It’s been a solid week for Brennan Johnson as he scored a 92nd minute winner against Coventry City in the Carabao Cup, and followed it up with another goal to put us 2-1 up against Brentford in the 28th minute. Both goals were really well taken, cooly and delicately chipping it over Coventry’s Ben Wilson, and smashing home from a tight angle past Brentford’s Mark Flekken.
The performance from Spurs at Coventry was unacceptable for 88 minutes. Coventry dominated and could have, and probably should have, been out of mind and out of sight. Ange Postecoglou made 8 changes with only Destiny Udogie, Rodrigo Bentancur and Dominic Solanke retaining their places from the North London Derby defeat. Fraser Forster set the tone in the first minute by misplacing a pass aimed at Lucas Bergvall that was easily intercepted and Forster had to make amends by pushing it out for a corner. Wilson Odobert was forced off early in the first half which Postecoglou claimed to look significant. Tottenham looked lacklustre and the passes were not coming off for large periods of the game and it looked like a typical Spurs 1-0 defeat at a Championship ground in a cup game when Thomas-Asente scored in the 63rd minute – something we have seen many times before including Middlesbrough and Sheffield United. We even had to turn to the bench to bring on Heung-Min Son, James Maddison and Dejan Kulusevski and it was only in the final moments where Maddison and Kulusevski stepped up to help save Tottenham. Kulusevski played a clever nutmeg pass and Djed Spence equalised for Tottenham in the 88th minute. The game looked destined for penalties, however Brennan Johnson timed his run to perfection and got on the end of Rodrigo Bentancur’s through ball came up trumps to save the day, chipping the ball past Wilson and sending the away end into raptures. Tottenham will find out their Carabao Cup 4th round opponents this week.
Tottenham got the job done unconvincingly against Coventry City, but it was much more convincing against Brentford despite Bryan Mbeumo scoring inside 23 seconds. Tottenham were caught cold from the kick off and Pedro Porro gifted Keane Lewis-Potter too much space to whip in a cross which Mbeumo acrobatically finished. Dominic Solanke got off the mark in Lilywhite 7 minutes later after being the quickest to react after James Maddison’s shot got parried by Flekken. Maddison dropped a masterclass on the day and was unplayable. He was tenacious in winning the ball back in the build up to Brennan Johnson’s goal, and rounded off his performance with a chipped finish to seal the game after great build up from fellow vice-captain Cristian Romero and captain Heung-Min Son. It could easily have been more for Tottenham as the finishing was still lacking in some cases but Flekken also made plenty of good saves to deny the likes of Kulusevski, Johnson and Son. Son missed two 1-on-1 chances which you usually back him to score, but he was hesitant to shoot and tried to pass it instead which was frustrating as he is usually clinical in those scenarios. It was a much needed 3 points in the Premier League however as beforehand Tottenham have played well without getting the deserved result.
Attention now turns to the Carabao Cup 4th round draw on Wednesday evening and then the Europa League opener against Qarabag on Thursday before the trip to Old Trafford on Sunday.