The Spurs Diaries: Sunderland 1-0 Tottenham

With heavy spending comes heavy pressure; whereas a fifth place finish and good cup runs last season felt like some kind of achievement, this season more is expected of Tottenham Hotspur. Not only by fans, but by journalists, pundits and other managers, all of whom agree that Spurs surely are the favourites to break into the big four and upset the hierarchy a little. Pre-season friendlies against South African teams may not be much to go by, but it looked good – the new players seemed to settle into the team with great success and goals were scored left, right and centre.

Given the amount of new talent brought in during the summer, then, the line-up for the first Premiership game of the 2007-08 season was a strikingly familiar one – as recognisable as the problems. The only new features from start were Younes Kaboul and Pascal Chimbonda’s new hair cut. Injuries had ruled out King, Dawson, Lee and Bale, leaving Spurs yet again with Stalteri filling in at left-back and Gardner partnering Kaboul. The former was recognisably erratic, the latter had an impressive game; it was hard to remember that this was a 21-year old centre-half on his first game in the Premier League.

In midfield Steed Malbranque had a great and creative game, but essentially there was little of the pre-season firing power to be seen, despite the fact that Martin Jol deployed all four members of the glorious strike force. Partly this was Paul McShane’s doing; the Sunderland defender seemed to be everywhere at once. But something was missing from the Spurs efforts, unable to fully trouble Craig Gordon more than once.

Spurs carried most of the initiative throughout, gathering up momentum as the game progressed and the ideas clicked better and better, but Sunderland responded by chasing down every ball and managed to close down their visitors attempts quite well. Jol responded by putting more attacking players on, but the team seemed unable to adjust their tactics in order to break Sunderland down. What nice build-ups there were (and there were quite a few) lacked the final shot on target. Sunderland themselves only fully tested Robinson’s ability once before the goal – in both cases the fault lay with Gardner – and never looked the likelier winners. It was a game with plenty of action, just not in front of goal. A goalless draw seemed inevitable – but also the kind of game which can turn by a well-taken chance. And it did, in the 94^th minute, when Michael Chopra neatly finished off a cross by Ross Wallace.

Sunderland
Gordon, Whitehead, Nosworthy, McShane, Wallace, Edwards, Etuhu, Yorke (Miller 57), Richardson (Collins 72), Murphy, Stokes (Chopra 72). Subs Not Used: Ward, Connolly.
Booked: Whitehead
Goals: Chopra 90

Tottenham
Robinson, Chimbonda, Gardner, Stalteri, Kaboul, Jenas, Zokora (Huddlestone 87), Malbranque, Tainio (Bent 59), Berbatov (Defoe 77), Keane. Subs Not Used: Cerny, Rocha.
Booked: Zokora

Attendance: 43,967
Referee: Alan Wiley