Match Report: Stoke 2-1 Tottenham Hotspur

THFC1882 presents Glen Bocking with a report of Tottenham Hotspurs visit to Stoke.

So…. The ‘run’ is over, that game away fans always refer to as being a tough game has ended in defeat, quite how Spurs lost though is another matter altogether.

For pretty much all of the 1st half and a decent chunk of the 2nd half it’s fair to say Spurs were the better team, aside from 2 set piece goals, Spurs spent the 1st half pretty much camped in Stoke’s half.

Aside from the odd foray into Spurs half Stoke were on the back foot, once the 2nd goal went in from a throw-in (not Delap) Stoke sat back and invited us on to them.

The 2nd half kicked off and the expected bombardment never happened!
Spurs, perhaps buoyed by our recent run, seemed to sit back and almost expect things to just open up in front of us but it never materialised, the team just sort of plodded along for the 1st 10 minutes or so, then something seemed to kick in and the team realised that if they didn’t get a move on then they might actually lose, and a get a move on they did, for 10 minutes or so we laid siege to the Stoke goal.

In the end all we could muster was a 62nd minute penalty which was tucked away expertly by Adebayor (surprisingly Rafa didn’t take it), after that we went for the jugular but a (deserved) 2nd yellow and subsequent red card for Kaboul all but ended things and the team disappointingly seemed to accept that the game was gone and so it drifted to full time without so much as a murmur (aside from a nice ovation when Palacios came on).

It’s easy to say the same old things us Spurs fans day when we lose, Rafa dropped too deep (he did), Bale and Lennon spent too long on the ‘wrong’ side (they did) but take away a couple of set pieces and we did OK, but alas it wasn’t enough and the run is over so let’s start a whole new one again next weekend against Sunderland shall we!

On a side note I have to say how disappointed with some of my fellow fans I was at the reaction Crouch got when he walked down the tunnel at the end, I was never his biggest fan but he surely didn’t deserve to be abused like he was at the end! Lest we forget that nights such as those against Inter Milan home and away were enjoyed in large thanks to his winning goal at Manchester City, I’d like to think us Spurs fans are better than that.

COYS

Glen Bocking (follow Glen on Twitter @gb2point0 )

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