Spurs can’t, is that Spursy of them?
In their second attempt to throw away a lead against Anderlecht in the Europa League, Spurs just couldn’t do it, instead getting back on track with a 2-1 reversal of the first game score.
Not exactly an awe-inspiring game from Spurs, straight from the off they were sloppy with the ball, gifting it away with ease and relying on last gasp challenges to stop from going behind.
Don’t think Pochettino helped things with his positional choices, player selection was fine to a point – did prefer the commentator’s pronunciation of Trippier as Tripe-err, seemed more fitting – but Alli and Dier have formed a pretty damn decent central midfield pairing. Moving the former forward to bring back Mason didn’t really worked. Alli should probably have been left where he was and Mason dropped into that, well, Dembele slot now.
The lad Alli is a player but he didn’t have his best night and that shunt forward might not have helped.
So somewhat against the run of play Spurs took the lead and what a glorious goal it was. Glorious is sense of schadenfreude as moments earlier the visitor’s striker Okaka had been rolling around on the floor like a big tart when slightly brushed and he had to go off the pitch and watch as Spurs took the free-kick passed it around until it got to Mason he fed Eriksen who played a great ball into Kane who had peeled off brilliantly, let the ball run behind him and then banged it home.
Spurs then spent most of the rest of the game trying to make sure that a one goal wasn’t enough. As they dropped deeper and deeper it looked completely Spursy.
And so it turned out with just under 20 minutes to go as a cross into the box was left by everyone in a white shirt as they also left Ezekiel to run in and make contact to level the score. It was coming, we could all see it coming, what we all thought coming next was the winner, as it did in that first game.
Well a winner did come and no one really saw it coming. Mousa Dembele. Mousa Dembele with his right foot. Mousa Dembele for the third straight game. End of days people, end of days. Oh and what a goal, curled enough to hit the inside of the side netting with a power and accuracy that you just don’t associate with the Belgian in a Spurs shirt. No in this situation he’d normally pass it sideways to someone.
But this is the Dembele we want. Is this the Dembele that Pochettino has created for us?