Tottenham Hotspur 4 FC Twente 1

Glory, Glory Tottenham Hotspur …

Bale, Pavlyuchenko and van der Vaart all make the scoresheet.

 

What an opening night in the Champions League it proved to be for Tottenham Hotspur. Facing the Dutch champions, nothing’s easy … apparently. However, Tottenham proved it to be otherwise, maybe with some help courtesy of the referee who awarded not one, not two but THREE penalties but also sent off the influential Rafael van der Vaart for two bookable offences.

The first half Tottenham stepped up to the mark and put in a solid performance. Gomes who returned from injury made a good save to prevent FC Twente from taking the lead.

With just 8 minutes remaining of the first half, Crouch won a controversial penalty after hitting the ground with Wisgerhof after attempting to connect with van der Vaart’s ball in from the right and it was van der Vaart himself who stepped up to take it. Unfortunately it wasn’t a repeat of his first penalty which saw him score his first goal for the club against Wolves as Mihaylov managed to get a hand to it and put it wide.
Spurs saw out the first half with a clean sheet and 11 men on the field, where really Huddlestone should be counting himself lucky after his challenge early on in the game.

Half time, Spurs 0 FC Twente 0.

It took van der Vaart just a minute to make up for his penalty miss but putting Spurs 1-0 up with a finely taken goal. Taken down on his chest, he spun and volleyed it into the back of the net.

Just over 5 minutes later Spurs were awarded their second penalty of the game after Bale was taken down by Rosales, up steps Pavlyuchenko. Sending Mihaylov the wrong way, Pavlyuchenko makes it 2-0.

Spurs went to sleep at the back when defending a free kick. Janssen crossed the ball in and the ball fell perfectly for Chadli to place it in the bottom right hand corner to make it 2-1.

It was on the hour mark that van der Vaart saw red for his second yellow of the game which leads to him missing the away tie at Inter Milan in three weeks time.

The third penalty was awarded just minutes after Spurs went down to 10men, another controversial penalty. Pavlyuchenko’s shot at goal hit the arm of Kuiper and although it took the referee a little while to award it, he finally made his mind up. Pavlyuchenko himself took the penalty and made no mistake in what was a dangerous penalty approach to take but still, he made it 3-1.

Bale rounded off the night with the 4^th. Making the most of Douglas’ mistake he charged into the box and with a cool attitude, slotted past Mihaylov. 4-1 Spurs, game over.

Keane, Lennon and Jenas all made appearances in the second half replacing Pavlyuchenko, Modric and Crouch.

Full time, Spurs 4 FC Twente 1.

A fine Spurs performance, Bale again outstanding and van der Vaart as influential as he has been since joining Spurs saw us pick up all 3 points and go second in the group.

Gomes; Hutton, King, Bassong, Assou-Ekotto; van der Vaart, Huddlestone, Modric, Bale; Crouch, Pavlyuchenko.
Subs: Cudicini, Corluka, Lennon, Palacios, Kranjcar, Jenas, Keane.

Next up, Inter Milan.

By Kirstie Teversham

Bale wins Goal of the Month award!

Gareth Bale has won the goal of the month award for August.

Bale scored both goals in our 2-1 win away to Stoke but it's the first of his goal that steals the award.

The goal was made possible after Lennon ran with the ball and made a fantastic cross to Bale who hit the back of the net with a left-foot volley.

A stunning goal worthy of the award.

Bale celebrating vs Stoke

By Kirstie Teversham

Time for Woodgate to hang up his boots?

Jonathan Woodgate, what an unfortunate, yet fortunate career he has had. Starting his career at Leeds United he then moved on to Newcastle before joining Real Madrid. He left Real Madrid to join Middlesbrough on loan before making the move permanent. It was from Middlesbrough that we signed him for a fee of £7million.

It was at Newcastle that his injuries started to hit him. In his first season at Real Madrid he failed to make an appearance due to being out through injury. Now at Spurs, since 2008 Woodgate has made 64 appearances for the club in all competitions. Most famously scoring the winning goal in extra time against Chelsea in the Carling Cup in the 2007-08 season.

In today’s paper Redknapp is believed to have revealed that Woodgate’s latest treatment on his long-term groin problem has been a failure, leaving question marks over his future.

Is it time for Woodgate, also known as “Woody”, to hang up his boots and admit defeat to his badly injury hit career at the age of 30?

We have Bassong, Dawson and Kaboul along with Gallas and King, who also suffers from injury problems but has mastered ways benefit him, who fill the centre back position with Huddlestone and Corluka (questionably) who can also slot in as cover.
By Kirstie Teversham

West Ham 1 Spurs 0

After the midweek Carling Cup game against Arsenal, ‘Arry made 10 changes to the starting line up to face West Ham. In came Crouch, van der Vaart, Bale, Lennon, Huddlestone, Jenas, Lennon, Corluka, Hutton and Cudicini.

With a first half performance best to be forgotten, the second was much better.
Both Jenas and van der Vaart forced Green into action with some good saves before a corner for West Ham saw them take the lead with a looping header from Piquionne who found the back of the net from an unmarked post, error one from Spurs.
A few good attacks from saw us come close. A good run from Lennon down the right beating Noble and Boa Morte put in a good cross for Modric who forced Green to pull off a fantastic save, pushing it onto the woodwork to keep it at 1-0 West Ham.

1-0 West Ham at half time.

A good start to the second half with a couple of good chances, Huddlestone with probably the best of the game. With Crouch to his left and just Green to beat, Huddlestone took the shot on himself. After going past Green he put it wide.

Into the second half ‘Arry made some changes. Keane come on for Lennon, making his 300^th appearance for the club, Giovani on for van der Vaart who was having a good game and had created most of our chances and a bit later on Pavlyuchenko also made an appearance replacing Crouch.

Noble forced Cudicini to make the save of the came with just 20 minutes to go.

1-0 West Ham full time, fully deserved. Cudicini;
Hutton, Bassong, Corluka, Bale;
Lennon (Keane, 66): Jenas, Huddlestone, Modric;
Van der Vaart (Giovani, 78);
Crouch (Pavlyuchenko, 80).
Unused: Pletikosa, Kranjcar, Sandro, Palacios.

Discuss the match on http://www.soccer24-7.com/forum/showthread.php?t=183014

By Kirstie Teversham

Is the squad depth good enough?

As we all know, the injuries are piling up and we’re beginning to understand a little what Everton felt like last season. The difference between Everton being hit by injuries and ourselves is that our squad is looked upon as having good squad depth, but do we?

After the likes of Bentley and Giovani dos Santos who are expected to be pushing for first team football put in a performance best to be forgotten in the 4-1 defeat by Arsenal midweek in the Carling Cup, it left many fans with question marks above their heads and looking past them to others who may be able to the job. And there lies the question, do we have anything better other than the likes of Lennon and van der Vaart and the like who are regular starters.

We then have the likes of Caulker, who has been highly rated, Livermore, Sandro and Naughton, players who are hoping to be part of a strong future Spurs yet didn’t deliver what some had hope for. For some you could give the benefit of the doubt, but the likes of Bentley and dos Santos, its extremely frustrating.

Modric, Bale, Lennon, van der Vaart, Dawson and Huddlestone are all players that we don’t like to see dropped yet who to we look to replace them to have the same strength and impact on the team?

So to stick with what we’ve got and hope for improvements or strengthen in January? 

By Kirstie Teversham