but get a clean sheet.
Spurs’ nil nil draw away to Watford was the last match on Match of the Day and it deserved to be.
A clean sheet. That’s all you can take from that game, for Spurs. Not conceding. And, well that came down to a saved penalty thanks to the penalty taker not doing his usual bang it down the middle.
The Jose honeymoon is well and truly past us. Apparently over the last six games only Bournemouth have picked up fewer points and they’re playing a striker who at the weekend registered his first shot on target since the first week of October.
Jose’s teams all had the big target man up front. The striker. Without Harry they look clueless very quickly. And after the initial period when they ran out of steam, being clueless isn’t a good look.
Yup, they started full blast, it was a good start, well the intention looked good. The only problem was that during that all action opening they never actually really tested Foster in the Watford goal. Now Foster usually has his standout game of the season against Spurs, in between his time wasting but he didn’t have to.
All the early possession was broken up by a Watford player running away from Winks at the centre-back pairing of Jan and Toby who just backed off. I don’t know if this is an instruction from Jose but it ain’t really working. Just crouching down and backing off and off and off. No actual challenges. No tackles.
The luck running out started with facing Watford right now. Pearson’s honeymoon is still ongoing, this may have been dire stuff but he’s got them playing. Tougher to face. The next bit of bad luck came when one of their players was flapping his arm about in the box and handled the ball. It’s a penalty, even if the MotD dolts don’t think so.
Jose did and he thought Capoue should have got a red card. Now the brains trust of Shearer and Wright said now, for Capoue’s knee high studs up challenge on Tanganga. If it wasn’t a red it was definitely a yellow, which with the yellow he received for going through Lo Celso would have seen a red. MotD conveniently missed that challenge out of their coverage.
Watford played the rope-a-dope and Spurs duly tired and from then on it was a clueless hit and hope game.
Watford’s moment came when Vertonghen slid in to block a shot which hit his outstretched arm. It was a penalty. Deeney usually bangs ’em straight down the middle of late. He hit it to his left this time and Gazzaniga went the right way. It was the perfect height for him to save.
Jose finally made some changes after that. Bringing on Eriksen did nothing. Gedson Fernandes then came on for lo Celso. Now we wanted to see the new, loan, signing but why Lo Celso? He’d been Spurs only creative outlet all game.
The only time Spurs really looked like scoring was in the dying minutes of added time. When there was a goal mouth scramble from Aurier’s cross and the ball was cleared off the line. MotD said it was 10mm but it didn’t look a centimetre, the amount the ball hadn’t crossed the line by for it to remain nil, nil.
Despite having 16 attempts, to Watford’s 15 – Spurs went goalless for the third straight league game, their first scoreless draw for 93 games. Their first clean sheet away from home since New Year’s Day last year.
It just so bleak, dire football, no ideas…