| Match report
I would very much like to tell
you about this unforgettable, forgettable night that saw Spurs
knocked out of the League Cup on penalties by Colchester United in
Essex. However, what should have been a home game for me,
living just 30 miles from the ground and a journey that should take
a maximum of an hour (and a minimum of half an hour), took three
times that long, resulting in me entering the ground just as the
teams had left the field for their half-time tea and cigarette.
It was the worst trek I have ever made to a Spurs game and the
biggest chunk of one I have missed since the time I got stuck on the
M1 going to Birmingham City and got there ten minutes before
half-time in 1983. At least I saw Steve Archibald's goal to
win the game that day.
There was to be no such luck
this time out and even though we took our seats in the front row of
the West Stand in with the Colchester fans and the penalties were
down our end too, the shock of the defeat washed over me, having
been scarred by the drive at an average of 10 miles an hour.
What I saw was a Spurs team have a lot of possession, but not make
much of it and fail to test the home keeper on many occasions.
Colchester threw their bodies in the way of shots, then brought on
an extra striker near the end to add to the chances they created,
but failed to garner a shot on target in the whole game. Is it
possible to win the trophy without scoring a goal ? Well,
beating Crystal Palace on penalties in the last round at least saw
the U's get two shot son target.
Pochettino rotated
drastically, with Troy Parrott and Japhet Tanganga given debuts,
giving performances in which they didn't disgrace themselves.
It was a solid enough team and should have had enough to beat a side
10th in League Two, but with the team arriving less than half an
hour before the match wasn't perhaps the ideal preparation for the
usually well-prepared Argentine. Having got there some time
after them, I will have to refer to other contemporary reports for
the first half report.
Spurs started sprightly,
with Kyle Walker-Peters getting a fair bit of room to operate down
the right wing. The right back shot over in the first move of
the game, had a cross blocked and then Tanganga's defensive header
to a long Colchester throw was the start of a breakaway that ended
with Dele having a long shot that bent wide of the mark. A
quarter of an hour of the game had gone before Dean Gerken was
worked in the Colchester goal. Captain for the night Eric Dier
spread the ball aiming for his mate Dele, but a header prevented the
ball getting that far, although it dropped for Parrott to drive a
shot at goal that the keeper needed to push wide. Lucas fired
a shot over the top, Dele hit Skipp's right wing pull-back wide of
the far post and Ben Davies struck a free-kick just over the bar
from the corner of the penalty area. You would have thought
that Moura's pace would be too much for the Colchester defence and
he set up Parrott for a shot that was the first of many blocked by a
defender. The Brazilian then hit a free-kick through the wall
and Gerken saved it and all this was in the first half an hour.
Tottenham's crossing wasn't
great all night, with them rarely finding a white shirt and the
League Two team were pretty used to dealing with balls into the box.
Too many were over-hit though and the same went for some of our
corners.
Anyway, having arrived in
enemy territory, the sides came out for the second 45 minutes.
Early on their defender Ryan Jackson got injured trying to tackle a
Spurs player and was replaced by Paris Cowan-Hall, who was a
Courtney Senior look-a-like and had a bit of pace about him.
Lucas was running away from defenders and again played the pass to
Parrot, whose shot was again blocked before he rose to meet Eric
Dier's cross, but put his header over the bar. There was a
shout for a penalty from the Spurs fans behind the goal we were
attacking as Dele went down as he chested the ball, but there didn't
seem a defender very close to him.
When Spurs looked like they
might get away, breaking up a United attack, Davies was
unceremoniously hauled down just on halfway by Cowan-Hall, who went
into the book, but saved his side facing a break that would have
seen them out-numbered. It almost led to a goal, as Spurs came
the closest all night to getting one in, with Walker-Peters making
progress down the right and his low effort bounced back from the
inside of the far post from a narrow angle. with the keeper beaten.
The ball was hacked out for a corner and from it, there was a
penalty area scramble, with the home defence getting in the way of
shots from Lucas and Wanyama (yes, he was playing).
Gerkan got an uncertain punch to a KWP cross, but it fell for a blue
shirt and his subsequent crosses were just too far in front of Dele
and then another deflected off a defender for a corner.
Pressure was building, with Colchester unable to get the ball out of
their half very often, but there was little sign of Tottenham
looking like scoring.
A free-kick for the U's
played into our box was headed out by Parrott and the ball was
played to Lucas to run with it and he got halfway into the
Colchester half before being crowded out. Pochettino made a
double substitution to try and win the game, with Son and Eriksen
coming on for the two debutants, but they made little impact.
Eriksen took a corner and beat the first man, but also managed to
beat everyone as the ball sailed over the penalty area for a
throw-in. Son did bamboozle with a couple of step-overs and
pinged a ball across the face of goal, which Walker-Peters put back
and Eriksen had an effort blocked, before the Dane found a Spurs
head from a corner and Wanyama put it over the bar.
Lamela replaced Skipp to
make it an almost first team regular side, but still they couldn't
manage to break through. Erik struck a low shot from just
outside the box but straight at the keeper, but then Colchester
countered and were blocked on the edge of the Spurs area a couple of
times before Cowan-Hall had a good shooting opportunity from 18
yards, but put it wide. Courtney Senior did the same after a
run at the Spurs defence and as 90 minutes ticked over, Lucas got on
the end of Son's deep cross, but it had little power and was easily
taken by Gerken to the roars of the home crowd.
With the final whistle, it
was interesting to be among the home fans who thought there was
going to be extra-time. Interesting as they had already had
penalties in the previous round ! Anyway, they came down to
the Colchester end to take the pens and Eriksen put his first one
low to the keeper's right but too close to him, allowing him to
save, having guessed the right way. Luke Norris rammed home
The U's' first spot-kick, followed by Dele, Nouble and Lamela all
scoring, before sub Jevani Brown thought he would be smart and
Panenka a penalty. Gazzaniga had dived right, but had time to
get up and punch the ball away as it still hung in the air.
Oh, how we laughed. That was until Lucas rattled the angle of
crossbar and post to the keeper's right after Son and Cowan-Hall
(just getting it past Paulo's trailing legs) had converted.
That left Tom Lapslie with the task of beating Gazzaniga to knock
Spurs out and that's what he did.
Everyone said that it was a
massive shock that Spurs were knocked out, but it was more shocking
in that the team were unable to turn the huge amount of possession
(72%) into more than four shots on target. Pochettino said
that he was taking this game seriously, but I think some players
might find themselves limited in their access to the first team
after this performance and Poch said that come January there will be
a lot of transfer action, as he seeks to get the team back in sync.
Full credit to Colchester,
who gave everything to stop Tottenham and kept going for the 90
minutes, keeping them at bay with some solid defending.
Their ambition was limited, but McGreal had done his homework to
stifle Spurs and not to play too open to allow Spurs to play the way
they wanted to. We knew from the first game of the season
against Aston Villa that teams were going to play against us this
way, so needed a set of plays to counter-act these tactics.
Villa ran out of gas. Colchester didn't.
This competition may have
been the bottom of Pochettino's wish-list for the season, but with
it allowing the squad to get some playing time and with other
Premier League teams knocked out and more top six teams playing each
other in the next round, it did offer a reasonable route to a
trophy. All the benefits of getting knocked out are the lesser
number of games we will have to play between now and Christmas and
the money we will save on League Cup matches. Good luck to
Colchester away at Crawley.
That could have been us !
Marco van Hip |
