| Match report
As ever for Europa League
matches, Mauricio rung the changes and did so again during the game,
but the Spurs team were good enough to withstand a late charge by
Asteras and survive the sending off of Federico Fazio to win 2-1 and
stay join top, putting some daylight between them and our Greek
opponents in third place.
A warm evening saw Michel Vorm
make a rare appearance in place of the suspended Hugo Lloris, while
Harry Kane took his place in attack, when many fans may have
preferred him to be leading the line on Sunday against Stoke City.
With a number of players remaining in England it was not a surprise
that it was a mix and match side again, lead by Jan
Vertonghen.
The side were lazily stroking
the ball about, sometimes getting caught on or knocked off the ball
easily. There were few shooting chances for Spurs, as they tried to
thread their way through the Greek defence. It was 21 minutes before
a shot on target came for Tottenham, with Lamela striking it well
from 25 yards, but straight into the midriff of the keeper. Either
side of that, Vertonghen and Lamela fired shots high into the
netting behind the Asteras goal.
By that time, Asteras had almost opened the Spurs back four up with
a right to left diagonal ball over Dier’s head to release Parra on
goal, but Eric got back to knock the ball out for a corner from
which the Greek defender Zisopoulis won a header, but it was well
off target. With 25 minutes gone, a free-kick was played high into
the far post with four Asteras players attacking it and Vorm came
for the punch, but didn’t get there. Luckily, the header by Zisopoulis was wide
and he was offside anyway, but it was a worrying moment. A few
minutes later a move down the home team’s right saw Massa screw a
shot across the face of goal, with no Asteras shirt there to put it
away.
Ten minutes before half time, Townsend swapped wings to go on the
left and he beat one man before cutting back inside, leaving
Sankare’s challenge taking both the wingers legs’ from underneath
him. The ref pointed to the spot and Townsend was quick to do a Kane
and grab the ball to claim the spot-kick before anyone else could.
Andros put the ball down and struck a left foot shot past the
keeper’s left hand as he dived the right way, but not quick enough.
Tottenham had got their full backs wide and in advanced positions,
but there was rarely the space or accuracy to cross the ball to a
Spurs man and it was a fairly easy task for Asteras to defend. Four
minutes before the break that all changed. Andros got down the left
wing and lifted a ball into the middle of the six yard box, where
Kane rose above Zisopoulis to head down past Kosicky and into the
net for 2-0.
A last minute chance before the half time whistle saw Eric Dier
released down the right in acres of space and he slid in a low ball
across the face of the goal and Harry Kane was there to surely tap
the ball into the net for a three goal lead. Unfortunately, just a
couple of feet out, he got under the ball and shot it against the
bar (doing a little bit better than Acimovic did a few years back
against Fulham at home, when he cleared the goal from a similar
position). Luckily for our new star he was offside and the whistle
for the decision was also that for half-time.
A decent enough 45 minutes, if not an electrifying one, with the
ball being moved slowly on a bumpy pitch that had not helped
Tottenham’s shooting. When the full backs were in lots of space, the
player on the ball tended to shoot, leaving frustrated team-mates.
Right at the start of the second half, Asteras should have pulled a
goal back as Tsonakis went through and only had Vorm to beat from
inside the area, but he stroked his shot wide of the left hand post
from inside the other side of the box. Then Spurs allowed a long
range shot, which went well wide. It was another sloppy start to a
second half by Tottenham.
Eriksen had a shot that Kosicky flopped to save and then Vorm kicked
a clearance straight against a striker closing him down. Asteras
then had two chances through Parra, with the first coming when the
Argentine nudged Vertonghen as he jumped for the ball and then cut
inside Fazio to fire a shot inches wide. The second came when he was
released and again cut in to fire a shot hard but high.
Soldado, who came on for Lamela at the break, had a shot blocked and
Townsend’s low pull back found Kane, whose shot was half blocked and
popped up comfortably for the keeper. Spurs almost played themselves
into trouble when Davies played a short pass and Asteras got the
ball wide to cross, but Fazio was there to head away. Usero went
down as he tried to get between Vertonghen and Davies, but nothing
was given. Straight after, Massa hit a shot from 18 yards to the
left of centre only to see it unluckily rebound off the inside of
Vorm’s left post and out.
Dembele had been quietly effective in the first half, but in the
second, he faded out of the action and was shrugged off the ball too
easily. Townsend had also gone off the boil, but a ball across the
face of goal was just a little too far ahead of Soldado. Paulinho
came on to give Kane a rest, allowing Soldado to go as the out and
out striker. The slick surface didn’t help the Asteras players, who
went sliding out of the game, as Tottenham’s players cut back inside
them, but they could not make the space left by the opponent taken
out of the game.
Jeronimo got seven minutes at the end of the match, but from a
free-kick it was Zisopoulis whose ten yard rising shot was beaten
out by Michel Vorm. In conceding the free-kick, substitute Ryan
Mason got a yellow card for Fazio’s foul !!
Asteras’ sub, Badibanga looked like Regi Blinker (there’s one for
the teenagers) and played like him too. Vorm was once more called
into action as the Belgian Under-21 winger dragged a low cross from
behind him and the keeper went full length to save at the foot of
his left hand post at the second attempt.
With four minutes left, Jeronimo got away through the middle with
Fazio chasing him. He caught the striker, but also caught him
physically, leaving a penalty for Asteras and a red card for the
defender, being his second this season. Jeronimo took the kick
himself and slammed it down the middle, with Vorm almost getting
something on it as he dived one way and left his legs behind to try
and block anything close to them.
Badibanga put a header wide from twelve yards out and Spurs had to
weather four extra minutes. When Soldado was freed by a Spurs
clearance, he chose to have a strike at goal rather than run it into
the corner, with the ball being deflected out for a corner. After
the corner was taken, the full time whistle went and Spurs had
survived a late scare (after the early second half scare) and have
eight points alongside Besiktas at the top of the group. The Turkish
side remain top on alphabetical order and Partizan are bottom and
come to the Lane looking to salvage some pride.
Once more, Tottenham will need to exhibit some more clinical
instincts to see them off to complete qualification to the knock out
stage.
Watching on TV, Clark Carlisle’s commentary was definitely League
Two. He said “Spurs have an aerial ...” followed by a pause of about
twenty seconds while he struggled to make a word out of nine letters
presented to him a la Countdown. Then he obviously hadn’t been
presented with enough letters when he said Vertonghen had a
“speculate” shot. He doesn't even speak well English.
Please ITV 4, I know it might be hard to recruit Premier League
level co-commentators, but there must be more insightful ones than
this “brightest man in football”.
How he has the cheek to comment on Tottenham’s failings, I fail to
see.
What would Nick Hewer say ??
Stanford
Rivers |
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