Fulham Stalemate Kind Of Shows Where Spurs Are

Whilst walking the dog on Sunday morning I was thinking that just for a change, certainly in reference to this season, wouldn't it be nice to have a uneventful one nil victory with no injuries and not too many chances at either end. You know, the kind of game that we saw week in week out in the George Graham era and what we would have had if the tactical plans of Mourinho and Conte had ever come to fruition.

Brennan puts us ahead.....again

As it turned out, Spurs kind of played their part in an attempt to fulfil that wish by not really creating much over the 90 minutes. This is probably a good point in the story to mention not excuses but reasonable reasons why this may have been.

Firstly, the annual injury crisis is beginning to have a serious effect on the team. Now this can be countered if you assemble your squad with this almost inevitable eventuality in mind. But that's not the ENIC way. Not when there's hotels to be built and pop concerts to be arranged. Not to mention rebranding exercises to be paid for.

Secondly, it was a pretty draining ninety five minutes of lunacy against Roma last Thursday evening. The tactics the manager plays demand commitment and running (nothing at all wrong with that) otherwise it just won't work. The problem is that when six or seven potential starters are missing presumed lost in the medical department and another is on the sidelines through a self inflicted suspension, it doesn't half put pressure on those that are left.

There can be no better indication of this than the fact that the subs bench had seven out of nine players that had never started a Premier League for Spurs. Alongside Kulusevski who had to be rested at some point, the only other previous starter was Sergio Reguilon who hasn't started for Spurs since April 2022. I'd almost forgotten he was still a Spurs player.

On the positive side, I have to take my cap off to Fraser Forster who despite my misgivings was excellent. He made four or five really good stops, a couple of them point blank. Bar one little incident his work with the ball at his feet was more than acceptable and he looks relatively comfortable at set pieces. More of the same please Fraser.

Forster makes another stop

The goal which put us ahead was a sweet one as well. A nice build up ending with Werner floating a lovely ball to the far post where top scorer Brennan Johnson arrived with perfect timing to volley home. Obviously Johnson is still a relatively young player who's already exceeded his league goals tally of last season. I'm hoping that as he develops his all round game improves because you always feel he can contribute more.

By the time Fulham equalised half way through the second half via Cairneys drive into the far corner, they had seemed to have many more opportunities than Spurs. There was an air of inevitability about it. 

Almost immediately on came Kulusevski for Werner. A quarter of an hour later goalscorer Cairney was then sent off after a VAR review for his challenge on Deki. It looked nasty but fortunately he seemed OK.

Right down the back of the calf....painful

Ange sent on Bergvall and Gray, the latter ending up going off injured in stoppage time. Neither were able to do much but you're asking a lot of a couple of teenagers to change any game let alone against a side so well drilled as Fulham, even with ten men.

This week brings a round of Amazon fixtures. Ours is Bournemouth away on Thursday followed Sunday by a home game with in form Chelsea. There are basically no easy games in the Premier League and both of these would be tricky / difficult to a Spurs team flying, fit and in great form. As it sits at the moment I reckon most fans would be more than happy with two draws especially as it seems that bar Solanke, maybe only Romero will be back from the treatment table.

The FA Cup third round draw on Monday provided some relief for the present problems, pairing Spurs with Tamworth FC of the National League. The game will be played at The Lamb Ground sometime over the second weekend in January. I'm sure I won't be the only one to point out that the capacity of 4000 is less than a quarter of the size of the South Stand at The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. This will be similar to the match we had with Marine during the Covid lockdown. Memorable for Alfie Devine becoming both the youngest player to play a senior game for Spurs and the youngest scorer and Carlos Vinicius celebrating his goals like he'd just won the Champions League.