Falling at the First Hurdle

Well, that was a bummer, wasn't it?

As is my usual tendency, I'm not going to dwell too long on the particulars of a defeat (well, technically a draw that led to exiting the cup on penalties) but will rather look at the big picture and major talking points before previewing the Burnley game on the weekend.

Then I'll shift focus to some Spurs Women news—which is still scarce, but at least the club is providing match reports for the behind-closed-doors friendlies for once.

And finally... the transfer window. It was deadline day for the Men's team, but there's still plenty of time for the Women's team to make some moves. Whether they do or not is another matter.

Oh, and there's a new kit.

In this issue: Fulham recap | Burnley preview | Spurs Women pre-season update | Transfer Talk | Kit Room: 2023/24 Third kit review

League Cup Round 2 recap | Fulham 1 - 1 Tottenham, Fulham advanced 5-3 on penalties

Van de Ven (OG) 19' — Richarlison 56'

I have to say, it's frustrating how often we seem to experience déjà vu as Spurs fans. Another cup game, another underperformance.

Starting XI:

It's clear there was too much rotation from the Bournemouth game, but at the same time, I can understand why Ange Postecoglou made so many changes.

1) These "B team" players had performed fairly well in pre-season, particularly against Barcelona, and I thought this lineup was more than strong enough to get the job done if they played to their potential.

2) Cup games this early in the season are the only real opportunity for the manager to see the non-starting XI players in competitive action in order to influence his future decision-making—and indeed, this was the last opportunity to give them a chance to prove themselves before the end of the transfer window.

3) Rightly or wrongly, you can make an argument that prioritizing the league, where we have already built some momentum, was more important than prioritizing the less-prestigious domestic cup, and therefore it was appropriate to rest key players like James Maddison, Son Heung-min, and Cristian Romero. On the flip side, surely this cup exit kills some of that momentum from a morale standpoint anyway.

The problem is, I would wager that the majority of fans would prefer the club to prioritize the domestic cups—both of them—especially to avoid an embarrassing early exit like we just suffered. It's put a damper on the enthusiasm that was steadily building through Ange's first three games in charge.

Barring a miraculous title charge in Ange's first season of management, the cups were the best chance we had of winning a long-desired trophy. One of those two titles is now out of reach. Sure, we were a bit unlucky drawing a Premier League opponent in our first round (the second of the competition overall), but that was even more reason to take the tie seriously and field our best team—or close to it. Not doing so has predictably resulted in an early exit.

I still feel disappointed by the performances of some of the players who should have used their surprise starts to make a positive impression on Ange, but only ended up proving why they aren't regular starters.

The entire midfield was poor and had very little chemistry between them. The biggest issue with the defense, in conjunction with Fraser Forster in goal, is that we lacked the same effectiveness in playing out from the back as we've seen with Vicario and a backline of Udogie-Van de Ven-Romero-Porro, and that disparity impacted the way we approached the game. I will say though that despite his own goal, which was far from being his fault, Van de Ven was one of the few players who could hold his head high after this game—along with Richarlison, who finally scored his first goal of the season, a laserbeam of a header off an inch-perfect Perišić cross.

Too bad it was all for naught because we couldn't find a game-winner! The substitutes quickly upped the energy level and overall cohesion on the pitch, but it was too little too late and the game went to penalties (this is one of the rare times I would have gladly welcomed extra time). The less I say about Forster's performance in goal for the penalty shootout, the better. And you're not going to catch me digging out Davinson Sánchez for having his penalty saved because many a better player than Dav has missed a penalty. It happens in a shootout. Initially, I agreed with the opinion that he shouldn't have been taking the third penalty in the first place because other players should have stepped up, but if you look at who was left on the pitch for the shootout, he probably would have been in the first five regardless. Some of the alternatives included very young players (Scarlett, Sarr), fellow defenders (Davies, Royal), or a combination of those two categories (Van de Ven). The only player you could reasonably argue should have been taking a penalty before Sánchez who didn't was Pierre-Emile Højbjerg.

On a Dane Scarlett note, he made his first and only competitive appearance for the club this season. More on that later in the transfer section.

If we don't get back on track with a strong win in the league this weekend, it will make this cup exit sting even more. Speaking of the next game...

Previewing PL Matchday 4 — Burnley

The road trip continues. But look on the bright side: better to get the visit to Turf Moor out of the way before the weather turns dreadful.

This is obviously a different Burnely from what we've been used to in their previous stint in the Premier League. Vincent Kompany has them playing a more progressive style of football than his managerial predecessors. So far it hasn't paid any dividends for them back in the top division; they have zero points through their first two games (their match with Luton Town was postponed due to Kenilworth Road not being ready for PL action yet) and conceded three goals in each match, only scoring one against Aston Villa. They did get past Nottingham Forest to advance in the League Cup, though.

In Burnley's transfer business, they've signed quite a few players I can honestly say I've never heard of, but Sander Berge and Nathan Redmond should be familiar to most PL fans. They also signed promising young keeper James Trafford, who won the U21 Euros with England. He's started both of Burnley's PL games so far. On the notable outgoings front, Wout Weghorst has returned to the Bundesliga for the season on loan with Hoffenheim. Overall, there's been a lot of squad turnover since they were relegated from the PL at the end of the 2021/22 season, making them almost unrecognizable from the Burnley of old.

Still, our preferred starting XI should be more than capable of grabbing all three points. Ange noted that the only player who would be newly unavailable was Gio Lo Celso, who picked up a quad strain.

Since I haven't had a chance to catch any of Burnley's matches yet this season, that's all I've got!

Spurs Women pre-season update

Well, it's not much of an update since we still have yet to be provided with an actual stream for any of the pre-season friendlies. But at least it seems like detailed match reports are going to be a thing now. We even got live Twitter updates for the most recent friendly!

This second friendly of the pre-season (of the "official" ones we know about, anyway) was a 9-0 drubbing of the London Bees, a third-division side. So not the best competition necessarily, but the high scoreline should be a good confidence boost ahead of the games that count.

The sauciest goal of the bunch is one that y'all absolutely have to see:

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A post shared by CELIN BIZET (@celinbizet)

Celin doing flicks and Ash scoring golazos again? Sign me up!

Interestingly, Eveliina Summanen was captain for this match, while Molly Bartrip had been captain for the first friendly. So that decision still seems to be up in the air.

In other pre-season news, Beth England was back at Hotspur Way today and showed off her World Cup silver medal.

I'm really hoping that if there are more friendlies before the season begins (one month from today!) we are provided with a stream to watch, or at least that it's open to fans so some of y'all can go and report back!

Transfer talk: loans, loans, and more loans—plus one incoming

The women's team is up first, since there's only one move to note:

• Lenna Gunning-Williams is going on loan to Ipswich Town in the Premier League South for the season. The club's announcement included the important caveat that Lenna will still be training with Spurs several days a week because Ipswich Town is only semi-pro. Vicky Jepson will be keeping a close eye on her development in her new hybrid coaching role. It's important that Lenna gets consistent game time at this stage of her career, so let's wish her luck at Ipswich!

The Men's team, on the other hand, had a flurry of outgoing loans:

• Dane Scarlett is heading to the same club as Lenna on loan, although Ipswich Town are in the Championship on the Men's side of the club. This is a step up from his previous loan at League One side Portsmouth. Also announced alongside his loan move was news of his new contract with Spurs until 2027, so the club definitely has long-term plans for him. See you soon, Dane!

• Djed Spence (yes, he's still a Spurs player) is joining Leeds United on loan for the season. They will be looking to quickly regain Premier League status and are off to a decent start with five points from their first four games. Djed helped Nottingham Forest reach promotion through the playoffs while on loan with them in the 2021/22 season, so hopefully that experience will prove useful in his loan with Leeds.

• Japhet Tanganga is going on loan to Augsburg in the Bundesliga. While I want him to do well, of course, I also have quite an aversion to Augsburg because they are quite a bogey team for Bayern (as well as local rivals). There is a "conditional obligation to make the deal permanent next summer" in his loan contract, so we may very well have seen the last of Tanganga in a Spurs shirt during the pre-season. If so, best of luck to Japh in his future career. He's one of our own and certainly had some memorable moments (the Manchester City game on opening day under Nuno comes to mind).

• Sergio Reguilón was the final outgoing, heading on loan to Manchester United for the season. I don't really get this move from either club's perspective, to be honest. It seems almost like a panic move from United, as well as one of necessity from Spurs in failing to find a long-term solution for Regui's contract. We simply had too many players in the squad and he clearly wasn't in Ange's plans. It's kind of sad to see a player we were all so optimistic about when he first joined ending up in this position, but I think he was a victim of bad injury luck more than anything. If he does move on permanently after this loan, I have to say my most enduring memories of him will be the times José Mourinho rewarded him with various pigs. If you know, you know.

Now for the more exciting bit. An actual signing!

Brennan Johnson has signed from Nottingham Forest (where he has played his entire senior career, barring one loan stint at Lincoln City) on a six-year contract. The 22-year-old is also a Wales international with 20 senior caps so far.

While I think he struggled to adjust to the pace of the Premier League a little bit in his first season up in the top flight with Forest, there's no doubt that he's a talented, promising player. Hopefully a manager like Ange can get the best out of him—and he'll be playing alongside a much higher quality forward line overall than he was at his old club (this is no disrespect to Taiwo Awoniyi, who missed a lot of last season through injury and is clearly showing his exceptional talent now).

Speaking of managers though, Steve Cooper had some lovely words for his departing winger:

Everyone knows how great he is on the pitch, but what many people don’t see is the kind, humble and genuine young man he is off it.  He was always learning, always showed great humility and had a superb nature in the way he interacted with his teammates and staff. 

Sounds like just the kind of player we want in our squad. Good vibes only!

As mentioned just now, Johnson primarily played at winger for Forest, but can also play centrally and has a keen eye (or foot) for goal. Ange may choose to employ him as a striker at times.

I'm excited to see what he can do in a Spurs shirt, and he seems genuinely excited to be playing in the shirt as well.

Final reflections on the men's transfer window

The signings we did make were good, but we may regret not making a further centerback signing at the very least. We're one injury away from a debacle at the back. And while I do feel that we probably have enough attacking options to mitigate any further goal-scoring slumps from Richarlison, I feel slightly less confident about James Maddison's backup options at the 10 after Gio Lo Celso's lackluster cup performance. Of course, it doesn't help that we didn't have a (legitimate) sporting director during this entire transfer window. Once that role is filled—alongside the erstwhile Scott Munn finally beginning his tenure as Chief Football Officer)—we may see the club's strategy for this season finalized in the January window. Truthfully though, that new sporting director's biggest obstacle will be continuing the Herculean task of moving on our "loan army" next summer—as well as the players who didn't get loan moves this summer and aren't likely to feature for the side much if at all, like Hugo Lloris, Eric Dier, and Tanguy Ndombele. I don't envy them that thankless responsibility.

Kit room: 2023/24 Third kit review

Yet another rushed kit release, but whatever. This season's third kit made its debut in the ill-fated League Cup game against Fulham.

My grade: D

I'm sorry, I just don't like it! The color (which is up for serious debate) does nothing for me, the weird brush pattern on the trim looks sloppy, and there are those darn Nike neck spikes again. I feel like the design team really phoned this one in. And while I can understand the shift towards more subtle designs this season after last season's flashier kits, this one is definitely not giving enough to tempt me. The understated aspects of the Home and Away kids came across as classy, this just reads bland.

However! I adored the announcement video from Nike:

We stan a striker who can poke fun at himself!

That's as good a place as any to end this issue. See y'all on the other side of another Men's team match, hopefully another victory!

COYS

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