Tom Huddlestone returned to central midfield after a five-month absence. Sandro’s emergence during Huddlestone’s injury promises much for the future, but his battling spirit wasn’t required in a home game against inferior opposition. At the other end of the spectrum Peter Crouch and Roman Pavlyuchenko were both picked to match the height in Stoke City’s defence and while Crouch won lots in the air, including two goals, Pavlyuchenko turned provider was excellent link up play. Quite why the TV kept cutting to Jermain Defoe on the Spurs bench I don't know.
Aaron Lennon wasn’t in the squad because the virus that made him a last minute casualty at the Real Madrid game persists, but it was odd to hear Harry Redknapp say he didn’t know whether Lennon was at the ground or not. Lennon used his twitter account to make it known he wouldn’t be made a scapegoat and Redknapp, on TalkSport, was unsure who was trying to make him one in the first place. Rafael van der Vaart played on the right in his stead.
Watching Stoke City you get the impression they practice obstruction in training as often as other teams practice passing or dribbling. Tottenham on the other hand moved the ball about quickly and gracefully from the word go. Asmir Begovic in the Stoke goal, whose non-transfer to Spurs earned the club £1 million, wouldn’t have been surprised by the first goal. Only 11 minutes had been played, but it was already on the cards. Crouch towered over Ryan Shawcross to head in Pavlyuchenko’s cross.
Seven minutes later Luka Modrić picked the ball up from Pavlyuchenko, ghosted into the area, past Robert Huth, and slipped the ball under Begovic. It was beautiful, more a performance piece than merely scoring a goal, from the best player at the club. His lack of a nomination for PFA Player of the Year is scandalous and I hope the football writers won’t make the same mistake.
When Matthew Etherington left Spurs in 2003 I thought we were losing a player with a lot of potential, but while he’s had some good patches of form over those eight years he’s not become anything more than a mid-table player. For a moment today we saw the very best of him when he got past Michael Dawson and outpaced a not-fully-fit Tom Huddlestone before slotting the ball past Heurelho Gomes at the end of a run that started at the halfway line.
It wasn’t long before Peter Crouch had his second, another Adebayoresque header at the end of a beautiful move involving Van der Vaart, a delicious Benoit Assou-Ekotto floated pass, Vedran Ćorluka and finally a cross from Huddlestone. Crouch really enjoyed scoring the goals, doubling his league tally in the process, and going some way to rectify the disastrous red card at the Bernabéu.
The fifth goal of the half came when Kenwyne Jones stole the ball from a dawdling Bale and a few touches later he had the ball in the top corner with a marvelous left-foot belter. After the break Jones knocked the ball past Assou-Ekotto and shrugged him off way too easily. Gomes tipped his shot into the path of Jonathan Walters who couldn’t quite guide it in, hitting the post with the goal gaping.
In the 94th minute Tom Huddlestone kicked Jones to halt a potentially dangerous run. He was booked and there were suggestions, on twitter at least, that he might've 'taken one for the team' to prevent Stoke’s first goal, but personally I can't really get on board with that kind of thinking.
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