Unexpected Tottenham decision made by Ange Postecoglou, as Eric Dier conveyed a message prior to transfer negotiations
These are the key talking points after Tottenham’s 5-3 loss to Fulham in a penalty shootout at Craven Cottage on Tuesday night, which resulted in their elimination from the Carabao Cup.
An unrealized possibility
After losing at the first round of this season’s Carabao Cup, Ange Postecoglou and his Tottenham squad will now have to wait until the new year to play cup football again. Spurs lost up on a fantastic opportunity to earn silverware in a season without European football when they withdrew from the tournament at their first attempt to qualify for the second year in a row, given the trophy.
Few would have imagined that Postecoglou would make such drastic changes, even after he conceded following Saturday’s victory at Bournemouth that he would make changes to his Spurs team. There had been nine changes to the squad after the win on the south coast, with Richarlison and Micky van de Ven being the only two players who had not changed.
Having seen the team fall to embarrassing cup exits at Middlesbrough, Nottingham Forest and Sheffield United over the past 18 months after making big changes, Tottenham fans probably had a feeling of what was to come once the team news was confirmed at 6.45pm. Always going to be in for a tough game away at Fulham, Marco Silva’s men really took the game to the visitors and duly took the lead through Van de Ven’s own goal in the 19th minute
The Dutchman was rather unfortunate to put the ball through his own net but it was all too easy for Tom Cairney as he twisted Davinson Sanchez inside and out before his low ball found the net via Van de Ven’s heel. Also going close on a couple of occasions through Rodrigo Muniz, at the other end Tottenham didn’t lay a glove on the Cottagers until a few minutes before half-time when they started to get a foothold in the game and Richarlison saw his effort blocked by Tim Ream.
An extremely disappointing first half from a Tottenham perspective going on their very promising start to the Premier League term, the number of changes certainly had an impact on their performance with the fluency just not there due to the players barely playing alongside each other this season as they have been on the periphery of the team.
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