It’s hard to over emphasise how disappointing that was.
This had all the appearance of a fork in the road game, would the restoration of last season’s system and personnel lead to a resurrection of the power and intensity that led to so much last year or not?
Frustratingly and annoyingly, ‘not’ was the answer.
Whilst we clearly found a Man United team hitting a bit of form and all that sort of stuff, it was our own slow stodginess that cost us the game. The lack of surefooted passing from anyone forward of the back four was painful to watch at times and I don’t just mean the mistake from Kane that led to the goal. Our ability to penetrate the home team’s back line was non existent, and when we did get in or near the box we faltered. Wanyama’s free header from Eriksen’s free kick was the closest we came to a goal, and he should have scored.
Man United predictable tactic was to sit back and wait to hit us on the break and it worked as it was only thanks to Lloris and the post that we managed to keep the lead down to one goal. We just weren’t good or quick enough to force a mistake from them or get to an important ball into a dangerous area first.
Very very poor.
Walker, Rose and Lloris were excellent, Winks and Sissoko good when they came on and Eriksen’s free kicks were accurate even if his corners weren’t. Dele was energetic but ineffective, Kane was anonymous. Wanyama and Dembele were the main stodge ingredients, Son, Vertonghen and Toby were ok.
It was a quiet game, think seventy thousand ‘Mancunians’ having a snooze, but the result mattered more than the performance to the home side; sadly as the away team, we got neither.
Hull on Wednesday but if this is the best we can offer then we should start kissing goodbye to a top four spot and starting thinking cups I reckon.
COYS.
Keep up to date with all the latest Tottenham news and opinion by following SpursWeb’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
