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24  Serge AURIER
  4  Toby ALDERWEIRELD     
15  Eric DIER
33  Ben DAVIES     

  8  Harry WINKS
17  Moussa SISSOKO     

  7  Heung-Min SON  (23  Stephen BERGWIJN  78)
18  Giovani LO CELSO  (  5  Jan VERTONGHEN  90+2)
27  Lucas MOURA  (11  Erik LAMELA  82)

10  Harry KANE

Unused subs: 
22  Paulo GAZZANIGA
  6  Davinson SANCHEZ
77  Dennis CIRKIN
28  Tanguy NDOMBELE
29  Oliver SKIPP
30  Gedson FERNANDES
 

23  Seamus COLEMAN  (c)  (19  Djibril SIDIBE  77)
  5  Michael KEANE 
  2  Mason HOLGATE       (13  Yerry MINA  36)
12  Lucas DIGNE

26  Tom DAVIES  (27  Moise KEAN  77)
10  Gylfi SIGURDSSON  (20  BERNARD  67)
21  Andre GOMES     
17  Alex IWOBI  (42  Anthony GORDON  45)

  7  RICHARLISON
  9  Dominic CALVERT-LEWIN

Unused subs: 
22  Marten STEKELENBURG
  3  Leighton BAINES
32  Jarrad BRANTHWAITE
34  Beni BANINGIME

 

An unimpressive Spurs won this game against a weak and feeble Everton to maintain a glimmer of hope of European football for the forthcoming season.  It was another post-lockdown match in front of an empty stadium that lacked passion, pace and purpose, as so many Premier League games have since the Covid-19 pandemic brought a temporary halt to the football season.

Spurs were ably assisted by a Toffees team who failed to trouble Hugo Lloris with their three efforts on target and for Tottenham's part, they only managed two on goal.  Neither side looked like threatening the top six on this performance, but at least it was a clean sheet albeit against another side with a powder-puff attack, as West Ham's had been.

Bergwijn was dropped to the bench, much to the surprise of quite a few Spurs fans, but with a run of three games in six days, Mourinho may well have been thinking of the matches coming up thick and fast.  Winks was restored to the side in place of the Dutchman, with Lo Celso pushed into a more forward midfield position.  Toby Alderweireld took Davinson Sanchez's place in the back four alongside Eric Dier.

Sigurdsson handled needlessly when Moura tried to flick the ball on to Sissoko on the right wing in Tottenham's first attack, with the free-kick bringing a needless corner as Pickford palmed the ball off when it was wide of the goal. The corner didn’t produce anything and the game was being played out at a sedate pace. The Spurs games so far have been typified by the lack of tempo and several non-Spurs games have been the same. Whether this is down to lack of match fitness (although the players should be by now) or whether they need a crowd to generate the atmosphere to get the blood pumping, I don’t know, but these post-lockdown matches do seem to lack the intensity of pre-March games.

It took 20 minutes to get a shot at goal, when Moura struck a low shot wide from 20 yards, then Lloris had to come to the edge of his box to head a long ball away.

Spurs stepped up the pace a bit and passed well around the box. Son drove a shot that Keane blocked and Winks won the header 25 yards out. It dropped to Son again, who drove into the box, fed Kane and his effort was blocked. Luckily for Spurs, the ball ran to the right where Giovani Lo Celso was stationed near the penalty area and he took a touch, turned and his shot came off the body of Michael Keane past the helpless Pickford to give Spurs the lead. It was a little bit out of keeping with the game to this point, but showed what effect a change of pace can have.

Spurs broke up an Everton attack after the drinks break and hit on the break. Kane played a net through ball through the middle for Son, who played it left to Lo Celso. Hids touch was a little heavy but Holgate’s tackle was heavier and a potential leg breaker, but he only got a yellow card and Spurs a free-kick, which Dier struck just over the bar. Holgate came out of it the worst with a booking and then needing treatment.

Everton had a couple of corners, before Lloris took the second high above the other players in the box. Richarlison had screamed every time he got tackled, but Lo Celso and Son were getting some treatment from the blue shirts, with Andre Gomes leaving one on our Korean striker. Holgate was replaced by Yery Mina before the Spurs free-kick and Kane hit the wall, winning a corner, which brought another when Davies’ shot was deflected. The Everton sub was on the end of that one to clear the ball. Toby did the same twice – to a long throw and a cross – that gave the Toffees a corner that Calvert-Lewin back into the box from way beyond the far post, causing Hugo to scramble the ball away for another corner.

With a few minutes to go until half-time, Spurs again put together a few quick passes for Kane to release Moura on the right, but his cross was blocked by Digne. From the resulting corner, Pickford came for the ball, unchallenged, but let it go clean through both hands and he was fortunate to see the ball drop behind for another corner. Nothing happened for the last ten minutes of the half until the last few seconds of added time, when Moura managed to put an easy pass away from three Spurs players going forward and Everton got the ball to Richarlison 20 yards out and his shot across goal from the right narrowly missed Lloris’ right hand post.

As the Spurs players went off when the half-time whistle sounded, Lloris and Son had to be separated as the captain ran half the length of the pitch to shout at the Spurs number 7.  It appeared that Hugo was unhappy at Son not tracking back after the ball had gone to Everton, but he would have needed to be as quick as Usain Bolt to get near Richarlison.

Anyway, at the start of the second half, it appeared that they had sorted out their differences in the dressing room. Sissoko was showing a bit of fight too when he got a booking for a foul on Richarlison after three minutes. Everton seemed to have stepped up the speed of their game and substitute Anthony Gordon hit a shot straight at Hugo from 20 yards in the 50th minute. They were also pressing higher up the pitch, making it more difficult for Tottenham to play out from the back.

However, it was a longer pass that saw Mina misjudge the ball and allow Son a shot at goal, which Pickford got down to block. Just after the hour he had two more efforts on goal. The first played through by Lo Celso, he came inside on his right foot to bend a shot wide and then getting the ball and coming in on his left foot forcing Pickford down to a sharp save low down.

After the second half drinks break, Tottenham seemed to be dropping deeper to get men behind the ball, but this is not a tactic that works particularly well with a side who can’t often keep a clean sheet. Spurs then conceded two quick free-kicks on the edge of their box, but the wall blocked the second and Davies deflected Davies’ follow-up shot wide.

With frequent free-kicks, the game became stop-start. Substitutions didn’t help the flow of the match, but Davies fired a cleared free-kick a yard too high from outside the box with just over ten minutes to go. Yet another foul on Richarlison gave Everton a left wing free-kick and it was slightly behind Calvert-Lewin, who tried to back-heel it in from the 18-yard line, but it went straight at Lloris.

Spurs kept handing the visitors the opportunity to feed the ball into the box from dead ball situations, but the ball didn’t fall for them, as it had for us in the first half.

Gordon shot well over from a clearance at a corner and Moise Kean drove a low effort at Lloris, but it was tame. Into the fourth minute of added time, Sidibe volleyed a shot from 20 yards out after the ball popped up from the Spurs defence after Tottenham had spent about five minutes in the corner down at the Everton end of the pitch.

The win put us back above Sheffield United and a point behind Arsenal, with a trip to Bournemouth on Thursday. The nature of the performances has to be a worry, as even with home wins over West Ham and Everton, they have not been convincing and we are scraping through matches and while it might be enough to get some points at the moment, the visit to the Vitality Stadium will be a big test. The Cherries are desperately seeking points to get out of the relegation battle, so will be going at Spurs a lot more than Everton or West Ham did.

The way the game panned out was so tepid that, apart from the goal, VAR was not called upon and it will be a match that will be hard to remember in a couple of years and one that seemed to suffer from two out of form teams playing in the empty stadium.

Pete Stachio