sheffield beat chelsea 3 nil on the same day as us beating them ,come on now…
coys
After the last couple of matches I was surprised today to see a quite decent football match. Didn’t see that coming.
BUT…….
If we can’t follow up this performance with more wins and if Jose reverts back to a more negative approach verses the ‘lesser’ teams, Newcastle and Palace. It will mean nothing. And we will need to be at our best vs Leicester…
We were set up well to defend yesterday but also had both Son and Harry up top for the counters and long balls we played. And it worked well. (A bit of an old school 4-4-2, I think). But crucially, more goal-mouth action, many more shots and with a good few on target… Better!
The most incredible stat from the game is Moura winning as many tackles as the entire Arsenal team, it highlights what he brings to the side. People focus on individual games but the truth is it doesn’t matter how well you play against Arsenal if you don’t turn up against Bournemouth. Its not just us, its the whole league barring Liverpool. The champions have lost two games, the next lowest are United and Wolves with eight each, City have lost nine. Inconsistency has been the name of the game this season. If we want to do better its not so much about how well we play at our best but whether we can play to pretty much the same level every game. So far there’s nothing to suggest that’s going to happen.
I will be the first to say that after the Bournemouth game, an abject game by any standard, I was starting to doubt whether Jose still had the backing of the players.
One game doesn’t erase everything, but the Arsenal game showed us a few things. First, the players can still conjure a decent performance (Aurier the exception) from time to time. Second, Jose can play attractive football too. Which begs the question: is this the sort of performance Jose has been asking for for weeks, and only gotten sporadically, or was this an exception?
I also think we were lucky to be gifted an equalizer so quickly after gifting an opener. Against tighter opposition, we may have struggled.
Football is a funny game and margins are very tight in the PL. With a bit more luck against United (had Dier not given a reckless penalty away), Sheffield (Kane’s goal stands) and Bournemouth (we get the penalty we deserved), that’s probably an extra 5 points, which would have put us in contention for 4th.
We also seem a lot more competitive in games against the top 6 under Jose, although the sample size is small.
Jose made a comment in his press conference about had he been in charge since the beginning of the season, we’d be in the top 4. The media are of course portraying that as a dig at MP, which may or may not be the case (personally, I don’t think so/that’s not how I read it). It’s just Jose trying to shut up his detractors. He’s trying to make a point that despite all the negativity, things aren’t as bad as some might protray them to be. It’s very self-serving of course, but there’s truth in that statement too.
BelgianSpur – when you look at the league table Jose isn’t actually claiming that much. Given how many points everyone except Liverpool have dropped it wouldn’t have taken a huge improvement to get us a top four place, just fewer mistakes.
Isn’t that the definition of stating the obvious? With fewer mistakes, every team would have finished in the top 4…
I think the point he is trying to make is that his “points per game” average since he has taken over is very respectable, and that’s what he should be judged on.
In other news, Man City’s ban has been overturned. FFP remains a pipe dream, and we’ll continue to try to play catch up with clubs who are just run differently.
Levy continues to think that he can be successful by bringing a knife to a gun fight. How naive.
jod …. You mentioned the top teams in the PL in terms of consistency. Maybe there is another aspect of consistency …. that of the less fancied teams to adopt a strategy to foil the top teams. And many of them have consistently achieved the desired result. We see it every week. It tells us that the game has changed due to modern tactics.