Tottenham Hotspur needed two late goals to prevent an embarrassing defeat at the hands of Coventry City in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday night.
An impressive Coventry looked set to pull off a giant-killing thanks to Brandon Thomas-Asante’s second half strike. But Djed Spence finally got Spurs onto the scoresheet with a few minutes left to play, before Brennan Johnson’s calm finish in stoppage time sealed the comeback.
The Carabao Cup arguably represents Ange Postecoglou’s best chance of continuing his record of always winning a trophy in his second season at a club and pre-game focus was on the Spurs boss in the wake of pointing out that record following Sunday’s north London derby defeat.
Postecoglou made eight changes to his lineup for this one, with only Dominic Solanke, Rodrigo Bentancur and Destiny Udogie retained in a heavily rotated side that featured three teenagers and three other outfield starters aged 23 or younger.
How the game unfolded
Coventry, who took Manchester United to penalties in last season’s FA Cup semi-final, almost got off to a dream start after just 70 seconds. Spurs goalkeeper Fraser Forster was at fault with a loose pass but redeemed himself with an excellent diving save to Jack Rudoni from distance.
Wilson Odobert’s 18th minute withdrawal through injury was among the very few notable moments of the first half as Coventry did well to contain their Premier League visitors and Spurs struggled to make their superior quality count, despite dominating possession.
By half-time, Tottenham hadn’t managed a single shot on goal, or even any off target. Following their early sight of goal, Coventry created a couple more openings late in the first half, with Rudoni lacking conviction meeting a cross at the far post and Norman Bassette firing just over.
From the left again, Bassette forced a low save from Forster in the early stages of the second half. But the Spurs goalkeeper was very nearly the villain of the piece when he came racing out of his penalty area for a long ball forward, colliding with Radu Dragusin and gifting Haji Wright an open net. Only Ben Davies coming from nowhere to throw his body in the way stopped a certain goal.
At the other end, Davies was finally the first Spurs player to test Coventry’s Ben Wilson with a free header from a corner that was very well tipped behind. But with Postecoglou sensing his team needed more and sending on Son Heung-min and James Maddison to provide it, the hosts almost immediately got…
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