Calling for Reinforcements

Spurs beat NŠ Mura 5-1 after bringing in the big guns to shore up the lead

A few fun facts I just learned about Tottenham's ECL opponent for group stage match #2, NŠ Mura:

∙ the club has only existed for nine years

∙ their stadium has a capacity of just 3,782 seats, closer to 5,500 with standing sections

∙ they are only the second Slovenian team to ever qualify for the group stage of a European competition

Fun! Facts!

The match itself started out pretty fun, although I had to play catch up on the action thanks to Paramount+ conking out right before kickoff.

Dele earned a penalty in the 4th minute and converted from the spot, but unfortunately, this would be his last meaningful contribution to the game. Gio Lo Celso, on the other hand, built upon his 8th minute goal (an excellent shot from a tough angle) and also contributed an assist, plus other moments of key build up play. Spurs dominated for the rest of the first half but couldn't find another goal to really kill off the game.

...so of course, Mura would score shortly after halftime. To be fair, it was a pretty great strike, but Dele could be seen lingering ineffectively nearby in the replay. That's becoming a troubling pattern in our recent goal concessions.

Not long after the clean sheet was broken, Nuno decided to bring on some senior players to ensure Spurs would end the match with a win. It's definitely not ideal to have the likes of Son, Kane, and Lucas getting minutes in a game they really should not have needed to play in, but it's understandable that Nuno didn't want to take any chances with his job possibly, maybe on the line, depending on which sources you believe. On the positive side, this experienced forward line quickly contributed three goals through a Kane hat trick, apparently his 13th hat trick for Tottenham in his career. The Son-and-Kane connection was back in full force, and so was the less-lauded but equally-important Lucas-to-Kane connection.

I just wish that Harry Kane goals still made me feel as happy as they used to. I suppose I'm still waiting for him to turn up in the PL, where we really need him to be scoring. Hopefully today's hat trick will have boosted his confidence, even if it was against the minnows from Slovenia.

A few more stray observations:

∙ Reguilón was looking much sharper today, and had quite a few opportunities to score.

∙ I have decided that my favorite thing about Oliver Skipp is that he always, always challenges for the ball. It would be nice to see that level of persistent effort from a few other players who shall remain nameless.

∙ Doherty continues to frustrate me. It's just hard to say what he actually contributes (besides playing the role of scapegoat--he's very good at that).

∙ Besides his assist for Gio's goal, I seriously could not tell you what Harry Winks was doing for 90 minutes. I guess that could be a good thing in the sense that he wasn't making any obvious errors, but definitely an anonymous performance from him on a day when he presumably should have been fighting hard to win a spot back in the PL starting XI (this isn't going to happen, obviously, but it should be his goal while he's still in the squad).

∙ As much as we would all like to see Bryan Gil starting more often, I do think we need to recognize that he's still young and building up his fitness. He looked a little gassed today and his passing wasn't as accurate as in previous matches. But for a player like him who's new to the team and developing, I'm willing to cut him way more slack than a player like Doherty who's been with the club for over a year now and still can't seem to connect 95% of his crosses.

∙ On a somewhat similar note, Dane Scarlett could stand to put on some muscle. He struggled to get into the game today (but also didn't have much service, so it's not all on him). These are the kind of games where you want these young players to be getting experience, though, which is why it's a shame that Nuno felt compelled to sub him out--and didn't bring any other youngsters on even after the win was clearly secured. In hindsight, Scarlett might have benefitted from a loan this season. It could take a couple of season's worth of loans to finally see some success (Troy Parrot is having quite a moment with MK Dons after underperforming at his previous loan clubs), but that would be preferable to inconsistent game time with the first team.

Up next:  Aston Villa at home

Aston Villa have been on a pretty decent run of form, including victories over Manchester United and Everton, along with forcing Chelsea into a penalty shootout in the League Cup (Chelsea won on penalties, though). Danny Ings has only scored a couple of goals for his new club so far, and Leon Bailey is also taking a while to warm up, but I really do think that Villa are going to be a decent team once all their new signings start to gel. We could very well be challenging them for those non-CL Europe qualification spots at the end of the season, so it's important that we get a good result on Sunday, especially with it being our home fixture. That's not to even mention that four PL losses in a row would be, well, soul-crushing.

On a positive note, we don't have many injury concerns going into this match, just Bergwijn and Sessegnon as game-time decisions. I would personally like to see the Romero-Rodon CB partnership given another runout, with Reguilón and Royal outside. Skipp has to start this match, or I really will become #NunoOut. I'd also like to see Lo Celso given a chance since he performed well in the ECL match, but with Højbjerg the third man in the midfield rather than Harry Winks. Lucas, Son, and Kane to round out the starting XI would be ideal (Lloris in goal goes without saying, right?) since they have the momentum, too. But an early sub appearance from Bryan Gil would be very welcome.

I honestly haven't had a chance to see too much of Aston Villa yet this season because of fixture scheduling and my Bundesliga commitments, so I'm afraid I don't have any insights into what kind of formation they've been playing or where the weakest links are. Fingers crossed that Nuno has done his homework and we don't have another tactical nightmare like we did against Arsenal.

Spurs Women bow out of the FA Cup

Speaking of Arsenal, their women's side is unfortunately the closest thing to Thanos-level inevitability that I've seen in world soccer this season (though my beloved Bayern Munich men's side has been ramping up to that level in recent weeks). Arsenal Women are just absolutely stacked with talent--even before they added Tobin Heath this summer. Mana Iwabuchi and Nikita Parris were especially troublesome in Wednesday's FA Cup quarter-final 5-1 result in Arsenal's favor. At least we will always have Rachel William's wonderful strike that gave us the early lead and a little bit of hope. Williams is having a bit of a renaissance this season!

Ironically, Spurs and Arsenal are tied on points at the top of the WSL table at the moment, but this matchup showed why Arsenal have such a strong goal difference advantage already. They score goals for fun (not so fun for their opponents). With both Manchester sides faltering and Chelsea looking more vulnerable after losing the Champions League final last season, Arsenal are the clear frontrunners for the title. But seeing as how Spurs have only been in the top flight for a few seasons now, we can be happy with our early success in the league this season and understand that we can't topple every giant. But since we're talking about the WSL, don't forget to vote for Rehanne Skinner for manager of the month, and Shelina Zadorsky for player of the month!

We have newly promoted Leicester up next on Sunday, right at the same time as the men's game unfortunately, so it's going to be a two screens kind of morning. Leicester have lost all three of their matches so far and have shipped nine goals, only scoring two, so this should be a great matchup for Spurs to a) maintain our perfect record with a fourth win in a row and b) work on increasing our goal rate. A decisive three goal margin would make me very happy.

COYS