Nobody knew whether to smile, laugh or breathe a huge sigh of relief after Tottenham Hotspur beat Manchester United 4-3 on Thursday evening to reach the semi-finals of the Carabao Cup. In theory, it should have been a moment to treasure and celebrate but it happened in such dramatic circumstances that even the people who were watching it felt exhausted.
James Maddison pumped his fists wildly in front of the crowd when Dejan Kulusevski put them 2-0 up but there was no repeat of those scenes at full-time. Tottenham’s players applauded their supporters and then quickly darted down the tunnel.
In the 65th minute, Spurs were leading 3-0 and cruising into the next round of the competition. By the end they were desperately clinging on after what Ange Postecoglou described as “self-inflicting some pain on ourselves”. Fraser Forster has performed admirably over the last few weeks while first-choice goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario recovers from a fractured ankle. The 36-year-old has shown some promise with the ball at his feet but his two mistakes that led to United goals cannot be excused. It turned what should have been a processional final half an hour into chaos. Everything became frantic and it took a remarkable ‘olimpico’ — a goal straight from a corner kick — from Son Heung-Min to secure victory.
Lots of people will mock Spurs for their poor game management, and it was bizarre to see them quickly taking goal-kicks when other teams would have slowed the game down, but context is crucial. They only made two changes from the starting XI which beat Southampton 5-0 on Sunday and one of them was enforced due to Destiny Udogie picking up an injury. First-choice centre-backs Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero will not return from injury until the new year, which means 18-year-old Archie Gray started next to Radu Dragusin for the third game in a row. Djed Spence made only his second start for Tottenham since he joined them from Middlesbrough in July 2022 while Timo Werner pulled out of the squad through illness. This was a patchwork side.
When Amad Diallo chased down Forster and scored to make it 3-2, one of the home fans stood up and signalled to Postecoglou that he needed to make changes. Lucas Bergvall, who turns 19 in February, Brennan Johnson and Sergio Reguilon were the only options. It meant Reguilon made his first appearance for Spurs since April 2022 when Antonio Conte was head coach. There have been three different Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom since then.
Ruben Amorim brought Kobbie Mainoo, Alejandro Garnacho, Joshua Zirkzee, Jonny Evans and Amad off the bench. Manchester United were always going to enjoy a spell of dominance in the second half with the quality of substitutes they could call upon.
The bizarre ending to this game should not completely detract from how impressive Spurs were. Spence was excellent at left-back while Yves Bissouma produced one of his best performances of the season after returning from a one-game suspension for accumulating yellow cards. Bissouma repeatedly broke up attacks and made a superb block to prevent Christian Eriksen from scoring.
Gray will have learned a lot from competing against Rasmus Hojlund and Zirkzee. Dominic Solanke was exceptional and has now scored five goals in his last four appearances against Manchester United. The England international’s second goal, which saw him effortlessly skip past Lisandro Martinez before drilling a shot low past Altay Bayindir, was the perfect blend of skill and speed. Despite all of the drama over the last few weeks with injuries, bad results and chants aimed towards the board, Tottenham have won arguably the most important fixture during this period.
“We were well in control of the game,” Postecoglou said. “It’s the way our season has gone a little bit, we self-inflicted some pain on ourselves and then we had to scramble to get a foothold again.
“It should have been a lot more comfortable than it ended up being but having said that I still can’t get away from the fact this group of players is doing an unbelievable job at the moment to get us through this. The fact we again scored four goals and played some outstanding football. We got tired in the second half because we have a small number of players we keep putting out there (which) obviously made it tighter than the game should have been. I’m so proud of the players’ efforts.”
There are lessons which Spurs need to learn from this game though if they want to have a chance of beating Liverpool to reach the final at Wembley. This is the second game in 12 days that Tottenham have been involved in where there were seven goals. They conceded at least three times in both of them. Too many of their games this season have resembled basketball matches where both sides run from end-to-end and have countless opportunities to score.
Even in their memorable 4-0 victory over Manchester City at the Etihad, they only outperformed Pep Guardiola’s side on xG (expected goals) — which measures the quality of chances a team creates — by 2.5 to 2.1. United registered an xG of 2.5 from 20 shots but Spurs only had nine attempts and an xG of 0.7. Opponents with more quality upfront, like Liverpool, will punish them.
Liverpool have recorded seven clean sheets in the Premier League this season, which is more than any other team, and conceded the fewest number of goals (13). Maybe Tottenham will draw Liverpool into making it an open contest but the fear is that Arne Slot’s side will wreak havoc on the break.
The biggest concern for Spurs is the timing of their first leg which takes place in the second week of January. The only players who seem likely to return from injury by that point are Ben Davies, Richarlison and Mikey Moore. Postecoglou needs to avoid any more injury problems and hope that his players are not fatigued from a hectic Christmas schedule.
A huge test awaits them but it is important to remember that at this stage last season the only competition Spurs had a realistic chance of winning was the FA Cup. Twelve months later they are performing well in the Europa League and are now one round away from Wembley.
(Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images)
