Take That! Spurs 'Boy Band' Hit The Heights In Budapest

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 of the net in the twenty-third minute following a messy build-up involving Moore, Lankshear and couple of home defenders they were on top. 

Due to the tactical system Spurs employ, opposition of any level will have chances against even Spurs strongest line-up let alone a much changed team. Last night was no different and in all fairness Ferencvaros missed a couple of decent chances. Vicario made a miraculous save at one point but the goal wouldn't have stood as the ball was ajudged to have already crossed the byline.

Spurs version of Alitalia in full flight

Ange made a couple of subtle changes including swapping the outstanding Gray with Davies from centre back to left back and vice versa. As the second half progressed in the same vein, on sixty five minutes Ange made a triple substitution replacing the tiring Bergvall and Lankshear plus the profligate Werner with Maddison, Johnson & Kulusevski. With ten minutes to go Solanke replaced Saar.

Shortly afterwards Johnson hit the bar with an absolute screamer and then around five minutes from the end he took a ball from Maddison tuned inside and placed the ball inside the far post for his fifth goal in as many games. 

5ive in a row for Brennan (not so subtle boy band reference there)

There was still time for a consolation goal for the home side by Varga. If you were being really picky you could say that Porro should have closed the cross down and Romero and Davies could have dealt with it better but in the long term it really doesn't matter.

This win puts Spurs third in the fledgling Europa League 'league' table which is great but much more significant to the clubs future was the performance of the youngsters. Moore and Gray were absolutely brilliant, Lankshear battled hard, was unlucky not to score on a couple of occasions but did not look in the slightest bit overaught on his full debut. Bergvall, while not as influencial on the game as the other three still showed how much he wants to get on the ball and be involved. 

Mikey Moore on the wing

More importantly, the fans have been shown that the young lads can be trusted. Not only to carry out the instructions they're given by the manager but to not look out of place in a hostile atmosphere. We can all call for them to start but nobody can be sure exactly how it would turn out.

In his post match interview, Yves Bissouma was asked about the teenagers starting the game. His reply was along the lines of "Their age doesn't matter, they know what they have to do to play for Tottenham." I think after last night that's something we can all agree on.

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