Substitute Surge

The comeback spirit is still alive and well at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. I'm sure all of the matchgoing fans would love to have an uncomplicated blowout win at home for once, but that wasn't to be against Luton Town when they struck first with an early goal.

Ange Postecoglou made shrewd use of his bench to wrest back the three points in the second half. Brennan Johnson continues to shine in a super sub role while more experienced players struggle to find form. But of course it was our dependable captain Son Heung-min who secured the win with yet another game-winning goal of many in his Spurs career, notching a special milestone as a result.

In this issue: Luton Town recap | Previewing West Ham

This will be a short and sweet issue with such a quick turnaround to the next match (tomorrow!), so read on for all the need-to-knows.

PL Matchday 29 recap | Tottenham 2 - 1 Luton Town

Kaboré (OG) 51', Son 86' | Chong 3'

As expected, Luton weren't willing to go down without a fight since they now have a realistic chance of avoiding relegation after all. They will have been disappointed to drop all three points despite scoring first, and even more dismayed that Nottingham Forest pipped them on goal difference after their drawn result on the weekend. But Spurs have plenty to fight for of our own and dug deep to claim the win. Our top four rival, Aston Villa, did not do us any favors with their result but it's still in our hands with one fewer game played.

It's also worth noting that we had some horrid luck in this game, twice narrowly missing out on scoring in circumstances that would have resulted in goals nine times out of ten on another day. The posts (both of them) and goal0line technology were not our friends.

Starting XI:

Ange appeared to have an eye on the Tuesday fixture with his team selection for this game, option to give Radu Drâguşin another start rather than risk Micky van de Ven's fitness. In fact, the entire starting lineup was unchanged from the Fulham loss. I'm sure the idea was to give a few of these players a chance to break out of their form funk, but there will surely need to be some rotation for the midweek game. More on that later.

Key highlights & takeaways:

• There are many culprits to blame for the 3rd-minute Luton goal, but I actually think Drâguşin has come under too much fire for this one. The biggest issue was the borderline hospital pass Dejan Kulusevski sent to Son in the attacking third. I don't know if it's even possible to describe a pass from that area as a hospital pass, but it certainly put Sonny in a pickle that he was unable to get out of despite his best efforts. After the ball was lost and progressed into our defending half, Yves Bissouma put in some of the most half-hearted defense I have ever seen. This is where Drâguşin came in, and I felt like he did his best in a bad situation to cut off shooting angles for two different Luton players. He couldn't prevent Ross Barkley from getting off his pass for the assist, but someone should have been marking Tahith Chong anyway.

As a further note on Drâguşin, I thought he grew in confidence as the game went on and it was refreshing to see him even start to get involved in the attack. We must also keep in mind that he prefers to play on the right side of the centerback partnership, so his performances so far should not be judged too harshly.

• Timo Werner had a chance that went just wide, and then there was the aforementioned shot from Son that ricocheted off both posts and resulted in two consecutive rebound attempts, both of which were blocked. This was when the curse vibes started to feel real.

• Johnson replaced Kulusevski at halftime and almost immediately changed the game. After a give-and-go with Pedro Porro he sent a dangerous cross into the box that Werner couldn't get a foot on, but Luton right-back Issa Kaboré did for an own goal.

• Son cut a frustrated figure at times, not least because of the double-post incident, but also when he had a shot saved at point-blank range by Thomas Kaminski. And it was Johnson's shot that was a mere millimeter away from fully crossing the Luton goal line to become the game-winning goal. But the two of them combined for the actual game-winner. Son made a massive full-pitch effort that had shades of his Puskás award goal against Burnley, but this time he got his teammates involved along the way. After carrying the ball from the edge of Spurs' 18-yard box to almost the halfway line, he sent it out to the left wing for Werner to cross into Luton's box. Johnson took a deft touch to parry the ball back into Son's path as he arrived to complete his box-to-box run. His shot did take a heavy deflection but was definitely on target to count as his goal.

• We had to hold on for thirteen more minutes, including lengthy stoppage time, but managed to keep the one-goal win margin intact. There could have even been a chance for a set piece goal right at the end of stoppage, but the referee wouldn't allow the free kick to be taken. We'll let it slide just this once since it didn't affect the outcome.

SAtP Player of the Match: Brennan Johnson

Johnson caused Luton's backline so many problems, whether he was sending in pinpoint crosses or getting on the end of a chance himself. He notched one legitimate assist and one assist in spirit (forcing the own goal).

Ange displayed a lot of faith in his ability to turn around the game by bringing him on at halftime. And indeed, it seems like he's quickly transcending the newcomer label to become a reliable contributor.

Notable and quotable:

• Speaking of Brennan, he's one of the top assisters in the squad this season as well as the league. And Spurs are doing a good job of spreading the goal contributions around this campaign compared to other PL clubs:

• You can always count on Sonny to score goals, and his latest has brought him into elite company. He's now the 5th-top scorer for Tottenham in all competitions with 160. Who's to say how long he will continue playing (although we can reasonably hope that he'll end his career at Spurs), but the 4th-place mark of 174 goals, set by Martin Chivers, seems attainable at least. There's even a chance he reaches 200 goals before hanging up his boots.

• In other milestone news, Giovani Lo Celso made his 100th appearance for the club.

It's hard to believe that the end of this season will mark five years for Gio at Spurs—albeit on loan at Villareal for a considerable chunk of that span—because he's suffered so many injury issues. It feels like we've hardly gotten to see him play. But he's made a significant impact in many of his appearances, including this game against Luton. Here's to a healthy end to the season and more of his creativity on the pitch.

• An interesting quote from Ange about his relatively muted celebrations compared to some other managers:

If I want the players to be clear-headed in that moment, it won't help if I am jumping around and screaming my head off. It's not me anyway. It doesn't mean I don't internally feel the anxiety and all those kind of things, but I've learnt that over the course of my career and in those moments, I still may be needed in those moments.
[On Saturday] we scored and made a substitution straight away and put Pierre on. If I am running down the touchline just thinking we've scored and won, I'm not helping the team, but that doesn't mean internally I'm not running.

• And a fun fact discovered by Coco: Andros Townsend (who hasn't played for Tottenham since 2016) has scored more penalties for Spurs than Son, five vs three.

Previewing PL Matchday 30 — West Ham United

All right, it's time for revenge! This West Ham squad has no business beating Spurs and yet they did in the reverse fixture, 1-2. They embarrassed us at our place, so it's only right that we give them a taste of their own medicine.

The Hammers' latest result was an goal-fest loss to Newcastle, who gave up an early lead only to steal all three points at the death. There's hasn't been much consistency at all for West Ham over the last month, although the one constant is that they scored at least one goal in each match across two competitions (they're still alive in the Europa League).

West Ham will have to play their second-choice keeper, Łukasz Fabiański, because Alphonse Areola picked up a groin injury in their last game, subbing out at halftime. Edson Álvarez will also be missing since he is suspended. For Spurs, the injury situation is exactly the same as the previous fixture, with Micky van de Ven likely to make his return from injury—whether that's from the start or off the bench remains to be seen.

Ange Postecoglou has some selection dilemmas to consider. As Son Heung-min played nearly 90 minutes, he may opt to start Richarlison at striker for the sake of rotation. Brennan Johnson made a strong case to start over Dejan Kulusevski, and none of the starting midfielders could reasonably be said to be in good form, so there could be a swap somewhere in there, with either Giovani Lo Celso or Pierre-Emile Højbjerg more likely to get the nod over Oliver Skipp (who hasn't played since February 3.

With a 12-point lead and a game in hand on West Ham, we can at least be pretty confident that our London rivals won't finish ahead of us this season, especially if we secure the win in this last matchup.

That's all for today! I'll be back later in the week to recap the West Ham match and look ahead to Nottingham Forest on the weekend.

COYS

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