Second Half Success

Spurs Men leave it late again in the CL but top the group | Previewing the weekend matches | Player of the Month awards

They really have got to stop doing this to us!

Marseille 1 - 2 Tottenham

We would rather forget the first half for more reasons than just the goal conceded and the lackluster performance; we also lost a key player to injury when Son Heung-min received a blow to the face midway through the half. At first, it seemed like it might just be a concussion protocol situation, but we now know that he has to undergo surgery after suffering four separate fractures to his eye socket. Since I am not a doctor I wouldn't even begin to guess what his recovery will look like, nor the timetable for his return, but some sources seem to think he could be back in time for the World Cup. I really hope so for his sake (and the people of South Korea!). A World Cup without Sonny leading South Korea is just not the same.

(I could go on a lengthy rant about how this World Cup already doesn't feel right for various reasons, including injuries to other notable players, but this issue would get very lengthy indeed if I did so.)

We will also want to see Son back in his Spurs shirt sooner rather than later, because we are now in quite a dire situation in terms of available forwards. We'll tackle that conundrum later in the Liverpool preview.

Spurs conceded a goal just before halftime that put Marseille in the lead, caught out by a quickly taken short corner kick. Throughout the match, our table position changed several times and at one point we even dropped down to third, aka the dreaded Europa League relegation spot. Unfortunately, I don't have the credit for this image, but kudos to whoever put it together, because it perfectly illustrates the absolute chaos that was the Group D table on the final matchday.

I should also mention at this point that when Yves Bissouma came on for Son after his injury, we switched from a 3-4-3 formation to a 3-5-2, with Lucas Moura as the second striker next to Harry Kane. In a word:  yikes. I thought Lucas was pretty poor throughout the match and doesn't look entirely fit enough to be playing full 90s right now, but with the injury crisis mounting we will probably continue to see him start unless Conte releases the reins on Bryan Gil.

At halftime, Conte's red card deputy for the touchline, Cristian Stellini, swapped Emerson Royal in for Ryan Sessegnon. The team looked refreshed after the break overall and began to put real pressure on Marseille. We were rewarded with a goal in the 54th minute from Clément Lenglet—his first for the club—thanks to an inch-perfect free kick assist from Ivan Perišić.

The rest of the second half saw Spurs continuing to push for a second goal, because a draw would only see us second in the group, and therefore at risk of a tougher draw in the round of 16. Stellini brought on a couple more reinforcements, Oliver Skipp for Rodrigo Bentancur (who picked up a knock which hopefully isn't serious) and then Bryan Gil for Lucas just before stoppage time. And in stoppage time we finally got the game-winner, courtesy of Pierre-Emile Højbjerg. He had gone down hurt not long before after an, ahem, professional foul on a Marseille player. I was surprised he was able to move as quickly as he did to get his shot off, but he did—and what a beautiful shot! Truly a cinematic ending to the match. And it felt fitting for him to get the goal since he had also missed a gilt-edged chance in the 81st minute. Kudos to Kane, too, for timing his pass to PEH perfectly.

While we've had a lot of exciting ends to matches this season with all the stoppage time winners (and I include last week's cruelly overturned goal against Sporting in that category), I do think it would be better for our collective blood pressure as a fanbase if the team would stop doing this to us. Get it done earlier from now on, please!

I'm glad we survived the Conte-less game, and hopefully now that he has had the experience of watching such a stressful game from the stands, he will take pity on all of us and get the team to take care of business in the first half more often.

We'll find out on Monday who Spurs will face in the first knockout round, but won't start that two-legged tie until February. So for now, we shift our focus to the last three games before the World Cup.

Building on progress

But first, the Women's team gets things started on Sunday with a home game against Everton. This is a crucial game in many ways, not least that it comes off the back of a record winning goal margin for Spurs in a WSL game. It's also a match against an opponent whom we are presumably going to be competing with all season long for the "best of the rest" spots in the WSL table.

(While I would like to think we're still in contention for my pre-season prediction of 4th, that would take a near-perfect remainder of the fixture schedule for Spurs coupled with some bad results for Manchester City. We might pull it off, but I kind of doubt City fumble the bag now that they seem to be in a groove.)

Just as we were pretty obviously outmatched quality-wise in the Arsenal and City games, we outmatched Brighton in last weekend's match. This game against Everton should be a much more even affair, though I am hoping we can carry the positive momentum from the Brighton match into this game and put some distance between us and the Toffees in the table.

After the decisive victory in the Merseyside derby in September, Everton have cooled down a bit in the goal-scoring department and also conceded three goals each to Chelsea and Manchester United. Two of their goals have come from own goals, too, including a memorable one from Leicester's keeper Kirstie Levell.

Jess Park is the big player to watch for Everton. She's on loan from Manchester City, where you may recall her terrorizing Tottenham's defense from the wing last season. They also have Swedish midfielder Hanna Bennison, who was an up-and-coming star in the Euros and has already scored once for Everton this season. I've also been impressed by Giovana Queiroz, who is on loan from (unfortunately) Arsenal.

A promising sign for Spurs is that our defense seems to be approaching fortress levels. Even in the City loss, it took their forwards showing their world-class quality to get past Spurs' defensive line (Bunny Shaw and Lauren Hemp, in case you forgot). And our defense should only get better once Kerys Harrop is re-integrated.

The key to this game is going to be building on our offensive progress from the Brighton game. It was encouraging to see lots of different combinations across the starting lineup and substitutes, as well as the variety of goals scored—two from set pieces, two from progressive passes, two from link-ups in the box, one from a cross, and one from pressing the opposition keeper. We want the team to be working with multiple ideas in attack and getting the whole squad involved in the offense.

It's also good to hear from Rehanne's pre-match press conference that there are no new injuries heading into the weekend, so we have plenty of options for a second-half boost. How quickly the injury crisis turned around! Still, I'll feel better when Kit Graham is finally back in the mix, and when we find out what is going on with Ramona Petzelberger.

As far as the starting lineup goes, I'd be happy to see the same XI from the Brighton match, with the eternal caveat that I really don't have much preference between Tinni Korpela or Becky Spencer for the goalkeeper. That being said, Jess Naz definitely made an argument for more minutes, if her fitness allows.

It's a doubleheader Spurs Sunday, with the Men's team playing less than an hour after the Women's match concludes.

Battle of the beleaguered

I mean, Spurs have definitely weathered the injury storm better than Liverpool have, but the point remains:  both teams are in less than optimal shape physically right now.

Normally this is where I'd say "this is a good time to be facing Liverpool, and at home, no less!" But the injury to Son has me feeling just that little bit less confident. It's not that Sonny had been contributing a ton of goals and assists so far this season (the Leicester game aside), but he tends to really turn it on against Liverpool. Plus, his absence reduces our flexibility in terms of formation and potential lineups.

Conte basically has two realistic options for this match:  play a 3-5-2 with either the increasingly-slow Lucas or the young-and-untested Bryan in the front-two with Kane, or play a 3-4-3 with Perišić taking up the left winger spot in place of Son. I can assure y'all as a Bayern fan that Perišić is perfectly capable of playing that position, even though we've mostly seen him at wingback for Spurs. Still, it's not ideal. His pace could be a big concern, and playing him in the forward line means that Ryan Sessegnon has to start at left wingback (unless Conte goes rogue and gives Ben Davies a rare spin in that role).

(I'm operating under the assumption that neither Richarlison nor Dejan Kulusevski will be back yet for this match, because as of this writing I haven't heard otherwise.)

I also think we're unlikely to see Cristian Romero back before the World Cup, so that means we're also extremely limited at center back options. I do think the Davies - Lenglet - Dier back three has worked fairly well in the couple of times we've seen it though, and despite the small sample size I probably prefer it to a Davies - Dier - Sánchez trio.

Liverpool are notably missing Diogo Jota and Luis Díaz from their forward line. Mo Salah and Darwin Nuñez have both had their own struggles with scoring in the league, although both scored in Liverpool's Champions League game against Napoli this week. Bobby Firmino has been picking up the slack and leads the team in goals, and we all know how much he loves to score against Spurs, so for god's sake, Tottenham defense—shut him down!

I think I'm at the point where I've given up on trying to predict the outcomes of any more games before the World Cup. Everyone is exhausted, everyone is distracted. It's not the ideal scenario for a top quality game of football. However, I do feel heartened by the never-say-die spirit the team has been displaying the last few weeks to secure some comeback wins and key results. We shall see how this one plays out, but I wouldn't dare to guess.

Player of the Month spotlight

They were both pretty easy picks this month, I have to be honest.

Men’s Player of the Month: Rodrigo Bentancur

Well, I'll admit Lolo is getting this month's award mostly for his performances in just the past week, but they were really significant in the context of the season as a whole.

First, he scored a crucial goal to get us back into the game against Sporting in the Champions League, and if not for the VAR nonsense at the end of the match, we'd have clinched top of the group that day. Still, the point we got from the 1-1 draw was very important.

Then, he scored the game-winning goal in the 2-3 away win over Bournemouth. The win in this match was much-needed, because we'd lost the previous two matches in the league and needed to get back on track.

Bentancur also contributed an assist in the 2-0 win over Everton earlier in the month, which was a lovely link-up with his fellow midfielder Højbjerg.

Overall, I've just been impressed with his relentless work rate and resilient attitude. While you get the sense that some players have been holding something back in the lead up to the World Cup (and I don't even blame them—they've been put in a terrible position by FIFA), you definitely can't say that of Bentancur, and I really admire him for that. He's giving everything for the badge day in and day out.

Women's Player of the Month:  Ashleigh Neville

I know, she won last month! But Ash has undeniably been the standout star of Spurs Women's season so far, and that continued in October.

Even in the Manchester City game where we suffered a heavy defeat and in the narrow 1-0 win against Liverpool that we won through an own goal, Ash still made an impact and has always been able to hold her head high at the final whistle.

She scored a goal in the 1-2 win over Reading in the Conti Cup earlier in the month, after which Eveliina Summanen quipped in her post-game interview, “Ash is on fire, just give the ball to her!” You can't argue with that, the way she's been playing.

But the Brighton game was where Ash really got to shine, showing off the variety of ways she can score (a volley and a header) as well as contributing two assists for Drew Spence's goals. She was so close to a hat trick!

And even as Ash continues her trajectory towards becoming one of Spurs' most important attackers, she is still putting in the hard work on defense. She leads the league in tackles (and her successor at LB/LWB, Asmita Ale, is just behind her in second place, so that's cool) and tackles won. She's tied for most blocks and tied in second place for most interceptions. So pretty much anywhere she is on the pitch, she's a threat to the opposition. You truly love to see it.

And the best part? Ash is committed to the club. She mentioned in an interview with The Athletic's Women's Football Podcast that she hopes to stay with Tottenham for the rest of her career. I think I can speak for every Spurs fan when I say that we would very much like that. Check out the club's transcript of her remarks for the full quotes about her future with Spurs.

It's a shame her stellar month wasn't rewarded with an England call-up, but she's been getting a lot of vocal support even from outside the Tottenham fanbase, so pressure in mounting on Sarina Wiegman to consider her. Hopefully she'll get some much-needed rest during this international break, continue her fine form in the next few months, and make her inclusion in the England squad undeniable for the next international cycle in February.

COYS

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