Staving Off Southampton

The thing I have found most interesting about the latest Spurs Men game (certainly more interesting than the second half) is the discourse around how the result should be perceived. It seems a lot of folks would expect you to either be totally down on the performance or totally jubilant and uncomplaining, no in-between.

It probably won't surprise y'all to learn that my perception falls much closer to the middle of that spectrum, though slightly more positive than negative. Brennan Johnson scoring a brace and Mathys Tel scoring his first Premier League goal? Hard not to smile at that turn of events, although the latter was tinged with its own controversy. But I still have some concerns heading into the Europa League quarter-final home leg.

In this issue: Southampton recap | Previewing Eintracht Frankfurt | News from around the Lane

Whether Ange Postecoglou and the squad are ready or not, the match against Eintracht Frankfurt is upon us.

Then I'll round up a few notable bits from the women's international break and the latest Academy news on both sides of the club.

PL matchday 31 recap | Tottenham 3 - 1 Southampton

Johnson 13' • 42', Tel (Pen) 90+6' | Fernandes 90

As alluded to above, it's okay to acknowledge the nuance in what was otherwise a straightforward Premier League win.

It was essential to get the three points for morale's sake, but it was also an opportunity for players to regain some confidence after a tough stretch of results. Brennan Johnson certainly did so, and Mathys Tel will be relieved to finally have his first Premier League goal—albeit through a penalty.

But simmering under the surface of the victory was the persistent mood of desperation around the club. That is, everyone involved is desperate to make a good account of themselves in the Europa League and hopefully find success in the last competition in which we can possibly win a trophy (that much-promised second-season trophy for Ange, of course). So it's inevitable and even understandable that the players took their collective foot off the gas in the second half and coasted to the final whistle, conceding a sloppy goal in the process. Our league position is already a lost cause so the win wasn't that valuable in the grand scheme of things, and the overall performance will be forgotten in the scoreline, but we'll see how easily the team can turn on the full force of "Angeball" in the next game—which very much does matter.

Starting XI:

There were only three changes from the team that lost to Chelsea, but a couple of likely starters for the Europa League game did get early substitutions for another type of rotation.

Brennan Johnson made his return to the starting lineup; he's been trading starts with Wilson Odobert for the right winger position. Then there were two swaps in the back line, with Pedro Porro coming in for Destiny Udogie (sending Djed Spence back to the left flank) and Ben Davies giving Micky van de Ven a rest.

Elsewhere, it looks like Postecoglou has settled on his preferred midfield trio of Rodrigo Bentancur, Lucas Bergvall, and James Maddison. That combination could change with the return of Dejan Kulusevski from injury (sadly not in time for the first leg against Frankfurt), and Pape Sarr has been angling for more game time whilst providing a useful impact option off the bench. The fact that Bergvall has seemingly supplanted Sarr in the pecking order speaks more to his own rapid development than any regression from Sarr.

Top three things:

1. Southampton are truly awful. But as the saying goes, you can only beat what's in front of you. In many ways, they were the ideal opponent to face before such a pivotal match.
2. Brennan's resilience. There are plenty of players in the squad who could reasonably be expected to lack confidence at the moment, but especially Brennan Johnson, who's been in and out of the squad. If that was weighing on his mind it certainly didn't show.
3. The penalty drama—or lack thereof. I never feel good about a situation where there's a question of who is going to take a penalty and always wonder why they don't sort out the order beforehand. But with the benefit of a few days to think about it, that's probably exactly what happened in the scenario at the end of this game. With Son Heung-min and Dominic Solanke both already off the pitch when the penalty was given, it probably did fall to Mathys Tel to be next in line as the designated striker at the time. Although I didn't love the optics of Tel claiming the spot kick when Johnson was on a hat trick, and I still wish he'd had the chance to earn that rare distinction, this was likely the process working as it should. Johnson didn't look thrilled about it either, but he handled it as professionally as he reasonably could.

SAtP Player of the Match: Brennan Johnson

For his goals and his leadership in a tricky moment, it has to be Brennan. His reliability often goes unremarked, but not today.

Notable & quotable:

• Southampton (now burdened with the unhappy distinction of clinching the earliest-ever relegation from the Premier League) are the third team we've done the league double over so far, along with Brentford and Manchester United. West Ham and Aston Villa are still possibilities!

• Djed Spence registered his second PL assist of the season.

• Son Heung-min made his 450th appearance for the club in all competitions. He is currently 7th in all-time appearances, having just passed Hugo Lloris' 447 matches and two behind Ted Ditchburn.

• Brennan Johnson scored his 50th goal in English football with his second goal of the game.

• He also became the 22nd player to score 10+ PL goals in a single season for Spurs—his shirt number, ironically! This is the first time he's scored double digits in a league campaign in the top flight.

• Johnson leads the team in total goals across all competitions. He has 20 total goal contributions as well.

• Mathys Tel's goal makes him the 175th Spurs player to score in the Premier League (h/t The View from the Lane)

• Lucas Bergvall was a narrow VAR offside decision away from beating him to that honor.

• The penalty that Tel converted was just the third penalty awarded to the team all season in the PL, and the second we actually scored (Son had one saved earlier in the campaign).

• Johnson on the penalty taker decision:

It's only normal for me to want to take the penalty. There's only a certain amount of talking to do before it gets quite messy. I've been in the situation before when I've had people wanting to take the ball off me and it kind of unsettles you a little bit.

I knew the game was pretty much done but still, I didn't want to unsettle anyone or start any disagreements. So, once the decision was made, I just had to get on with it.

• Ange Postecoglou on the split of game time between Johnson and Wilson Odobert:

...We had to use games where we needed those guys to play, because otherwise, if I just kept playing Brennan, we'd be at a point now where Wilson, Destiny, these guys, would have had no game time, and we may need them. So, it wasn't about just leaving Brennan out because he wasn't performing, part of the strategy was that we needed to give Wilson some game time.

• He also praised Johnson for his consistency in front of goal:

With Brennan, he’s always in the areas we need him to be. He’s probably one of the most disciplined players we have in terms of making sure he’s always in the right positions and that’s why he gets his goals. There have been times this season when his form has suffered because of the team more than anything else. I think if we play like we played in the first half, Brennan becomes a really important player for us as we’re a constant threat, breaking lines, making half-space runs, we were getting balls into the box in the areas we need to and every time we went forward we looked like scoring. If we do that then I think it’s not a matter of confidence for Brennan, it just gives you more opportunities as the one thing about him is that he will always be in those positions so it’s up to us to match his discipline in that.

Previewing Europa League Quarter-final Home Leg — Eintracht Frankfurt

My main wish for this game is that the team takes the opponent seriously and doesn't take a home-leg win for granted. Eintracht Frankfurt may not have quite the same caliber of squad as Spurs on paper, but they are no pushovers (currently in 3rd place in the Bundesliga, in fact) and have a famously fervent home support that helped propel them to a Europa League title in the 2021/22 season. The atmosphere at the Waldstadion is not going to be pleasant to deal with if we enter the away leg with an aggregate deficit. Let's do everything we can to avoid that setback.

Frankfurt did have a bit of squad rotation for their last fixture (a 2-0 loss at Werder Bremen), but not as much as I might have expected—though you could say the same of Spurs against Southampton. Mario Götze is an interesting player to watch since he hasn't been hugely prolific for them in the Buli, but has three goal contributions in six Europa League appearances so far. And he is, you know, a World Cup winner. On the opposite end of the experience spectrum, Hugo Ekitike is one of the most promising forwards in European football at the moment and largely the reason Frankfurt have managed to stay in the mix both domestically and in Europa post-transfer of Omar Marmoush to Manchester City. One player we will not see is their first-choice keeper, Kevin Trapp; he could be back for the second leg but is out for the first.

On another interesting note, Dino Toppmöller (whom you may recognize as one of Julian Nagelsmann's assistants from his time at Bayern Munich) is in his second season managing Frankfurt and on track for a higher table finish in the league than in his first season—plus automatic Champions League qualification, regardless of how this Europa League tie plays out. I'm not saying he should be on any potential post-Postecoglou hiring shortlists, I'm just saying he's one to keep an eye on for the future at least. He did learn from one of the best tactical minds, after all—the one we arguably should have tried harder to secure before he joined the DFB.

For Spurs, the injury situation is still in a good spot, with everyone making it out of the Southampton match without any issues. Hopefully, the breadth of the squad can be an asset now that most players have returned from injury (Dejan Kulusevski and Kevin Danso will likely be available in time for the away leg). As Postecoglou noted in his pre-match press conference:

No one starts and finishes the game with the same 11 players, so it’s about having a readiness for that. At the moment, we’ve got some really good options off the bench and the guys we need them to not just to come on and play their minutes, but to come on and really make an impact.

Even with a fairly fit squad and a recent win as a boost, it's going to come down to mentality in the end. How will the players handle the pressure of knowing this is the absolute last chance to win a trophy for the club this season? The dangling carrot of Champions League qualification is a further tension to either thrive off or crumble under. I wish I felt better about the energy flowing down to the players from the manager, but Postecoglou has been almost the opposite of calm and collected over the past week.

Fingers crossed, prayer candles lit, etc.

News from around the Lane

• Here's a rundown of some of the relevant international break action on the Women's side. Most notably, Lize Kop made her first start for the Netherlands since last summer.

• In very unwelcome news to those of us watching from across the pond in the wee hours of the morning, Spurs Women's match against Liverpool on April 27 now has an earlier kickoff time of 12 pm BST. But it is a positive change in the sense that it was previously scheduled to clash with Spurs Men's fixture (coincidentally, also against Liverpool away). So no double-screening, at least.

• Although the Women's Academy U21s lost the Capital Cup semi-final to National League senior side Dulwich Hamlet, the U16s are still alive in the Professional Game Academy Champions Trophy and heading to the final, which they've reached for the first time! The final is open to fans, so if you're local to the Worcester area get out and support the youngsters on Saturday as they take on Blackburn Rovers for the trophy.

• And from the Men's Academy, Jaden Williams and Reiss-Alexander Russell-Denny are both nominated for Premier League 2 Player of the Month for March.

The final push in the Europa League begins today. Now more than ever,

COYS

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