Tottenham Hotspur ran out 1-0 winners against Liverpool to give us a slight advantage going into the second leg at Anfield early next month. It was an assured display from many of our players including Dominic Solanke, Lucas Bergvall, Archie Gray, Djed Spence and debutant Antonin Kinsky. Archie Gray was quality throughout, again playing out of position at centre-back due to injuries to Micky Van De Ven, Cristian Romero and Ben Davies. He put in a wonderful performance and played some lovely passes and some good defensive actions. He carried the ball past some Liverpool players before playing a fantastic pass to Dejan Kulusevski in the lead up to an attack.
Djed Spence pocketed Mo Salah throughout and left the Egyptian feeding off scraps, and that is some feat given how prolific he has been this season – including a few weeks ago at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Antonin Kinsky played a good game and made some strong saves to deny Darwin Nunez and Cody Gakpo. His distribution was equally impressive, both his short and long passes usually bang on the money and this contributed into us playing in a confident way and stretching the pitch.
It was a big moment for Lucas Bergvall to score his first goal for Tottenham in the closing moments of the semi-final. He stepped up and finished clinically despite his inexperience in big occasions and I am very happy for him. There was controversy as he could have been sent off prior to scoring, but it balanced out as his first yellow card probably was not worthy of a yellow card, and as Ange Postecoglou said afterwards when an advantage is played, they only go back to book the player if it was cynical which Bergvall’s tackle was not.
Dominic Solanke had the ball in the back of the net after touching down a Pedro Porro cross-field ball and scoring past Alisson but he was leaning into an offside position. It saw a historical moment in English football history where the referee explained the decision in the stadium to ensure clarity in the decision making. Of course this was greeted by Tottenham boos and Liverpool cheers, but it helped understand the decision further, especially for those in the stadium where there are no commentators to explain the situation.
Despite the encouraging performance against Liverpool, and plenty of youngsters shining again, it is far from job done as a 1-0 lead going to Anfield is still an uphill battle. Liverpool know what they have to do and are more than capable of doing it, so we need another brilliant, battling performance next month when the sides meet again for the second leg. For now though, a much needed win for the manager, the squad and the fans to boost morale, and another win against Tamworth on Sunday would get us ready for the big North London Derby against Arsenal in 6 days time. COYS.