Tamworth’s forward Beck-Ray Enoru works for the fashion retailer Zara, goalkeeper Jas Singh is a building surveyor and midfielder Tommy Tonks runs a sandwich business.
Tottenham Hotspur progressed to the fourth round of the FA Cup with a 3-0 victory over their part-time opponents but it was an underwhelming performance which raises uncomfortable questions about the individual quality of certain players. Ange Postecoglou rotated his team but Timo Werner, Sergio Reguilon and James Maddison are experienced internationals who should have easily sliced open the non-League side.
It was an awkward and tight artificial pitch which sloped slightly. A few hundred Tamworth fans were packed tightly into the stand behind the dugouts. They were barely a couple of metres away from Postecoglou and the substitutes who would have had splitting headaches because of the noise they created.
There was not enough space on the bench so Tottenham’s coaches and medical staff were perched on plastic chairs on the side of the pitch. The dressing-room facilities were cramped and it was bitterly cold.
Yet none of that should have prevented Spurs from comfortably beating Tamworth in 90 minutes.
It took them two hours to break down Tamworth, which is the last thing this squad needed before Wednesday’s north London derby against Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium when they are already running dangerously low on energy.
Pedro Porro, Dejan Kulusevski, Dominic Solanke and Johnson have registered the most minutes for Spurs in the league this season. Porro and Johnson played the entire game on Sunday afternoon while Kulusevski and Solanke came off the bench in the second half to prevent an embarrassing exit. Radu Dragusin has started 18 games in a row and was replaced at centre-back by Djed Spence before extra time.
Kulusevski, Johnson (centre) and Solanke have been almost ever-presents this season (Andrew Kearns – CameraSport via Getty Images)
Tottenham had 77 per cent possession and 65 touches in the box but found it difficult to penetrate Tamworth’s defence. There were too many occasions when Porro, Reguilon or Johnson aimlessly launched crosses into the box. Werner started in a central role and struggled to hold the ball up while he wasted a promising one-v-one situation in the second half. Maddison had a couple of good opportunities to score but Singh made excellent saves.
Enoru caused Porro a few problems with his speed and trickery. It seemed like Tamworth’s main tactic was to hit the ball long into the channel for the forward to chase and it earned them a corner in the first minute. Tottenham’s defence never looked too troubled from Tamworth’s set pieces, apart from one of Tonks’ throw-ins which struck the post. New signing Antonin Kinsky looked confident claiming the ball from corners and crosses.
It would have been a disaster for Spurs and Postecoglou if they had been eliminated.
They would have become a laughing stock, four days after an impressive victory over Liverpool in the first leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final tie. And considering they did not even take the lead until the 101st minute, when Solanke’s shot bounced over the line via a deflection from Nathan Tshikuna, then there will still have been a lot of football fans enjoying Spurs’ predicament.
Centre-back Jordan Cullinane-Liburd spoke after the game about feeling deflated when Son Heung-min and Dejan Kulusevski, South Korea and Sweden’s captains respectively, came on. Tottenham outlasted their opponents like a heavyweight boxer winning a fight on points instead of delivering a knockout blow.
“Firstly, credit to Tamworth, I thought they gave everything and gave a really good account of themselves,” Postecoglou said. “We knew it would be a challenging afternoon for us with the surface making it really difficult for us to play in the manner we wanted to. It is easy to get frustrated on days like this but the lads kept their heads clear and calm and persisted and eventually overpowered them.”
If there was one positive (in addition to not going out) from the afternoon, it was watching Mikey Moore make his first appearance since October after recovering from a nasty virus. Moore walked off the pitch after 68 minutes and there was a small chorus of boos from Tottenham’s supporters who were unhappy with the decision.
The return of Moore was the only real positive to come out of Sunday (Andrew Kearns – CameraSport via Getty Images)
The winger’s first action of the afternoon was to hit a cameraman in the head with a wayward shot during the warm-up and things did not immediately improve. Reguilon moaned at the 17-year-old when he did not drop to receive a pass and then he was wiped out on the touchline by Ben Crompton. But Moore was electric during a 15-minute period in the second half when Spurs produced their best spell. He picked up the ball on the left wing, drove past Tamworth’s full-back and hit a fantastic cross with the outside of his boot into the box. Werner’s header was cleared off the line by George Morrison.
Maddison kept drifting over to the left and linking up intelligently with Moore. It speaks volumes of Moore’s ability that Maddison seems to trust him more than some of their other team-mates. A couple of minutes before he was substituted, Moore dazzled Tom McGlinchey with a series of body feints and stepovers which led the midfielder to fall over. He walked off with a bloody right knee after putting in a couple of fierce tackles too.
“Great to get him some game time,” Postecoglou said. “I think he’s itching to get back as well. He’s missed a fair bit of football. It just adds another attacking threat to us and I’m sure after today he’ll feel a lot better. As I said, I think he was a bit rusty at the start but he definitely grew into the game.”
It was not a good performance from Spurs, and it could have been a disastrous day, but they remain in three different cup competitions.
They need to be significantly better when they face Aston Villa in the next round but Micky van de Ven, Cristian Romero and Richarlison will hopefully return from injury by then.
For now, Postecoglou has to hope his players will still have enough energy to take on Arsenal in less than 72 hours.
(Top photo: Andrew Kearns – CameraSport via Getty Images)
