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Key events
35 min He swings out and Thomas heads away.
32 min Coventry lose the ball down the left so Solanke carries it forward and Spurs move it about, intimating confidence. They’ll know, though, that they need a second goal, and they’re seeking one, Maddison dictating so much of their play and winning a free-kick with an adroit turn away from Grimes, who can’t help but tread on him. Marmoush will deliver, 30 yards out, right of centre.
31 min And, though Marmoush’s delivery is headed clear, the ball ends up with Maddison, just outside the box on its left corner, so he swerves in one of those nasty crosses the keeper can’t come for in case someone gets a touch, powerless to intervene as it drifts just wide.
30 min After a frantic opening, things have quietened a little, but as i type, Solanke dashes in behind chasing a Maddison pass and Spurs win a corner.
27 min “When I worked in fashion,” brags Gary Naylor, “we’d have called that colourway Magenta. And if it were in stretch corduroy, ‘Hot Magenta’.
Hmmm, maybe I read too much Jennings as a kid, but Linbury Court’s magenta uniform was, in the cover illustrations, much redder than this kit.
25 min Coventry’s striker lands awkwardly on a shoulder – Cherif don’t like that, can’t believe I failed to make that pun last Monday night, apologies to all– so takes some medical attention. He should be fine.
23 min The free-kick comes to nothing but Coventry have steadied a little. Still, Spurs go at them again, Robertson crossing, again into a decent area, forcing Thomas to head away though Rushworth would probably have collected.
22 min “Puce or maybe mauve,” says Matthew Cobb of the Coventry kit, but I think it’s purpler than puce and pinker than mauve. Meantime, Thomas-Asante gets away inside the centre-circle – he’s been lively thus far – so Solanke pulls him down and is the second man to be booked.
21 min …and his delivery is decent too, between keeper and defensive line, but Coventry get the ball away.
20 min My SkyGo crashes, returning just in time for me to see Yirenkyi arrive late on Gray, introducing studs to heel at cost of a yellow card. Robertson will send in an outswinger….
17 min Coventry had started the game well, too, bursting with confidence after consecutive wins, but Spurs are all over them now; they need to consolidate and take care to stick in the game.
15 min I can’t imagine how awful the last year-odd has been for Maddison, watching his career dwindle and his mates struggle, fighting through long, lonely sessions of pain and rehab. He is buzzing.
WHAT A GOAL! Tottenham Hotspur 1-0 Coventry City (Maddison 14)
Five hundred and thirty-six days of pain and desperation, gone in a moment of glorious ecstasy! Kudus moves down the right and snaps back to Maddison, near the corner of it, and he sweeps a luxuriant dipper that loops over Rushworth and in! What a feeling that must be, and Spurs lead in a league game for the first time this season!
13 min “With the benefit of hindsight,” says John Brennan, “it might look like Tottenham made a mistake selling Troy Parrott but if you go back to 2024 when they sold him, there was no way that you could argue they should keep him. He had four loan spells in the Championship and League 1 without pulling up any trees. He then had a loan spell in Holland with a team who got relegated. He had a decent record there but he hit a purple patch at end of 23-24 which included a couple of hat tricks that made it look better than it was. I don’t think there was any Tottenham fan saying he was the answer and perhaps more importantly, I don’t think he would have developed without the game time he got at AZ which he was not going to get at Tottenham.”
Yeah, he was someone I knew about when he was really young, whose development stalled. I guess it’s the job of the club to persevere, so perhaps they might’ve done well to loan instead of sell him.
12 min Maddison plays into Solanke and keeps running, but his mate turns and thunders a shot into the nearest defender.
11 min The corner is decent too, picking out Thomas at the back post. He heads behind, then the whistle goes for infringement indeterminate.
10 min Coventry have settled nicely, moving the ball through midfield before Sakamoto takes a pass from Thomas-Asante, moving it on to Van Ewijk outside him before collecting the return, shooting hard … and into Van Hecke’s swede, the ball falling behind without the defender knowing much about it.
8 min Now Sakamoto loses Gray, moving outside then in before curling into the corridor, Kinsky doing just enough, coming for the all and missing but getting it away with a trailing leg.
7 min nice from Rudoni, diddling Tonali down the left with clever feet and wearing the inevitable foul. He’ll swing into the box, but doesn’t get enough elevation, so Spurs clear easily enough.
5 min It looks like Spurs are indeed playing a back three, Robertson the left wing-back and Kudus nominally on the right, but not really.
3 min What colour are we saying this Coventry away kit is?
I guess they’ve got form.
1 min From kick-off, Coventry go backwards then load up their right-hand side, a long punt flicked on by Rudoni and Thomas-Asante latches on, but he’s pretty wide in the box, lashing a cross-shot that Kinsky gathers on the dive. Or, in other words, the plan worked pretty well, but needed a man in the middle to profit from the ball in.
1 min The players take the knee and off we go.
It’s strange that Spurs paid so much for Mateus Fernandes, but have used him so sparingly. My guess is that tactically, he’s not doing what De Zerbi wants, but he’s a class above their other options, so I’m surprised we’ve not seen him stuck into the no 8 position and allowed to settle.
…and here they come!
Our teams are tunnelled…
I’m looking forward to seeing Rudoni and Cherif tonight. Rudoni is one of those personalities whose belief is so strong it’s almost a skill, and he’ll relish the chance to show what he can do tonight. He’ll be looking to run off Maddison, I imagine, while Cherif will fancy himself to win the physical battle with Van Hecke and shoot quickly with little backlift.
De Zerbi tells Sky that Spurs have injuries and he likes putting players in their best positions, so Gray and Maddison will both play midfield. Savio and Bergvall played well in Manchester but are injured, while Udogie felt his knee so they didn’t want to take a chance on him.
Spurs had a training camp in Marbella last week, which was important for his vision to create relationships and mentality in the team.
Dignity!
Coventry, meanwhile, will know Van Hecke lacks pace, so I’d expect Cherif to play on him while, in behind, Rudoni takes chances, gambling with ambitious passes and shots. If Tosin is indeed at right-back but even if he isn’t, Dasilva and Sakamoto will look to double-up down the left, while Yirenkyi and Grimes restrict the central spaces Spurs will be hoping to control. If their wide players are brave enough to keep the width, they can make chances tonight.
Where is the game? Spurs will look to dominate possession, with Gray and Tonali dictating play, so Maddison, Kudus and Marmoush can buzz about behind Solanke. The absence of a proper winger means they’ll probably look to create centrally, Solanke attacking space for little balls in behind, before going wide to put crosses into a well-populated box.
“None of this is De Zerbi’s fault,” reckons Dave Estherby, “yet lose tonight and surely, he’s toast.”
I’m not sure about that. I’m guessing, but I’d be shocked if, when he took the job, he didn’t insist on certain levels of spending and control. On top of which, he picks the team, so I’d say some of their failings can be attributed to him, but I’d be shocked if he gets the flick, even with a defeat tonight. My impression is the board have committed to him and, given the underlying data isn’t terrible, I expect them to stick with their man.
Spurs’ principal problem so far this season has been scoring goals. De Zerbi is famed as Mr Buildup and seems to have inculcated decent method in his charges. But he can’t stick their chances away for them and, in Dominic Solanke, they have a 29-year-old striker who, if we’re being honest, has put together one serious season in his career. I wonder if anyone regrets selling Troy Parrott.
Thinking a little bit more about the Spurs formation, I find it hard to believe De Zerbi sticks Maddison in a two-man midfield – in ant event, but all the more so after so long out. BBC reckon it’ll be 3-4-2-1, but my sense is Tosin plays right-back and has been included to guard against Coventry’s aerial threat.
Email! “Quick point of order about the preamble,” says Kieran McHugh. “Basically correct until the last sentence. As a Spurs fan I can attest that this will not be fun.”
That’s exactly what makes it fun.
I guess it’s possible Spurs stick with four in defence, but it’d mean Tosin playing right-back, which seems unlikely; we shall see.
Just the one change for Coventry, meanwhile: Ephron Mason-Clark drops to the bench, with Tatsuhiro Sakamoto coming in for his first Premier League start.
Taking a closer look, the headline news for Spurs is that James Maddison makes his first start in 536 days, while Dejan Kulusevski is in the matchday squad for the first time in 526 days. And if we want another number, they’re the only team in the top six divisions yet to have won a game this season.
Otherwise, by the looks of things, Roberto De Zerbi has to three at the back, with Tosin Adarabioyo coming in for his first Premier League start, while Micxky van de Ven, Andy Robertson and Omar Marmoush also come in; dropping out are Marcos Senesi, the injured Destiny Udogie, Conor Gallagher, Lucas Bergvall, and the also injured Savio.
Teams
Tottenham Hotspur (3-4-2-1): Kinsky; Tosin, Van Hecke, Van de Ven; Gray, Tonali;, Maddison, Robertson’ Kudus, Marmoush; Solanke. Subs: Dubravka, Senesi, Gallagher, Tel, Fernandes, Kulusevski, Davies, Olusesi, Williams-Barnett.
Coventry City (4-2-3-1): Rushworth, Van Ewijk, Thomas, Pinnock, Dasilva, Yirenkyi, Grimes, Rudoni, Sakamoto, Thomas-Asante, Cherif. Subs: Bentley, Simms, Mason-Clark, Mluni, Awoniyi, Onyeka, Kesler-Hayden, Torp, Hamer.
Referee: Andy Madley (Huddersfield)
Preamble
Sport’s ability to ape and shape the world means it teaches us many things, often in a friendlier environment than real life. It is, for example, better to learn the Australian states and their capitals during an Ashes series than by rote in a geography lesson, just as the accordant failure and disappointment is – ultimately! – less painful to process when it’s happening to yet another bunch of hapless tourists than when it’s happening to us.
Football, though, is a slightly different thing, the constant competition and the way in which teams are passed down through families installing their nature as part of our personalities, both heirloom and genetics. And within that, there’s supporting Tottenham, a relentless barrage of dark nights and false dawns delivering martyrdom to the afflicted and mirth to everyone else.
Even in context, though, a summer spend in excess of £300m, to go from fourth-bottom to bottom, is exceptional behaviour, suggesting a malaise too encoded to alleviate. But it is also the case that their performances have been better than three points from six games suggest – which might be viewed as integral to the nature of it all, or might indicate an imminent upturn.
Tonight’s match will give us a decent idea as to which interpretation is accurate. Coventry – whose fans understand a misery far beyond the conception of Spurs types – arrive in N17 following an uplifting thrashing of Newcastle. As such, they will be confident, physical and beatable or, in other words, exactly the kind of outfit against which Spurs are prone to fail. A win tonight would take Frank Lampard’s men up the table from 16th to 11th but, more than that, with home games against Fulham and Sunderland coming up next, it could set them up for the season. This should be fun…
Kick-off: 8pm BST
#Tottenham #Coventry #Premier #League #live #Premier #League
