Manchester United 1 – 2 Tottenham Hotspur (Spurs Perspective)

Article by Spurs Correspondent Ashley Caparelli

Well, what a win that was. For a second successive year Spurs have beaten the Red Devils in their own back yard. A goal from Adebayor gave Tottenham the lead in the first half despite Manchester United being on the front foot. Eriksen scored what proved to be the winner after another decisive counter-attack in the 66th minute. This was enough to see Spurs through but they certainly did it the hard way after an in form Danny Welbeck halved the lead just a minute later.

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Defence

What a fantastic performance by the boys at the back, United had no where to go. Apart from a momentary loss of concentration resulting in Danny Welbeck's goal, Dawson, Lloris and co. had an answer to every question Moyes' men asked of them. Despite United having 57% of possession, they were limited to 6 shots on target, with Lloris standing firm when we needed him to be. United didn't really threaten until after the second goal had gone in with 7 out of 12 goal attempts coming after Eriksen doubled Tottenham's lead. Spurs showed a huge amount of effort in defence and put there bodies in the way of 4 more shots. The tackle success rate was not brilliant by the Lilly whites having completed 53% of tackles, however the numbers in defence and the pressure applied was enough to shut out United for majority of the game. On a subjective note Rose must work harder in defence. I understand that he might not be 100% but on too many occasions he would walk back after losing the ball or being beaten by Valencia. Also Welbeck's penalty claim was a dirty despicable dive and Young doesn't do himself any favours with the theatrical manor in which he flings himself.

Midfield

Did what they had to do. This was a game in which we were always going to struggle to get on the ball and dominate the game but the boys made it difficult enough for United and were brilliant in terms of springing counter-attacks. 43% of possession won't surprise anyone, of course we would all love to see Tottenham dominate every game and create chance after chance. Sherwood does acknowledge this and mentioned in his post-match interview that we needed to improve on this front, proving himself quite competent. Our passing let us down, certainly in the first half, and this is shown in the statistics with only 74% of out passes finding their targets. We gifted them the ball in bad positions at times forcing us to play on the counter, then again it worked! Eriksen and Lennon were fantastic, Evra and Smalling/Valencia just couldn't handle them and they both had vital roles in the goals scored. Eriksen's skill on the ball, movement and passing (82% success) was incredible and Lennon was simply unstoppable, literally having 100% dribble success. As fantastic as Vlad was in defence, Lennon was my Man of the Match.

Attack

Adebayor scored and Soldado certainly played his part with a couple of key passes, what more can you ask for? A look at Ade's heat map will show you just how hard he worked, dropping deep when we didn't have the ball and providing a quick outlet for a counter, thanks to his brilliant hold up play having never been dispossessed and great link up play with 93% pass success rate. There is still more to come from Soldado, and he seems to be close to being back to his best in this new system. Tottenham's #9 is getting in better positions and his confidence must be growing, its just a shame he couldn't find the target. Harry Kane was brilliant we he came on too, running all the right lines and never giving the Man United defence a moment to compose themselves making it difficult to build an attack. And of course his impressive clearance into the crowd from an offside decision was a moment of pure genius.

So... bring on the Arsenal! COYS

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