Spurs Women Steamroll Watford
Plus, an update on the international break as the Men's team gets ready to resume league action.
If a team wins 11-0 and there's no stream available to watch, did the victory really happen?
Well, yes it did, disappointing as it was not to get to witness it. Spurs Women jumped to the top of their Conti Cup group table with an 11-0 domination of Championship side Watford. Although Watford are undoubtedly inferior opposition, we did do some rotation from the lineup that drew with Arsenal on the weekend, including a club debut for Academy prospect Isabella Lane. Usually, we're used to being on the wrong side of a blowout win, so this was a refreshing reversal of roles and another sign that Spurs Women are on the upswing. It would have been nice to see the match for those of us who can't pop over to the game in person (believe me, I would if I could), but at least we got to follow along breathlessly with the frequent goal updates on Twitter.
There ended up being seven separate goal-scorers on the night, with a hat trick each for Angela Addison and Rosella Ayane. Most excitingly, several players scored their first-ever goals for Spurs, including Asmita Ale, Esther Morgan, Cho So-hyun, Chioma Ubogagu, and Izzy Lane. Only special goals for this match!
The club did manage to put together a goal highlights video, albeit not with the best camera angle. It's great to see the players all looking confident and in sync. Here's hoping for another victory this weekend when we face West Ham away in the WSL (Cho's previous team, you may recall). This match overlaps just a bit with the beginning of Spurs Men's home match against Leeds, so it's going to be a two-screens kind of day.
Conte's crusade against condiments proves effective 😉
Maybe Conte really was onto something when he banned condiments like ketchup and mayo from the Tottenham training ground (along with some other "junk" food items). It was a very successful international break across the board for the Tottenham contingent. Ben Davies scored his first-ever Wales goal (!) and Rodon put in a defensive masterclass to help their team reach the World Cup qualifying playoff, Steven Bergwijn got a crucial goal and an assist to help the Netherlands qualify outright, and Harry Kane scored back-to-back hat tricks for England, who also qualified. Doherty's Ireland didn't make the playoff, but by all accounts he was playing well. France and Denmark have also qualified in the European division. Elsewhere in the world, Son's South Korea team is in a good position to qualify, and the same for our South American players' teams (Sánchez's Colombia less so).
The only negative from this latest international break was Cristian Romero's injury in the last Argentina game. He's reportedly going to be out until probably the Rennes match on December 9, and there are several games in between now and then. This could be an opportunity for the aforementioned Rodon to translate his strong form for Wales into some starting minutes for Tottenham.
But if that's the only injury picked up amongst the squad (and fingers crossed for no COVID positive cases), I think we can consider it a good international break.
Leeds up next in the PL
Leeds are not quite the threat they were last season. Perhaps the Bielsa magic is finally starting to fade, but more likely it's the rash of injuries they've had to deal with, including to key players like Patrick Bamford and Luke Ayling. Raphinha has been doing most of the heavy lifting for Leeds' attack with five goals, and Rodrigo contributing two so far this season.
Spurs will be without Skipp (no) thanks to his yellow card accumulation suspension, as well as Romero. I'm also seeing Højbjerg listed as a game-time decision for a knee issue, but I somehow missed that news before! We might have an interesting midfield lineup in store on Sunday...
I know we joke about all of our opponents' keepers having their best game of the season against us, but really, Meslier is one of the weakest keepers in the league. Our front line has to set out to punish him and start chipping away at our negative goal difference. Take a leaf from Spurs Women's book and be ruthless!
This is definitely a must-win in the grand scheme of the full season. And it would be nice to see Conte get his first PL win with Spurs after a disappointing draw last time out against Everton. We have ECL minnows NÅ Mura up next on Thursday (excellent Thanksgiving day entertainment for those of us in the states), so no need to rotate any more than the injury report necessitates on Sunday.
Member discussion