More Than Half A Page Of Scribbled Lines

A surprising first goal scorer led to a surprising performance which in turn led to a surprising result. That would be my own personal summing up of last nights Carabao Cup match against Manchester City. Ange had brought Archie Gray into the side at right back, Dragusin into the back four with Van der Ven moving across to left back. Pape Sarr started in midfield alongside Bentancur and Kulusevski with the much maligned Timo Werner on the left side of attack with Solanke in the middle and Johnson on the right. City of course made changes, although not as many as some had predicted after Guardiola had previously said how low this competition sat on his list of priorities. Five minutes in, an excellent move starting right at the back with Dragusin and involving a deft flick by Johnson and a pinpoint cross from Kulusevski led to Timo Werner providing a fine finish to put Spurs ahead. Just read that line again to make sure I got that right.  Timo proves he can hit a cow's arse with a ba

I think it was Harold Wilson who famously said that "A week is a long time in politics." He supported Huddersfield Town and not Tottenham Hotspur but he could easily have been referencing seven days in the life of our club. It only seems five minutes ago that West Ham were despatched, followed by an efficient home victory in the Europa League against AZ. As is quite usual for Spurs though, it all came crashing down yesterday in South London. I don't think too many fans would have been disappointed with the starting line-up. In fact, in among the return of the Premier League regulars Ange selected Mickey Moore for his first league start in place of the chronically out of form Timo Werner.  Mateta, the only one in the ground shocked how bad Spurs were. We've recently seen the absolute classic Spurs performance at the Amex where they were terrific in the first half only to completely fall to pieces after half-time when Brighton upped the tempo. This week was different th

Part three of what will hopefully be a fifteen part series, this years Europa League adventure, came to a more than adequate completion last evening in N17. The result, a fairly rare one nil victory for Spurs over the Dutch side AZ Alkmaar leaves us alongside Italian team Lazio and Belgian side Anderlect as the only clubs in the revamped competition with a 100% record at this stage.  As usual, Ange took absolutely no notice of my opinion / worry / paranoia and made nine changes from the weekends victory against the Hammers with only Destiny Odogie and James Maddison (captain for the evening) retaining their place in the starting line-up. In a rather strange twisted juxtaposition the fourth minute provided both the best moment for the completely confidence adverse Timo Werner and worst moment for the full of confidence Player Of The Match, Mikey Moore. Werner put a beautiful cross right on the head of Moore who somehow managed to direct the ball wide from a yard out. Mikey Moore, treati

Previous to Troy Parrott, who joined AZ in the summer, the last two players to represent both clubs were Vincent Janssen and Mousa Dembele. Much as we we all loved dear old Vincent, I reckon that every Spurs fan will be hoping the current AZ line up are closer in ability to him than to Mousa, surely one of the best players to represent Spurs in the Premier League era. Any excuse for a picture of Mousa Troy cost his current employers around £7m from Spurs after his loan season at Excelsior Rotterdam where despite his sides relegation via the Dutch play-off system, Parrott managed a very credible nineteen goals last season. By all reports there was interest in him from Germany, Italy and Spain in the summer. The fact he chose to stay in the Eredivisie would suggest that he's comfortable and settled in the league.  At Spurs it would always be difficult to break through into the first team with not only Harry Kane playing in his position, but the constant changing of coaches most of wh

There have been a few times this season so far when Ange Postecoglu replacing Sonny after seventy minutes with Timo Werner when he's scored, hit the post and had his marker on toast for the second half would have bought howls of derision from the home faithful. Fortunately however, the game was already won. A fairly even first half with Spurs perhaps just having the edge was completely eclipsed by a rampaging first quarter of an hour of the second half where West Ham did an impression of Spurs at the Amex a fortnight or so before that the great Rory Bremner would have been proud of. By the time Mohammed Kudus put West Ham ahead in the eighteenth minute (more of him later) after good work on the right by Bowen, Vicario had already made an outstanding save from a near identical situation a few minutes earlier. There followed around twenty minutes where the home crowd could be forgiven for feeling a little nervous despite Spurs dominating the game before Solanke nicked the ball in mid

According to Google Maps it would take me seventy-two hours of constantly walking to get from my house to the London Stadium, home of our opponents for this Saturday's lunchtime kick off. There is a reason I mention this, as I'm fully aware its a home game, because there is obviously a slightly careless West Ham fan living in my vicinity. The other morning while walking my dog I came across the following item discarded in a bush:- On closer inspection I realised it was a tie, albeit looking a bit sorry for itself even allowing for the fact it had poured with rain the night before. A couple of days down the line its gone so hopefully the rightful owner has remembered where he left it and come back to pick it up. Of course the carelessness that would lead to leaving a tie in a random bush in North Devon could well prove to be fatal for either of the two coaches who'll be selecting the teams for Saturdays games. West Ham have had a poor start to the season but managed a good p

Earlier on this evening those know-it-alls at Sky Sports News announced that the currently unemployed German football manager, Thomas Tuchel, would be taking over as the new boss of our National Team. Tuchel demonstrates the amount of time it took him to say 'Yes' to the FA Tuchel will become only the third non-Englishman to hold this position following the recently deceased Swede Sven Goran Eriksson and the Italian Fabio Capello.  Since the last trophy success in 1966 (you may have heard about it) the appointments the FA have made have encompassed all sorts of managers. From the flamboyant Kevin Keegan to the undertaker, sorry caretaker Howard Wilkinson. From the highly talented player turned coach Glenn Hoddle to 'The Wally With The Brolly' Steve McClaren. You'd think he'd look happy, seeing that Croatia side in full flow. Eventually after Sam Allardyce's big mouth got him in to trouble, the FA turned to their Under-21 coach Gareth Southgate to take over t

"Nothing is certain except death and taxes" wrote Benjamin Franklin back in 1789. Had Mr Franklin been around two hundred and thirty five years later he could have been forgiven for making a couple of additions. Firstly, you'd have to include 'conflict in the Middle East' which in one form or another has been going on for my entire lifetime and for ages before that but more relevant to this post would be ' Tottenham Hotspur will always find new and entertaining ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory'. Johnson scores for the 6th consecutive game. It had all started so well. Ange named the same starting line up that had wiped the floor with Manchester United the previous weekend. Spurs set off out of the blocks like Usain Bolt. Johnson just couldn't quite get to a Werner cross in the first minute, there were another two half chances in the first three minutes, Spurs dominated and Brighton couldn't get a foothold in the game.  In the 22nd minu

 I haven't been to Brighton for twenty-nine years. The last time was to attend The Brighton Music Festival, which I can't actually remember too much about. One thing that sticks in the memory was the fact they had two stages facing each other but a fair distance apart and the bands appeared alternatively at stage A and then stage B. This was actually a pretty good idea as it meant you could be stuck at back for one band but then right near the front for the next. There must have been about ten different groups on the Bill but  I can only remember three, Skunk Anansie, The Lightening Seeds and Dodgy. Now 'dodgy' is definately a word that could be used to describe Spurs last visit to the AMEX Stadium. Even taking into account the fact that we started with four full backs making up the defence and still having 55% possession we were 4-0 down after sixty three minutes. A Hinshelwood goal after eleven minutes, two Joao Pedro penalties and a quality strike from Pervis Estupia

When the Croatian referee Igor Pajac blew the final whistle last night Spurs had sucessfully negotiated a potentially tricky European away tie in the Hungarian capital. Ange Postecoglu made seven changes to the starting line-up from the victory at Old Trafford, including four teenagers in a Tottenham side for the first time since 2007. Archie Gray (18), Lucas Bergvall (18), Will Lankshear (19) and Mikey Moore (17) were thrown into the hostile atmosphere of the Groupama Arena to face a side that had won each of their league games this season and the last five Hungarian championships. The game started as expected with the home side flying out of the blocks, urged on by that home support, and Spurs whilst not at Coventry away levels of disjointedness took a while to get themselves organised. During this period, Ferencvaros scored, only to see the goal disallowed by everyone's best mate VAR. Slowly though Spurs gained a foot hold and by the time Pape Saar stuck the ball into the corner

Spurs flew to Hungary today to in preparation for tomorrow evenings match against one of the country's most famous clubs Farencvaros. This is part two in the eight game series that constitutes the group stage of this years Europa League competition. After last weeks extraordinary game against Qarabag, Ange will be hoping for a much less dramatic 90 minutes, but hey, this is Tottenham so who knows what will happen. At club level as well as in Interntional football, the Hungarian game has been in the doldrums even longer than Spurs have. The golden years were the 1950's when the side nicknamed 'The Magnificent Magyars' redefined how football was played. In fact it could be argued that the coach Gusztav Sebes is the father of the modern game. During the period 1950-56 they played sixty-nine matches, won fifty-eight of them, drew ten and lost only once, scoring four hundred and thirty-six goals. Unfortunately the one defeat for them was the 1954 World Cup Final against of c

Back in 1989 I travelled to Old Trafford twice to watch Spurs. Amazingly,  we won both games, 3-0 in the League Cup and 1-0 in the old First Division with Gary Lineker scoring the winner with probably the only goal he ever scored from outside the box. What has this to do with Sunday's fixture you may ask? Well the United manager, plain Alex Ferguson as he was then, was under severe pressure. I can clearly remember the protests and the calls for Ferguson to be sacked. The United board held their nerve and then after the famous Mark Robins goal in the FA Cup, the rest is of course history. The reason  I mention this now is that there is literally no chance whatsoever of Eric Ten Hag rising from the ashes of Sundays defeat / performance in the same manner. I've seen enough Spurs managers come and go to know when a team has lost faith in what they're being told.  Enough of the opposition. Spurs were brilliant. To a man, absolutely superb. Even Timo Werner who missed his chances