Spurs 0 - 1 Madrid: Inevitable

Tom Huddlestone was picked ahead of Sandro and for the first 20 minutes it didn’t look a great decision. While Huddlestone’s incisive passing can bring the other attackers into play and get things going you still have to face that trio of Xabi Alonso, Mesut Özil and Sami Khedira. Huddlestone is not the most mobile of combative at the best of times and he’d only played the game against Stoke on the weekend after a five-month lay off. About halfway through the first half he settled down and a lot of the play went through him.  

We needed a performance from Gareth Bale and he was central to the action from the start. Within the first 7 minutes he’d dived in the box and created a chance that genuinely should have led to a penalty. Bale took the ball past Sergio Ramos, hit a cross-cum-shot that Iker Casillas parried and Xabi Alonso kicked Luka Modric’s ankle. Jim Beglin reluctantly admitted it might be a penalty, but then again he openly condones fouling.

The four-goal deficit was always going to be too much to overhaul, but if we were going to have a stab at it we needed to bury every decent chance. In the 27^th minute we got our first decent one when Huddlestone sent Aaron Lennon on his way and he picked Roman Pavlyuchenko out on the penalty spot. Pavlyuchenko should have buried it with his laces, but he chose to sidefoot it and it went well over. Later he had a free header from about 9 yards and put it over the bar too. I’ve spent too much time defending Peter Crouch to lay into Pavlyuchenko when he makes a mistake, but I do hope those that seem to think he is the answer to all our problems if only Redknapp would pick him noticed his poor finishing.

The final penalty shout was the most ambiguous. Pavlyuchenko went down a split second before he made contact with Albiol’s leg, but had Albiol definitely left it there. It didn’t make any difference really and the last hurrah was a beautiful goal that was ruled out. Luka Modric was offside when he headed Pavlyuchenko’s cross back to Bale who volleyed it in.

Real Madrid’s aggregate victory wasn’t really threatened and Cristiano Ronaldo made sure they won on the night too. Heurelho Gomes was the Spurs Show’s player of the season last year and I agreed with them, but he has regressed hugely since. Ronaldo’s speculative effort stung his palms and looped in. The same thing happened against Chelsea and it’s hard to argue against claims that Gomes is no more than a good shot-stopper rather than a rounded and reliable keeper.

Van der Vaart’s swivel and curling shot would have been a nice full stop on the thoroughly enjoyable campaign, but it went over and we went out with our heads held high even if it wasn’t quite a blaze of glory.

The Spurs fans were loud on the television going through the full repertoire in the last 20 minutes including choruses of ‘there’s only one Paul Gascoigne/Gary Mabbutt’. It was two good performances against one of the best teams around.