Limping out of the International Break

Some Spursy shenanigans are afoot

I will be the first person to say that I usually enjoy the international breaks, but this September edition is really testing my patience on multiple fronts. At least Germany is looking like vintage Germany again, even if the injury bug hit die Mannschaft a little bit, too. But after years of pretending the USMNT didn't exist... well, perhaps I should revert to that stance 😬

And Spurs... where to even begin!

We're going to be the walking wounded going into matchday 4 of the Premier League. Hopefully, most of the knocks picked up on international duty don't turn out to be anything long-term, but it's still a concern going into such a tough month of fixtures. It's also illuminating how shaky our squad depth is in several positions. One silver lining:  our one true senior striker escaped international duty unscathed (and scored an absolute rocket of a goal for England).

Then there's the Argentina fiasco. I don't know if we're ever going to get a clear picture of the factors that led to Lo Celso and Romero being allowed to leave the club for international duty, despite the PL's discouragement, but there's plenty of blame to go around with the whole situation. I get that they want to play for their country, especially coming off Argentina's Copa America win, but seriously--the impact on the club team was too much in this case. That's my opinion, anyway. I guess we are lucky that they weren't literally arrested in Brazil and were allowed to fly to Croatia for their quarantine loophole training camp, and might only miss two matches now (Crystal Palace on Saturday and Rennes on Thursday), but that's still two matches too many. It's especially frustrating on the part of Romero, who hasn't established himself in the Spurs side in any meaningful way yet.

Sánchez will also be missing those two matches thanks to his involvement in the Colombian national team, so that's two center-backs and a midfielder that we'll be missing. I suppose Tanganga will have to shift into center-back alongside Dier (unless Rodon is finally rejoining the squad), and we may see Emerson Royal thrown right into action at right-back, or else Doherty will get the start. Lo Celso had not been starting in the PL matches yet this season, but likely would have been a midfield option considered since Skipp picked up an injury playing for the England youth side. Y'all know what this means... an elusive Winks PL start?! It's either him, out-of-form Ndombele, or one of the kids. We should feel very relieved that it's Crystal Palace up next in the league and not Chelsea first, though who knows what the injury situation will look like in two weeks' time.

Looking ahead to that Crystal Palace away matchup, they don't appear to have as many injuries as Tottenham. Weirdly, they have not one but two players out with Achilles injuries, including Eberechi Eze. They have made a few transfers in since we last faced them last season, like Joachim Andersen, who gave us a fair amount of trouble playing for Fulham previously, and Conor Gallagher on yet another loan after playing with West Bromwich last season. Palace have also acquired striker Odsonne Édouard on a permanent transfer from Celtic, a player who I believe Spurs were also linked with this window (though who weren't we linked with?). He's likely to make his debut for Palace this weekend, so we can see if we missed out or dodged a bullet.

Crystal Palace have struggled to score goals so far this season, but I guess we technically have too, mostly down to unlucky finishing. Our defense, however, is looking much improved and I suspect that will be the critical factor on Saturday--if we can keep it up. It's a bummer to see the Dier/Sánchez CB partnership broken up when it was working so well. Another reason to be optimistic is that we've been closing out games better than last season, in terms of effort and tactics alike. Crystal Palace are definitely the kind of team that hopes to wear down their opponent and make a late bid for points, so keeping up the energy with some well-timed substitutions and continued pressing will be key. This is one of those matchups where we tended to park the bus after a 1-0 lead last season, but Nuno has not seemed inclined towards that strategy so far (thank god).

Fingers crossed that the international break didn't ruin our chances of staying top of the table for another week.

Spurs Women start the season strong

Apparently, 1-0 is the preferred scoreline for both of Tottenham's teams, because Spurs Women won their first WSL match with the same margin as all of the Men's league victories so far. We beat Birmingham City at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium without too much trouble from the visiting side. I was very pleased to see the Women's side, just like the Men, playing more on the front foot already this season. One of my favorite moments of the match was an attacking tackle from Ashleigh Neville--which unfortunately didn't result in a goal that time, but it was great to see that kind of ambitious effort when we already had the lead. Neville would have been my choice for Player of the Match. Our actual Player of the Match, goal-scorer Kit Graham, was a big bright spot, too, and we also saw some great attempts from Josie Green and from Angela Addison when she came on as a sub (including on that almost-assist from Neville). Jessica Naz is looking much improved from last season, and a few of the new squad members had good performances, like Jiali Tang and Chioma Ubogagu who both featured as substitutes. Speaking of subs, I was a little disappointed not to see Esther Morgan feature off the bench, since she played so well in the pre-season, but I'm sure Rehanne has her reasons--maybe saving her for next week's match!

Spurs Women's next outing will be a tough one, away at Manchester City on Sunday. City won their opening WSL match 4-0 away at Everton, but were just knocked out of the Champions League today by Real Madrid, so they will be looking for a bounce-back win against Spurs. It's going to hurt seeing Alanna Kennedy in Manchester City blue now. And although they lost a couple of American players over the summer, their squad is still pretty stacked. This will be a big test of Spurs' recent defensive improvement. Are y'all sensing a lot of parallels between our Men's and Women's teams this season, or is it just me?? Although the rebuild required for the Women's side is definitely more extensive, as evidenced by the nearly-half-the-team overhaul in the past transfer window. Once we have a few more matches under our belt we'll have a better idea of how that rebuild is going.

After matchday two there's an international break for the women, so we'll have a breather until Reading on the 26th and the FA Cup quarter-final against Arsenal (eep!) on the 29th.

COYS