If there was one thing that you could always rely upon with Spurs, it’s that we would more often than not collapse, as soon as we conceded a goal.
It appears that these days are well and truly gone, which is a good job when you consider that we concede at least one goal in every game we play. Far from signaling a defeat, it now seems that we need to go behind in order to motivate ourselves enough to stub out our fags and actually get playing.
Our weekly comebacks are all well and good, but we certainly left things late this week. It looked as if we weren’t going to beat a Liverpool side that were clearly there for the taking.
It says a lot of the decline of Liverpool (and our progress) that they are a side that we now actually expect to beat at home. They always pose a threat when they’ve got a striker as good as Torres within their team (even when he’s not at his best), but the rest were pretty ordinary.
We did our best to make hard work of beating them. In the course of the game we lost two players to what look like long term injuries, had two shots cleared off the line and missed another in a long line of penalties.
Did anyone actually expect Defoe to score when he picked up the ball? Fair play to him to have the guts to keep on trying, but he’s now missed seven of his last twelve penalties. Someone needs to have the bottle and the ability to take his place though.
Eventually little Luka got us back into it, after he cut through the Liverpool defence and forced Skrtel to turn the ball into the same net that he’d hit to put the visitors ahead in the first half. Modric has taken something of a back seat this season, as Van der Vaart and Bale have stolen the headlines, but he’s got just as much ability and influence as either of them.
Another player who has faded from the spotlight is Aaron Lennon and it was him that gave us our late winner. He’s slowly got better in recent weeks and hopefully this goal will restore some of his confidence. His goal was enough to encourage him to shoot in the dying seconds of the game, when a pass to Modric would have guaranteed a 3-1 victory.
We shouldn’t be greedy though. A 2-1 win is good enough for me, considering that it was 1-1 after 91 minutes. That’s three league wins on the bounce now and we’re once again clinging onto Manchester City’s coattails.
The downside of the game were the injuries. Van der Vaart looks to be out for a month, which means it’s back to 4-4-2 before we’ve even had the chance to trying to play the Dutchman alongside Defoe. Kaboul will also be a loss after his recent form, though Bassong was very good when he came on and Dawson will soon be back.
We’ve been missing key players all season and have still managed to grind out results more often than not. Can we win a fourth successive league game when we travel to Birmingham next week? Only if we go at least 1-0 down first. New Tottenham, new danger.
You should not have beaten Liverpool and, you all know it. Luck won it for you, you should have been well beaten by half time, with Torres and Maxi missing sitters. Nough said.
Luck? Nah, he doesn’t play for Spurs. Lennon won it for us.
@ YNWA, Defoe missed the biggest sitter.
Luck had nothing to do with the win. It was more about perseverance, character and individual ability. Spurs showed more of each of those three qualities than Liverpool.
That said, kudos to Liverpool for coming to WHL and playing attacking football. So many teams nowadays come here and play negatively, just looking to nick a winner on the counter or free kick. That, I guess, is the price of Tottenham’s success and increased reputation.
Crackin’ match tho’ wasn’t it?
actually the liverpool goal was caused by a handball touch which fell kindly to their striker……they missed chances ..we missed chances…..but when we took our chance when it mattered ……it was fully deserved..well done spurs for a great week…….
YNWA: Enough with the shoulda, coulda, woulda.
One team scored twice and the other scored once. One team has 6 more points than the other. One team is better than the other. Pretty simple, objective stuff.
Check your grammar. re Lennon, not “him that” -but “he who.”
You’ve gotta love Liverfool fans! They loose and it’s luck for the other team! I remember 2 seasons ago when they scored almost all their winners in the last minute..wonder if it was luck then as well?? If a striker fails to score because his feet get tangled or the defender takes it off him, it’s down to the strikers mistake and great defending! SB did a great job! Long have I heard the fools taunting us but looks like..but really, what are the fools gunning for this season? To qualify for Europa League again? haha…please! Give it a rest YNWA..you guys are on the decline and Roy aint gonna get you any higher than 6th!!
Luck??? I guess it was lucky that Defoe missed a pen, I guess it was lucky that Defoe missed a sitter in the first half (Which I have to say was a far easier chance than either of Torres or Maxi’s so called efforts), I guess we were lucky that VDV and Kaboul limped off injured, I guess we were lucky that no less than 9 first team squad members are injured….. and 16 points from losing positions in the EPL proves that Spurs are never well beaten by half time!!! Jog on!!
I’m a Scouser but I have to say well done to you.
What won the game wasn’t luck, it was bolder management. You’ll get 4th because Roy and Mancini are too negative to compete with you.
I’m not a fan of Redknapp (as a man) but he has the right idea with you and showed how to approach these encounters yesterday.
You surely can’t accuse Woy of being negative? He came here with 442 and they played a good game. Just that we were better…lol.
Bale used to take all Sours penalties, and rarely missed scoring.I know he missed the last one that he took,but I think he should be given more opportunities.I am sure his succeess rate will be better than Defoe’s has been.
Roy is negative, just like Rafa before him in fairness. To be fair to Hodge, he wasn’t as negative as he has been against you but if he wasn’t so negative we wouldn’t have retreated so much in the second half and he wouldn’t have brought Aurelio (who should have started over Konchesky) on for N’gog as opposed to Cole or Babel. We invited pressure and as I pointed out, while there are some people that have called Spurs lucky I believe that you make your own luck and sitting back isn’t the way to do that.