The Light Network got the neutral pleasing barnstormer that they’d hoped for, but Tottenham were left disappointed. Having now gone three games without a win, I think we’d all settle for a dull 1-0, George Graham special.
Our line up suggested that we were going for an early knockout blow. We haven’t seen a Jenas/Modric central midfield partnership since they proved to be a spectacularly frail pairing, against Middlesbrough on the opening day of last season. Our aim was clearly to score plenty of goals and put the game out of sight.
The issue of our lack of pace was addressed with Hutton coming in for Corluka and Rose getting a start. Hutton got forward a lot, though his delivery was never as threatening as Bale’s on the left. Rose is fast, but struggled to get past his full back and get in a cross. He certainly looks like a player that deserves a few more chances though.
In the opening minutes we certainly had the chances to deliver the intended knockout, but again our finishing was poor. You see that area of the goal, just below where the post meets the crossbar? It’s called the top corner. Aim it there rather than within a yard of their goalkeeper.
The best chance of course was the penalty, which we all assumed would be the first of many, until we saw Jermain Defoe stepping up to take it. Is it not perfectly obvious by now that Defoe cannot take spot kicks? It’s not like we don’t have alternatives. Modric and Kranjcar would surely be capable, while if the Hudd was available, the keeper would also find himself in the back of the net if he had the misfortune to get in the way of the ball.
We should have had another penalty when Defoe was felled in the box, but Alan Wiley decided that he would save our striker from the embarrassment of missing another one.
Defoe’s partner Peter Crouch was causing the Leeds defence problems, chiefly because we finally stumbled across a referee who was willing to give us a free kick when he’s fouled. Eventually Crouch gave us the lead when Bale got to the byline and intelligently pulled back the ball for Kranjcar to shoot and the big man got on the end of the rebound.
Having shown Manchester United no respect in the first match, Leeds were strangely intimidated on Saturday, allowing us far too much time on the ball as they dropped back deep. Slowly, though they grew in confidence, as they realised that our midfield contained little in the way of resistance. Before long a one-sided match had escalated into an end-to-end thriller, but Spurs still went in at the break at 1-0.
Leeds got their first equaliser early in the second half, after some poor defending from a corner, particularly from Jenas whose attempted clearance fell to Beckford to stab home. For the third successive game, things were not going to plan.
On came Palacios, Keane and Pavlyuchenko and it was our rarely sighted Russian who quickly changed the game. Stepping over a pass from Palacios, Pavlyuchenko took Defoe’s ball in his stride before calmly placing a shot into the bottom corner.
The game should have been all over at 3-1 when Keane’s headed goal was incorrectly ruled to be offside. Even at 2-1 though, you would back the experience of a Premier League side to shut out a League One outfit for twenty minutes.
This is Tottenham however and we pride ourselves on doing things differently. Instead of dribbling into the corner and generally wasting time like every other side does, we were pratting about trying to get another goal. This folly was punished when Leeds won a penalty, in the last of an excessive five minutes of injury time.
Dawson’s tackle was unnecessary and rash, completing a poor night for our central defenders. The penalty by Beckford was struck with roughly 100% more conviction that Defoe’s earlier effort and Leeds had earned themselves a replay.
On the subject of Beckford, he looked like a player who could ply his trade in the Premier League. As Redknapp said himself after the game, you couldn’t go wrong with him on a free transfer. Fancy a punt Harry?
So it was another disappointing result, but having watched the Goons lose to Stoke, I did start to feel a bit better about things and grateful to still be in the draw.
You have to back us to win away at a League One side, even if the match will be played amidst a raucous atmosphere at Elland Road. I don’t expect though, that we’ll be quite so cocksure as to be pairing Jenas and Modric again.
Good read and balanced review. Hope the replay is as entertaining and won’t be gutted if Spurs win. I just want promotion and the Cup games are hurting us. Not financially but in something more valuable right now – points.
Ed (Leeds supporter)
ps Luv ‘Arry
Jenas was absolutely shocking. A disgrace to the shirt. That boy couldn’t pass a parcel let alone a football. Apart from the goal crouch was shocking too. His flick-ons and distribution was just plain awful. Super pav deserves a run in the team. I can’t believe harry can’t see this.
Good review, much more balanced review than I seen on another site were it was claimed Daws had an exceptional performance. yeh right,
Good review, with a couple of exceptions. Keane’s goal was correctly ruled out for offside as the player who crossed it was proven to be in an offside position when the ball was passed to him. Perfectly clear on TV. You should have had a second pen though (foul on Defoe). Don’t be too hard on Jenas. It was not his clearance that led to the first goal for Leeds – it was actually Lee Bromby who beat him too it and flicked it into the 6 yard box for Beckford to score. I agree though that he was still rubbish!
You should still win at Leeds and frankly we are more concerned with League 1 so you might be doing us a favour. Don’t expect an easy game though – ask Liverpool who were very lucky to win 1-0 earlier this season, and only then after our pefectly good goal was chalked off (wrongly) for offside. Both of us are well capable of beating Bolton, so a real incentive there. Leeds have played Blackburn, Burnley, Liverpool, Man Utd and now Spurs this year and lost once – 1-0 to Liverpool.
This year is baffling everybody in football we all no the FA has a History of giant killing throughout its long History .And if it was the only in the cup and teams where not playing way above there ability then we could all get caught up with the ITV Commentators bias towards the Minnows especially Jim Beglan..Whenever Leeds had a break the two Commentators got excited and when Defoe got brought down in the penalty area Beglan said the player got the ball yet replays showed it was a stonewall penalty he then backtrackedand this was the same all the way till the drama in extra time 6 mins of 5 its time Refs had the time keeping taken of them would Fatty Whiley have given the penalty in the SPURS end we will never nowho allowed the LEEDS fans to dominate one end of the goals done us no favours all Leeds goals came at that end and most of Leeds goalkeepers saves .The Leeds fan singing to whiley its Fergiewhen the board wennt up time was a classic bit of banter that in my mind earned Leeds a replay and Granada more Football .Yet again we have another Manager telling the media they are a club in the wrong division trying to explain is teams upsurge in form after Carlisle and Exeter defeats .This will happen a lot more because this is the desperate side of the season and every team will be Energized like the last three games have bean teams are stopping us from playing with every player faster and goalkeepers springing like cats to thwart goal bound shots and the FA there testers fall silent and ignore the reason for all these gaunt looking teams winning and drawing with there best players missing yet we have a couple missing and we miss them strange and it happens when we can steal a march on our rivals also strange could be having a team with a oil field has a check book chasing the golden top four.
Don’t be too sure about winning at Elland Road too easily. The match statistics ( on your own website ) reveal that over all the years on record, Spurs have played away against Leeds some 48 times, and
Won 9
Drawn 16
Lost 23
Goals for 51
Goals against 75
So rest assured it should be a pulsating game, played in front of a full house – what a fantstic atmosphere.
Having been born in Leeds over 62 years ago, and a Leeds supporter ever since, I now live in South Africa. On 9th January 1970, I watched my first & unfortunately last game played between Leeds / Spurs at Elland Road, which ended with a 2-1 away win for Spurs, thanks mainly to the fantastically agile performance of Pat Jennings ( who was the England keeper at that stage, if my memory serves me right ), assist by all the woodwork, that kept Leeds from scoring despite their possessional domination of almost the entire second half, in front of a crowd of 43,867. Thankfully, despite the lowly status of Leeds in League One ( for this year only ), this game will be shown on our local DSTV and promises to be a cup-tie of note. MOT
Sorry, senior moment – date was 9th January 1971
Harry decides to take Defoe off penalty duty with an announcement in the Guardian:
“I haven’t told Jermain yet but I will have a word with him,” said Redknapp.
Great man-management skills again. Just like slagging Pav off in the papers! Harry loves journalists more than his players. This would be okay if he’d proved himself as a genius manager, but most of these players have finished fifth in the league or higher – which is more than Harry’s ever done.
Is anyone else worried about some of his wacky decisions recently?