and mightily bored they’ll be.
About a bridge too far as Spurs succumbed to Vitesse Arnhem in another depressingly awful Europa Conference League game hat should Nuno hasn’t learned.
On the one hand Nuno going back to what he did during the first couple of seasons at Wolves is the best thing but it leads to nights like these and European nights weren’t meant to be like this.
What his done is pick his starting XI for the league and stick with that XI. He’s got the formation and now he’s chosen the personnel that are gonna stat the league games. But in doing so he’s decided that the cups games will be played by the rest of the squad.
So what you get is eleven changes from the weekend and a starting team made up from first team cast offs, who have no real hope of making it back, a couple who might have a chance, with those coming back from injury, and kids. So you have the likes of Sanchez, Davies, Dele and Winks in the former. Bergwijn and Lo Celso in the middle group, with say Tanganga who also sort of falls into the latter group with Gil, Scarlett and Rodon.
So we end up with a completely disjointed team and performance in which Spurs managed one shot on target, that came from their only decent bit of play all game.
It came just after the break, when Lo Celso picked up the ball in his own half and ran at the home side. Gil was all on his lonesome centrally, to his right and was found with the cross. The Spaniard’s first time left foot shot smacked off the crossbar and out, not to a Spurs player of course.
That’s it. There’s your highlight.
Lo Celso was getting the usual dogs abuse. What’s he for? Well, he’s not for the midfield alongside Winks. No one is. Everyone looks bad when lumbered with that dolt in the midfield. While you also feel sorry for Gil. He didn’t give up being the next bright young Spanish thing for this. And with what went on around them, neither will probably get a look in for Nuno’s first team.
Dele started the season as a first choicer, he probably looks further away from one now than he did under Jose. Could a loan move work for him the way it did Lingard? While Winks just needs to go. He’s been in the media saying he doesn’t know why he’s gone from first choice Spurs and England player to this. Well, there’s a major fact in him being in this situation. I suppose he thinks it’s all about pass percentage, which is all he had last night. Yes accurate passes of no consequence. Of course his chums in the media won’t mention this.
The winner came from a cross that was slow in coming and no one – Davies – stopped getting over for a first time volley from the edge of the box. Yes a deflection but no one really tried to stop it at anytime in the whole process.
It summed up the feckless attitude that permeated the whole game from the visitors, while the home side seemed overjoyed at the result. As the first team were all left at home for the weekend’s league game, they better do something in that game.