believe it or not.
Ange is on his way to three cups after an uninspiring, coupon busting, extra time victory over part-time non-league Tamworth in the third round of the FA Cup, according to his fanbois.
He did that Werner thing again. Actually he did an even worse Werner thing. Not only did Ange start the German dolt, he played him up front, the central striker not out wide.
Bar that one inclusion, it was a pretty strong side, one that should have been well equipped to have seen off a team 96 places below them, currently 16th in the fifth tier of English football. It’s not like the old days, there was no ploughed field here to level things up.
But the Happy Clappies must have been entertained by Spurs faffing about, passing it sideways and backwards for the best part of 100 minutes before extra time. It was telling from the very start, Spurs had the kick-off, yet within seconds Tamworth were having a shot. What followed in the first half was Spurs having all the ball and doing so very little with it. If it wasn’t for Maddison’s four shots, they would have had fewer than Tamworth.
McCoist commentating was disappointed in Mikey Moore, starting on the left. Said he expected more of the youngster. Yes well, we all did but it’s hard to run through an opposition when every ball you receive is behind you and you’re permanently facing your own goal, or you won’t get a sniff of the ball. McCoist also sounded surprised at how bad Werner was. While Johnson wasn’t up to much on the right, one shocker of a cross could be blamed on a bit of a bobble just as he was about to hit it. But there just wasn’t enough.
Take Maddison out of that first half and there’d be nothing from Spurs.
It says something that Spurs’ best player came on with nearly 70 minutes on the clock. Bergvall. One player that looked forward, passed forward, ran forward, ran forward after passing the ball. The young Swede looked to be running the game from the moment he came on. Spurs picked up just before his arrival, Moore had finally got into the game, went on some dangerous dribbles in and around the Tamworth box. Of course this was the signal for Ange to take him off. Werner stayed on.
Also coming on with Bergvall was Solanke. Oh and what a difference he made. What difference? Exactly. Of all the people who played in the game he had the fewest touches of the lot bar one. A Tamworth sub that came on 15 minutes after Solanke.
Spurs were lucky that Tamworth’s best outlet, their left winger, seemed to injure himself when his foot hit the top of the ball and rolled over it. Shame for the lad because he was causing Porro all kinds of trouble and wasn’t the same after. Their number 9 was causing Dragusin all sorts of problems as well, though this seemed mostly down to the Romanian seemingly wanting to get into a fight with the Tamworth player. The striker knew he’d wound up Dragusin and was playing with him.
Gray again looked class, while the new boy between the sticks was again commanding in the box. Something needed with those long throws, excellently put into dangerous areas.
And so it was to extra time, which came very shortly after Tamworth had a very good chance of finishing it off, where Ange made more changes. Son, Kulusevski and Spence coming on for Werner, Maddison and Dragusin. The first and last there had to go off. Not too sure about Maddison.
It took ten minutes into the extra-time before Spurs finally got the lead. I was going to say put the ball into the net but they didn’t. It was an own goal. Over 100 minutes of football against a part-time, struggling, non-league outfit and you need them to open the scoring for you. And the Ange fans were talking this up. It was a dead scruffy affair and even Solanke looked embarrassed.
Two more goals followed. First from Kulusevski who up until that point had fitted in quite nicely, in being useless. Giving the ball away and running into cul-de-sacs. Took his goal well, from a lovely cross-field ball from Spence to Son. The third was Kulusevski and Spence linking up, with the fullback making a good run forward and playing a first time ball instead of the faffing about we’d seen previously. Before the ball fell to Johnson and he swept it home.
It was a really flattering scoreline. Tamworth were well in this game. Had their chances and defended well but once the first one went in heads dropped a little and legs got heavier.
This could have been a real embarrassment, in fact it was a real embarrassment but a surely Thick Dundee couldn’t have survived a loss here? Even the Angesexuals couldn’t have defended that. They somehow defended this.