The King of N17

It seems the tide is turning at Tottenham and the overall vibe amongst the fanbase is one of renewed optimism after a difficult winter so far. It's only right to start with the Men's team this week in light of Harry Kane's huge accomplishment.

In this issue:  Manchester City recap | Chelsea recap | Previewing the weekend matches | News roundup

Tottenham 1 - 0 Manchester City

I'll touch on some of the other performances and talking points from the match later, but we have to start with Harry's record-breaking goal.

Harry makes history

Not only did Harry's 15th-minute goal win the game for Spurs in a tough matchup with reigning title holders Manchester City, but it also earned him two milestones for his individual career:  his 200th Premier League goal, and his 267th goal in all competitions for Tottenham—a club record.

Ironically, the most skillful part of the goal was the assist from Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, whose effective press allowed him to win the ball off a sloppy pass out of the back from Rodri and lay off the ball with the outside of his boot into Harry's path. But it was classic Kane that he found the back of the net with no trouble; scoring goals is just what he does. Sometimes they're flashier than Sunday's goal, but they all count the same.

Harry is the quickest player to reach 200 goals in the PL, and is now just eight goals behind Wayne Rooney, so he could easily be the 2nd-highest PL goal-scorer by the end of the season, behind Alan Shearer's 260 goals. We can only hope he will stay at Tottenham and break that record with Spurs, too.

There's not much else I could say about Harry that hasn't already been said, so I'll end with hearty congratulations and a wish that he can overcome Haaland by the end of the season for Golden Boot honors!

A total team effort

Besides the motivation for Harry to break the record, there was also some added pressure going into the match. Cristian Stellini was once again on the touchline in place of Antonio Conte following the gaffer's gallbladder removal surgery. Hopefully Antonio enjoyed watching the team's valiant performance from his recovery bed in Italy!

Stellini opted for the same starting XI that beat Fulham, also by the margin of a Harry Kane goal to nil. New January signings Arnaut Danjuma and Pedro Porro were available on the bench, but neither would end up making an appearance. Pep Guardiola, meanwhile, continues to tinker with his squad and decided to leave Kevin De Bruyne on the bench. Not the choice I would make, but what do I know? Manchester City were also without the services of João Cancelo, who has gone on loan to my beloved Bayern Munich for the rest of the season (where he is already killing it with two assists in two appearances—again, some baffling decision-making going on by Pep and company!).  

City looked quite disconnected across their lineup, most notably in their inability to get Erling Haaland involved much in the game, whereas Spurs were a cohesive group from kickoff to final whistle. It was arguably the first true full-90 performance that the team has put in over the course of the season thus far and we took the game to City all over the pitch.

As shocking as it is to type this sentence, Emerson Royal was a big contributor to the winning effort. I think that as a fanbase we're well aware of his limitations, those being primarily of an attacking nature, but he can certainly get a job done in defense. He fought with Jack Grealish for every possession and pulled off some exemplary tackles along the way. Grealish looked completely frustrated by the end of the match. On the other side of the formation, Ivan Perišić wasn't quite as successful at containing Riyad Mahrez, but the ever-dependable Ben Davies picked up his slack. Mahrez did have the only truly threatening chance of the match for City though; his shot ricocheted off the crossbar.  

It's worth noting that Son Heung-min had perhaps his best individual performance of the season despite not getting onto the scoresheet with a goal or an assist. He's certainly looking back to his old self over the last few games, and we can only hope he will kick on from here, for real this time. I selfishly wish he could have been the player to assist Harry's record-breaking goal, mostly because their partnership has been such a fruitful source for Harry's goals in their time playing together at Spurs. At least they have been continuing to build upon their goal combinations record as a duo; I don't think it will be broken by another PL pair any time soon.  

The only negative moment from the game was Cristian Romero's second yellow sending-off in the 87th minute. As many fans and pundits alike have pointed out, both challenges were of the "make his presence known" variety rather than unintentional errors. If he was making a calculated decision to put the fear of god into Haaland, we can't be too upset, because it was definitely an effective strategy. I watched a lot of Haaland when he was playing for Dortmund in the Bundesliga, and I have rarely seen him as timid, frustrated, and lacking in confidence as he was against Spurs on Sunday. All that being said, Romero does need to realize that he already has a particular reputation amongst the English referees, and he can only employ this strategy sparingly lest he risk missing large chunks of the season through suspension. Risk is the keyword there. Fortunately, since it was a second yellow and not a straight red card, he'll only have to sit out the game against Leicester.

Funnily enough, Manchester City still have yet to score a Premier League goal in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. It's nice to be someone else's bogey team for once! Eric Dier also deserves a lot of credit alongside the other center-backs and the wingbacks for keeping the likes of Grealish, Haaland, and Julián Álvarez quiet. He struck the perfect balance between covering Spurs' defensive third and proactively avoiding City attacks by helping his teammates maintain possession in attack. While we did execute quite a few counterattacks, our offensive presence was far from one-note and also included some dangerous pressing and a few midfield battles. It's encouraging to see Spurs looking more nimble and flexible in tactics than we have for most of the season.

Overall I just got the sense that the team is feeling unified and focused post-transfer window, ready to do the best they can with the squad as it stands. I still have my misgivings about the "Conte system," but as long as he appears to have buy-in from the team and trust from the club, who am I not to support him? (And Stellini, of course.) The honest truth is that I genuinely think we could win the FA Cup this year, make a deep run in the Champions League, and get back into top 4 in the PL by the end of the season. It's just going to take some consistency from the players, which I believe they're capable of. Positive vibes only!

Tottenham 2 - 3 Chelsea

To keep the positive vibes going, let's turn our attention to Spurs Women's most recent match. Yes, it was a loss—the sixth in a row in WSL competition—but there was plenty of reason to be encouraged by the performance itself. Not only were we able to equalize after going down to an early Chelsea goal in the 8th minute, but we also received a spark off the bench to pull back another goal just before the full-time and prevent too much further damage to our goal difference. Holding the reigning title holders to a one-goal win is nothing to sneeze at, especially when the quality gap between our respective squads is so stark. Sometimes a loss can still be an indicator of progress.

There weren't any surprises in Spurs' starting lineup except for Ash Neville returning to a more attacking role than in the previous cup game against London City Lionesses. Mana Iwabuchi coming into the side last month has allowed Rehanne to be more flexible in where she employs Neville, based on our opponent. Clearly, she wanted Ash as extra attacking firepower on this occasion. That didn't stop her from still making an impact in the defense, however; she often had to track back to help out Kerys Harrop and Shelina Zadorsky. As far as the offense went, she got the hockey assist for Beth England's equalizer in the 16th minute (Beth did not celebrate scoring against her former team, understandably).  

Just to get back to the defense though, we conceded three different types of goals on Sunday:  
• one from a set piece (it was unclear who was intended to be marking Jess Carter)
• one from a Lauren James solo run cutting in from the right wing into the middle of the box (unpopular opinion:  I was not so much impressed by James' effort on this goal as I was disappointed in our own defense or lack thereof)
• one from a weird series of events wherein Celin Bizet (!) was the last player back on defense and got spun by Guro Reiten

It's been hard at times this season to zero in on just where the defense is breaking down (set pieces are obviously their own special brand of challenge), but there's a clear area of opportunity when it comes to not giving away possession in the midfield. For the most part, our players simply lack the pace to get back on defense quickly compared to the pacy forwards that play for the top teams in the league. Or, as in the case of Celin being caught in an unfortunate and unfamiliar position, they just lack experience with defensive duties. Better positioning could be a potential solution, but I would prefer the team to proactively focus on their passing game to prevent these situations from occurring in the first place—and to simultaneously improve our offensive build-up play, of course.

The final goal of the match was scored by Nikola Karczewska, who subbed in at the 78th minute and took just ten minutes to get on the scoresheet. In contrast to the first Spurs goal—which was a beautiful play starting with Neville pressing to win the ball off Kadeisha Buchanan and then laying it off to Drew Spence near the goal line to square the ball to England waiting in the box; see video highlight below—the second goal was far more opportunistic. True, Harrop has a knack for crossing the ball into dangerous areas, but after the initial cross, it took some luck to get the ball in the back of the net after a few fortunate flick-ons from Angharad James and Eveliina Summanen. But when we signed Karczewska in the summer we expected her to be a sort of "fox in the box" type striker who would take full advantage of the moments when she finds herself in the right place at the right time, and indeed she has for the most part.

Beyond the persistent effort to get back into the game from the attack, the defense also put in a determined (if not flawless) performance until the final whistle. Molly Bartrip made a crucial clearance at 2-3, and shortly after Tinni Korpela made a big save with her foot to give Spurs a chance of nicking a point in stoppage time. Alas, it was not to be, but I am encouraged by the fact that our conditioning/fitness appears to be getting better with every game, and—most importantly—so has our mentality to keep playing for the full 90 minutes.      

It helped that Rehanne had a few more quality options than usual to bring off the bench—and yes, I'm including Rosella Ayane in this category, because I have not given up hope on her being able to contribute this season, even if it's happening more regularly off the bench; it's not a bad thing that we've found an upgrade for her in the starting lineup with Iwabuchi. I've mentioned before that we really have no margin for error when it comes to further injuries in the first-team squad, so being able to rotate more often in the second half of the season is a big relief. Plus, we still have Kit Graham and Ria Percival to come back into the matchday squad (soon... please, be soon!). Would I have liked to see Asmita Ale make a substitute appearance? Yes. But I don't hate the fact that she is now going to be fully fresh for the matchup against Manchester United this weekend.

Spurs Men are up first this weekend with an away match at Leicester on Saturday.

Brendan Rodgers somehow still has his job, but Leicester haven't really improved their form much since the beginning of the season. Since returning from the World Cup break, they've had success in the FA Cup but have only one won PL match—their most recent game at Aston Villa. They currently sit 14th in the table, just three points above the relegation zone, albeit with the best goal differences in the bottom half of the standings.

Romero will of course be suspended for this match, but I trust Davinson Sánchez to come into the back-3 and perform well, especially after his successful game as captain in the FA Cup match at Preston North End. Leicester are dealing with injuries to several key defenders of their own, so I think we have the edge in that regard anyway. Remember how Son in particular tormented Wout Faes in the last matchup? He should probably start praying now.

It's also worth mentioning that their new center-back January signing, Harry Souttar, scored an own goal on his debut. But in fairness, one of their other new signings, Tetê (on loan from Shakhtar Donetsk), scored on his debut. I guess it balances out?

Other than Sánchez presumably replacing Romero in the starting XI, I wouldn't expect to see too much more rotation, except for perhaps Pedro Porro getting his first start. I think that probably depends on a) how quickly Conte gets back to the team this week and b) how confident he feels that Porro is an improvement over Emerson. I know that in theory, the answer is an obvious "of course he is," but we can't forget that Conte has very particular expectations for how he wants his players to execute his tactics, and if he doesn't think Porro has fully absorbed the automations from training yet, he might prefer to bring our new right wingback off the bench for his debut.  

I'm hoping we do get our first glimpse of Porro one way or another, and that we also get to see Danjuma make his PL debut after having featured in the FA Cup first.  

Then on Sunday, the Women's team has a marquee matchup at the main stadium with Manchester United. I hope some of y'all will be able to attend in my stead, because the team definitely needs the support against another talent-stacked opponent.

Perhaps the feeling is not mutual, but I see them as a bit of a rival since we both came up to the WSL the same season. It goes without saying that our trajectories have diverged since then, with United putting more investment into their squad during a short period of time (for more info on why it had to happen so recently, see the "Partnership and disbandment" section of their Wikipedia page). So while Spurs Women have a much longer history than Manchester United Women in their current form, they have already outpaced us results-wise. It helps that their squad boasts several players from England's national team, amongst other international stars.

This match was rescheduled from what should have been the first matchday of the season, if not for the Queen's demise. It's undoubtedly an advantage to Spurs that it's happening now instead of back in September, for several reasons. Even though we've suffered a couple more long-term injuries since then, we were able to strengthen the squad in the January window with two top-class players that instantly improved our form. On United's side, they brought in a couple of players (not at the caliber of England and Iwabuch, as far as I know) but also let several squad players leave permanently or on loan. There was also a shocking transfer rumor linking Alessia Russo to Arsenal for a record fee, which didn't come to pass but likely unsettled both Russo and the team as a whole. Additional transfer drama involved interest from several teams (allegedly including Tottenham) in luring away Adrianna Leon on loan, despite Leon having just joined United in the summer. (Side note:  I would have taken Leon at Spurs in a heartbeat.) All of this activity may have thrown the United team, previously so strong this season, off their game and been a contributing factor in their most recent result:  a scoreless draw at home to Everton.

But there's no getting around the fact that they are going to be extremely difficult to beat. A draw feels like a more realistic target. Hopefully, a large home crowd will give our team a boost.

The only lineup change I would like to see is Asmita Ale coming in for Kerys Harrop, simply because I think we are going to need more pace in defense.

And if Rachel Williams does end up playing and scores against us, I hope she adopts the same approach as Beth England and doesn't celebrate too much against her former team. I'm still not over her leaving, to be honest.  

News from around the Lane

Just a few quick news items this week.

Most excitingly, Jessica Naz has signed a new contract keeping her at Spurs Women until June, 2025. Although she has had some injury struggles recently, she's a promising young player that can provide an impact from the wing, whether starting or from the bench. Let's keep our fingers crossed that she can kick on soon this season after returning from the injury she picked up just before the winter break.

Drew Spence and Becky Spencer got to show off the new match kits and training gear for the Jamaica national team. I'm looking forward to watching them in the World Cup this summer!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by The WSL Collective (@wslcollective)

Finally, we learned that Spurs Men will be facing Sheffield United in the fifth round of the FA Cup after the Blades defeated Wrexham in their fourth-round replay.

That's all for this week!

COYS

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