UEFA CHAMPIONS LEAGUE:THE TOTTENHAM faithful witnessed victory in the first ever Champions League group game at White Hart Lane but for long periods were unnerved by other, less welcome novelties.
The spate of injuries that has afflicted Spurs this season forced Harry Redknapp to deploy a side that, in critical areas, had little experience of playing with each other and resulted in a performance that wavered between effervescent and incoherent.Roman Pavlyuchenko and Peter Crouch started alongside each other for the first time this season and, even though they have often finished matches together, showed little understanding of each other’s movements. The Russian also had difficulty finding the wavelength of the freshly arrived Rafael van der Vaart, as attested by the mix-up in the 18th minute when Pavlyuchenko flicked the ball wide to where he believed the Dutchman would be running only to see the ball trickle out of play.
However, Spurs’ most worrying instances of confusion occurred in the centre of defence, where Tottenham were fielding their ninth different pairing of a season that is only 11 matches old.
Injuries to William Gallas, Michael Dawson, Jonathan Woodgate and Younes Kaboul meant Ledley King returned from one of his regular periods of convalescence to team up with Sebastien Bassong.
There were moments early on when it seemed as if Bassong and King were uncertain as to which of them was to mark Twente’s lone striker, Marc Janko, who almost exploited the muddle when he got the jump on both King and Bassong to tee up Bryan Ruiz. Happily for the home side, the Costa Rican’s weak shot after two minutes posed no problem for Heurelho Gomes.
In the eighth minute Bassong allowed Denny Landzaat to sneak past him and take down a free kick in the Tottenham box.
The Cameroonian recovered sufficiently to block the former Wigan player’s shot and was grateful to see Ruiz wallop the rebound over the bar.
Redknapp chose adventure in the form of Tom Huddlestone, who showed little inclination to help out his defenders. If that was per instruction, then Huddlestone’s part of the deal was surely to make creative use of the ball when he got it – and not gift possession to the opposition, as he did in the 11th minute, allowing Ruiz to scamper between the exposed King and Bassong and attempt a dink over Gomes. The Brazilian saved superbly.
Even less forgivable was Spurs’ disorganisation from set-pieces such as the free kick that lead to Twente’s goal, driven into the net by Nacer Chadli, who, almost inevitably, was unmarked.
Tottenham had squandered a two-goal lead in their opening fixture against Werder Bremen and, ultimately, the fact that they retained sufficient composure to avoid a repeat of that collapse here even after the expulsion of Van der Vaart in the 61st minute bears testament to their strength in depth – and, of course, to another novelty: being awarded three penalties. Spurs’ second spot-kick was given for an indisputably oafish tackle on Gareth Bale by Roberto Rosales but the other two were less justifiable.
Peter Crouch seemed the aggressor in the tangle with Douglas Franco that lead to the first, and for the third there seemed no way for Peter Wisgerhof to prevent Pavlyuchenko’s shot from crashing into his hand. Spurs may have passed this test of their resources, but the match raised questions about the strength of Uefa’s panel of officials.
Guardian Service
