Nottingham Forest (away) 09.11.2022

It was another game where Spurs never really turned up.  Was it lack of interest in the competition or concern about proximity of the World Cup which starts in a couple of weeks ?  Forest were up for it and it didn’t look like we were.  The slow starts we have been making lead to our first attempt on goal coming in the 30th minute.  Admittedly Forest’s attacks were more frequent and more potent up to that point, but Spurs should have been fighting to match their energy.  In the ninth minute, Sanchez cleared the ball in the Spurs box straight against Awoniyi and the ball spun wildly hitting the bottom of Fraser Forster’s right hand post.  Forest were pushing hard and Forster had to block a Yates shot at close quarters when the ball dropped for him from a corner.  

Spurs had a little spell of pressure around the half hour with a couple of corners and Dier heading one just over the bar, winning a sliding header at the near post.  It ended with a shot on target at last, as Perisic did his step-over to make space to cross from the left wing, which was cleared, but only as far as Matt Doherty, whose first time far post drive was beaten out by Hennessey.  It was put out for a corner and when Ivan played it in, Sanchez headed an effort over the top.

It had been a pretty uneventful first 45 minutes, but the second half started as the first had.  Forster had to fist away a shot from Lingard and then came their first goal five minutes into the half.  Spurs didn’t learn from it and they were reliant on Forster to stop us going further behind as he stopped Surridge’s shot with his feet after Lingard had slipped him through on the keeper.  While he hasn’t had a chance to play this season, Forster looked more than capable and didn’t have much chance with either goal.  The second had the Spurs defence all over the place leaving Lingard free to put his header anywhere he liked, coming just seven minutes after the first.

The goals had a similarity about them.  Bissouma was bringing the ball out until he reached the centre circle and was obstructed from progressing by a Mangala body-check.  The ball was switched to their left side by Lingard and Lodi ripped a shot across Forster who didn’t have a chance to save it such was the power and curl that it was struck with.  Peter Bankes is one of the more decent referees, but his failure to give obstruction (does any referee these days ?) at least lead to the goal, but Lodi should have been closed down by one of our players before he got his shot off.

The second goal was scored in the 57th minute and started when Perisic was fouled on the edge of the Forest box by a tackle from behind by Boly and play continued until Sessegnon was robbed of the ball on our left wing by Aurier.  Our former defender and Awoniyi raced up the wing and Serge dug out a cross to the far post that was headed back into the middle by Surridge at the far post and an unmarked Lingard was in the right place to head in from inside the six-yard box.  Being caught on the break was not in the plan and was something we were supposed to be doing.

The game was up really, as Tottenham hadn’t played anywhere near their potential … even in a second half.  Conte threw on Richarlison, Kulusevski, Gil for Perisic, Skipp and Kane and Forest took Aurier off, along with Awoniyi to be replaced by Williams and Johnson.

There were a couple of yellow cards as Bissouma’s frustration and Mangala’s poor timing brought bookings, before Forster was Tottenham’s rescuer again, his feet denying Johnson this time.  With a quarter of an hour to go, Richarlison was played into space in the centre-circle in his own half by a knock on from Bissouma and Mangala challenged him from behind, scissoring the Brazilian just minutes after the Forest man had been booked for a foul on Djed Spence.  It was a brainless tackle and one that was unnecessary.

As seems to be the trend these days, a ball-boy threw the ball away when Dier went to take a throw-in.  If the FA doesn’t do something about this, then there will be a major incident and it will be the ball-boy who ends up as the victim of it all.  The referee had lost all control of the game by the time it reached the latter stages.  He waved the card at someone for no apparent reason, but nobody was sure who and when Johnson went down easily under challenge from Dier (less of a foul than that on Perisic earlier), the then Spurs captain gently lobbed the ball towards where the free-kick was awarded and the referee deemed it a yellow card offence.  Nobody was sure whether he was levelling things up, as it seemed he had given Dier the previous yellow card, but it turned out that had gone to Bentancur.  With Rodrigo looking to attack the ball when the free-kick was taken, Eric had to pull him back to prevent him receiving a second caution.  It was all a joke and by taking the ball into the corner of the pitch, Forest were trying to pay Tottenham back for Richarlison’s show-boating in the league match.

Spence had a header tipped over by Hennessey, then the game ended and we trudged off into the Nottingham night.  Forest obviously held a grudge over the League match and Spurs didn’t look as though they were bothered for much of the match.  So much for trying to win some silverware, as teams crashing out elsewhere would have meant that we might have had half a chance of meeting Manchester City somewhere along the line.  The only positive is that it means we will have less fixture congestion and can concentrate on the other three competitions, but it will be interesting to see what the approach to the FA Cup is.

Stan Chun

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