And with that, farewell. Enjoy the remainder of your New Year’s Day. We’ll be back tomorrow with coverage of the Wednesday games. Cheers for reading!
Ben Fisher was at the Cardiff City Stadium. Here’s his match report from there:
Here’s the updated league table. Spurs almost certainly won’t win the league, but they’re six points behind Liverpool and if Manchester City win on Thursday then we’ll at least have a proper title race. Cardiff could be back into the bottom three if results go against them tomorrow.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Liverpool | 20 | 40 | 54 |
| 2 | Tottenham Hotspur | 21 | 25 | 48 |
| 3 | Man City | 20 | 38 | 47 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 20 | 22 | 43 |
| 5 | Arsenal | 21 | 15 | 41 |
| 6 | Man Utd | 20 | 9 | 35 |
| 7 | Leicester | 21 | 2 | 31 |
| 8 | Wolverhampton | 20 | 0 | 29 |
| 9 | Watford | 20 | -1 | 28 |
| 10 | Everton | 21 | 0 | 27 |
| 11 | West Ham | 20 | -3 | 27 |
| 12 | AFC Bournemouth | 20 | -9 | 26 |
| 13 | Brighton | 20 | -5 | 25 |
| 14 | Crystal Palace | 20 | -9 | 19 |
| 15 | Newcastle | 20 | -12 | 18 |
| 16 | Cardiff | 21 | -22 | 18 |
| 17 | Southampton | 20 | -17 | 15 |
| 18 | Burnley | 20 | -22 | 15 |
| 19 | Fulham | 21 | -28 | 14 |
| 20 | Huddersfield | 20 | -23 | 10 |
Well, that was pretty straightforward for Spurs. The game was basically over by the 12th minute, when Eriksen made things 2-0, and finished off by Son 14 minutes later. You could say that Cardiff didn’t turn up and Neil Warnock is likely to be pretty miffed by the whole thing, but this may well have just been one of those games where the better collection of players won.
Updated
Full-time: Cardiff 0-3 Tottenham
Peeeeeeeeeeep.
90 mins + 2: Big diagonal from Sissoko finds Rose, who bombs forward like Spurs desperately need a goal. The ball finds its way to Kane on the edge of the box, he twists hither and thither looking for some space, which he finds and shoots left-footed, but it goes a bit too high and a bit too wide.
90 mins + 1: Mendez-Laing tries a cross from the right, finds Morrison but his header goes wide.
90 mins: Three minutes of added time to come.
89 mins: Sissoko drives down the right and is slipped in by Kane. The Frenchman tip-toes his way into the area, weighs up the passing options then shoots, but sends it way over the bar.
86 mins: Well look who we have here: it’s big Fernando Llorente, earning himself some appearance money by replacing Alli for the last few minutes.
85 mins: “Did you know that Son’s & Etheridge’s national sides (South Korea & The Philippines) are in the same group in the Asian Cup?” writes David Spurr. I did not know that actually, but they won’t actually face each other - Etheridge has been left out of the Philippines squad by your pal and mine Sven Goran Eriksson so he can concentrate on his Cardiff duties.
83 mins: Hoilett tries a hugely ambitious shot from way out, but is sails over. Spurs then attack after some hairy passing in their own box, Alli finds Eriksen with a fine through-ball, Eriksen then in turn plays in Kane but he tries to take it round Etheridge with no joy. Kane went down, with no hope of actually winning a penalty, and he might have been lucky to get away without a telling off/booking for a dive.
82 mins: Gunnarson drives into the box from the right, he challenges with Skipp and both men take a handful of the other’s shirt. Gunnarson goes down and half-expects a penalty, but at the very least wants a corner after Alli put the ball behind. But no, goal-kick apparently.
80 mins: Cardiff in the wars: Gunnarson and Bamba both go down separately requiring treatment, but both look like they’ll be OK to carry on.
79 mins: Alli takes a touch so delightful that, if you could award goals during games based only on aesthetics, would almost be worth a hat-trick. Eriksen skimmed a pass from deep out to Alli on the left, and he flicks it first time, with the outside of his right foot, inside and past Manga. He takes a little too long over the shot and it’s blocked, but by golly that was lovely.
77 mins: “Do you think the lack of subs thing relates to Spurs’ main problem in any title challenge?” writes Adam Hirst, who I should say sent his email before they actually did make a change. “They’re good for the first team but nowhere near the others for the quality of the squad members. That’s why they didn’t rotate for the Wolves game and suffered for it.”
76 mins: Change for Spurs, as Oliver Skipp replaces Son.
72 mins: Before that corner is taken, Cardiff take off Bobby Decordova Reid and replace him with Nathaniel Mendez-Laing. After it’s taken, Morrison rises and heads into the six yard box, Gunnarson attempts to help it on with his head, misses, but still forces Lloris into a save after the ball slides off his back. What an enjoyably comical goal that would have been.
71 mins: Basically all of Cardiff’s threat in the second-half has come from the left and Hoilett: he jinks down the flank and crosses, which he mishits but Lloris still has to palm the ball over the bar, lest he let a flukey one in.
69 mins: Quite surprising that Spurs haven’t made some changes by now. Most of the key men will get a rest for the FA Cup game against Tranmere, but in a season where they’re still playing in four competitions, every chance to have a breather should be taken.
67 mins: Rose feeds Kane in the box who is being so tightly marked by Manga the Cardiff man is basically in his shorts. Kane still manages to wiggle free enough to shoot, but Manga blocks it.
66 mins: Sensational then awful stuff from Bamba, who shimmies out of a tight situation with a Cruyff turn, only for his pass to be intercepted and set Son away. However, he gets the ball caught under his feet a bit and his shot, after a deflection, is saved by Etheridge.
Updated
64 mins: Kane again, and he has two shots this time after a low cross from Son. The second is blocked in the area by Bamba, speaking of whom...
Sol Bamba & Mauricio Pochettino were team-mates at PSG, every day is a school day.
— Thelonious (@TheloniousFilth) January 1, 2019
62 mins: Kane advances down the right channel and launches an ambitious ol’ shot from about 30 yards out. It goes not a million miles wide, but wide nonetheless.
61 mins: There’s Hoilett again, chasing Sanchez down and whipping the ball off his toes. However, he has to wait for support and when it arrives, his cross into the middle doesn’t beat the first man.
58 mins: Camarasa has sunk to the turf and seemingly decided that he can no longer continue. Not sure what the problem is but Joe Ralls will replace him.
55 mins: Hoilett has been sparky since coming on: he clips a cross to the back post from the left but it’s just too strong for any of the Cardiff attackers. Spurs counter at pace, but the crowd are delighted as Arter stops Kane with a hard but fair challenge, and then again as Gunnarsson muscles Alli out.
53 mins: Bamba takes Son out by treading heavily on his foot while trying to nip in front of him to take the ball, and looks absolutely mystified why a free-kick is given, so you can imagine his reaction after a yellow card is flashed. Entirely correct decision, though.
52 mins: Chance for Cardiff: Paterson drifts out to the right wing and his cross is deflected, bounces around the box and somehow finds its way to Hoilett at the back stick. He gets in front of Tripper and heads towards goal, but Lloris dives to his right to save.
49 mins: Sky are trying to keep us all watching this one, but it’s optimistic.
Not sure the "Now, can Club X find a way back into this?!" poser has ever been asked more half-heartedly by a live broadcaster
— Adam Hurrey (@FootballCliches) January 1, 2019
Obviously you should continue following this blog, though. What else are you going to do?
48 mins: Sanchez goes to ground as if taken out by a grouse hunter with a shotgun, but at worst he was grazed by Reid as the Cardiff man slipped over. Curious little episode, that.
46 mins: We’re away again. Are we about to witness the comeback of the season? No, almost certainly not.
The players are back out. Cardiff are making a change: Josh Murphy has been hooked, and Junior Hoilett is on in his stead.
Too easy for Spurs. Cardiff are doing exactly what Neil Warnock told them not to, which is to allow a big team to trample all over them in the early stages and rendering the remainder of the game entirely pointless. After the Manchester United game the other week Warnock said Cardiff were lucky not to lose by seven or eight: looks similar this time.
Half-time: Cardiff 0-3 Tottenham
Peeeeeeeep.
44 mins: Spurs winding down the half by keeping the ball for a long spell. You’d imagine they’ll do this for most of the second-half too.
41 mins: Cardiff get a free-kick out on the left which Camarasa booms over to the back post looking for Paterson, but again a defender (Alli, this time) gets in front of him to head away. On Sky Alan Smith, who would know about these things, reckons Paterson isn’t attacking these headers with enough gusto and decisiveness. It is worth remembering that Paterson is still learning the centre-forward game in the Premier League, which is a bit like learning to fly in an A380.
39 mins: Spurs have a corner from the right which is half-cleared by Cardiff, and they then win a free-kick after Sanchez barges Cunningham to the floor. On the touchline, Warnock already looks like a manager thinking about other things.
38 mins: Here’s Jeremy Dresner again: “Spurs can still challenge themselves by bringing on the Skipps of the squad and seeing if those players can hold and slow down a game second half.”
You’d think that if managers were allowed to make 11 subs, Pochettino would do exactly that at the break.
37 mins: Kane lays one off to Alli but the midfielder can’t collect it properly.
34 mins: Football is a team game, the sum of individual abilities rarely actually directly translating to how a match pans out. This, however, looks like Champions League quality players beating Championship ones.
32 mins: Warnock will presumably be spitting feathers at this - not so much that they’re losing, more that they’re doing exactly what he warned them not to do, which was to essentially surrender the game in the early stages. They try to get back into things with a corner, but Camarasa’s delivery is dreadful.
31 mins: Sometimes football is weird.
Tottenham have scored 15 goals in 271 minutes of PL football (and still lost one of those games).
— Richard Jolly (@RichJolly) January 1, 2019
29 mins: Son goes pretty close to another, rifling an always-rising shot over the bar from the edge of the box.
28 mins:
@NickMiller79 The NBC Sports broadcast just reported the NFL's Oakland Raiders might move into the new White Hart Lane next year. I'd hate to be the groundskeeper tasked with repairing the pitch for Spurs 8 times a year, plus pre-season and playoffs.
— Hubert O'Hearn (@BTBReviews) January 1, 2019
This is interesting. Although the pitch won’t be a problem: the new White Hart Lane is so hi-tech that they have a completely separate retractable field for NFL use, hosting those games always having been part of the business plan.
26 mins: Sissoko wins the ball from Cunningham in midfield, passes to Kane who lays it off to Son. On the right side of the box, Son is given too much time by Morrison to shoot, which he does low and across the keeper, into the bottom corner.
GOAL! Cardiff 0-3 Tottenham (Son 26)
Too easy.
Updated
25 mins: Spurs have been knocking the ball around for fun so far. After a few such passes Trippier slides it down the right side of the area for Alli, who tries to check back in and set up a shot, but Bamba swoops in and tackles.
23 mins: Not saying they think the game is already over, but the Spurs fans are doing that thing where they go through the repertoire of songs about each individual player in the team.
20 mins: Jeremy Dresner is a fan of that Eriksen goal: “Eriksen didn’t just give the keeper the eyes he had time to negotiate a deal on the eyes with the keepers agent. Write a book about that deal then put the ball in the net.”
17 mins: That was Eriksen’s 19th goal from outside the area since joining Spurs in 2013 - apparently no player has got more such strikes in that time.
14 mins: Warnock looked resolutely unimpressed on the touchline after that goal, as he inevitably would be. Not just that they’re 2-0 down and the game is basically gone by the 12th minute, but while Eriksen moved brilliantly to set up his shot, the Cardiff defence did stand off him rather.
12 mins: Kane slides a pass through to Son, who squares to Eriksen. He has to check slightly as Arter half-blocks the pass, but he creates a little space for himself with the most subtle shuffle on the left side of the area, about 20 yards out, and drags a shot inside the near post when Cardiff keeper Neil Etheridge was probably expecting him to curl it the other way.
GOAL! Cardiff 0-2 Tottenham (Eriksen 12)
That actually was a really terrific goal.
Updated
11 mins: Murphy stands a lovely hanging cross up to the back post looking for Paterson, but Rose defends brilliantly by getting there first and heading behind, knowing he was going to get clattered by the big Scot straight afterwards.
9 mins: Son attacks down the left but after he cuts back a pass to Alli in the middle, a heavy touch from the England man gives Cardiff a chance to counter. They don’t do much with that counter, but the early signs are that they’ve responded reasonably well to that early goal.
7 mins: Maybe Morrison was thrown off his game by an adorable child.
‘You dropped your bottle’ pic.twitter.com/SdEgXhRIpi
— ⭐ amy o'connor ⭐ (@amyohconnor) January 1, 2019
5 mins: One for you fact fans: Kane has now scored against every Premier League team he’s faced.
4 mins: Quite apart from the manner of the goal, the comic timing could hardly have been better, Neil Warnock’s pre-match words about not conceding a goal in the first three minutes again hanging in the air in a speech bubble.
3 mins: What a shambles of a goal. Trippier swings a cross into the box, it bobbles around a bit, Morrison tries to clear it but his effort gets as far as Harry Kane’s shin, from where it bounces into the net. They all count.
Updated
GOAL! Cardiff 0-1 Tottenham (Kane 3)
A screamer! Sort of.
Updated
1 min: We’re off. Cardiff are in all blue and kicking from left to right. Spurs are wearing white jerseys, dark blue knickerbockers and white stockings.
The teams are out. The atmosphere sounds good. Calum Paterson’s facial hair is expanding by the week. We’re on.
Alex Scott on Sky is making the point that Son Heung-min is in such good form that he’s impossible to leave out. Which is true, on the face of things, but there was a reasonable case to give him a rest in this one, with the longer-term in mind. He’ll be off to the Asian Cup after the Manchester United game and will probably come back absolutely knackered, physically and mentally in February some time. Spurs will need him at the back end of the season, so every chance they get to give him a day off now, they need.
Mauricio Pochettino speaks: “I see the possibilities like always. The decision is to be strong and try to win the game. We have a similar XI to the one against Wolverhampton, but always our mentality is to win. We have to be protagonists and try to dominate the game. The challenge for us is to recover the feelings we lost in the last 20 minutes against Wolves.”
14 - Cardiff have lost their last 14 Premier League matches against the ‘big six’ sides, conceding 45 goals across those matches, with 22 of those goals conceded coming in their six defeats this season. Worry. pic.twitter.com/RULVOSIfDi
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) January 1, 2019
Neil Warnock speaks: “We’re obviously really pleased about [being out of the relegation zone]. We were favourites to finish bottom. We’ve just got to do better than the last time we played a big team - we got battered against Man United. We’re a lot more confident, we’re playing better football, but it’s games like this that test us. We’ve got to be better than against United, giving them a start like conceding a goal after three minutes.”
It’s a pretty obvious thing to say but the job Neil Warnock has done at Cardiff has been utterly phenomenal. The team playing today looks, simply on the basis of talent and prior reputation, like a mid-table Championship side: to have them in the Premier League in the first place is exceptional, but for them to be outside of the relegation zone with over half of the season gone is utterly extraordinary. Only Jurgen Klopp can rival him for manager of the season so far.
“Wow,” exclaims Marie Meyer. “That is some theory you advanced in your intro. So remarkable it deserves its own theme tune.”
That Spurs side is surprising and not surprising at the same time. On the one hand it’s their best available XI, but on the other the only change from the Wolves defeat is Danny Rose coming in for Ben Davies. Presumably the hope is to get this one boxed off early, maybe make a few subs then rest the big guns against Tranmere in the FA Cup. I’ve written the team out in a 4-2-3-1 but it might equally be a 4-4-2 with a midfield diamond.
Team news
Cardiff City
Etheridge; Manga, Morrison, Bamba, Cunningham; Gunnarson, Arter; Murphy, Camarasa, Decordova-Reid; Paterson. Subs: Smithies, Peltier, Bennett, Ralls, Mendez-Laing, Madine, Hoilett.
Tottenham Hotspur
Lloris; Trippier, Alderweireld, Sanchez, Rose; Winks, Sissoko; Eriksen, Dele, Son; Kane. Subs: Gazzaniga, Davies, Foyth, Walker-Peters, Skipp, Lucas, Llorente.
Referee: Kevin Friend (Leicestershire)
Preamble
It might not be the end of the world for Tottenham if they lose tonight. In the medium/long-term, at least. Not ideal, sure, but they’re not going to win the league anyway and probably will still finish in the top four, assuming a defeat doesn’t trigger a complete collapse. But a couple of ‘well-timed’ losses, following being turned over by Wolves at the weekend, might introduce a bit of urgency into their transfer window. Plus, it might make some other clubs a little less likely to go after their manager, you never know.
Maybe that’s nonsense. After all - and here’s a hot take showing a deep understanding of the game for you - winning games is generally better than losing games. And the potential up sides mentioned do rely on Daniel Levy not being extremely stubborn, which is optimistic.
But still. There’s every chance Cardiff could give them a bop on the nose too. Neil Warnock’s side are good at home and are likely to attack Spurs, which was a problem against Wolves.
Still, let’s all rub our eyes and welcome in the New Year with the Chris Gunter Derby. Stay tuned.
Kick-off: 17.30 GMT
