Tottenham Hotspur notched a couple of early goals, got some key players a good rest, and fostered a club debut for one of their academy stars on Wednesday evening at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium as they
defeated League One side Doncaster Rovers in the Carabao Cup. Tottenham had goals from Joao Palinha and Brennan Johnson along with an own goal from Rovers’ Jay McGrath en route to the next round of the competition.
This match added a little extra spice because of Tottenham’s youth players. Three Spurs youngsters — Ju’nai Byfeld, Luca Williams-Barnett, and Tynan Thompson — all started on the bench for Spurs, while Damola Ajayi, who is on loan at Doncaster from Spurs this season, was given permission to play against his former club; Doncaster started him in midfield. Williams-Barnett did make his debut, coming on as a late substitute and earning his Legacy Number.
Tottenham were up two goals inside 15 minutes after a lovely overhead strike from Palhinha and an own goal by Rovers’ Jay McGrath. All signs pointed towards goals galore, with Brennan Johnson in particular putting in some tasty balls from the right flank, but instead the match mostly devolved into a sludge-fest. Lucas Bergvall had one in the back of the net at the end of regular time that was called back for offside, but Bergvall sprung Johnson in injury time for a breakaway goal right at the death. The final score was 3-0.
Vintage football it was not, but Tottenham did manage to avoid a major struggle against a lower-league club in a domestic cup competition, something that, it has to be said, was not a given. Here are my takeaways from Wednesday’s match.
Match reactions
- Doncaster’s head coach looks a lot like Kaleb from Clarkson’s Farm. This is a very important observation.
- My word that Palhinha goal was something special. Great reaction to see the ball coming and dink a little overhead kick into the net. Great finish, great move. Just great. Didn’t know he had THAT in his locker.
- I’m just a simple soccer blogger but going up 2-0 inside 15 minutes seems good. Yes, the second was an own goal but let’s not minimize the delivery from Wilson Odobert, which was also wonderful.
- Speaking of deliveries, as the Cartilage Free Captain Brennan Johnson Agenda-Haver ™ I want to say that in this match Brennan put four fantastic balls in on a plate, none of which were converted but all of which should’ve been. I expected Johnson to crash the box at the back post as per usual, and instead he played (well!) as a traditional right winger until he got on the end of Bergvall’s late through ball. He had a really nice match.
- Doncaster were clearly outmatched, but give them credit – they really went for it. They had a number of decent looks going forward, especially on the counter. Olusanya in particular looked dangerous; Doncaster didn’t have the horses to really hang with Spurs, but they gave it their best shot and I applaud them for it. And this was their rotated lineup!
- Damola Ajayi also didn’t look especially overawed by the occasion and had a couple of nice moments in possession.
- Spurs looked unusually open against a rotated League One side. Danso and Palhinha are no Romero and Van de Ven, but they were both perfectly cromulent, if a touch slow at times.
- And right after I typed that, Kinsky made a fantastic stop to deflect a shot off the post and out. He continues to deserve more minutes, and I hope he’s able to get them.
- It was fun watching Archie Gray play, and really well, in midfield, doing things that we know he should be able to do, against lower league opposition. Maybe this is his level right now and I’d like to see those skills scale up to higher level opposition, but let’s call a spade a spade — great match from Archie tonight.
- Pretty obvious how and why Kevin Danso won the Long Throws Tryout from this summer. He can really rifle them in.
- Mathys Tel, man. I dunno. He looks like he should have the tools and obviously he’s young enough that he needs more games like this to find his footing, but his whiff inside two minutes on what would be an obvious goal is almost unforgivable as a striker, he did it AGAIN in the second half, and he had virtually no chemistry with Wilson Odobert. I want to believe in him, but he’s not giving me much to cling to.
- Andy Madley, whoof. Declined to give what would’ve been a borderline penalty in the first half, declined an obvious yellow after Tel was tripped in transition, and then gave a super weak high boot on Danso that wasn’t even a foul. The state of officiating in the UK is appalling; conjecture in the chat was that officials are now so used to using VAR as a crutch that they don’t know what to do once they no longer have it.
- Pedro Porro looked exhausted midway through the second half, and it’s no wonder — he’s started every single match in every competition this season. I really thought this was the opportunity to get him a rest, but with Ben Davies out injured… I guess not. But he can’t keep doing this, his legs will fall off.
- It’s worth noting that Spurs played pretty poorly throughout the whole of the second half. I realize most of these players haven’t played with each other much (if at all) but it was not an inspiring performance. Good thing we were already up 2-0 early or this could’ve been a lot more nervy.
- So, so happy to see a club debut for 16-year old Luca Williams-Barnett, who has been tearing it up at the U18 and U21 levels this season. He showed some glimpses of that raw talent in this one as well. I’m just sad Spurs were so ass in the second half we didn’t get debuts for Byfeld and Thompson as well.
