Manchester United vs Tottenham: Post Match Thoughts

The Premier League and our beloved Tottenham Hotspur have returned!

Unfortunately for us, we faced the daunting task of a new-look Manchester United with high profile acquisitions such as Memphis Depay, Morgan Schneiderlin and Bastian Schweinsteiger to contest with at the Theatre of Dreams. Not the ideal opener by any means but I was pleasantly surprised to see us come out of the blocks straight from the off and dominate United for the best part of half an hour. Spurs looked composed from back to front with new signing Toby Alderweireld spreading the play with his impressive diagonal (Dare I say Dawson-esque?) passes. We completely controlled possession as our pressing game led to the likes of Sergio Romero and Morgan Schneiderlin, both debuting for United, continuously gifting possession to Spurs. You could clearly see that work had been done on the training ground by Pochettino and the boys as we looked very threatening in the final third with fast-paced, decisive passes with nice little flicks thrown in for good measure around the United penalty area. Eriksen was unlucky not to finish off a beautiful Harry Kane dink over the top as The Dane just failed to keep his lob on target.

Source: tottenhamhotspur.com

Alas, in typical Tottenham fashion, after dominating the opening exchanges, a stray Nabil Bentaleb pass led to a United break which was diverted home by an unfortunate Kyle Walker who was attempting to make up 50 yards to prevent a Rooney tap-in. Today simply wasn’t Nabil’s day. A rare poor performance from the Algerian but one to which he can only learn and improve from. After the goal went in, the Spurs heads dropped which was the most frustrating element of the game today, for me. It points to poor mentality as we were completely rattled by an undeserved United stroke of good fortune. Spurs never really got going after that and the game faded away into a dull game of “Who can do the least and still get a result?”. Neither team did enough for a victory today yet United come away with 3 points and we come away with nada.

Today served as a reminder that Spurs are in desperate need of a winger with pace and creativity as I don’t have confidence in a trio of Dembele, Eriksen and Chadli behind Harry Kane. All of these players are quality footballers but their collective favoured position is playing as a CAM so they all naturally drift inside leading to lack of width. We also need a striker or two to ease the burden on young Kane’s shoulders. Kyle Walker was Tottenham’s best player today and one can only think that Kieran Trippier gave him the kick up the a*se that he needed. He now knows that he is not certain of his place putting necessary pressure on him to perform, mirroring what happened to Danny Rose (who we missed today, by the way) last season with the signing of Ben Davies. Young Dele Alli also made his Premier League debut today who was perhaps unlucky not to start after his impressive pre-season.

Spurs look so much more solid defensively with Toby&Jan and who knows what a few more good signings could do for us. Encouraging signs are there so one can only hope that a big season is in store for the Lilywhites. Get the chequebook out, Mr. Levy…