Source: Telegraph
Tottenham Hotspur 0 Stoke City 1: match report
If Tottenham are setting a genuine target of competing for the title, these are the games where they should be coasting, not choking. These are the games, too, where Harry Redknapp would expect such a key player as Aaron Lennon to battle adversity to the death, rather than retreating 13 minutes from the final whistle with nothing more than a sore ankle.
Redknapp was plainly unimpressed with Lennon’s decision to come off, even giving him a persuasive nudge to rejoin the fold, and was untypically reticent in trying to justify the strange situation. “I don’t know what to say,” he reflected. “I don’t want to cause... it’s not for me to say.”
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Harry Redknapp relieved as Tottenham start to click
Instead, Stoke City returned to the Potteries clutching a first away win of their campaign, and a first win at White Hart Lane since 1975. It was all the most bitter fruit for Redknapp, who had started the afternoon with an eye on first place in the league.
Glenn Whelan, who caused Lennon’s injury, emerged as the hero for Stoke, latching on to Ricardo Fuller’s flat pass five minutes from time with a brilliant bending finish that the hands of Heurelho Gomes were nowhere near.
It was ironic that Whelan, the Irish midfielder, had last week argued that every man in his homeland secretly wanted to be Tottenham’s Robbie Keane. For one day at least, the cult of personality was reversed.
Tony Pulis, the Stoke manager, savoured the moment, describing the victory as Stoke’s best in the Premier League. He also mixed his metaphors nicely, claiming that Ricardo Fuller, the bullish striker who turned in an inspired performance, was “a genie out of the bag”. He said: “At our training ground we are still living in mobile accommodation. We need at least another three years in this division.”
Tottenham, though, have ambitions in the opposite direction, and the attendance of Fabio Capello illustrated the burgeoning presence of this Tottenham team in the England squad. While Lennon has already done enough running to press his World Cup claim, Tom Huddlestone was keen to impress Capello through his variety of passing, and Peter Crouch did his case for a boarding pass to Johannesburg little harm with some lively moves.
The game was being decided by fine margins, and James Beattie’s acrobatic goal-line clearance in the first half would prove decisive. Crouch met Lennon’s cross with a jump so high it might have shown up on the air traffic control radar. The header sailed beyond Steve Simonsen but Beattie was wise to the danger, hooking the ball clear from an acute angle.
Tottenham began to specialise in agonising misses. Niko Kranjcar had Simonsen beaten with a thunderous low drive that cannoned off the near post, and Stoke’s centre-halves seemed at a loss as to how to combat Crouch’s aerial menace. And yet Redknapp’s dilemmas were multiplying, not least in central defence, where Jonathan Woodgate had to be replaced by Michael Dawson after taking a boot to the face.
In the directors’ box, Giovanni Trapattoni, the Republic of Ireland head coach, was keeping an eye on Keane ahead of next month’s World Cup qualifier against France, although it took until the second half for the forward to make any kind of impact. A pity, then, that Trapattoni, and his deputy Marco Tardelli, had already left by then. By the time Whelan had propelled Stoke into raptures, the pair were probably halfway back to Dublin.
Stoke were content to play the waiting game, and Pulis was a dervish in the dugout as Beattie espied a chance courtesy of Matthew Etherington’s pinpoint pass. Their back line were holding firm, Ryan Shawcross and Andy Wilkinson providing what the Americans would call 'double coverage’ as they denied Crouch.
Lennon hobbled off after a sturdy challenge from Whelan, which drew a booking. In the winger’s defence, he was seen leaving the stadium with his left foot encased in a protective boot. But his exit destabilised the side and Stoke launched their counter-attacks with renewed impetus.
Fuller held the ball then cut it back to Whelan, who lashed a right-foot shot that angled away from Gomes and into the top corner. Poor Redknapp: he purports to have enjoyed his first year at Tottenham but it was unsurprising that yesterday, he did not want to dwell too much on the anniversary.
