Coventry City 1-2 Tottenham Hotspur – Carabao Cup: Ange Postecoglou’s side survive almighty scare against Championship rivals with last-gasp heroics
Spence and Johnson scored in the 88th and 92nd minute respectively to spare Tottenham’s blushes against their Championship opponents.
Brandon Thomas-Asante’s 63rd-minute strike gave Coventry hopes of an almighty shock when he slotted home a driven cross from close range but it was ultimately not to be for the underdogs.
Spurs late show in Carabao Cup spares Postecoglou’s blushes at Coventry
Just days after Postecoglou’s ‘I always win things in my second year’ comment, Spurs were minutes away from getting knocked out
Brennan Johnson kept Ange Postecoglou’s hopes of winning a trophy alive when he scored a stoppage time winner – as two late goals in four minutes spared the Tottenham manager’s blushes.
Postecoglou said in a TV interview after Sunday’s defeat to Arsenal he always won a trophy in his second season at a club.
But Coventry City almost cut off one path to Tottenham’s hopes of silverware.
Tottenham looked off the pace for much of the time, but as the tie wore on, their Premier League staying power began to show.
It was second-half substitute Djed Spence who brought them level with two minutes left, and inspired Spurs’ late revival.
Dejan Kulusevski put Spence through and he was able to roll the ball past Coventry goalkeeper Ben Wilson.
The game looked for a penalty shoot-out, but Spurs were not finished Rodrigo Bentancur set Johnson clear and he raced wide of Wilson to slide home a 92nd minute.
It was the perfect reply from Johnson who had been forced to delete his social media account following Sunday’s defeat to Arsenal.
But Postecoglou will have been a relieved after his pre-match comments.
The ball fell loose to Haji Wright, who had an empty goal to aim at, but Spurs captain, Ben Davies, made superb clearance.
Coventry’s goal was richly deserved. Norman Bassette’s cross from the left was met by Thomas-Asante, who cleverly steered the ball past Forster.
But Coventry almost scored a second when two substitutes combined. Ellis Simms delivered a ball to the far post, but Ephron Mason-Clark just failed to make contact.
Spurs came close to levelling with 10 minutes to go, but Wilson saved from Kulusevski – and then came the late show.
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Five things we learned from Tottenham’s 2-1 Carabao Cup win over Coventry City
Tottenham Hotspur came from 1-0 down to win 2-1 this evening in the Carabao Cup, with Djed Spence and Brennan Johnson both finding the back of the net in the final ten minutes.
Let’s take a look at the five things we learned from the tie:
Spurs are in the hat… somehow
Do they deserve to be? No. Were Coventry the better side? By a mile. Does that matter? A bit… but we move anyway. Despite looking down and out with 10 minutes to go, Spurs rallied just in time to find two late goals and book their place in the fourth round. The draw will take place next week after the Liverpool vs West Ham game.
Postecoglou is putting pressure on himself
We have seen it happen to every Tottenham manager in the past 10 years. You cannot make eight changes to your starting XI away against a lower-league team and expect to have an easy time of it. Postecoglou was asking for trouble, especially after guaranteeing a trophy in his second season. The wolves really would have been out for him had Tottenham lost tonight.
I know you have to make some rotations in these games, especially with mid-week fixtures for the next couple of weeks. However, you simply have to leave some experience and quality on the pitch too. One of Maddison or Kulusevski should have started that match, while one of Romero or Van de Ven should have been at the back. Taking off Udogie, who was Tottenham’s only good player in the first half, also seemed a strange move. Hopefully, Ange will learn from that mistake.
Red Djed Redemption
One nice silver lining from a woeful, woeful evening was the latest chapter in Djed Spence’s redemption arc. After being left out of the Europa League squad, I’m not quite sure how Spence didn’t start the game tonight, to be honest. He came on at half-time to fill in at left-back and, although he looked a little clunky at times on his weaker side, he really grew into the game.
It was Spence’s tenacity on the byline that almost led to a Dejan Kulusevski goal in the dying minutes. Kulusevski then turned creator and set up a toe-poke finish for Spence to actually level the scores. Djed was a real menace down that side for the final 20 minutes or so and should hopefully get some more trust and more minutes out of Postecoglou in the next round.
