And with that, I’m off. Bye!
Jacob Steinberg has filed his match report from the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium:
It was not quite up there with the time Gareth Bale came off the bench to put Real Madrid on the path to Champions League glory with that overhead kick against Liverpool in 2018. Yet it was still a precious moment for the Welshman. Thrown on in the 70th minute and told to puncture Brighton’s resilience, Bale produced the decisive moment three minutes later, leaping to score for the first time since returning to Tottenham.
The beaming smile on Bale’s face spoke volumes. After the breakdown in his relationship with Madrid, he was home at last: back in Tottenham’s colours and providing moments of class when his team needed him. Tottenham had laboured. They had given up another lead and were heading for another home draw. In the end, though, a substitute lifted them to second place, two points behind Liverpool and dreaming of a title challenge.
Much more here:
So Brighton did alright but lost again and are 16th, Tottenham were poor but won again and are second. I found it a disjointed and disappointing game, with the referee demanding an irritating amount of attention, but at least there was one controversy-free goal to decide it and Spurs were, while wildly unconvincing, the better side. I expect both managers will find stuff to be angry about.
Gareth Bale has a chat after scoring his first Premier League goal for seven years:
I just want to come on and do a job for the team. Being on the subs’ bench and coming on you just want to make an impact. It’s massively important. Everyone always talks about individual players, but I’ve always said I’m a team player. If I came on and just helped the team defend and we won 2-1 I’d be just as happy. The most important thing is the collective. We work together, we work hard, we win together. It was a great reaction from the team. I think we’re also learning to close out games, which is good, and we’re growing. I think we’re very competitive. We don’t want to get too carried away, we’re just going to keep working as hard as we can.
Final score: Tottenham 2-1 Brighton
90+6 mins: The referee blows his whistle a couple of seconds before the end of the six minutes, with Bissouma about to cross the ball into a crowded area. Spurs have turned a poor performance into three points, with Gareth Bale once again a matchwinner!
90+5 mins: Spurs are keeping the ball and running down the clock.
90+3 mins: Veltman tries to turn past Lo Celso inside the Brighton penalty area and fails. The ball doesn’t quite fall for either player, and they grapple with each other as both try to reach it until the referee gives Brighton a free kick.
90+2 mins: Kane goes down again, this time on the left, and wins a free-kick.
90+1 mins: Into stoppage time, of which there’ll be six minutes or so.
89 mins: Welbeck is very nearly found in the area by White’s excellent pass, but Alderweireld comes accross to deal with it.
88 mins: Kane does another horrible dive, attempting to win a free kick in prime shooting position. He does this a bit too much. Spurs keep the ball, though, and Bale tees up Lo Celso for a shot that curls not far wide.
86 mins: The ball bounces into Dier’s arm, and VAR has a look at it, but it’s outside the area, and unintentional, and his arm is in a natural position, so it’s all good.
85 mins: Another substitution sees Ben Davies come on for Spurs, replacing Son.
83 mins: A cross from the right, and Lloris comes to collect and doesn’t, as Welbeck loiters. There seems to be a pause while everyone waits for the whistle to sound, and then everyone realises it hasn’t and isn’t going to, but Brighton can’t fashion a shot at the gaping goal.
83 mins: Burn smashes a cross from the left straight into Doherty’s face.
82 mins: The pace has rather gone out of the game, with Spurs now having a lead and apparently happy with it, and Brighton’s momentum stalled by the substitutions.
79 mins: Lamptey, who was limping a bit a few minutes ago before apparently recovering, leaves the field, and Mac Allister comes on.
75 mins: It feels like Spurs redoubled (well, started) their efforts after Brighton’s equaliser, and it really hasn’t taken very long of them actually playing for them to score.
74 mins: Brighton have brought Danny Welbeck on for Trossard. It was at Spurs almost exactly a year ago (19 October, to be precise) that he sustained the injury that ruined last season for him.
GOAL! Tottenham 2-1 Brighton (Bale, 73 mins)
Spurs retake the lead! It’s a long ball from right to left, where Reguilon cuts onto his right foot and crosses to Bale, level with the near post, who heads past Sanchez!
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71 mins: Spurs hit the post again, in bizarre style! It’s a corner from the right that’s flicked on by Bale and runs to an unmarked Kane at the far post, who controls and then shoots into the post from a foot out!
70 mins: And that’s Lamela’s last contribution, with Gareth Bale coming on to replace him.
68 mins: Lamela hits the post! It was a shot from 22 yards or so, hit with no great power but it’s beyond the reach of Sanchez and into the meat of the post! It rebounds to Veltman, who for some reason decides to tuck the ball into his own net, only for Sanchez to deny him with an excellent reaction save!
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66 mins: Bernardo has come on for March, and play has resumed.
65 mins: March has gone down, and then limped off, with apparent ankle-knack and it looks like his evening might be over.
63 mins: A substitution! Ndombele goes off, and Giovani Lo Celso comes on.
60 mins: It was a well worked and well taken goal, the ball worked from left to right along the edge of the Tottenham penalty area before Lamptey was finally played in, and he produced a neat sidefooted finish to bring his side level. However the fact is that Brighton only had the ball because of a foul on Hojbjerg. The referee it seems thinks March got a tiny touch on the ball before he steamrollered through the player’s legs.
The goal stands!
59 mins: I think this is a Premier League first, the referee having been told to review an incident but deciding to stay with his original decision.
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58 mins: I think Hojbjerg was fouled there, and this goal is not going to stand.
57 mins: Graham Scott is going to have a closer look at that tackle on the pitchside screen.
GOAL! Tottenham 1-1 Brighton (Lamptey, 56 mins)
A nice equaliser for Brighton, though VAR might want to check March’s tackle on Hojbjerg in the build-up!
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52 mins: A short interlude while Hojbjerg is treated for something or other.
49 mins: Spurs win a free-kick, which Kane chips into the area for Son. Over the next 20 seconds both Son and Kane throw themselves to the ground inside the area, or in Kane’s case into the area. No penalties this time, which is just as well. Kane’s in particular was a terrible dive for which he should be genuinely ashamed.
48 mins: Webster cleanly tackles Son, but the referee insists on giving a free-kick. Generally I’m not one for referee-bashing, but the number of bad decisions made in this game has really been shaming.
46 mins: Peeeeeeep! Spurs get the ball re-rolling.
The players are back out and ready for more. No changes to either side.
Spurs, Brighton and the officials will all be a bit disappointed at the break, I think. Spurs have been poor since the penalty, Brighton have played for 35 minutes against a half-interested side and achieved little, and the officials have made at least one bad penalty decision, probably two, and generally stuffed everything up for everyone.
“What’s more outrageous (but depressingly predictable) than the PPV mess is how easily the government got fobbed off on the games going on terrestrial TV,” writes Tom Atkins. “It was supposed to be the quid pro quo for making exceptions to the Covid rules to allow this whole thing to go ahead, and what did we get? A handful of 10th-choice games for a couple of months. It’s no wonder so few people have any moral qualms whatsoever when finding illegal streams to watch a sport which, let’s not forget, doesn’t belong to Sky, BT or Amazon in any sensible view of the game.”
Half time: Tottenham 1-0 Brighton
45+4 mins: Lamela gets up and has a ludicrously unlikely attempt at goal from only a foot or two away from the byline, which goes over the bar, and that’s the end of the half!
45+3 mins: Burn tackles Lamela on the Brighton right, concedes a free-kick and gets booked. Another poor decision, in my opinion, as there was very little contact there, perhaps none at all.
45+2 mins: The ball is lifted over Tottenham’s defence towards Lallana, who might have controlled it, and would have been rewarded with a clear sight of goal, but didn’t.
45+1 mins: Into stoppage time, of which there’ll be three minutes or so.
42 mins: The corner leads to a cross, a Burn header, and a Lloris collection. “I see your point, but it’s not quite convincing,” says Gary Naylor. “Fans cannot attend in the stadiums nor watch in the pub, so Sky and BT have us over a barrel. I’d pay £5 to watch Everton’s games (okay, not today’s obviously) but £14.95 is a bit gougey really.” I don’t disagree with that. As a supporter of a Championship team, I have been asked to pay £10 to watch my team’s games, which I think is reasonable. I also think that anyone who has paid for a 2020-21 season ticket should be getting deeply discounted access, though they may prefer just to get a refund at some point in the future.
41 mins: Brighton win their fourth corner, double Tottenham’s tally. They have been on top for the last 15 minutes or so, but are still without a shot on target.
39 mins: Reguilon slides in to tackle Gross, and catches the opponent’s toe in his follow-through. He’s booked, another poor decision in my opinion.
34 mins: Lamptey pulls back to Trossard, whose shot is blocked, and anyway Lamptey was offside. Also it’s come to my attention that I called Lallana Lamela twice, which is extraordinarily foolish. It’s been a long day.
“I’m afraid it’s to be expected considering that we’re living in the upside-down that jumping to head a ball is a foul but purposely backing into an opponent who is in mid-air and cutting their legs out from under them wins a penalty,” writes JR. “Ah well, civilization may be ending Tuesday or soon after that anyway.”
29 mins: Brighton are having a good spell here, but remain in search of their first clear chance. “I just sat down to watch the game and found out that it is PPV,” writes Adam Levine (presumably not the Maroon 5 frontman). “So not only do I pay a fortune for sky for the right to watch a bunch of games that I couldn’t care less about I now have to pay extra for the occasional one I do. I think the expression I’m reaching for is [sod] that for a game of soldiers.” Personally I don’t really see the issue here. Sky/Prime/BT Sport subscriptions are expensive, but nobody was ever promised live coverage of every Premier League game. They still all show their subscribers the same number of games they did pre-Covid, but those subscribers are no longer getting loads of bonus extra free games as they did after the resumption of football last season. I think the number of different subscription services fans are expected to pay for is unacceptable, but these PPV games have nothing to do with that argument. Pay for them or don’t, whatever.
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26 mins: Frankly I can understand their frustration, given the two penalty decisions that have now gone against them.
Potter and his staff furious that VAR check doesn't award Brighton a pen.
— John Cross (@johncrossmirror) November 1, 2020
24 mins: VAR is not convinced, and play continues. That falls deep into seen-them-given territory.
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23 mins: White crosses from the right, and Trossard flings himself to the ground. Doherty had hands on him there, and VAR is going to check this.
21 mins: Son sends a curling shot way high and also way wide of goal from just outside the area.
19 mins: The already-booked Ndombele goes into the back of Lamptey, who Kaned that situation a little bit, and concedes a free kick. This game seems depressingly likely to be decided by refereeing decisions.
15 mins: That was such a cheap goal to concede. Bissouma did a terrible job of clearing the ball, and then Lallana threw himself at the header and in so doing clattered into a player who positioned himself deliberately to be in his path. I’m not at all convinced that it was a foul, but the situation should have been avoided.
Thought @HKane bought that one. Just backed into Lallana and also not convinced it was inside the box.
— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) November 1, 2020
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GOAL! Tottenham 1-0 Brighton (Kane, 13 mins)
Kane sidefoots into the right corner, with the keeper going the other way, and Spurs have been gifted a lead!
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Penalty for Tottenham!
12 mins: VAR has a look and decides the foul took place inside the penalty area, so it’s upgraded to a penalty!
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11 mins: Spurs are dominating here. Son crosses to the far post but it’s headed clear and eventually loops to Kane, who goes down as Lallana comes in to challenge for it. The Spurs striker was trying to win the free-kick rather than the ball, and got his wish.
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7 mins: Brighton look to break from a Spurs corner, but Ndombele pulls Lamptey back by a shoulder and gets booked.
6 mins: Action for Robert Sanchez! Reguilon gets the ball in the area. He checks back, assesses his options, decides none of them are any good, spins again and shoots high but too close to the Brighton keeper, who helps it over the bar.
3 mins: Son’s pass finds Lamela sprinting into the left side of the area, and he waits for Kane to catch up before sliding a low cross towards the far post, but it’s nicked off his toes as the goal loomed!
1 min: Peeeeeep! Brighton get the game started.
The players are out and will be in action very shortly, after a silence in memory of Nobby Stiles, and fallen members of the armed forces.
The absence of Maupay and Aaron Connolly, plus the change in goal, is certainly intriguing. There’s no mention from Potter of any kind of injury issues, so we’re left with no choice but to jump to wild conclusions. Any suggestions, beyond the obvious training-ground punch-up?
Graham Potter doesn’t have much to say in his pre-match interview, refusing to explain Neal Maupay’s absence while of the change in goal he says: “Rob Sanchez comes in. A goalkeeper with some fantastic attributes, we think he can help us in this game.” So, there’s that. Meanwhile, Jose Mourinho says this:
I hope we see a good reaction. I hope we see the team that fought hard and tried everything to win at Burnley. I hope we see the team that played so well in so many of the other matches. I want to believe that against Antwerp it was a question of motivation, concentration, being ready or not being ready for a match that could be a difficult match. I was disappointed not so much with individuals but in the general attitude of the team.
Robert Sánchez comes into the Brighton team, making his league debut for the team he joined back in 2015. Tottenham meanwhile bring Harry Kane, Son Heung-min, Eric Dier, Tanguy Ndombele, Moussa Sissoko and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg back into the team after sitting out the Europa League defeat to Royal Antwerp. Dele Alli, Carlos Vinicius, Serge Aurier and Steven Bergwijn drop out of the squad altogether. Or if you want to compare this team to their last league line-up, Reguilon and Lamela are in, and Davies and Lucas Moura are out.
The teams!
The team sheets have been handed in, and these are the players picked:
Tottenham Hotspur: Lloris, Doherty, Alderweireld, Dier, Reguilon, Sissoko, Hojbjerg, Lamela, Ndombele, Son, Kane. Subs: Winks, Bale, Hart, Rodon, Lo Celso, Lucas Moura, Davies.
Brighton: Sanchez, Webster, Veltman, Burn, Lamptey, White, Bissouma, March, Gross, Lallana, Trossard. Subs: Ryan, Mac Allister, Alzate, Welbeck, Propper, Zeqiri, Bernardo.
Referee: Graham Scott.
𝗟𝗜𝗡𝗘-𝗨𝗣: Lloris (C), Doherty, Alderweireld, Dier, Reguilon, Hojbjerg, Sissoko, Ndombele, Lamela, Son, Kane
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) November 1, 2020
📱 @WilliamHill latest (18+) https://t.co/EI0Dbf4DU2 #THFC ⚪️ #COYS pic.twitter.com/edGacyONLv
👇 Here's how Albion take to the field for tonight's game with @SpursOfficial.
— Brighton & Hove Albion (@OfficialBHAFC) November 1, 2020
📲 https://t.co/S3j1TIedJv#BHAFC 🔵⚪️ pic.twitter.com/kptnj6ZZCp
Hello world!
Tottenham, like Brighton, collected their first league points with a victory on 20 September, but unlike today’s opponents they have kept going, and they will go second if they win today. But Brighton’s five-point haul doesn’t even faintly reflect their performances, which have tended to be rather good, and it is not inconceivable that they will win at Spurs today for the first time in 39 years, even with Lewis Dunk suspended.
Jose Mourinho will celebrate the first anniversary of his appointment at Spurs later this month, a prospect which he relishes. “I am really happy because one year more or less since we arrived, there was, in our opinion, a great evolution in the team at every level,” he tubthumped. Time, as always, will tell. In the next couple of weeks Spurs play Brighton and then West Brom, before a run of games against Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal(, Crystal Palace) and Liverpool which will really show the extent of their evolution. The Seagulls will fancy their chances of exposing a few faultlines themselves, I’d wager.
Anyway, hello! Here’s Jonathan Wilson saying encouraging things about Spurs:
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