part II.
A Sonny brace and a goal on his debut by new boy Arnaut Danjuma, saw Spurs see off mid table Championship side, Preston North End, in the fourth round of the FA Cup.
In the Lancashire mizzle it was a lacklustre game, that saw both side fail for the most part when it came to the crunch, in the final third, bar a couple of bits of Sonny magic that inevitably led to talk of this being him back to his best after a season of struggles.
A much changed Conte side saw a backline of three that you thought any lower league side would have loved to have a go at but Preston, bar a couple of runs at Sanchez, captain on the day, didn’t really test their visitors. With their final ball being lacking. Poor crosses, poor choices.
But that could also have been said for Spurs. It always seem to be the wrong player seeing too much of the ball for those in, what ever colour of shirt that is.
It was too often Tanganga on the right, rather than Kulusevski. On the opposite side it was far too often Sessegnon, rather than, well anyone. What made it far more frustrating, was the repeated times that Sessegnon got himself in a really good position by getting to the byline and getting a cross in. A cross that just butchered any chance of scoring. It was basic stuff and he got it wrong time and time again.
Meanwhile in the middle, Bentancur and Bissouma seemed to be treating it like they could just cruise through the game and far too much was coming through a very packed middle of the park. Preston were defending and Spurs were struggling, not getting the width on the right and not using the width on the left.
It took until after the break for Spurs to open the scoring. Son had a shot in the first half that keeper had to double back on himself to retrieve. He had no chance, some five minutes into the second half.
Dropping deep, he picked the ball up well outside the box and with plenty of space afforded him, he lined up a curler inside the far post, with his left from about 25 yards out.
It took nearly another 20 minutes for them to kill the game off. It started with a good run from Perisic and as he received the ball he flicked it back to Son on the edge of the box. The Korean, now looking confident, turned back got the ball out from under his feet with a couple of touches, then banged it inside the near post. The keeper got finger tips to the ball, but it was hit far too hard for him to have a chance.
Two up with 20 minutes to go and it looked like Kane could stay on the bench and have a game day off.
I was waiting for Conte to bring Ben Davies on, the changes did come shortly after that second, but no Welshman. Skipp replaces Bentancur, this actually brought a bit more life to the middle of the park and Skipp was facing forward most of the time. Danjuma replaces Sessegnon, more on this later. While yet again Conte decided he needed another look at Emerson Royal. Spence didn’t make the bench.
Spurs had hijacked Everton’s move for the Dutch international Danjuma, taking him on loan from Villarreal, for their only piece of transfer business so far this window.
He’d already had one good opportunity through some nice play on the edge of the box, when with a few minutes to go, Bissouma went on a run, as he was fouled played it off to the scampering Gil, who played it on to Kulusevski, who crossed it to the penalty spot where the new boy on his debut, kinda scuffed his attempt into the back of the net.
He scored, he was in the right place. Though it did bring back memories of a previous January signing, who is Dutch and scored on his debut, Bergwijn – who I see has scored more goals in 17 league games for Ajax this season, than he did in his two and a half seasons at Spurs.
It’s the Cup, so all you need to do is get through to the next round, preferable without the need of a replay, resting some players also helps. So for Conte though it wasn’t the best of performances, it ticked all the boxes required.
As for Sonny, he looked happy, before he scored and after. Does it mean he’s back to where he was when winning the golden boot last season, well, we’ve been here before after that hat-trick against Leicester and that was a false dawn.