Ange Postecoglou lauded the “real spirit and character” that he admits has been missing from the first four games of Tottenham’s season after late goals from substitutes Brennan Johnson and Djed Spence prevented Coventry City recording another remarkable underdog yarn.
The Championship side deservedly took a lead through Brandon Thomas-Asante midway through the second half that Ellis Simms twice came close to doubling before Spurs recovered to sneak through to the fourth round of the Carabao Cup. At least that is one route to a trophy still in Postecoglou’s sights.
Yet until the introduction of James Maddison, Son Heung-Min and Kulusevski, Spurs had at times been outplayed – and certainly out-fought – by the spirited second-tier side. Then, in stoppage time, Rodrigo Bentancur played Johnson in on goal and the Wales winger, abused online so badly after his efforts in the north London derby defeat on Sunday that he deleted his Instagram account, slipped in the winning goal.
Both teams may have made middling starts to their respective league campaigns, but the pressure was clearly more on Spurs. Neutrals love a manager who shows ambition and shoots from the hip, after Postecoglou’s conviction that he “always wins things in my second year”.
This he may have done in Australia, Japan and Scotland, where he won the title in his second seasons in charge, but the Premier League is a completely different beast. All of which suggests he will need to win a cup, a feat Spurs haven’t managed since 2008, to maintain his successful second-season streak, and this competition offers an easier target than the FA Cup or Europa League.
Still, he gambled by making eight changes from the side that lost 1-0 to Arsenal, and while he argued that the likes of summer signings Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall, making their first starts for the club, will benefit from the extended minutes they played here, they could not match Coventry’s tempo in the middle hour of this game.
“It was a typical cup game,” Postecoglou conceded. “Coventry had a real energy to their game. We had to hang in there and it was really hard just to stay in the game. But we [did] and showed some real spirit and character, which has probably been missing in the first four games of the season. But the last 10 minutes we got some really good belief going.”
An audible minority of Spurs fans booed their team off at half-time, and there were indignant cries when Bergvall, the Swedish teenager signed for £8.5m from Djurgården, was replaced by Son just after the hour, when Maddison came on for Dominic Solanke, who showed moments of quality but is still seeking his first goal since joining from Bournemouth for £55m. “I don’t think there are any quick fixes,” Postecoglou said, pointing out that with Qarabag visiting when the Europa League campaign starts next week, Spurs will need to rotate.
Robins rightly identified Maddison as the difference-maker, as he started dictating possession and taking the sting out of Coventry’s high-tempo approach.
The excellent Jack Rudoni had almost scored after 45 seconds, Fraser Forster saving his shot after playing Bergvall a difficult first touch on the edge of his own area. With Spurs vulnerable down their defensive right, Norman Bassette, a Belgian teenager signed from Caen in the summer, was also outstanding and it was from his low cross that Thomas-Asante, a £2.25million capture from West Brom, adjusted his feet nimbly to sidefoot Coventry into the lead.
Ephron Mason-Clark almost slid home at the near post after Simms’ header from Jake Bidwell’s long cross but Coventry paid for not getting that crucial second goal. “We have to be more ruthless,” Robins said. “Life presents you with chances and we seem to not take those chances.
“You look back at the play-off final and the Manchester United [FA Cup semi-final] and we don’t take the chances, and that’s the case again tonight. It’s disappointing we didn’t see the game over the line. If you’re Tottenham Hotspur, you’re probably relieved to get through tonight.”
A Worrying Sign
Imagine a world in which Djed Spence had run onto Dejan Kulusevski’s pass and shot straight at Coventry goalkeeper Ben Wilson.
Tottenham would only have had two minutes of normal time left to find an equaliser. The home crowd would have been ferocious. Spurs would have had to leave even more space for Coventry to counter-attack into. The home team had missed enough chances to kill the game after Brandon Thomas-Asante put them 1-0 up just past the hour. They could easily have made it 2-0 or more.
Imagine the mood in the away end if Spurs had lost this Carabao Cup tie. Those fans had been on edge all evening, booing at half-time, after watching yet another half with plenty of possession but no goal threat. They had booed again when coach Ange Postecoglou took off Lucas Bergvall for James Maddison, just before Coventry’s goal. If Spurs had been knocked out — while playing this poorly — they would have been apoplectic.
That anger would have been about this performance, which up until Spence’s goal was one of the worst of the Postecoglou era.
The first half had been all toothless possession — Spurs passing it about but going nowhere. The players looked awkward in the build-up, unable to move the ball forward, not even getting into the positions to possibly create chances. And then the second half was even worse: the visitors were sloppy in possession, and every turnover looked like it might lead to a Coventry goal.
Postecoglou defended the performance afterwards, saying that it was “a bit harsh” to call it “flat”. Spurs fans — especially if it had stayed 1-0 — would have said the opposite. To many eyes, last night was the worst under Postecoglou in his 14 months, and in fact the worst for years. At times it felt like the bad old days of Antonio Conte, Nuno Espirito Santo or Jose Mourinho, the players looking frozen on the ball, unwilling to take a risk or make a run. Postecoglou was meant to banish those kinds of performances to the past.
A Lack of Momentum
The fans’ anger would not just have been about last night then, but about the sense that Spurs have lost momentum.
You may disagree about exactly when that happened: the Chelsea game last November? The 4-0 away win against Aston Villa in March? But at some point, something was lost that has not been re-discovered. The difference in mood between now and this time last year is palpable. The fierce unity of the fanbase behind the manager has eroded. There are believers, there are sceptics, and plenty in between. Had Spurs lost this tie, it would only have got worse.
Postecoglou's Decision
But above all, had Spurs lost, there would have been fury at Postecoglou’s selections.
Last season, in their first Carabao Cup game under him, he made nine changes for a trip to fellow Premier League side Fulham, and Spurs lost on penalties. Against Coventry of the Championship, Postecoglou made eight changes.
While some of those were necessary — giving first starts to summer signings Bergvall and Archie Gray — some were not. What new information could he hope to learn about Fraser Forster or Timo Werner or even Ben Davies? Spurs’ struggles suggested they had not started with a strong enough team to win the game. It was the big-name substitutes — Kulusevski, Maddison and Brennan Johnson — who turned the tide.
Postecoglou is not the first Tottenham manager to try to rotate his way through the cups, but this approach never ended well for his predecessors either.
Eighteen months ago, Conte picked a weakened team at Sheffield United, also a second-tier side at the time, in the FA Cup’s last 16. Spurs lost 1-0 and Conte’s standing with the fans never recovered. Four games later, he was gone. Another cup exit from a weakened team as the club continues to wait for a first major trophy since 2008 would have damaged Postecoglou’s own standing.
A Second Season Under Pressure
Imagine the scorn he would have faced in light of his comments on Sunday about winning a trophy in his second season with every club he’s managed.
“I’m happy to be judged against that standard because that’s my standard,” Postecoglou said again on Tuesday. “I have no problems with people using that as a yardstick.” But if Spurs had gone out here, people would have said that he was already down to two realistic chances of a trophy this season — the FA Cup and the Europa League. This is not how you want your prospects to be framed in mid-September. The pressure on Tottenham in those two competitions would have been immense.
A Narrow Escape
Now, it does not take much of a leap to imagine any of these complaints or discussions if Spurs had gone out last night. They very nearly lost the game. They arguably deserved to lose it. From the moment Thomas-Asante scored, if not before, all of this was on everyone’s lips.
But of course in the real world, Spurs did not lose. Spence’s shot went in, then so did Johnson’s. Five minutes after being a goal down, they were 2-1 up. And the mood at the end was very different from the above: a mixture of relief, glee and amazement that Tottenham had rescued everything after playing so badly.
They are safely into the last 16 of the Carabao Cup, ties to be played October 29-30, meaning they can focus on the league and Europa League for the next few weeks. The players were warmly received by the away end and Postecoglou walked over to applaud them too. And when he later spoke of the “relentlessness” his team had shown in rescuing the result, something they had lacked so far this season, you could see what he meant.
What's Next for Tottenham?
The next question for Tottenham is which of these narratives will win out.
Is it the struggles of the first 87 minutes, the problems in possession, the obvious lack of confidence through the team? If so, and if visitors Brentford pose Spurs problems on Saturday that they cannot solve, then the grumbles of the fans that were silenced at the end here will come back.
But if they can bottle some of that character shown in the final minutes against Coventry, the magic of Kulusevski, the bravery of Spence, maybe even a reinvigorated Johnson, and take it into all four competitions, then perhaps this could be a turning point after all.
