The Narrowing Begins
Spurs Men's competitive season is already shrinking after an early League Cup exit. With the current injury situation, this may be a blessing in disguise, but it was still a disappointment to go out against a team we have continually struggled against in recent years.
In this issue: Newcastle recap | News from around the Lane
There's no time to dwell, however, with another difficult clash up next in the Premier League: a London derby against Chelsea. It's hard to think of a worse fixture to try to bounce back in, but nevertheless, we must try.
Spurs Women will also be in action this weekend after what felt like the longest international break of all time—to me, at least. We have a much less daunting fixture in Women's Super League play, taking on Liverpool, who still have yet to earn a point in the league.
Men's LC Round 4 | Newcastle 2 - 0 Tottenham
Schär 24', Woltemade 50'
Y'all, this was just a weird game. There were moments of legitimately quality buildup play, but also moments of complete buffoonery. There's no other way to describe it.
But because this was a game taking place at St. James' Park, of course we lost. Of course.
The stats certainly bear out that it wasn't a dominant performance by Newcastle; we created just as many big chances and even had more shots on target. They just had the finishing edge on this occasion.
Although some rotation of the lineup from the team that beat Everton on the weekend was to be expected, one player who would have been likely to play, Archie Gray, missed out due to a calf strain.
Antonín Kinský did get a rare start, but didn't do much to make an argument for more of them over usual starter Guglielmo Vicario (who wasn't in the matchday squad at all). Kinský's counterpart on the opposition, Aaron Ramsdale, made one very good save that prevented Spurs from getting back into the game. So it wasn't just the attack where Newcastle had the advantage on the day.
Thankfully, we saw some improvements in the midfield that can give a little encouragement for the future.
As for the rest of the season, now with one fewer opportunity to win a trophy, it will at least be beneficial to not have a few more midweek games as we would have if we'd progressed. We want to be able to compete on all fronts, but with the current injury crisis, it's simply not a realistic ask. The squad needs time to get healthy. Frustrating as it is, we have to acknowledge the reality that with so many injuries this early in the season, a strong League Cup campaign was never going to be on the cards—especially with such a difficult draw as Newcastle away in an early round. We can be content with the fact that we put in a decent (if inconsistent) effort against a strong team and didn't get knocked out by a lesser opponent, as we often have in seasons past with far less dire squad circumstances for context.
But even with that fixture relief, I wouldn't recommend looking too closely or too far ahead at the upcoming schedule, because it's not getting any easier any time soon, that's for sure.
Notable & quotable:
• Thomas Frank stated the obvious, which was that we were not as strong on set pieces (on either end of the pitch) as usual:
Football sometimes is margins and I think in a tight game it was margins. I think the first one, a set-piece, where we normally have been very good, always things we need to look at. It happens. The second one, we lost the ball, then we have to defend the box.
News from around the Lane
• Remember how I couldn't get the club website to load when I was writing the last issue? This note definitely would have been included in the Notable & Quotable section for the Everton recap: Spurs Men have now become the first Premier League side to win a game at every active ground. In fact, there have only been five grounds we've ever played at in the competition where we haven't secured at least one win, out of 62 total. Fun fact!
• Guglielmo Vicario has been nominated for the Premier League Save of the Month award for October.
• Although there were several adjustments to Spurs Men's fixtures around the festive period, it was confirmed that we won't play on Boxing Day. Bummer.
• The Men's Academy U21s were knocked out of the Vertu Trophy by Cheltenham Town after a draw and penalty shootout loss.
• Two of the Tottenham youngsters who had been selected to play for England in the upcoming U17s World Cup, Jun'ai Byfield and Tynan Thompson, had to withdraw due to injury. But they have been replaced by two more Spurs players, Malachi Hardy and Elijah Upson.
• After leaving the club over the summer, goalkeeper Alfie Whiteman has now announced his retirement from professional football. The Athletic has quite an illuminating interview with him about his decision to retire and now pursue photography and film direction.
Elias Burke
There was a weekend when I went home, and I started contemplating all my options. I had other things I’ve been building on the side and it was more exciting to me. To put it plainly, I saw happiness in these other avenues.
Up next:
November 1 | Spurs Men vs Chelsea
Team news — Cristian Romero, Destiny Udogie, and Wilson Odobert are all available for selection again; Dominic Solanke is confirmed to be out until at least after the international break; Kōta Takai is now understood to be coming back from a quad issue, not just the plantar fasciitis issue that was previously mentioned
Opposition note: Liam Delap is suspended due to a red card in Chelsea's League Cup win over Wolves
November 2 | Spurs Women vs Liverpool
Team news — not available at time of writing
I'm a bit annoyed that Spurs Women's comms team seems to be slow getting back from the international break and didn't have the team news ready for this Friday issue as I'm used to. Hopefully that doesn't mean we're about to be hit with some unfortunate post-break updates.
It's good to have both senior teams back in league play this weekend for some normalcy. Well... maybe not quite, since the Men's Chelsea fixture is never normal. Let's knock on wood that this time it finally settles down to something resembling a regular football match rather than the usual tragic comedy.
COYS
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