Rejoice! Spurs back in action

Finally, I am writing about a football match. Not a good match but a match nevertheless.

Tottenham’s pre-season tour of South Africa, under the guidance of Kevin Bond and Joe Jordan, started with defeat as George Lebese’s stoppage-time goal earned a 1-0 win for Kaizer Chiefs.

Spurs started slowly in the first half and had many players starting that will probably be moved on in the summer, or at least tried to be. The starting XI was as follows:

Cudicini; Hutton, Dawson, Bassong, Assou-Ekottu; Bentley, Huddlestone, Jenas, Krancjar; Keane, Defoe

The match was played at the Peter Mokaba Stadium in Polokwane with a sell-out crowd of over 40,000 there to cheer the teams on in the first game of the Vodacom Challenge.

The hosts dominated the first half with Spurs finding themselves in good positions and playing at a reasonable tempo, only to see the final ball being poor, notably from Hutton and Bentley. Now where does that sound familiar?

Keane and Defoe didn’t really have any clear first half chances and it was Nico and Bassong who were the most impressive during the first period.

Tom Huddlestone had an early scare, challenging for the ball and going down holding his ankle in the first minute, but the midfielder was fit to continue after treatment.

Within the first 15 minutes Siphiwe Tsahbalala, who scored the first goal of last summer’s World Cup for South Africa, flashed 2 shots wide of the Spurs net and Niko Kranjcar went close at the other end, firing a yard wide with Khune struggling to get there.

In what was always going to be a tough game against the biggest team in South Africa, the Chiefs gave as good as they got and carved out the best two chances by a distance in the first 45 minutes.

The first arrived on 31 minutes when Carlo Cudicni clumsily parried Dladla’s shot, only to see Lehlohonolo Majoro getting to the rebound first but the striker placed his side-foot woefully wide when he should have easily scored with the Spurs defence nowhere to be seen.

Five minutes later Mataung Jnr won possession from a lazy Alan Hutton and zipped in a cross to the near post that Majoro met but somehow angled his header over from six yards when should have done better, with once again the Spurs defence floundering.

There was no further real action in the half so it remained goalless.

Seven substitutions were made at half-time.

Vedran Corluka and Younes Kaboul replaced Hutton and Michael Dawson at the back, Aaron Lennon, Rafa van der Vaart and Bale came on for Bentley, Tom Huddlestone and Kranjcar while Peter Crouch and Roman Pavlyuchenko took over from Defoe and Keane up front.

Early in the second half Majoro had another chance for the Chiefs, which Cudicini turned around the near post.

Van der Vaart was straight into the action from his central role, (he was probably trying the position as a replacement for an injured Luka Modric), drilling a 25-yard shot at Khune which was easily dealt with.

Spurs were much better in the second half with the first teamers having a great influence.

As usual, we looked to Bale and Van der Vaart to run the show for us and both Bale and Lennon were causing problems on the wings.

It was, in fact, no surprise when Bale carved out our best chance of the game when his cross was met by a downward header from Crouch only for Khune to get down and claw out from his goalline.

Van der Vaart curled a free-kick just over and Bale, seemingly caught between a cross and shot, angled his effort just over. We were well in control and looked the likely winners as the Chiefs were struggling to muster any real opportunities and creating any danger in the second half.

We made our final change when South African Khumalo came on for Bassong to a great reception for a cameo performance.

The match then started to go from end to end as both teams were looking for the spoils. Lebese lashed just wide after poor defending and Bale went even closer from 25 yards with a fiery effort. He looked odds on to score in the 90th minute, when Spurs’ best move was played, a one-two with van der Vaart and connecting sweetly with a volley from about 12 yards out that Khune tipped brilliantly wide.

The Chiefs broke quickly from the cleared corner and suddenly they had a 3 on 2 situation that they used and Lebese made no mistake from 12 yards once he was put in the clear.

In the end, the result doesn’t really matter as the whole point of pre-season friendlies is to try things and build up the fitness levels. The worrying thing for me was that we still looked toothless up front and our reserve players that started, in my opinion, will not be good enough for challenging for things in the upcoming season.

Plenty of time left for that to change though.

Next up it’s South African PSL champions Orlando Pirates at the Mbombela Stadium, Nelspruit, on Tuesday. When Harry will be back in charge.

COYS

Rob