Richarlison's Dream, and a Scheduling Nightmare

Postponed matches on the Men's and Women's sides will create scheduling headaches down the line | Richarlison's brace earns a win in Spurs' first Champions League group stage match

Well. There's no getting around it, so let's just start with the recently departed elephant in the room. The Queen of England has died, and football has come to a standstill for... reasons?

If I sound a little flippant about it, I believe that's my right as an American. Here across the pond, we don't actually have to care about the monarchy and are in fact free to disdain it. I have seen a lot of calls for "respect" and "reflection" in light of the Queen's death, but I think a lot of British people are just expecting deference. You won't be getting it from this humble newsletter, I'm afraid, though I will acknowledge that many of you probably have a different opinion than I do, and that's fine.

Regardless of one's personal feelings about the monarchy and what is expected during this period of mourning (really though, a week? In this economy?), it's undeniable that the postponement of the weekend's football fixtures across both the Men's and Women's leagues, and likely at least some of next weekend's fixtures as well, is massively inconvenient in the grand scheme of the full season. On the Men's side, the schedule was already in a fixture crunch because of the upcoming World Cup in November. I genuinely feel bad for the people in charge who are going to have to rearrange these matches. On the Women's side, many of the opening weekend (let me repeat that for emphasis:  opening weekend) matches were to be played at the clubs' main stadiums, and those will now be difficult to reschedule thanks to, again, the Men's World Cup causing a fixture pile-up. Truly, what a mess. I tend to agree with Peter Crouch's idea that if the FA wanted to mark the occasion, remembrance displays at the games would have been a more useful gesture than postponing the matches.

From a Spurs perspective, you don't want to see a match against Manchester City shoe-horned somewhere else in the season when you've already prepared for such a high-pressure game, and the first Women's match of the season was supposed to be a lively affair at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium against another difficult opponent, Manchester United. I'm very disappointed that we won't get to see these two important matches this weekend after all.

But what's done is done, so we will have to wait for these fixtures to be fulfilled. It seems pointless to do a preview for these matches at the moment, so instead, I will preview the next Champions League matchup—which I am going to assume is still going ahead. But first, let's take a look back at the first group stage game, a win over Olympique de Marseille.

Tottenham 2 - 0 Marseille

Honestly, this was just a weird game. After a much-improved PL performance last weekend against Fulham, it seemed like we were back to playing in first gear and holding something back—which, admittedly, might very well have been Conte's strategy with Manchester City coming up (originally) this weekend.

Spurs didn't score until the second half as a result of the slow start, but the goals—and the source of the goals—made up for it. On his Champions League debut, Richarlision scored a brace of headers, assisted by Ivan Perišić and Pierre-Emile Højbjerg (who has really stepped up his passing game this season). Not only was it nice to see Richarlison finally get on the scoresheet after having a goal chalked off against Fulham, it was extremely touching to see him celebrate with his friends and family after the final whistle. Happy tears! I love him already.

The rest of the performances were of the solid but uninspiring variety for the most part. Kudos to Son Heung-min for drawing the red card foul from Marseille's Chancel Mbemba just after the second half began, which made the task much easier. Unfortunately, the ref got a bit card happy after that moment, so both Son and Eric Dier carry yellow cards going into the next match. It was also nice to see a rare substitute appearance from Japhet Tanganga, and Matt Doherty got a few more minutes under his belt during his slow return from injury. One of the other subs, Ben Davies, made a crucial diving block in the match's dying seconds to preserve the clean sheet.

There's not a whole lot else to say about this match, other than to note how disgracefully the visiting Marseille fans behaved. Hopefully, UEFA will respond swiftly and appropriately—but since it's UEFA we're talking about, I won't hold my breath.

Off to Portugal

Normally we would not be playing two Champions League group stage matches back to back, but here we are, not in normal times.

Sporting Clube de Portugal are currently top of the group on goal difference thanks to a 0-3 away win at beleaguered Eintracht Frankfurt. Their first goal was scored by former Spurs academy player Marcus Edwards, who also notched an assist for the second goal. I didn't get to see much of Sporting CP's first match besides the Edwards goal, but I took a look at the highlights. Although the scoreline was very lopsided in their favor, they also made quite a few defensive errors that would leave them vulnerable to a team with better finishers (say, Harry Kane for example). Trincão, the scorer of Sporting's second goal, is a player you might remember from his loan spell at Wolves, and another forward to keep an eye on.

Of course, Spurs will now have a rest advantage over Sporting since they play on the weekend and we do not. Rotation is therefore not as much of a concern, so I would expect to see Richarlision given another start to take advantage of his positive momentum. The point still stands that Emerson Royal is going to need a rest at some point, however, so I wouldn't be surprised if he starts on the bench for this match. It could be too soon for Doherty to get a start, so Perišić starting at right wingback and Ryan Sessegnon at left wingback could be an option.

Sporting look to be full of confidence, so I would like to see Spurs get off to a faster start this time and grab an early goal to set the tone. Securing an away win would be the perfect way to continue the strong start to our group stage campaign.

Elsewhere in the world of Spurs

Spurs Women legend and current Global Football Development coach, Jenna Schillaci, was a guest on the Upfront podcast for their WSL season preview. Give it a listen to hear which new Spurs Women signings she's most excited to watch and who she picked for a "dark horse" for the WSL standings.

On another WSL note, Keira Walsh has officially left Manchester City for Barcelona, so my prediction that Spurs can pip City to 4th place this season is looking more and more realistic...

The transfer window closed yesterday and as expected, Spurs Women are standing pat after a flurry of signings earlier in the summer.

That's it for today's issue. I hope y'all enjoy the weekend despite the lack of English football. I myself will still be watching plenty of soccer thanks to Bayern Munich and the San Diego Wave playing on Saturday, and then will be taking in a home match at my local club—for the first time in a month thanks to my travels for the Women's Cup! Silver linings.

COYS

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