Ange.
One cup down, Ange now has only two to go to save his job after his Spurs put in a beyond pathetic display in their League Cup semi-final second leg, which saw them squander a lead to crash to a 4-0 defeat on the night.
I said after the home leg 1-0 victory that Spurs again had hit a team on their blip. Liverpool had just put in a poor performance, which they followed up with another poor one against Spurs, and as I said, what were the chances that by the time the second leg came round nearly a month later they’d still be in the doldrums?
Well, they weren’t. In the seven games since that loss they’ve won five, drawn one – against title chasing Nuno led Forest – and lost a game which was meaningless in which they made a load of changes for.
One of those games they won was against Bournemouth. Now while the south coast side were missing a load of first team players, and had a bunch of kids on the bench. They gave Liverpool a game. While Ange is still moaning about missing players. Bournemouth could quite easily have gotten something out of their game with the league leaders. They had the ball. They had shots. They had shots on target. They had fight. They had spirit. They looked like they were coached.
Spurs who had none of that.
The Angesexuals ask what do you want, you demand that he be more pragmatic and this is what happens. Well, luv. What we want is is not one thing or the other. Not wanting everyone in the opposition half doesn’t mean we want every Spurs’ player camped out on the edge of their own box.
Spurs spent the vast majority of the game on the back foot and without the ball. When they did manage to get the ball they couldn’t hold onto it. Losing the ball as early as possible, deep inside their own half. Always a winning formula.
Things could have been different early on when Van Dijk elbowed Richarlison in the throat. Of course, being van Dijk and Liverpool, the ref and the VAR saw nothing wrong. One thing that did go well early on was Djed Spence versus Salah. The first time the Liverpool winger took on Spence the youngster just bided his time, watched the ball, guided him to the byline and didn’t let Salah cut in on his left. For the most part he had Salah covered. He was backed up by Son a lot of the time but was he really needed?
Though the opening goal came from that side. And came when the backup just wasn’t paying attention and up to it. For some reason Bentancur dropping off actually doing anything. Of course it all started with giving the ball away. Well, no it all started with Kulusevski needlessly passing the ball back to Bissouma, who then passed it behind Sarr to give it away. There was no need for the Swede to pass the ball but then he probably would have lost it at some point anyway. He did so, so often in the game. Never has the ball under control, always stuck under his feet, which results in his stupid forward stopping pirouette.
The only surprise was it took Liverpool so long to score. Half an hour, in which they’d had 70% of the ball and nine shots. It didn’t give Spurs any sort of kick up the arse.
It was also a surprise it took them until the 50th minute to get their second. Though it was no surprise that Spurs were worse after Ange’s half-time team-talk. By now Richarlison had departed with an injury. He’d done very little in the half. Replaced by new boy loanee from Munich, Mathys Tel. The other new boy Kevin Danso had started in the centre of defence.
The second came from giving the ball away, which led to Kinsky coming out and taken out Nunez. The Czech youngster had made a number of excellent saves but it was a pen. He had no chance with the spot-kick even if he’d gone the right way.
Ange made changes. Finally Bergvall on, also Porro, which meant a change in formation, with Gray moving from right back to left back and Spence shifting to the right wing. It didn’t make much difference. Though Spence was wanting to go forward. A telling moment was when new boy, youngster, Tel, who had been at the club since Monday was urging his team mates forward and getting little or no response.
The third came from one pass that bypassed pretty much the whole of Spurs for a player who was marked by no one on his run, and a simple ball forward and it was three. The fourth again came from an unmarked player, as van Dijk headed in from a corner.
Spurs didn’t have a shot on target.
Angeball… aren’t you entertained?
So he’s got the Cup on Sunday, can he survive losing to Villa. Well, he’s surviving this, which when you consider Levy sacked a manager who reached the final, before he got to manage in that final. Sacked for boring football. Because this was so entertaining.
Ange says mistakes were made.. yes… the biggest one being when Levy lowballed the offer for Arnie Slot and we ended up with Thick Dundee… Kangarooney… a fraud of a manager, who again was outmanaged by an actual football coach.