followed a resignation letter of a game.
Ange’s second cup victory for Spurs, his first in the league cup, came in the last minutes and papered over the cracks that knocking on 90 minutes had the Aussie making all the wrong decisions against a mid table Championship side.
Well, after last year’s debacle of making wholesale changes in his first cup game in England, ended with defeat to Fulham, Ange was back at it. Eight changes from the weekend defeat. His first mistake, because most of that team needs to find some form, needs to actually play together. What better than against a team 14th in the Championship?
Eight was far too many. Some yes, but not that many. Dragusin for van de Ven, maybe Gray or Spence for Porro, Begvall for Kulusevski and Mickey Moore for one of the wide men but that was about it. Nobody needed to see Fraser Forster in goal, especially not a couple of minutes in when he’d nearly gifted the hosts with a goal.
What followed was another great example of Angeball as everyone was beyond entertained wit 45 minutes that didn’t see a single attempt at a shot by Spurs, never mind one on target. Coventry had four with 50% of them being on target. A half which saw, les than 20 minutes in, summer signing Odobert go off with what has been described as a “significant” injury. Again this was a chance for Moore to come off the bench, yes it’s not his normal wing but he is right-footed so would have been a like-for-like. Johnson came on instead. Of course he does need to sharpen up and in the end Ange got away with it.
Spurs yet again had knocking on“” three quarters of the ball and did nothing with it. As the front players didn’t link up at all, while the defence was all over the place. Ben Davies captain, is he about to see off yet another manager.
Half-time and everyone is calling for Werner to be removed. He’s been beyond awful. We’ve gone from Kane and Son up front to Solanke and Werner. Moore for Werner seemed the obvious choice. But no Ange goes with Spence for Udogie.
The second half didn’t start any better than the first had panned out. Yet again, a side Spurs were playing looked coached while Spurs looked like they’d never been told anything about how to play.
Just after the hour Solanke was pulled, another game, another failure. £65m. 62 minutes no shots. I don’t know what his pressing stats were though. Bergvall made was as well, with Son and Maddison coming on.
It was a minute later when Coventry, deservedly, took the lead. It could have come earlier, when Fraser Forster was doing things he shouldn’t do. A lump up the park saw the big lump charge out of his area to take out Dragusin, who’d brushed off the Coventry attacker. Christ alone knows what the keeper was up to. Luckily Davies blocked the shot with a sliding challenge in front of the open goal.
The Welshman had provided Spurs’ first attempt on target, from a corner on the hour. The opener came from a nice move by Coventry, with a cross from their left, into the forward, who was pretty free to knock it in. Far far too easy. But Ange is about attacking not defending. This was Coventry’s fifth attempt on goal, to Spurs one.
Werner went down injured, one piece of silver lining, but again Ange chose a favourite over giving a kid a chance. Kulusevski was on. Nothing much changed. With Coventry having good chances to kill the game off.
They didn’t, and in a Spursy way, they paid the price. Two minutes before the 90 was up, someone actually played the ball through the defence of Coventry and into the box. Kulusevski’s ball to Spence for the fullbacks first goal for the club. Ah Kulusevski the “game changer” so we were told by the fanbois. According to one stats people it was the one pass the Swede made that found a Spurs player in the quarter of an hour he was on the pitch. Another stats lot said he made a whole 2 accurate passes. Yeah, talk him up lads.
Three minutes later, into added time and Coventry’s fate was sealed. Bentancur won the ball in his own half, Johnson was wide open and screaming for it, the Uruguayan played the right ball, Johnson’s chip wasn’t the greatest but it was good enough to beat the keeper and score the winner.
It was a scoreline, a result, that will no doubt paper over a lot of cracks. A result that gives Ange a bit of breathing space but only for a few days, we’ll see how it goes against Brentford at the weekend. It’s funny, that Spurs tend to play their future manager not long before their current manager is binned off. Could Thomas Frank be that man?
Ange got it all wrong but he got away with it… this time…