Buckle Up!

There's a lot to recap, with mixed results for both of Tottenham's teams.

Let's kick things off with Spurs Women, who gave us our Tottenham fix while the Men were on international break.

Since both of their last two matches were over a week ago, my memory of them is admittedly fading a bit... I also didn't know the Conti Cup match against Charlton was even happening until it was almost over (no thanks to whoever does the iCal extension for the Women's side for not including any of the cup matches 🙃). I did catch the last 20 minutes and the result was never in doubt.

The WSL match against Brighton (away) was uncharacteristically sloppy and unfocused from Spurs (included a rare error from Becky Spencer in between the sticks), and Rachel Williams' red card in the 76th minute just about gave the home team the edge, ending the match 2-1 in Brighton's favor. Kit Graham got us back into the game almost immediately after Brighton's second goal, scoring off of a lovely team effort, but we couldn't find an equalizer to salvage a point. Unfortunately, this means Spurs no longer have a perfect record in the WSL, but it's still been a strong campaign so far and I have no doubt we'll continue to get some great results. We do have some tough fixtures coming up though, with Manchester United next after the international break and then Arsenal the following weekend. As the table stands, we're tied for joint second on points with Chelsea but in third on goal difference (this is a concern for both Tottenham teams, unfortunately).

As for the Conti Cup match, it was a slim margin of victory at 1-0 despite Spurs' dominant possession and we were unlucky not to score a second goal. It was super exciting to see Jiali Tang get her first goal with the club! It came from another really well-worked, team-wide effort, and Tang had to fight to get her shot off in a crowded box. A well-deserved goal to kick off our Conti Cup group stage with three points!

While several of Spurs Women's players are off on international duty, we shift our focus back to the Men's side.

We got an important 3-2 win away at Newcastle, in a game that was almost overshadowed by the ~*narrative*~ of the Magpie's new (murder-adjacent) ownership group. It was kind of sickening to see all the unprincipled Newcastle fans dressed up in faux Saudi Arabian garb, but it did make for some satisfaction when the smiles were wiped off their faces after Spurs responded to Callum Wilson's 2nd minute goal with a flurry of goals to end the first half. Newcastle's players had clearly fed off the energy of the crowd in the opening ten minutes, but the gap in quality quickly became evident. Spurs were completely dominant for the majority of the match, and it was never really in doubt, even after Dier's unfortunate own goal.

Most importantly, it was a strong team performance across the whole lineup (yes, even Dier--his flukey own goal excepted). I'm struggling to think of a better performance from Ndombele since he joined the team, and it will be a huge boost for Tottenham if he can latch onto some consistency and solidify the preferred midfield three of himself, Højbjerg, and Skipp. As things stand form-wise, Lo Celso is the odd one out. In another positive development, Kane finally scored a Premier League goal. I think we all thought he was offside at first, but the moment they showed the replay it was obvious that he had timed his run perfectly, and the chipped shot was inch-perfect technique. Kane also contributed to the superb team effort in first half stoppage time that culminated in Son's fourth goal of the PL season.

The only disappointment is that we didn't take advantage of having the hot hand (or foot?) and score another goal or two to rectify our still-lackluster goal difference. We're the only team in the top 10 that has a negative goal difference (as of the end of matchday 8--Arsenal beat Aston Villa today to jump up to 9th place, but also have a -3 GD like Spurs). We definitely should have capitalized on Newcastle going a man down after Jonjo Shelvey picked up two yellow cards in his 20-minute substitute appearance. Newcastle were getting chippy in general by that point in the game, so I'm surprised we couldn't force a penalty decision off their hot tempers.

On a positive note, we registered our best possession (64%) of the PL season so far. The 4-2-3-1 formation has been paying dividends, and I hope Nuno sticks with it, along with the consistent starting XI from the last two games. Another sign for encouragement:  all of our goals came from assists, and we doubled our assist total for the season, thanks to passes from Reguilón, Højbjerg, and Kane. Speaking of Kane's assist for Son, the duo is just one goal combination away from equalling Drogba and Lampard's record in the PL.

Despite all the angst (mostly deserved) after those terrible three London derby losses last month, Spurs ended up in 5th after the end of matchday 8, tied on points with Brighton in 4th. We do have a tricky run of PL fixtures coming up though, with the next three matches against the teams directly below us in the current table standings.

Dier and Reguilón were well-deserved joint Man of the Match winners for their lifesaving efforts to help the fan who had a medical emergency in the stands (though I'm still not sure how I feel about the PL handing out joint MotM awards two matchdays in a row now--make a decision!). Reguilón had one of his best matches in a long time besides his heroic behavior, so good for him getting some recognition.

One last comment on the Newcastle match to segue us into the ECL clash with Vitesse:  at the time Nuno's decision not to make any substitutions was pretty baffling, especially when you consider that the South American players had barely had any rest between their national team commitments and travel. But then when we saw the completely changed starting XI for the away match at Vitesse it all made sense. He's clearly wanting to save his preferred starting lineup for the West Ham match. We can afford to drop one game in the ECL group stage, but if he doesn't take the last few matches more seriously I will have to doubt that he was ever committed to Spurs doing well in that competition.

There's not much more to say about the loss to Vitesse, honestly. Their home crowd was well up for it, they played a physical game, and our second string just wasn't up to the task. It's not like there aren't quality(ish) players in that lineup, but I think a lot of them are very low on confidence at the moment. It probably doesn't help that their limited game time is coming in these ECL matches, which are kind of difficult environments to be working out lineups/formations that don't have a lot of experience playing together. None of that is to excuse the paltry performance, of course. I don't think the defense was even that terrible, but we were completely toothless in attack, so a draw felt like the best outcome we could hope for, and we couldn't even achieve that.

At least Dilan Markanday got his senior team debut, a first for a British Asian player for Tottenham. He had the thankless task of trying to inject some energy into a lifeless attack as the sole substitute on the night, and he did his best but ultimately couldn't affect the result. I wish Dane Scarlett hadn't been prematurely forced out with a yellow card, because I think he and Markanday would have linked up well, but the ref clearly had it out for Scarlett.

All in all, the players who should have been trying to make an argument to work their way back into the "A-team" (Dele, Lo Celso, Tanganga, Winks, etc.) certainly didn't make a strong case for Nuno to reconsider them. I have a feeling we'll be seeing one or more of them moving away from the club in January at this rate.

Another London derby ahead

*sigh*

West Ham are definitely in some of the best form they've had in recent seasons, so they can't be taken lightly. They will also have the home advantage. Their only possible injury miss is Coufal, but we've got red-hot Declan Rice, crafty Michail Antonio, and new signing Kurt Zouma to keep us busy.

Since our preferred starting XI is fully rested, we can expect a strong performance from them right from kickoff (and maybe Ndombele will even last the whole game again!). If we know one thing about West Ham, it's that no lead is ever safe, so we can't let off the gas on the attack at any point. Skipp and PEH will have their hands full with Rice in the midfield, but the defense can be trusted to keep things shored up at the back, so just go for it. Please! Hopefully, now that Kane has his head on straight (seemingly), he'll be motivated to start catching up on the goals leaderboard.

This match is essentially a six-pointer, since we're in direct competition with West Ham for European qualification. And while I don't want to read too much into the ECL loss, two matches lost in a row could spell trouble for Nuno.

COYS