I Believe in Believe

Yes, this title is a reference to Ted Lasso (I haven't watched this week's episode yet, so no spoilers please!), but it's also a suitable rallying cry for Spurs Men at the moment. While the first match under Ryan Mason's interim management wasn't without its flaws, it represented so much of what we have missed since the golden days of Pochettino's tenure—pressing football and a dauntless mentality.

In this issue:  Manchester United recap | Previewing the weekend matches

Tottenham 2 - 2 Manchester United

There was reason for hope even before kickoff since Clément Lenglet was available to start, and with Ben Davies finally returning to the matchday squad on the bench. This allowed Ryan Mason to revert to the back-3 formation we'd played for most of the season and are clearly more comfortable in (for now), but which previous interim manager Cristian Stellini had eschewed in the last game in favor of a back-4 system—which was simply too risky with the available fullback options. With Hugo Lloris injured, Fraser Forster returned to goal. Up top, the front-3 turned into a 1-2 in possession, with Harry Kane dropping back into the playmaker role and Son Heung-min and Richarlison playing as dual strikers.

The first half was admittedly less impressive than the second. Although we had several chances to score, the finishing was lacking, and our persistent defensive issues resulted in a 0-2 deficit by halftime. On the first goal conceded, three Spurs players failed to step to an oncoming Jadon Sancho, perhaps doubting his ability to score from distance. Ivan Perišić's headed goal-line clearance prevented another quick concession. On the second United goal, Bruno Fernandes sent a long through ball to Marcus Rashford, and although he was behind Eric Dier to start, Dier did not put near enough pressure on him and he was left with ample space to shoot on Fraser Forster's goal.

Between those goals conceded in the 7th and 44th minutes, Spurs mostly held their own and you could see signs of a renewed intent to attack that was rarely present in a first half under Conte or Stellini. Normally if the team was down 0-2 at halftime I would not be feeling very hopeful about a comeback, but in this instance I genuinely felt like we could get back into the game with a little more luck on the finishing. There were definitely tweaks that could be made, such as Pedro Porro doing a better job of making late runs into the box to compensate for Sonny playing more narrowly than usual; several times a cross that bypassed Richarlison and Son could have been collected by Porro if he'd been keeping pace. Richarlison was not having the best game overall, so he was ripe for a substitution and did indeed make way fairly early in the 61st minute for Dejan Kulusevski to enter the game.

But before that sub occurred, Spurs had managed to get a goal back through the aforementioned Porro, conveniently arriving in the box to clean up a recycled cross in the 56th minute. It was a very clean strike on the volley and mostly made up for his defensive lapses in the first half. He's kind of the definition of a "he giveth and he taketh" type player—though I suppose Cristian Romero is as well, which makes them a dangerous pair to combine on the right flank. I'll admit that I'm not fully sold on Porro in terms of his what he offers in a footballing sense, but I do appreciate his generally positive attitude and resilient nature. And he's only 23 years old, so he's far from being at his peak just yet. Perhaps as the team's tactics evolve going into next season he will begin to find some consistency and hit his stride.

A little bit of luck came our way when Fernandes put a point-blank shot off the crossbar in the 58th minute and Forster was able to make a quick reaction save in the follow-up.

Speaking of players who should be in their peak, however, Dier continues to frustrate on both ends of the pitch. Considering how many set piece balls he gets on the end of, you'd expect him to have more than just the two goals so far this season. He missed an open header chance in the 69th minute that literally had Mason falling to the ground in despair. He wasn't alone...

In fairness, Son also missed a huge chance in the 66th minute after Kulusevski's dummy on a superb Kane pass gave Son an open look at goal, which he sent well wide of the net. But he was able to redeem himself by scoring the equalizer on quite a similar play in the 79th minute. I think it's important to note the personnel and positional changes that Mason had made leading up to this moment that contributed to the goal:  first, the swap of Kulusevski for Richarlison allowed Son to shift to his more preferred position on the left; second, both starting wingbacks were removed to bring on Ben Davies on the left and Arnaut Danjuma on the right, though the latter moved up into the forward line while Kulusevski dropped back to wingback. Both Davies and Kulusevski have been integral to the team's buildup play in the better moments of this season, and Danjuma provided new problems for United's defense to solve—leaving Son with even more space to work with. It was a tactical coup from Mason and a stark contrast to the cautious, too-little-too-late substitutions that we'd been used to seeing from the Italians.  

With this goal, his fourth in a row in Spurs' PL home matches, Sonny has now passed Jermain Defoe for overall Tottenham goals with 144. Quite impressive when you consider that Defoe was an out-and-out striker, while Son has made the majority of his appearances as a wide forward. While he's undoubtedly been below his (very high) standards this season, it's good to see Son finishing strong and finally finding some form.

Son would make way less than ten minutes later for Japhet Tanganga to bring a little more stability on the defensive side of things, with Tanganga filling in at right wingback while Kulusevski shifted back up to right winger and Danjuma swapped sides. I don't think it would be fully fair to say we sat back for the rest of the game, because there were still some attempts to get an attack going and find a winner. But I did feel confident that we would at least hold onto the draw. The only play from United that truly troubled us was a stoppage-time header attempt from Casemiro that went over the bar.

Realistically, this point does nothing to get us back into the Champions League qualification race. We would need a major slip-up from one of Manchester United or Newcastle and likely have to win out the rest of our games—which is unlikely considering our next fixture, which I'll get to in a minute. But in terms of morale, this was a much-needed boost for the team to finish the season strong and head into the summer with some optimism for next season. And while I know some fans would prefer to see the club not have to deal with European competition next season and focus purely on the PL and domestic cups, I would not turn my nose up at Europa League.

It also begs the question: could Ryan Mason really be a potential candidate for the official manager job? We all know the marks against him; besides this match and his previous interim stint of six games and one cup final, he doesn't have much experience leading a senior team, previously having been head of youth development for the Academy's U-17 to U-23s. He's also very young, just 31 years old—though that hasn't been an obstacle for another certain Spurs manager target. But he also has a few qualities in his favor; he's proven himself to be tactically flexible and committed to a progressive style of play that corresponds to the club's historical identity, and he has an undeniable personal connection to the club that not only endears himself to the players but to the fans as well. I'm just saying... don't be surprised if the club decides to go the "project manager" route after all and put their faith in the manager who's already at the club and ready to step up, by his own admission.

Pressure's on this weekend

Both Spurs teams have massive fixtures this weekend. Let's look at the Women's team first, as they play on Saturday—at a very reasonable kickoff time I might add, and available to stream on SpursPlay no less!

Put it this way:  if Spurs Women gain all three points against Brighton, we are all but safe from relegation. This is not a mathematical assurance just yet, but more of a hunch. The current last place team, Leicester, still have two top-4 opponents to play plus another relegation candidate (Brighton), so they will be fighting for their livelihood in the WSL until the final matchday. Reading have one fewer game left to play than Brighton, but their schedule is even tougher—including a direct matchup with ours truly. It wouldn't be impossible for us still to still go down after a win against Brighton, but it would be very unlikely on the current form of all involved.

I'm considering Spurs to be on an upturn of form, even if the only real evidence for that is our last result. But once again, I just have a hunch that something has changed in the squad's mentality since that crushing loss to Everton just before the international break. They came back from the pause in WSL action with a determination that has largely been missing this season.

I suspect all of the good news we've had on the injury front has been a contributing factor in that renewal of morale. Not only has captain Shelina Zadorsky returned to the squad after many weeks out, but Ria Percival is understood to be available for this upcoming fixture against Brighton. Kit Graham has been getting minutes on her own injury return, Jess Naz looks wily as ever since returning from an extended absence, and the dreaded injury to Beth England a few weeks back didn't end up being as serious as some Twitter discontents would have had us believe (they know who they are). And although Mana Iwabuchi missed the Aston Villa match with a knock picked up on international duty with Japan, she's going to be back for the weekend game. In other words, it's all coming up COYS on the injury recovery front.

There's also the surprise goal-scoring streak from Eveliina Summanen to give us some optimism for a reworked and revitalized attack. Put that one down for "things I didn't have on my WSL bingo card." But we'll take it! And I have to give credit to my N17 Women co-host, Abbie; she predicted this transformation in Summanen's game early on in the season.

In fairness, Brighton have been experiencing something of a resurgence of their own since Melissa Phillips joined as their new manager. While their defense is still leaky, they've looked much stronger on the attack in the three games Phillips has managed so far—including the FA Cup semi-final, in which Brighton nearly forced extra time, until former Spurs player Rachel Williams swooped in to rescue Manchester United at the death as she often has this season.

Elisabeth Terland is the player to watch out for on Brighton. The young Norwegian striker has three games in their last two fixtures.

We've generally played well in our fixtures at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, and I would expect another strong performance from the lilywhites. Hopefully the home crowd will be equally strong.

Then on Sunday, the Men's team faces Liverpool at Anfield. No, I'm not excited about that prospect either. But this is our hairshirt to bear every season.

If it goes according to the usual script, we'll arguably outplay Liverpool for most of the game and keep it close, only to concede an equalizer or game-winner to someone like Bobby Firmino in the last few minutes. (This is not a slight on Firmino, I have no beef with him—it just always seems to be him!)

But the usual script does not account for the Ryan Mason wildcard factor. And since we're in more of a "just finish the season the best we can" mode rather than work towards the concrete goal of top 4 (I mean, the team could still consider that the goal, but we as fans can be a little more honest about the situation), it will truly feel like a nothing-to-lose type of game. A free hit, if you will.

Much as I am dying for a Richarlison PL goal (non-offside version), Danjuma has earned a start. Plus, I just want to see more of him before his loan ends and we inevitably let him go despite his obvious upside. The only other swap I would make is to start Davies at wingback instead of Perišić, but that is of course with fitness/minutes management allowing. On that note, it's kind of seemed like Deki has been carrying and playing through an injury all season, so I am content for him to operate as a super-sub for the remaining games. PEH is also flagging late on in the season, but I'd prefer not to throw Pape Sarr into the deep end of this game unless totally necessary. Give him some significant minutes in the rest of the run-in though, for sure.

I really don't know what else to say about this fixture. I'm not the praying type, but I will certainly be pulling out every superstitious fan object on gameday to make myself feel better about it. Sonny mug, Tottenham flag, the door wreath my sister very generously made even though she herself is a Premier League casual... it's all needed. (I should take a picture of the wreath to share with y'all, she did a great job.) I might even wear a Spurs scarf for once when not attending a watch party.

If ever there was a time to say it:

COYS

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