Johnson’s goal – Ondřej Čelůstka gets onto a Jozy Altidore pass, and loops in a cross. Hugo Lloris comes out to meet it, and punches weakly straight to Adam Johnson. He takes a touch and rifles a shot into the roof of the net.

Ondřej Čelůstka receives a pass from Jozy Altidore – with Chadli having not tracked back, and Naughton standing off the full-back, he has time to put a cross into the box. I thought Naughton had a good game today, but for me he has to get tighter here – although his decision is made more difficult by the lack of protection from Chadli, who had a disappointing match.

Lloris has time to watch the cross, and can claim it comfortably, with no Sunderland player attacking it. Perhaps he is confused by the presence of Walker and Capoue, but he flaps at it awkwardly, punching it perfectly to Johnson.

Lloris was brilliant against Fulham on Wednesday, but it’s difficult to overlook this error. He should claim the cross, but instead he deals with it feebly.

Johnson lets fly with a right foot shot which zips just beyond Dawson’s out-stretched boot and into the top corner.

On the whole I thought Spurs played really well – rarely troubled, and pretty threatening going forward. We controlled the second half entirely and could have scored three or four more goals had Defoe and Paulinho had their shooting boots on. Promising signs.

Dejagah’s goal – Dawson steps into midfield and miscues a pass to Paulinho, who loses the ball to Parker. Via Kačaniklić, Fulham find Berbatov, who releases Dejagah with a perfectly-weighted pass, and he finishes well.

Dawson has the ball in space at the back.

The reason that Dawson plays so many long balls is that he’s not comfortable in possession. Where our other centre-backs are all happy to carry the ball forward, Dawson isn’t. Instead, he distributes generally by laying the ball into Sandro, by shifting it to his centre-back partner, or by going long. Here, he attempts to step into midfield.

He panics, and plays a poor pass into Paulinho. Paulinho tries to protect the ball, but Parker presses him and gets a foot in, finding Kačaniklić.

Kačaniklić instantly lays off to Berbatov, who holds the ball up, turns…

…and sprays a wonderful pass wide to Dejagah. Here, it is useful to look at the animated GIF at the top of this article. Focus on Vertonghen. He has pushed up into a very advanced position – on halfway – with Dejagah far more narrow. When Fulham win the ball back, there are two or three seconds where Vertonghen is still stood on halfway, and Dejagah realises that he has an opportunity to fill the space.

By the time Vertonghen realises that Dejagah’s going to get the ball, it’s too late. The winger manages to control the ball on the stretch…

…and finishes well across Lloris from just inside the box.

Not pretty from Spurs, and Dawson again is culpable. He has had a poor run of games, and is only retaining his place due to the ongoing injury issues with Danny Rose. This was also one of Vertonghen’s worst games for Spurs, and his form at left-back is a major concern. There must be a temptation for AVB to switch Vertonghen back to centre-back, and bring in Fryers or Naughton at left-back.

On the plus side, Spurs created several good chances in this match, and had Paulinho, Lamela, and Defoe taken their presentable opportunities, we’d have been well clear. We have to start being more clinical – Lennon and Soldado missed good chances against United, meaning that we relied on long-range goals, and the same was true here.

I took a break from analysing goals conceded last week. I’m sure you won’t hold it against me.

Rooney’s first goal – Dembele loses the ball in midfield and Jones whips in a cross, which Walker fails to clear. It falls perfectly for Rooney to finish.

Unfortunately I’m relying on highlights to create these stills, as I didn’t record the match. Just before this, Mousa Dembele – otherwise much-improved today – dallied on the ball and lost possession. Here we see Jones with the ball on the right shortly after United had won the ball back.

Vertonghen is taken away by Valencia’s dummy run, meaning Jones has a bit of room to put a cross in, with Dembele struggling to get close.

The cross is relatively harmless, but Walker gets into a real pickle. His body shape is all wrong to clear; he should be striking this upfield first time with his left foot, or even getting side on and putting it out for a corner or throw-in if he’s determined to use his right, but instead he is taken by surprise and awkwardly prods it into the six-yard box.

Rooney is on hand to finish from close range – he doesn’t pass up opportunities like this.

 

Rooney’s second goal – Lloris comes to meet a through-ball from Rooney, but fails to get a hand to the ball, instead catching Welbeck’s trailing leg. Rooney smashes the resultant penalty right down the middle.

Rooney cuts inside and is aware of Welbeck’s movement ahead of him.

He plays a slide-rule pass for Welbeck to chase into the channel – he’s going away from goal, but Lloris has a decision to make: does he stay on his line, or try to sweep up.

It soon becomes clear that Welbeck will meet the ball first, but Lloris is committed.

He misses Welbeck’s front foot, but the forward’s back foot clips Lloris’ hand – whether he leaves it hanging deliberately to make contact or not, it’s difficult to tell – either way, there’s contact, and Lloris has missed the ball, so the referee has little choice but to award a penalty.

Rooney waits for Lloris to dive and slams the penalty down the middle of the goal.

Will we see some Spurs youngsters making debuts this evening. As you may know, we have a few young professionals in the Europa League squad:

Archer
Miles
Fryers
Fredericks
Stewart
Dombaxe
McEvoy
Kane
Coulthirst

Some of these were only added to the squad in the last week – Miles, Fredericks, McEvoy and Coulthirst.

Harry Kane has a back injury, and Kevin Stewart hasn’t travelled, but we know that Coulthirst, McEvoy, Dombaxe, Fredericks and Miles are in Norway. I would presume that Archer and Fryers are also there.

Nabil Bentaleb, who is training with the first team squad regularly, is unfortunately unable to be included as a List B player as he’s not been at the club long enough.

In case you are unaware of those players likely to be in the match-day squad, here’s a line on each:

Jon Miles – 20-year old goalkeeper who started two games on loan at Dagenham & Redbridge on loan last year. You may recognise him from some of the Spurs TV online videos.

Laste Dombaxe – an 18-year old central midfielder from Angola. Came into the Under-18 side very early (at just 15), and has progressed to the Under-21s since then. A midfielder who is a good all-rounder – has a decent short-passing game, but good defensively too.

Kenny McEvoy – 19-year old winger, who mostly plays on the right. Good pace, decent delivery, and a goal threat too.

Shaq Coulthirst – 19-year old forward, who often plays on the left, cutting in and using his right foot. A tenacious player with a bit of a spring in his step – puts defenders under pressure, and knows where the goal is.

It would be excellent to finally see some of the younger players getting an opportunity – even if it’s just being included on the bench, it can really motivate our youngsters to want to get back there again.

I’ve personally been a little disappointed with the lack of opportunities for young players on the whole. Some would argue that the involvement of Rose, Fryers, and Kane shows a willingness to play them, but I personally take issue with:

– Not using Kane more after he made an impact against Cardiff City in the league, and Aston Villa/Hull City in the League Cup.
– Sending Carroll on loan when we really lack a passer in deep midfield – I personally think that just the occasional few minutes at the end of last season could have seen him fully integrated by now. And even without that, he could have been a useful impact sub (at least) this season.
– Selling Luongo. A decision I think we’ll regret at some point.

Levy fought so hard to have an extra two substitute spots added, citing the option of involving young players as one of the reasons… yet we hardly ever have youngsters on the bench.

The Under-18s are going along pretty nicely, but the Under-21s league is a shambles, not helped by the lack of NextGen Series (at least partly thanks to the UEFA Youth League, I think). Our Under-21s have not played an official match in November. In fact, they’ve not played a competitive fixture since 21st October (one was scheduled but postponed).

The development squad play infrequent friendlies (apparently McEvoy impressed in one last week), but the issues are:

That the matches aren’t regular enough.
That means that scouts don’t get to see the players often.
It also means that players lack match sharpness.
Which means that scouts don’t get to see them at their best when they do see them.
Culminating in a lack of loan opportunities for our 3rd year scholars/trainees – and there are plenty of them.

I think the big emphasis on nurturing youngsters is paying off to an extent. We made great money on Caulker, and of course we got £400k (+ a sell-on clause) for Luongo. We’ve also got Townsend who is now worth a considerable amount of money, Livermore who we could sell for upwards of £4m in Jan should we want to, as well as Kane and Carroll who are turning heads. Bentaleb’s probably next in line, with Veljkovic hopefully not far behind. But obviously we need to be aiming to bring through first team players rather than bringing them through to sell them; that has to be the ideal.

For me we have so much talent bubbling under the surface that we could be doing even more. I look at Ryan Mason and I look at players like James McCarthy at Everton or Tom Cleverley at United, and I don’t see much difference. For me, if Mason had been given a few opportunities earlier in his career he’d be an established squad member by now. He’s a real talent. Injury prone, but a real talent. Check out what a Swindon fan thinks of he, Pritchard and Hall.

Good luck to our youngsters this evening.

As an aside, the Emergency Loan window closes for Football League clubs at 5pm today, so there is a chance that we could see young players leaving on loan.