For a long time it looked like Spurs would hold on. They were disciplined and determined, restricting a Manchester United side that were in formidable form prior to football’s enforced break.
It was a performance that truly reflected Jose Mourinho’s principles: organisation, structure and cautiousness.
The visitors upped their game in the second half and earned a draw, but Tottenham’s display, given their poor run of results pre-coronavirus, was impressive nonetheless.
At the heart of it was Davinson Sanchez, who marshalled things expertly at the back. He rarely put a foot wrong and would have been forgiven for getting a little frustrated when Eric Dier gave away the penalty that allowed Bruno Fernandes to equalise.
Sanchez has not always lived up to his £42million price tag since he was brought in three years ago. But he is still just 24, still a defender capable of being moulded into a more rounded player by a coach with the experience of Mourinho.
The Colombian certainly had the better of Anthony Martial for most of Friday night’s game, keeping the Frenchman subdued.
It wasn’t until the introduction of Paul Pogba in the second half that United’s pressure really began to tell, although Sanchez for the most part remained sturdy at the back. Dier was resolute, too, until his late lapse in concentration, which ultimately proved costly.
For Spurs, this was a glimpse of a future without both Jan Vertonghen. It looks increasingly like he is the club’s past, and this felt like Mourinho looking to move things forward.
Sanchez is the future, a centre back with all the attributes required to excel at the top level. He may yet need to be refined, polished, in order to reach the next level. But there is, undoubtedly, a player of real quality there.
Sanchez was composed and unflustered and had the physical attributes to deal with a United attack that included Martial, Marcus Rashford and Daniel James. None of them are slouches.
There are certainly areas in which Sanchez can improve. He has been prone to the occasional dip in concentration, too, and if Mourinho is, as this game suggested, going to base his team on defensive foundations, he can ill afford regular mistakes from any of his defenders.
“We go with Davinson and Dier,” Mourinho said when asked to explain his team selection before kick-off. “United is a very powerful team in counter-attack with very fast players in attack and we choose the two, in our view, who can deal better with it.”
That was an approach that mostly paid off, and would have probably been labelled a stroke of genius had Tottenham held on to keep a clean sheet against a United team that, before the impact of the pandemic, were scoring prolifically and had a player in Fernandes who appeared unstoppable.
Spurs could not do that, but there were plenty of positives to take from this, not least an assured performance from Sanchez.
