The sign of a ‘great’ team

They say that the sign of a great team is one that manages to grind out a win, even when they don’t play particularly well. Today’s game against bottom of the table was exactly that, with Spurs having only 2 shots on target and still winning 1-0, against a very spirited Crystal Palace side.

It’s true Spurs started the match without several important players which included, Alli, Lloris, Alderweireld, Trippier, and Davies, and later in the game saw Winks and then Kane both substituted. Despite not having these first team players at their disposal, Spurs finished the game with all 3 points, which sometimes, is all that matters.

Despite the overall performance, one or two players did have very good games, and in particular their third-choice goalkeeper, Paulo Gazzaniga had a MOTM debut to remember, with some outstanding saves in both halves.

Dier had a very solid game in defense, and he was well supported by Vertonghen and Sanchez. However there were several disappointing displays, and I’ll start with the main culprit and work down. Serge Aurier, who’s lunging challenges are worrying, and so was his poor distribution, which twice nearly led to a Palace goal. Even when he was in an attacking position, his final ball was poor.

Second worst was Danny Rose, who I appreciate has been out injured for a while, he did defend quite well, he missed a headed chance at the far post, which he could have done more with. He did fire in some crosses, but he never picked out a white shirt, and that’s the main difference between,both his and Aurier’s crosses, to those of Davies and Trippier, in that Davies and especially Tripper, do find a Spurs player more often than not , and they do lead to goal scoring chances.

I do think Sissoko has improved a little, but he is still a long way behind the other midfielders, such as Alli, Winks, Dembele, Eriksen, Dier, and the injured pair of Wanyama and Lamela.

If Son hadn’t scored his performance, was very average, and a lot of fans would have mentioned that he didn’t have a game to remember.

I think that the mid-week game against Real Madrid, obviously took a lot out of those who took part, and those players can and do have ‘off days’ afterwards, but the ones who didn’t take part, should have performed a lot better today.

Still, it’s 3 more points on the board, and the International break for once, appears to be a ‘Godsend’, inasmuchas players such as Lloris, Alderweireld, Alli and perhaps Kane and one or two other players, may be allowed to rest from their various countries obligations, due to their particular, strains, knocks and of course more serious injuries.

Allowing them to come back in two weeks time, fit, fresh and ready to take up where they left off, on a winning run!

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