Five nil up already, both teams playing the kids. Nothing really to play for except personal pride. Turns out that my match preview may have been a little optimistic..."We could be in for a feisty affair as it will be anything but a formality for those players given an opportunity to shine." should have read, "Both teams will be playing less than reserve sides, who will do nothing more than have a kick about for 90 minutes."
Whilst it was interesting to see the young kids coming through the system, for about 10 minutes at least, the novelty quickly wore off as the night wore on and on. The announcement of 3 minutes added time at the end was met with an ironic boo, followed by an ironic cheer 3 minutes later. I stayed until the final whistle and have to commend the Hearts fans, who were in full voice all throughout the match, secure in the knowledge that they were going out of Europe, and not caring about it one bit, but desperately hoping for something to remember the match by. T'was not to be. A long cry from, as the club calls them, "glory glory nights", of last season.
Player Ratings
(Please note that these player ratings are not to condemn any of the youngsters to the reserve squad forever more, they obviously all have promise, some more than others, and the following ratings are a fair assessment of last night’s display. Good. That's that sorted.)
Cudicini 6 - Not much to do. Kept a clean sheet, made a few saves, stood there like a scarecrow for the Hearts crossbar bound shot.
Corluka 6.5 - Captain for the second half, regularly standing around not actually caring. Occasionally took the ball forwards.
Dawson 6 - Walk in the park.
Townsend 6 - Played at left back, but his indiscipline kept seeing him run up the pitch, lose the ball and then stay there, only to return and be given a bollocking by Bassong for not getting back. Fair enough he was trying to make things happen, but when those things are poor crosses and literally just running into a Hearts player or diving, it's not going to get you anywhere.
Fredericks 5 - Quiet, often ran himself into trouble and mis controlled quite a few passes.
Livermore 6.5 - Looked lively, but nowhere near as good as he was in the first leg.
Huddlestone 6 - Tried if the ball came within 2 yards of him, but other than that. Sub-standard.
Carroll 7 - Looked a bit scared of the ball in the first half and got rid of it almost immediately, but once Townsend pissed off back to right back and Carroll got hold of the ball a bit more, we saw a few flashes of skill and a few pin point cross field balls. Promising. 6.9 + 0.1 for making me laugh when falling over the ball during a hard tackle that made him look like a new born deer.
Kane 6 - Talked up a lot before the match and perhaps would have done better with some better supply in the midfield. Earned himself a penalty, which he then stepped up for. The guy in the row in front of me noted that Kane had missed 4 out of 4 penalties so far this season. Up he steps, tries a dummy which sends the keeper the right way and alas, 5 out of 5 missed. Stop watching Defoe in penalty training mate. He was however infinitely more impressive than the next player in the list.
Pav 1 - If Pav is this great striker, ever dwindling pockets of Spurs fans keep telling me, he should of filled his boots last night. Instead all we saw was rash shots that were nearer the corner flag than the goal, goals on a plate blasted over the bar, shite first touches, poorly weighted passes and little or no effort. So, business as usual then.Subs
Kaboul 6 - Walk in the park.
Nicholson 5 - Quiet. Not many touches.
Kranjcar 7 - Tried to make stuff happen but ultimately failed. The most active senior player on the pitch and the only one looking like he wanted to fulfil my pre-match promise of players making a bid for the first team.
On the plus side. Adeybaor who was watching last nights bore-fest has signed on a season long loan. Good. A striker, that we can immediately drop into the team to start scoring goals... Thats the theory anyway....Connect with Tottenblog Hotspur:
Follow @tottenblog
