12  Joe HART  (  1  Hugo LLORIS  (c)  46)

38  Cameron CARTER-VICKERS
15  Eric DIER  (c)  (33  Ben DAVIES  46)
49  Dennis CIRKIN  (23  Stephen BERGWIJN  46  )

24  Serge AURIER
17  Moussa SISSOKO  (  5  Pierre-Emile HOJBJERG  61)
19  Ryan SESSEGNON

30  Gedson FERNANDES
40  Harvey WHITE  (20  DELE Alli  46)
47  Jack CLARKE (  7  Heung-Min SON  70)

27  Lucas MOURA

Unused subs: 
22  Paulo GAZZANIGA
10  Harry KANE
44 Jamie BOWDEN
53  Dale SCARLETT
54  Alfie DEVINE

  2  Maxime COLIN
  4  Harley DEAN (c)
16  George FRIEND
  6  Maikel KIEFTERBELD

  7  Jeremie BELA  (21  Amari MILLER  82)
23  Dan CROWLEY (20 Caolan BOYD-MUNCE 87)
  8  Ivan SUNJIC (18 Agus MEDINA 83)
11  Charlie LAKIN  (10  Odin BAILEY  67)
14  Kristian PEDERSEN

  9  Adan GEORGE (19 Jayden REID 66)

Unused subs: 
  1  Zach JEACOCK
  3  Steve SEDDON
  5  Geraldo BAJRAMI
12  Josh DACRES-COGLEY
15  Marc ROBERTS
17  David DAVIS
      Aaron CLAYTON
 

The weather turned chilly on this Bank Holiday weekend and Birmingham City definitely tried hard to freeze out the Spurs side who had rolled over Ipswich and Reading before them.  That they held out until the last minute is great credit to them, but without a great deal of adventure, Brum had to defend in numbers and cram the midfield to nullify Tottenham, only to fall to Bergwijn's late winner for Spurs.

Tottenham started with a younger side and with three centre-backs, with Aurier and Sessegnon pushing high up the wings. That left Gedson to play a more forward role supporting Moura with Jack Clarke, getting his first start.

Gedson had an opportunity just after ten minutes, when he found space for a shot that took a heavy deflection, taking the pace off it and then Dier had a better chance, when he was free at the far post from a Harvey White free-kick on the right and failed to get a full contact on the ball with his head, glancing it wide when he should have forced the keeper into action. It was nearly 30 minutes gone before the next opportunity, when Dier again was free from a White corner and again, it went wide.

Five minutes before the break, Spurs pressed high and a back pass looked as though it was going to the goalkeeper, but Prieto left it for Friend, who just got the ball away in time before Lucas got there, but played to Sessegnon, whose shot was blocked by Prieto coming out to close him down.

With four half-time changes giving Spurs a more experienced look, Sissoko played a pass in front of Aurier to cross first time, with Lucas Moura just failing to get a decent header on the ball under pressure from Dean at the near post. In the 55th minute, the same pairing linked with Lucas receiving a pull back around the penalty spot. His first touch took the ball into the air under pressure and he tried a spectacular scissors kick, but it came off his shin softly into the hands of Prieto.

Spurs were effectively switching play from Bergwijn on the left to Aurier on the right, with balls being played into the box or getting blocked for corners. When the ball was worked wide for Sessegnon or Clarke, neither player had options to find in the box.

Just after he came on Heung-Min Son took a corner and played it low into the box for Dele, who stepped over it, letting it run to Moura. He tried to roll it under his foot behind him to Aurier, but it was cut out. With a quarter of an hour left, Gedson struck a shot at goal from a half-cleared ball. It was 25 yards out and it hit a defender, ricocheting to the left where Son picked it up and hit a left foot shot that finished halfway up the South Stand.

Moura neatly played the ball between a Birmingham defender’s legs to Son, who in turn played a pass inside a defender for Hojbjerg to move into the area. He turned outside and dinked a ball into the heart of the goalmouth, but Prieto got there as the ball landed in the right area for him.

Hojbjerg, Son and Dele linked well getting the ball into the area, before a pass wide to Sessegnon on the left provided a scoring opportunity, but taking it right-footed, Ryan put his effort tinto the side-netting.

88 50 Dele looked for Hojbjerg, who was tackled, but the ball went left to Bergwijn, who came inside and from 18 yards swept his right foot shot low past Prieto’s left into the bottom corner of the net with hardly a chance to get play underway again. It was a hard game for Spurs to break down a resolute and well-drilled Birmingham side, but it took a classy piece of finishing at the end to maintain a winning start to our pre-season.

The hard press and long balls to the forwards seem to be the way that Jose is planning to go and the movement of the ball across the pitch also stretched the teams we have played so far. Of course, the quality of the opposition will be higher when we start the league campaign, but you can only beat what is in front of you, which is what the side have done so far.

The goalkeepers had another day off, with hardly anything worth the kit needing washing to do. Aurier swung between looking to get forward and play the ball into the box and not being bothered to work back after the ball had been lost in a high position of the pitch. With Doherty looking likely to be coming in, perhaps his attitude was unsurprising, but it won’t help him find another club. Again, there were some decent showings from some of the younger players, but you feel it will be tried and tested squad who are called on a lot of the time. With the Europa League campaign being a long one, they will need the fringe squad members to be called upon, so this is a good way of integrating them into the team.

It was a win, but the game was more or less Tottenham’s attack against Birmingham’s defence but finding ways of breaking defences down has been Tottenham’s downfall in the recent past, so hopefully, it will help in the long run.

Sparky Marky