one.
Ange got real lucky in his first European excursion with the club, as they managed to overcome visitors Qarabag with a convincing scoreline, with 10 men for most of the game, that didn’t come from a convincing performance.
Lot of happy clappy fans last night an this morning, seemingly oblivious to the fact that if Qarabag had been able to hit a cow’s arse with a banjo then Spurs would have been on the end of an embarrassing stuffing.
A three nil win is a pretty good wallpaper.
It started with a changed XI. More understudies getting a run out in the “lesser” competitions – you know the ones Ange is gonna have to win to keep that boast up. Oh look it’s Ben Davies again. It took a turn for the worst 7 minutes in. Van de Ven’s back-pass to Dragusin, who in true Ange style was the only Spurs player in his own half. The Romanian miscontrols and has the ball taken off him, he then takes the decision to foul the Qarabag player. It’s a straight red, can’t argue. Unfortunately for Dragusin he didn’t have the benefit of seeing the visitors play for a bit longer and knowing the seemed incapable of finding the net, so he probably didn’t have to do anything drastic but a bit of shepherding wide would have sufficed.
Ange decided to shore up his… attack… by bringing on Udogie for Bergvall. Don’t know why he couldn’t have gone back three, with the players he had on the park. Was a shame for the youngster.
That’s a long time to be down to 10 men but it wasn’t long after that some pressure was relieved, pressure relieved by pressure. The press started with Solanke – his pressing stats were good – which caused a couple of panic passes that Sarr nipped in before Solanke picked it up and played in Johnson and his first time shot opened the scoring. Far post shot again. Bit of criticism, bit of confidence.
What followed was a masterclass in getting away with it. Spurs kept giving the ball away, giving it away easily, Qarabag kept spurning chances, as they ran through a defence that wasn’t there, even though Ange brought that defender on. A defence that wasn’t helping themselves with more Dragusin miscontrolled back-passes. At the end of the half Spurs had that one attempt, that brought the goal and another off target. While the visitors had had 13 shots in total, 5 on target. And missed some right sitters.
How Juninho missed that sitter right in front of goal in the 39th minute is beyond anyone. Ange was really getting away with his usual defensive tactic of leaving one back an hoping he has the pace to defend the whole Spurs’ half. There was one moment when it looked like Spurs could be heading into the break with nine men, Vicario having to come well out of his area to stop another easy break. Luckily he got away with it.
Half-time saw Johnson replaced by Kulusevski. No idea why, I mean if you want to catch ’em on the break you don’t replace the fast guy with the guy that slows it all up. The second half though didn’t see Spurs coughing the ball up so frequently. There was half the number of dispossessions, from 13 to 6.
But Qarabag were still missing sitters. While Spurs were finishing off their chances. Six minutes after the break and Kulusevski’s corner was missing everyone in white until it fell to Sarr at the back post and his shot doubled the lead.
It was a few minutes later before the next gift. This time running through the defence in the Spurs’ box, Bissouma was adjudged to have brought down the Qarabag player. It looked like originally but then on closer inspection it looks like the Qarabag player initiated the contact but the pen was given and VAR didn’t overturn it. Imagine getting away with it this well. A pen. A pen smacked off the bar. When your luck is in. Vicario didn’t have to save that one but he saved ones after.
Then just before the 70th minute, a Spurs attack, and Son’s shot is muffed a bit by the keeper and Solanke is in the right place at the right time for a change, for his second tap-in for the club. Not long after and the captain was making way, looking injured. But with Spurs three nil up and the likes of Moore and Lankshear on the bench, Ange decided that it was Werner that would come on. God only know why. Moore finally did make his way on, 5 minutes before the 90 was up.
By then Qarbag finally did have the ball in the back of the Spurs’ net. The scorer was offside.
I don’t know if Spurs have ever had so much luck in one game as they did in this their opener in the Europa League. Play like that against other sides and it won’t end as well. Yes, you can love exciting play but it doesn’t mean you have to give up defensively. Being sensible doesn’t require parking the bus. And think how much more exciting it would be if they didn’t cough the ball up so easily.