Solid Spurs prevail against Brentford, LiVARpool up next
Much to Jamie Carragher’s delight Tottenham were able to grind out a result against Brentford, winning 2-0 at the Gtech Community Stadium in West London yesterday afternoon. Spurs were on a 7-game winless run in the league with talks of relegation being ever present, a win away at Brentford seemed like a mountain to climb after a string of poor results in the Premier League that included embarrassing losses to teams that I won’t name but rhyme with shmester shmitty and shmeverton. However, thanks to a solid defensive display, including a man of the match performance by Djed Spence, we go into an important week with a much-needed win and we move onto one of our most important games of the season, on Thursday, the second leg of the Carabao Cup semi-final against LiVARpool I mean Liverpool.
It is no doubt going to be a tough game, we still have a lot of players out injured, and Liverpool are essentially at full strength but never forget that old saying, anything can happen in football. The odds are stacked against us and everyone will be expecting Liverpool to come out as victors especially since we go away to Anfield and Tottenham have not won away to Liverpool since 2011. But let’s talk about how Spurs could get a result:
Enter Kev
A couple of days ago, Tottenham, in true Lange fashion, signed Kevin Danso, an Austrian centre-back from RC Lens. A position we’ve needed to replenish since the summer, Kev could potentially make his debut on Thursday. With Ben Davies recently returned from injury, Archie Gray playing every game and Micky Van de Ven half-fit, a debut for our new defender could well be on the cards. He’s fit, he’s ready to go and he’ll be wanting to stamp his mark. A quick and versatile defender, his strengths lay in aerial duels, his recovery pace and his ability to carry the ball. Thursday will be an insane game to throw him into but the perfect opportunity to see what this man is made of.
K’mon Kulu
Dejan Kulusevski has no doubt been our standout performer this season but having played the second-most minutes behind Pedro Porro, his form has dipped as he like a lot of others is being played into the ground, if we are to get anything from Thursday we’re going to need Deki to be at his best. That Liverpool midfield is going to be all over him and we’re going to need a top-draw performance, not just for the win but he’s become a leader in this team and when he plays well you can see it on the other player’s faces, they all want to follow suit and soldier on.
Ange vs Arne
Ange got the better of Arne Slot in the first leg but this game will be different. I think Ange will need a tactical masterclass to pull off a result at Anfield. His tactics have come into question this season and yes I agree to a certain extent that he’s needed to tweak them given our current situation and I feel he’s done that in certain games this season. Like the first leg game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and more recently against Brentford, we haven’t pressed as much in our opponent’s half, we’ve kind of let them have the bulk of possession and pounced on mistakes made either with a well-worked team goal or a decent counter-attack. Ange has definitely learned from last season by adjusting to what players he has at his disposal and conserving their energy, and he’ll need to do that again on Thursday.
We know what the headlines will be if we lose against Liverpool and even if we win, if we lose the mainstream media will push the '“Ange needs to change his tactics and be sacked narrative” and if we win they’ll say “Liverpool were having an off-day and they didn’t care about that game”. Guess what? I’m ready for all of it, win or lose I’m with this team all the way.
