The magic of the cup is alive and well

Tottenham Hotspur 2 - 0 Aston Villa - F.A. Cup, 3rd round, January 8th, 2017

in the form of Steve Bruce losing.

That’s about as much as you can say for Spurs defeat of Aston Villa in the F.A. Cup third round game.

Watching Steve Bruce’s knuckle face as they lost, especially after this clown- whose greatest moment in management was a goal scored by a beach-ball – said he didn’t devalue the Cup then brought a six man defence and a team that offered nothing to the Cup.

Spurs do struggle against teams that stump up at The Lane with a flat back 10 and so it was.

Saying that they don’t help themselves. Far too much passing around at the back between the three man defence.

It took the changes that Pochettino made to make things better. But again Poch had to wait, when everyone could see it needed an injection of something – I was screaming for Nkoudou – it was on the hour before the first sub. The second came 10 minutes later, the third a little over 10 minutes after that. Predictable you say, by the numbers, never.

Dele’s introduction brought the needed upping of the pace, Nkoudou brought the cross that Davies did a great job of scoring from. Behind him he brilliantly guided the ball inside the far post.

Balls were now coming into the box, such as Nkoudou’s assist, while there was greater movement from him and Dele that was opening up space in the six man defence. It was ideal for Janssen, unfortunately the Dutchman had been replaced by Dele.

Now Sissoko may have chipped in the assist for the second but wouldn’t it have been better to give Vinnie the full 90 to go with the tools around him to make it more likely he might just click. No, he wasn’t great – but you don’t see the complaints when Kane drops deep or wide – but trudging off like that with half an hour to won’t make him any better.

So at least one more cup tie at the old ground, with a fourth round home tie against Wycombe Wanderers, no doubt a similar set up from both teams, no doubt a similar struggle, hopefully the same result.

Now sorry we have to cut off from Spurs in true BBC style to show highlights of the Liverpool game, there was actually no highlights but we’ll show you it again…

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