Guys, this is Tottenham Hotspur. But lads, this is Manchester United too.
We don’t think we have too many late suggestions with this game If all you want is some light-hearted Christmas nonsense, you couldn’t really ask for better ingredients. Carabao. Thursday night. Two of the least serious football clubs in the Premier League. Ange Amorim. There’s a wonderful feeling of living on the edge when there’s no VAR involved and ruining everyone’s fun.
But the really wonderful thing about Tottenham is that no matter how ridiculous you think they are, they still retain the ability to surprise. Raise the bar somehow and just walk right into it. The only team currently more capable of matching Spurs than Manchester United is probably Manchester City. Who Tottenham have also beaten twice this season. Makes you think.
The first half of Tottenham’s heartbreaking 4-3 unserious win looked pretty sane and, given what happened next, seems about 300 years ago now, but if you care to watch , virtually all the signs are there. Spurs continued their usual live threat in attack, particularly on the left, with the rejuvenated and reintegrated Jed Spence and Son Heung-min having fun, while Dejan Kulusevski Buzzing with his now customary threat while once again showing that he’s not really telling anyone that he’s easily Tottenham’s best player.
United’s defense looks in disarray, as Ruben Amorim’s side have done so far, with none of the United defenders really giving any clear indication that they understand what the number three really means. . In attack, meanwhile, United did some good things and got into some good areas – particularly in the large amount of space Spurs were clearly willing to leave behind Pedro Polo on United’s left – and then Nothing was done.
At times, in the first half, United’s best way to really create a clear view of goal might have been to get the ball to Radu Dragusin on the edge of Spurs’ box and then press him like fuck. The second half proved disturbing.
Spurs’ lead felt deserved as they looked more compelling in the final third, but also fragile as they always looked vulnerable in the opposite direction.
Their goal was cleverly scored by Dominic Solanke – whose record against United in the last four games now stands at five – when it looked like serious work from the goalkeeping and defending Mistake, but it seems churlish to criticize now. But we will.
Pedro Polo’s long-range shot is high enough, but Altay Bayendil should do better than just parry to avoid getting into trouble. However, he can ask his defender why Solanke is the only player alive.
But after a few hours, it barely registers. The second half was one of the most ridiculous things we’ve ever seen. On the one hand, trying to analyze what’s going on feels a bit futile. It would be easy to dismiss this as madness. But you can’t do that against these two teams. Especially Manchester United, but especially Tottenham Hotspur. Of course, this is extreme, but it doesn’t come out of nowhere.
For Spurs, it was a dazzling highlight reel, a culmination of a season’s worth of work condensed into a frenzied 90 minutes. They started the second half very well.
They roared at United, who meekly surrendered to Tottenham’s overwhelming attack. This is United’s clown car, indeed.
The second goal came as they opened the door easily through the overlapping skills of senior Sun Maddison and a feeble try from Lisandro Martinez, who rarely looked like himself in the first 15 minutes of the second half. So short. . Kulusevski took it home gratefully.
The third goal was even worse from United’s perspective. Spence’s ball had just the right weight over the top and Solanke’s run was timed just right. But there’s nothing special about them. There’s nothing here that completely rules out the impact of five defenders.
The sight of Martinez raising a small hand in desperate hope that the offside flag wouldn’t come up was already quite striking, even before replays confirmed how tattered the backline was. What a mess.
Tottenham’s control at this time seems absolute. Gone was the back-and-forth of the first half, replaced by one-way traffic. Spurs were 3-0 ahead and had performed so well that the only obvious question to answer was how many more times they would choose to break through a bruised and fractured United defence.
This sheer dominance will have synapses firing in the guts of any seasoned Spurs watcher.
Get ready everyone. They’re going to do something stupid.
Sure enough, Fraser Forster’s hotpot is almost ready.
It should be noted that Foster has done a very respectable job since being forced to step up due to an injury to Guglielmo Vicario. We know Angie Ball isn’t a natural for the big man, but he’s seasoned with his game and his shot remained consistent enough throughout a sometimes painful game.
Now that we’ve said some good things, we can start tearing him apart. Because that was one of the most complete and complete head losses ever. The fact that the first goal came almost immediately after Forster made his first save of the night only made things more interesting, but it was the second goal that really marked the point.
We all know how Spurs play. It must be admitted that a big reason why they are an attacking team in games like this is the way they attack from the back. Therefore, a huge mistake can be interpreted as an inherent risk in a system that also puts you 3-0 ahead.
But you can’t do anything worse five minutes later. What’s heartbreaking when you watch the replay is that when Archie Gray passes the ball back to Forster, you can see the Tottenham goalkeeper actually making a “keep calm” sign with his hand. He decided not to rush. He’s definitely going to make sure to show us all that he’s not rattled by that first goal. His head is definitely still attached to his shoulders, definitely not on Mars, look how calm he is here, oh my gosh, Amad Diallo is sprinting towards him, he’s right there, oh.
The next 10 minutes were a horrific sight. Forster’s dizziness reached such dangerous proportions that he even reluctantly used his foot to save the five-a-side goalkeeper’s 30-yard shot. We’re not a Premier League goalkeeper so can’t say for sure, but we think it’s probably not a good thing when your own fans laugh at you behind your goals.
We don’t want to give Amorim and United too much credit here given the nature of those two ridiculous goals, but they improved after making three substitutions from 3-0 down.
However, despite the work they’ve done and the huge generosity they’ve received, it has to be said that they’re not great at 3-2. By then Spurs had disappeared. Of course, it was Foster’s error that allowed United to come back, but Spurs struggled on the pitch. They themselves didn’t look like they wanted to score a fourth goal at this point.
You have to think that a team that was better and more confident than Manchester United at the time, against a team that certainly had a familiar feeling of frustration, in front of a crowd that certainly had a familiar feeling of frustration, put this into perspective. Things have come to a head. But Mazrui’s shot went just wide from an awkward angle and United didn’t offer much help.
You don’t think Spurs are guaranteed to hold on, but you certainly get the feeling it’s more likely to be another error leading to the equalizer rather than a moment of inspiration from the visitors.
Sure enough, another goalkeeping error did lead to the sixth goal of the game. But it was Bayindil again, waving in the air as Son Heung-min’s corner went straight in. He wanted the foul because he was the goalkeeper and the length of his protest really shows that he didn’t know that without VAR this would have been an appropriate call. For a player to do stupid things in the stupidest of games.
Even so, there’s not enough nonsense. The Harlequins still had one more chance, with Jonny Evans taking a corner kick to close the gap again. Spurs held on, scoring four goals and winning a cup quarter-final against Manchester United, which was truly embarrassing. The final between Tottenham Hotspur and Newcastle is now very likely to be played in this match. We’re not really sure how both teams would conspire in this situation to somehow not win the game, but we must not be thinking hard enough.
Spurs have already beaten Liverpool before that – with both sides in the league at the weekend And in this competition -Honestly, who knows what will happen in these games. But we’ve seen enough football and Spurs to know that Fraser Forster has every chance of being man of the match after impersonating Lev Yashin for 90 minutes on Sunday.
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