TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR
2 WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS
2
   
(2) (1)
  Date : –  Sunday 29th December 2024
Kick off : –  15.00
  Competition : – Premier League
Venue : –   Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
  Crowd : –  61,284
  Referee : –  Chris Kavanagh (Manchester) Linesmen : – Mr. Richard West; Mr. Timothy Wood
  Fourth official : –  Tim Robinson
  VAR official : –  Jarred Gillett VAR Assistant : –  Nicholas Hopton
  Weather : – Misty, chilly
  Spurs kicked off the first half attacking the Park Lane end
  Playing time : –   90 + 16 minutes

 

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS
GOAL-SCORERS
      Betancur  11m 03s  (asst. Porro)   Hwang  06m 25s  (asst. Ait-Nouri)
      Johnson  45+2m 17s  (asst. Kulusevski)   Strand Larsen  86m 14s  (asst. Ait-Nouri)
  CARDS
    Bentancur  (foul on R. Gomes)  90+7   Bellegarde  (foul on Lulusevski)  27
       Semedo  (foul on Solanke)  45+2
   
TEAM
20.   Fraser FORSTER 1.   Jose SA
     
23.   Pedro PORRO  2.   Matt DOHERTY
6.   Radu DRAGUSIN 4.   Santiago BUENO
14.   Archie GRAY 15.   Craig DAWSON  (  19.   Rodrigo GOMES  78)
13.   Destiny UDOGIE  (  3.   Sergio REGUILON  50)      
  22.   Nelson SEMEDO  (c)  
8.   Yves BISSOUMA  (  29.   Pape Matar SARR  64)  7.   ANDRE Andrade  (  20.   Tommy DOYLE  69)
30.   Rodrigo BENTANCUR    8.   Joao GOMES
3.   Rayan AIT-NOURI   
22.   Brennan JOHNSON    (  10.   James MADDISON  64)    
21.   Dejan KULUSEVSKI  27.   Jean-Ricner BELLEGARDE     (  29.   Goncalo GUEDES 46) 
7.   Heung-Min SON  (c)   (  16.   Timo WERNER  64)  10.   Matheus CUNHA  (  9.   Jorgen STRAND LARSEN  46 
      
19.   Dominic SOLANKE 11.   HWANG Hee-Chan    (  26.   Carlos FORBS  78) 
Substitutes Substitutes
  40.   Brandon AUSTIN 31.   Sam JOHNSTONE
  48.   Alfie DORRINGTON 37.   Pedro LIMA
  15.   Lucas BERGVALL 46.   Alfie POND
  64.   Callum OLUSESI 29.   Bastien MEYEUPIYOU
  42.   Will LANKSHEAR   

    = Assist        =  Goal scored       =  Own goal scored

Manager : – Ange Postecoglou Manager : –  Vitor Pereira
Kit Supplier : – Nike Kit Supplier : –  Sudu
Shirt Sponsor : – AIA Shirt Sponsor : –   Debet
Shirt Sleeve Sponsor : –  Kraken Shirt Sleeve Sponsor : – JD Sports
Colours : –
Colours : –
All ‘hyper violet’ with orange detailing
Images of kits courtesy of the marvellous Colours of Football website

 

MATCH REPORT
  A late equaliser for Wolverhampton Wanderers denied Spurs a win at the THS that they should have wrapped up well before it came, having failed to score from the penalty spot in the first half and having to settle for a point in a 2-2 draw.

After a slow start to the game, Wolves took the lead in the seventh minute when Udogie tripped Cunha, who fell into Rodrigo Bentancur and spent a minute on the turf, before lining up the free-kick.  Everyone looked towards Dawson at the far post as the likely target, but Cunha touched the ball and Ait-Nouri squared it to Hwang on the edge of the D to fire in low past Forster as he dived to his left, the ball going in off the post.  Johnson had been pushed down in the box, but VAR didn’t see anything wrong with that, so the goal stood.  It was a recovery of Lazarus proportions for Hwang, who, only a minute before, went down and stayed down wanting the game stopped as he is prone to do more often than not. 

For Spurs, it was the start they didn’t want.  Having looked reasonably comfortable up until then, we were undone by a set-piece.  Spurs had one of their own when Dawson went through the back of Dejan Kulusevski, hitting him on the back of his head with his fist at the same time.  The referee failed to spot that, but that was typical of Kavanagh’s performance and as one of our supposedly top referees, his reading of the game and consistency in decision making was poor throughout.  On occasions when he played advantage, he appeared to either think that this absolved the person who committed the foul or failed to remember who it was.  On more than one occasion a bad foul went without a yellow that was given for other fouls of a similar nature.  Back at the free-kick, it was taken short for Johnson to win a corner, with Kulusevski ready to take it before leaving it to Porro to cross into the middle of the box.  The ball just cleared Dome Solanke, but Bentancur leapt behind him and bulleted a header to Sa’s left that was unstoppable.  Rodrigo’s run took him clear of Dawson, giving him a free-header just like the one that he scored against Ipswich prior to his suspension.

Getting back into the game would have helped if the referee hadn’t been so poor.  Taking a throw-in inside his own half, Bentancur was then dragged to the floor by Andre, allowing play to go on and for Cunha to take a shot that fortunately he pulled wide of Forster’s goal.  If the referee didn’t see the foul, it was because of his bad positioning to keep the ball in his sight.  Hwang’s continual fouling, while not making bad fouls, were cynical and stopped Spurs progressing, but when Dejan slid in to tackle Cunha just outside the Spurs box and didn’t make contact, a free-kick was given for the Wolves striker kicking the ground.  Having scored from one, they didn’t need a post-Christmas gift of another that wasn’t deserving of one, but the wall did it’s job and blocked Cunha’s shot.  When Bentancur went in to tackle Semedo and got his foot trodden on, it was not a surprise that the free-kick went in Wolves’ favour !

With 20 minutes gone, it was a little worrying that Fraser Forster needed some treatment and Destiny Udogie took the opportunity to change his boots.  Both were okay to carry on and when Spurs won the ball from a Wolves throw in front of the West Stand, Kulusevski took the ball on before being tripped from behind by Gomes, the ref only awarding a throw-in.  Tottenham continued to build attacks and when Porro took another corner from the same side we scored from, this time it was Dragusin rising in the middle of the box to put a header a foot wide of the far post.  The Spurs goal was under threat when Udogie tried to shield the ball off in the North-East corner of the pitch and was robbed, with a low ball coming in that Bentancur got to and luckily, it went off for a corner, although could have gone anywhere.  The corner was headed out by Rodrigo and when Dejan tried to bring the ball away, he was wrestled to the floor by Bellegarde, with a yellow card finally appearing for a violet-shirted player as our Swedish winger flexed his shoulder that had nearly been wrenched out of its socket. 

Forster was playing the ball longer when taking back-passes and was pretty accurate in his distribution.  It helped get the ball away as there were periods in the game when we didn’t appear able to clear it satisfactorily.  There was an attack that Johnson and Kulusevski worked on the right, that saw the ball come across an  Solanke and Bentancur both went for it, bumped into each other and missed the ball.  An offside had been given against Dejan before he crossed it, but it could have been costly as it was a good chance if it had been onside and one of them had taken it.   Wolves were getting the run of the ball tackles won by Spurs seeing it run to their players and one time it was played for Cunha to flash a shot a couple of feet wide of Fraser’s right-hand post.  Sa almost got caught on the ball in his box by Solanke, but Sonny won a corner in the aftermath.  It was from a later corner that it was half-cleared and Kulusevski set up a shot for Yves Bissouma, who fired it high into the South Stand.

When Tottenham cut out a pass from Ait-Nouri intended for Cunha on the edge of our penalty area, a pass from Dragusin saw Brennan Johnson turn the ball onto Dejan push the ball past Andre, who pulled his own arms back, as he was thinking about fouling as he glided past.  Taking the ball from 25 yards inside the Spurs half to a position wide on the right of the Wolves 18 yard line, Kulusevski slipped a ball into the area that Johnson was alert to and nipped between Andre and Bueno.  Andre tried to step across him, got nowhere near the ball, caught the back of Brennan’s ankle, bringing him down, with the referee pointing straight to the spot.   Cue Wolves players sitting on the turf or surrounding the ref, with Sa failing to get back on his goal-line, all the time being allowed to delay the taking of the penalty as Son had to wait.  He took his stuttering run up and shot to the keeper’s right with the ball a couple of feet off the ground.  Sa guessed right and the ball was at a “good height for the keeper” and wasn’t hit the hardest allowing the save to be made.  Sonny wasn’t having the best game, having failed to complete some fairly straightforward passes and tried to see a ball out that was never going to go off, allowing it to be kept in by a Wolves player.  Little things, but perhaps showing the tiredness he is suffering. 

So, spurning the chance to go ahead two minutes before half-time, was this to be another match where we should have put it beyond the opposition before they had a chance to get back into the match ?  We had already become the first team in Premier League history to have gone behind in 15 home matches in a calendar year.  Seconds before 45 minutes, Udogie poked the ball off Semedo’s toe and Son was clear on the left wing.  He made tracks infield and desperate to make up for the penalty miss, he was always going to shoot, but Doherty went with him to block his effort inside the D. 

Soon after Semedo was booked for a cynical trip as Dom turned away from him and went into the Wolves half, but after Spurs tried to work the ball around the Wolves area, it was cleared and recycled, with Archie Gray playing it to Bentancur who had come short.  He took it on the half-turn and played it right to Porro, who returned the ball to him on the halfway line.  The Uruguayan moved forward away from Ait-Nouri, holding off Cunha and playing the ball up to Johnson.  He reached the ball with his first touch and on the stretch and poked it between Gomes and Dawson on to Kulusevski in the box.  Having just conceded a penalty, Dawson and Bueno didn’t want to challenge Dejan and he stood up Beuno, but stopping the ball and causing the defender to over-run past him.  Aware of what was happening around him, the Swede laid the ball back for Brennan to strike with a powerful right footed shot that flew between the keeper and the near post from just outside the six-yard box.  He reminds me a bit of Chris Armstrong, who never seemed to enjoy celebrating his goals, as he appeared angry with someone somewhere in the West Stand.  It was the last kick of the half and the teams trooped straight off for the interval. 

It was great to see Chris Hughton back as the half-time guest and Paul Coyte was right when he said that Chrissy was one of the nicest players to pull on the lilywhite shirt.  Wolves took off Cunha and Bellegarde at the break and brought on Guedes and Strand Larsen, who provided a physical presence up front.  

Just when the midfield were starting to play some joined up passing, Destiny Udogie went down off the ball up the left wing holding the back of his right thigh.  After some treatment from the physios, he went off to be replaced by Sergio Reguilon, who was getting more playing time than most Spurs fans might have imagined.  Another defensive injury wasn’t the thing we needed with a busy January ahead and it further restricts any rotation available to the boss.  After another long stop for attention for Semedo who had headed Bentancur’s shoulder in an aerial challenge, they won a free-kick that was swung straight out of play, but caught Spurs playing out and Bueno blazed over when the ball into the box was cleared. Having cleared another Wolves corner, Ait-Nouri ran in from the left to let goa  fierce shot that hit Dawson straight in his stomach.  It must have been painful, but even more so when the linesman’s flag went up to give him offside !

Ait-Nouri was finding space on the Wolves left side, so when Guedes played the ball into the space around that side of the pitch outside the box, it was only a great block by Porro that stopped the visiting defender’s shot getting through to goal.  Pape Matar Sarr came on for Bissouma, Ange relieved Son of his place on the pitch, with Werner taking over, while Maddison came off the bench for Brennan Johnson.  It improved the speed of Tottenham’s move with a number of passes taking the ball from our box to theirs, ending with James hitting a shot too high, as Andre became the latest Wolves player who went down to break up play.  Players flocked to the visitors bench to get instruction as they took off the Brazilian and brought on Doyle.

I was not sure which game the ref or linesmen were watching, because when Dom got the ball in the box, Bueno tackled him, but Dom was shielding the ball off for a corner, when the defender put two hands in his back and pushed him over in the box.  Kavanagh had already given fouls like this all afternoon outside and it was clear that the defender had no intention of playing the ball, but where the ref was happy to hand out free-kicks outside the penalty area, it became a totally different matter inside the 18 yard box.

From a throw, Solanke headed on a ball up to him and Sarr was away, he got to the box and took on three Wolves players as he ran to his left, but his legs gave out on him as he was crowded out.  Rodrigo Bentancur was having a great game and when he turned away through two Wolves players outside of the Spurs box, it was the started a move that went left to Timo Werner, who out-witted Semedo by moving the ball from his right foot to his left in the area and then whipping the ball across goal, with Solanke feet away from getting a touch on the ball with Sa out of position.  When Doyle lost his balance trying to turn on the ball on the edge of the centre circle in the Spurs half, Dom picked his pocket and was off.  Doyle made a crude challenge to try and bring him down but missed and was probably worthy of a booking as the intent was there if not the contact.  Faced with two violet shirts closing in on him, Solanke played the ball to his right for Kulusevski, who ran on into the box, dragging it wide and past Sa, finishing with a shot from an angle that Bueno stopped before it reached the goal.

Bueno went through Solanke on the halfway line, with the ref letting play continue, but doing nothing to further punish the Wolves man.  With Seven minutes left, Ait-Nouri got free again on their left wing and put a low ball into the six-yard box, where Fraser Forster kicked it away as Strand Larsen closed in.  People around me were going made at him for not using his hands, but he’s a big man and wouldn’t have got down to it, so kicking it away averts the danger.  It might not look pretty, but as a keeper, you do everything and use every part of your body to keep the ball out.  It was in this period of possession around the final third that Wolves kept the pressure on, with Tottenham finding it hard to get the ball away for any length of time.

So, when the goal came in the 87th minute, it wasn’t too much of a shock.  Again, Porro was given no cover and had two men to pick up, one of whom was Ait-Nouri.  He played a fine pass in behind Dragusin and Strand Larsen got ahead of Gray before taking a touch to set up a fierce left foot shot from an angle that flew high into Forster’s net at the near post.  It was a disappointing goal to concede as Wolves had possession did not seem to carry too much threat up to that point.  It looked another product of tired bodies giving them too much space.

Soon after, a Wolves corner was headed down at the far post by Doherty and Forster did well to get down to push it away as it looked like it would creep inside the upright.  There then followed a farcical incident, when Guedes was shielding the ball near the corner and Werner pushed him over in the back three times, with no free-kick given.  So, it wasn’t just Spurs who were being mistreated by the ref.  As the game entered added time, Guedes was still on the floor two minutes after Werner’s contact and the game stopped again, while the ref saw that he was alright.

Spurs still tried to find a winner, with Kulusevski crossing from the right although it was slightly behind Pape, who couldn’t wrap his head around it to get it on target.  When Strand Larsen went down in the centre circle, Sa couldn’t even manage to kick the ball out to get him looked at and quite why it took so long for the Wolves medical staff to come on after the ref indicated they were needed, I don’t know.  That all took another two minutes.

Seven minutes into added time Bentancur dived into a tackle on Rodrigo Gomes in front of the benches and the Wolves winger went down before throwing himself into the air in a double pike with twist.  Out came the yellow card, with the player able to carry on without any treatment.  Amazing !  The free-kick almost lead to a goal, as it was played back to Sa, outside his area and he tried to be clever as Solanke closed him down, but he slipped and was lucky to see the ball go forward as Werner slid in. 

There were enough openings for Spurs to have scored more, although few clear-cut chances and the time-wasting of the other side (not for the first time at the THS this season) was allowed to eat up the minutes by the referee.  It was astounding that Kavanagh started the match being quite pernickety about where throw-ins and free-kicks were taken, but as the game went on couldn’t care less.  Which way he would give a decision kept everyone guessing ,the players included. 

Looking at Wolves coming into the game, off the back of two wins and two clean sheets, you might say that they were favourites to take the points as Spurs had suffered two successive defeats before today.  Going behind to an early goal also gave the side another hill to climb, so praise should go to the way they turned it around by half-time with the missed penalty thrown in for good measure.  Losing a late goal was gutting, but not surprising considering the workload this limited number of players has had over the last six weeks.  Bentancur showed how important he can be to the side, but they will now have to do without him for the Newcash game on 2nd January and it will be a while before  we know how long Udogie will be side-lined.  Hopefully, some of the injured players may be able to return soon.

Wolves played a solid game, stopping Tottenham making advances whenever they could and are by no means the worst side to play here this season.  However, the result recently have exposed the lack of depth in the squad when we have an exceptionally long missing list.  The fear is panic buying in January just to get bums on seats on the bench, when historically, there is not a great deal of quality around at this time of year.  We have made some decent January signings, so, hopefully, Fabio Paratici has been working in the background to spot some talent that will add to our squad.

A point is a point and shouldn’t be sniffed at the way we have been playing, but it leaves us in 11th place with a fair few points to make up in the second half of the season.  Europe looks along way off for next season unless we can do well in the cups, but the bread and butter stuff is where we need to get some consistency.

Sparky Marky

 

MATCH NOTES
 
  • Tottenham became the first team in Premier League history to have gone behind in 15 home matches in a calendar year.

 

OTHER RESULTS
  Leicester City 0 Mancashter City 2
  Crystal Palace 2 South Coast Big Club 1
  Everton 0 Nottingham Forest 2
  Fulham 2 AFC Bournemouth 2
  West Ham United London 0 Liverpool 5
  Aston Villa 2 Brighton & Hove Albion 2
  Ipswich Town 2 Chelsea 0
  Mancashter United 0 Newcash United 2
   Brentford 1 Woolwich Wanderers 3


Premier League Table 2024-25

Played Won Drawn Lost For Against Points Goal difference
1 Liverpool 18 14 3 1 45 17 45 +28
2 Woolwich Wanderers 19 11 6 2 38 17 39 +21
3 Nottingham Forest 19 11 4 4 26 19 37 +7
4 Chelsea 19 10 5 4 38 23 35 +15
5 Newcash United 19 9 5 5 32 21
32 +11
6 Mancashter City 19 9 4 6 32 26 31 +6
7 AFC Bournemouth 19 8 6 5 29 23 30 +6
8 Fulham 19 7 8 4 28 25 29 +3
9 Aston Villa 19 8 5 6 28 31 29 0
10 Brighton & Hove Albion 19 6 9 4 29 28 27 +1
11 Tottenham Hotspur 19 7 3 9 41 28 24 +13
12 Brentford 19 7 3 9 33 35 24 -2
13 West Ham United London 19 6 5 8 23 35 23 -12
14 Mancashter United 19 6 4 9 21 26 22 -5
15 Crystal Palace 19 4 8 7 20 27 20 -7
16 Everton 18 3 8 7 15 24 17 -9
17 Wolverhampton Wanderers 19 4 4 11 31 42 16 -11
18 Ipswich Town 19 3 6
10 18 33 15 -15
19 Leicester City 19 3 5
11 22 42 14 -20
20 South Coast Big Club 19 1 3 15 12 49 6 -27