Tottenham stunned
Colchester sink Spurs in shoot-out to leave Pochettino frustrated
Colchester United 0
Tottenham Hotspur 0
Colchester win 4-3 on penalties Att: 9,481
They were Champions League finalists less than four months ago, conquerors of Manchester City, Ajax and almost the whole of Europe, but all Maurico Pochettino’s gloomy predictions of an uncertain future seemed to come at once in a cup shock they will never forget in Essex.
Tottenham eliminated from the League Cup in the third round by Colchester, 10th in League Two, one of those glorious football nights when the impossible is achieved over 90-odd minutes and 10 penalty kicks and it all ends in a pitch invasion. One of the great occasions in the history of Colchester, up there with their FA Cup defeat of Leeds in 1971, and beating Crystal Palace in the previous round, another night when the stars aligned.
There was a missed penalty in the shoot-out from the substitute Christian Eriksen, who was given a lukewarm reaction to say the least from the Spurs fans when he went over to acknowledge them at the end. His penalty was saved by goalkeeper Dean Gerken and then there was Brazil international Lucas Moura clattering the fifth against the bar, leaving the stage set for one final Colchester spot kick to reverberate around English football.
That last penalty was tucked away by Tom Lapslie, a diminutive midfielder who had run himself to a standstill over 90 minutes stopping Dele Alli doing what he does best, and then, with his final bar of energy, deciding the tie in his club’s favour. The team from League Two won in spite of the fact they too missed a penalty, Jevani Brown deciding that this was the perfect time to showcase his panenka. “He’s got away with that tonight,” reflected his manager John Mcgreal, later.
There were standout performances all over the Colchester team, from Gerken and Lapslie to the two centre-halves Luke Prosser and Tom Eastman. The shining talent was Courtney Senior, a 21-yearold from Brentford’s academy who gave notice that he could play at a much higher level.
For Pochettino this was a grim reckoning – leaving him with just two wins from eight games in all competitions this season. He defended his team’s effort, although it yielded only four shots on target, and then Pochettino was back to hinting at the fractures in the squad suffered during pre-season and the preceding years of thrift. “When you have an unsettled squad [you] always need time,” he said, “and then you need time to recover the time you lose. That’s where we are. Maybe performances are good but we need this mental connection, this energy to be all together, not to have different agendas in the squad. We need time again to build that togetherness.”
A “tough situation” was how he described it, and while there is no doubt of the heights that this manager has scaled with Spurs these will be worrying times for him. “We are working hard,” he said. “We need time to fix that. January is a good opportunity. Then the next transfer window. That is the problem when something happens you cannot control – this situation can arrive. I’m more than happy, it means we are human. To keep successful in football you need to be different every season. Maybe we need to do something different.”
He made 10 changes from the team that lost to Leicester City, all but the goalkeeper Paulo Gazzaniga. Harry Kane was not part of the match-day squad. There were four academy graduates in the starting XI, two of them, 17-year-old Troy Parrott and Japhet Tanganga, 20, making their first-team debuts. Oliver Skipp and Kyle Walker-peters started too. Eric Dier wore the captain’s armband, his first minutes of any kind this season.
Mcgreal’s side lined up with five in midfield and the indomitable Frank Nouble leading the line alone, and they matched Spurs for fitness. Even as the game reached its later stages, and with Eriksen, Heung-min Son and Erik Lamela sent on to secure the win, Colchester kept their shape. Earlier Walkerpeters had hit the post with a cross but that was as close as Spurs got.
The successful Colchester penalties were scored by substitutes Luke Norris and Paris Cowan-hall as well as Nouble and Lapslie.
Colchester United (4-5-1) Gerken; Jackson (Cowan-hall 50), Eastman, Prosser, Bramall; Senior, Stevenson (Norris 78), Comley, Lapslie, Gambin (Brown 68); Nouble. Subs Ross (g), Sowunmi, Clampin, Chilvers. Booked Cowan-hall.
Tottenham (3-4-1-2) Gazzaniga; Dier, Sanchez, Tanganga (Son 66); Walker-peters, Skipp (Lamela 78), Wanyama, Davies; Alli; Moura, Parrott (Eriksen 66). Subs Lloris (g), Vertonghen, Sissoko, Foyth.
Referee Jarrod Gillett (Australia).