and deliver that trophy.
Spurs will face Man U in Bilbao for the Europa League final, after they breezed past the Norwegians of Bodo/Glimt on their plastic pitch.
Ange will face one of the few Premier League teams, that haven’t been relegated, that he has a winning record against, in the league for Spurs – P4 W3 D1 L0 – one of the few he hasn’t actually lost to, Brentford must be the only other.
But it’s ironic who Spurs will meet in the final, because they could end up doing a Man U, by sticking by a coach who should be binned off, because he’s delivered a trophy. Will Spurs Ten Hag it.
The players look like they really want this cup. They’ve put performances in during the latter stages of this competition, we haven’t seen elsewhere from them, once it looked like they could get somewhere in it. Not those early games, where they got away with it and could have very easily have been seen off before the knockout stages.
Playing for the cup. Not the manager. Or we would have seen ’em put in the effort in other games.
They might have been helped by the Norwegians getting a bit Billy Big Bollocks. All mouth and no trousers. On their plastic pitch, in some miserable weather, they did a bit of a Spurs, had all the ball and did very little with it. Having fewer shots and fewer on target than Spurs managed.
Spurs becoming the first team to stop them scoring at home this year, only one other team has prevented them from getting two goals at home in this competition.
It took Spurs until just after the hour to really put the tie to bed, a long corner was headed back across goal by Romero for Solanke to stick out a boot. God they were talking him up before… his pressing is great… but now. For doing the basic thing of goal poaching. For once he was in the right spot.
It was now 4-1, with half an hour to go, surely even Ange’s Spurs couldn’t Spursy this.
Spurs best outlet all night was the two fullbacks, Udogie and Porro. They brought about the second a few minutes later. The former went on a charge down the left, the ball then was slowed down and made it’s way across to the right – Kulusevski who did next to nothing all night, with the assist – to Porro, who looked up to see who to cross it to but instead the ball flew onto the left hand post and into the Bodo net from his first time cross.
There was time for a consolation and that home goal from Bodo and it looked to have come three minutes into the three minutes of added time, when the ref pointed to the spot and awarded the home team a penalty. Porro looked aghast. But unlike the female co-commentator – who nobody seems to have a good word to say about with good cause – no you can’t take the player’s first reaction as a sign. You’re talking about players who shoot their arm up for a throw as soon as they themselves kick the ball out. But Porro was right, he got the ball, he didn’t get the player and luckily VAR agreed.
But every silver lining has a cloud and that cloud is Ange. Christ he was full of himself and it could well lead to us having to pit up with him for longer than necessary. He could join the ranks of other former managers who won trophies in Jockland. Like Alex McLeish who won a trophy with Birmingham, got them relegated. Brendan Rodgers, won a trophy with Leicester, got them relegated.
I mean, you take out those first 10, overrated games, and your left with a league record of P63 W23 D9 L31…