After a humiliating thrashing by the “best team in the Premier League right now” Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur was looking to bounce back at KC Stadium against Hull City this Saturday. The introduction of Verthongen and Paulinho was promising a good day for the Spurs but Tim Sherwood’s decision to drop Vlad Chirices instead of Michael Dawson was not the greatest idea considering the pace and skill set advantage of the Romanian. And that proved to be the wrong decision just over 12 minutes after kick-off. The lack of pace of Dawson and the rawness of Verthongen combined for a goal that could have been easily prevented. Steven Harper’s goal kick fell to Nikica Jelavic and his flick on came to Shane Long, and he calmly finished the move.
Tottenham responded like the usual by dominating the possession and passing the ball around in the defense and midfield but there was no significant threat. Especially Soldado and Lennon’s poor performances were concerning in the first half.
But Tottenham came out of the tunnel for a better performance in the second half. Quick tempo, slick passing and nice movement off the ball made Hull City set back and stay on defense for a long time. That invited Spurs to attack more and more and that eventually led to a Paulinho goal which wasn’t orthodox but Tim Sherwood definitely couldn’t complain.
There was a feeling in the stadium that Tottenham was going to find the winning goal but Soldado and Lennon were almost anonymous in the second half and Bentaleb did not attack the Hull City goal all game. That left Paulinho, Eriksen and Adebayor to be the only players on attack, therefore Tottenham couldn’t find the killer edge to find the second goal to see of Hull City and almost conceded a goal in the dying minutes of the game by the free kick of Tom Huddlestone and Nikica Jelavic’s close range shot.
This is not the worst result in the world for Tim Sherwood’s Tottenham but it definitely hurt their chances of a Champions League Spot finish. Next week, Everton will come to White Hart Lane to visit and Tim Sherwood has to make some crucial decisions ahead of one of the most important fixtures of the year for Tottenham Hotspur. Returns of Younes Kaboul, Sandro and Andros Townsend create a selection dilemma for Sherwood in all areas of the pitch. The bad run of form from Soldado and Lennon could open up a spot Lamela, Townsend, Chadli or Sigurdsson. Especially Lamela really needs to get himself into the first team contention after a really disappointing season which saw him play 9 appearances all season. It is going to be a really crucial couple of weeks for Spurs’ season and Tim Sherwood’s future at the club.
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