Nottingham Forest (Home) 07.04.2024

It took three minutes for Ryan Yates to commit his first foul, pulling back Werner and Spurs had problems early on with Forest packing the centre of their defence, with a coupleof shots blocked and Bissouma striking one high over the bar and completely missing his kick on another.  Timo found beating Neco WIlliams was a fairly easy task and twice found Son at the near post tight to the line, but he wasn’t able to lay it back to a team-mate who was in space.  Elanga had broken away down the right and pulled the ball across the box, but Cristian Romero was there to clear a couple of minutes before a Spurs attack broke down and Murillo picked the ball up and tried to lob Vicario from all of 70 yards.  The Spurs keeper looked panicked as the ball was going over him, but it fell a couple of yards wide of his right hand post.  It was too close for comfort as the Brazilian tried to copy Bruno Fernandes’ goal against Liverpool a couple of hours earlier. 

The way Spurs play these days is to get an early cross low into the near post and Omobamidele cut one out for a corner that resulted in Bissouma having another effort on goal that took two deflections before flying wide and high.  With his fifth foul, a crude taking out of Maddison being nowhere near the ball, Yates finally forced the referee to reach for his yellow card.  He is such a clogger and has limited playing ability, with his greatest strength, by his own admission, is to try to stop opponents playing … and he doesn’t care how he does it.  Always in the referee’s ear, his inability to read the game was clear when Tottenham opened the scoring.  Playing the ball from the back, some quick passes in midfield between Bissouma and Porro pulled him out of position as he went to meet Bissouma, allowing the ball to be played around him to Sonny, who then moved it on to the left wing.  Werner was in acres of space as Williams failed to hold his right back position and it gave Timo time to slot a ball across the six-yard box and with players coming in at the far post, Murillo did from three yards what he couldn’t do from 70 and slid the ball in to his keeper’s left hand side.  After a surprisingly short VAR check for offside, the referee pointed to the spot and Spurs were ahead.

When Forest had the ball, Spurs were swarming all over them and winning the ball high up the pitch, it produced a shot from Bissouma, which he hit cleanly but cut it across goal from just outside the box.  Forest did find space down their left and Hudson-Odoi hit a shot, but it was straight at Guglielmo Vicario.  Forest were trying to use the speed of Elanga and Hudson-Odoi with the ball over our defence, but Yves was still trying his luck and this one on 23 minutes was low straight at the keeper.  Spurs came even closer to scoring a minute late, when the standard move of Werner putting a low ball in, this time to Brennan Johnson, who volleyed from inside the six-yard box and hit Sels at point-blank range, which was good goalkeeping.  

Soon after, Werner was booked for his second foul.  When Forest moved the ball along their back line, from left to right, Williams fed the ball down the line in behind Udogie for Elanga and his low ball into the box, took a lucky deflection off Romero’s block and ran kindly to Wood just ahead of the near post and he drilled it through Porro’s legs and across Vicario to find the net from eight yards out.  The Forest fans suddenly found their voice and were singing songs of European success, probably before most of them were born.  With 33 minutes gone, the visitors should have taken the lead.  A ball over Porro, whose outstretched leg couldn’t reach it, allowed Aina to get in behind him and pull a low pass back to the edge of the box, where the ineffectual Yates failed to beat Vicario with a low shot.  It was a good save, down to his left, but at full stretch he got a hand to it, only pushing it into Wood’s path three yards out.  With Vicario still on the ground, the New Zealander went for power and could only hit the post !  Vicario did well to recover and try to throw his arms up in front of the striker, but it was a horrendous miss from a player who has been in good scoring form of late.

The heavily watered pitch was causing players on both sides to slip, which wasn’t making for a great spectacle.  Elanga ran a long way through the middle of the pitch before firing a tame shot straight at Vicario, as Forest had their tails up after the goal, but there was a warning to their keeper about time-wasting 39 minutes into the game.  They had a few tricks shown by their wingers, but their pattern of play doesn’t really threaten the goal that much.  The same couldn’t be said for Spurs, although not playing at their best, they were still dangerous around the Forest box.  They played the ball around until Romero joined the attack and passed outside him to Johnson, whose cross came off Aina and hit the angle of the goal, going off for a corner.  When play stopped Yates was on the floor making a sign that indicated he wanted a VAR review.  Like many refereeing edicts, booking players and staff for doing so went by the wayside after a couple of weeks as had the referee here enforced that interpretation, Yates would have walked.  He was complaining of being punched in the stomach by Maddison when play had been over his side of the pitch, but it transpired that he was holding onto James’ shirt and that it looked more of an open hand than a fist.  But making the most of it is his stock-in-trade and while it may well have been reviewed, the official spoke to both players – perhaps saying that if he sent Maddison off Yates would have to follow – before letting play continue with our corner.  Hooper may well have taken the same line as expounded by Roy Keane on Sky, whose view was that Yates wants to give it out but can’t take it.  

Spurs were asleep when Forest had a free-kick 35 yards out and Gibbs-White played it with the outside of his right foot inside Werner to send Elanga away and he hung up a cross that Vicario turned over the bar when it looked like it might drop over him. 

Half-time brought Hojbjerg and Bentancur on for Sarr and Bissouma, with the Dane immediately involved as a corner a minute into the second half was played to him on the left hand corner of the box and he measured up a shot that was heading for the top left-hand corner of the Forest goal until Sels dived across and up to palm it over the bar.  Yates as usual was nowhere near the ball as he was too interested in having a massive handful of van de Ven’s shirt in the area.  While Wood headed wide when he had a free-header five yards out, but was offside anyway, Werner was still running Williams ragged and a cross missed out Bentancur in the middle and was just too high for Johnson to be able to control a volley that went over the bar.  Wood then had another free header to an Aina long-throw, but he had been concentrating so much on blocking off Vicario that when the ball came to him, he could only flick it into the keeper’s hands. 

Another Spurs move saw Yates push Maddison over in the box with no intention of going for the ball, but keeping the ball moving, we won a corner on the right.  Taken short, Porro, Maddison and Johnson worked it into the box.  Brennan played it back to Son just inside the D, but faced by Danilo, he made a short pass to his left, where Micky van de Ven took a touch and then hit a shot so hard with his left foot into the top right hand core r of the keeper’s goal that Sels didn’t even move.  The stadium exploded with noise as one of the fans’ favourites had scored a magnificent goal.  Once more, Yates was chasing the ball like a headless chicken and not getting anywhere near it either.

Forest were so hard done by, a late, overly forceful slide in that caught Bentancur brought Gibbs-White a yellow card which he and Nuno disputed and it was a foul that led to the third Spurs goal.  Romero played it back to Vicario, he played it back to Romero, it went forward to Maddison, then back to Hojbjerg, who sprayed it 50 yards wide to the left to Werner.  He was challenged by Williams, who wasn’t strong enough to win the second ball against Maddison and Udogie won the header as the ball spun up into the air, returning it to Werner who contorted his body to play the ball past Yates down the line to Maddison, who won his tackle against Williams.  Now in space near the corner flag, he took the ball on to the dead-ball line past Yates and crossed into the middle.  Bentancur should have got more on his header, but it glanced off his forehead across the box to Porro, 15 yards out and he struck the ball powerfully past a helpless keeper to make it 3-1.  Two goals in seven minutes had turned this match in Tottenham’s favour, much as they had done in the early part of the second half in other home matches.

Bentancur was soon in the book for similar challenge on Gibbs-White as the one he got booked for on Bentancur.  It gave Forest a free-kick which they played into the middle, while Murillo was dragging Johnson down at the far post.  As it was, Romero cleared it, but as play continued a long ball to the far post saw Aina reach it, but it looped up and Vicario left it as the ball bounced off the top of the angle.  Spurs opened Forest up on the break and Maddison flashed a shot wide that took a deflection on the way and then Hojbjerg took another shot, but slipped as he hit it, going directly at the goalie.  Pierre was adding a lot of bite in midfield, winning the ball time after time and Werner was still plugging away on the left wing, putting a dangerous ball that went all the way across goal, with no-one following in to finish it.  All Forest could do in this part of the match was get nine outfield players in their last third to try and deny Tottenham space, but it wasn’t working.

Woods wen off with Origi replacing him to a chorus of boos from the Spurs fans, with Dominguez replacing Gibbs-White.  Yates was lucky not to follow them when he flattened Hojbjerg form behind with 20 minutes left.  There’s playing on the edge and just being plain stupid, but referees let him get away with it.  Williams didn’t get away with it when Werner won a tackle against him just inside the Tottenham half and was away, only to be pulled back bringing the inevitable booking.  

With fifteen minutes left Lo Celso and Kulusevski replaced Werner and Maddison, but Dejan never looked comfortable playing on the left, with his decision making not up to his usual standard.  Lo Celso was quickly on the ball and sent Udogie away down the left, before he passed inside to Son on the 18 yard line.  He was tackled and as Gio came into win the ball Danilo caught him on the knee with a full set of cleats in a challenge on the ground, but not that dissimilar to the one that got Bissouma sent off at the City Ground.  The Forest defender played the ball first, but his follow through caught the Spurs midfielder way above his knee.  Seeing as how we have had players sent off for the same sort of tackle (Romero against Chelsea for example too) it came as a surprise that nothing more was spotted by VAR.  Yates went off before he was sent off and Danilo was also subbed having just picked up a yellow card leaving him vulnerable if he made another dodgy tackle.

Spurs tried to play it out from the back when play resumed, but Hojbjerg’s ball intended for van de Ven was cut out and Micky did well firstly to block ELanga’s pass inside the area and then to throw himself in Reyna’s way, causing him to miss the ball completely.  We were getting a little bit too rash in passing the ball, over-hitting it when all we had to do was to hold onto it and Porro got out of a tight situation with a double drag-back pirouette to beat two Forest men.  Tottenham were still working hard to win the ball and when Kulusevski tracked back to intercept a Forest pass, it lead to a move that featured Johnson taking it forward to the edge of the box before passing to Son, who took it left and from just inside the box hit a low shot across the keeper, who just got a hand to it and took the effort onto the post. 

Knocking the ball around, Spurs were still finding space, with Kulusevski away on the left with so much time, he couldn’t decide what to do with it and ended up passing straight to a defender, later popping up on the right but a ball across the box was cut out by the first man.  

Forest were simply out-classed today.  For all the chances they had in the first half and going by the xG criteria they had more chance than Spurs of scoring, but that means nothing when you look at the score-line when the referee blows the final whistle.  Once more the attacking insistence of the Spurs team eventually broke down the defensive set-up that Nuno Espirito Santo put in place, but his resources are much less advantageous than those at the THS when he was in charge and that short time saw initial success quickly turn sour.  There are some decent players in his squad, but there are some very average players, which might explain their current predicament of being down amongst the bottom-dwellers.

There were some good performances in the Spurs team, none better than Micky van de Ven, who showed that he can be important for the team at the top end of the pitch as well as in the defence.  Pedro Porro finally got a league goal after being the player with the most shots who hadn’t scored and Brennan Johnson was always involved, despite being well-marked at times. 

An important three points that takes us into fourth place and equal last-season’s points total, with a resilience and energy that wears teams down it will be a run-in that is disjointed – no game for 15 days after Newcastle away, followed by a rush of matches having to be packed in because of other clubs’ involvement in other competitions – but every match becomes more important.

Phil Eastcott

• Giovani Lo Celso made his 100th Spurs appearance.
• Players took the knee before kick off.