Uefa Cup: Udinese 2-0 Tottenham
Tottenham Hotspurs’ poor season continued in northern Italy last night when they were beaten by Udinese in the Uefa Cup. The Italian club were worth more than the goals scored by Antonio Di Natale and Simon Pepe as the Londoners were once again left in disarray. As on Sunday, when they played Stoke City in the Premier League, there was a sending off and a penalty - though this time only one of each.
Spurs looked unsettled early in the evening because the talking point before and throughout the match was the absence of the right winger David Bentley, who could not even find a place on the bench, which rather wasted - or part-wasted - the England manager Fabio Capello’s decision to attend the match.
Bentley - a £15m signing from Blackburn Rovers in the summer - had trained the previous evening without mishap. But he also made some critical comments about Spurs’ start to the season, which has left them with just two points from their eight League fixtures.
Bentley had said: “It looks like we don’t know what we are doing. It’s been shocking. It’s been a bit shit. It’s been a bad start to the season, especially for me.”
But on last night’s showing Bentley was spot on and should be promoted to technical assistant forthwith. Bentley has had a wretched time at Spurs and was dropped from the England squad last month when it was suggested that Capello was unhappy about him playing out of position at White hart Lane. He has played in a number of places for Spurs, including right back, as if trying to plug all the holes in the club.
Last night they looked desperately short of confidence, and once the midfielder Jamie O’Hara was sent off early in the second half their cause was hopeless. The Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is a man who appears obsessed with the bottom line and he has found that, for they are rock bottom of the Premier League after their worst start in history. But there is no respite in Europe either, and memories of their win in this competition 25 years ago are tinged with sadness today.
It seems there are three stooges in charge of Tottenham these days: the chairman, the manager Juande Ramos and the much-maligned sporting director, Damien Comolli .
Comolli seems to be on such thin ice that the water has reached his neck and is rising fast. Yet this defeat followed periods of play earlier in the match in which Spurs played some pleasing football and even looked capable of scoring themselves.
But they finished dejected and were so badly beaten that it could have been another league match. It does not get any better: they play at home to Bolton Wanderers on Sunday, followed by Arsenal on Wednesday and Liverpool on Saturday week.
Spurs brought on the Croatian Luka Modric for Assou-Ekotto at the start of the second half, but only 12 minutes after the restart they lost their midfield player O’Hara who within a few minutes received two yellow cards for fouls on Alexis Sanchez and was sent off.
Udinese picked up their momentum, and just two minutes after the red card Gomes made a fine save to turn a shot form Di Natale round the right post. In the 63rd minute Gomes back pedaled desperately to clutch another effort from the same forward, who had been put through by Marco Motta.
In the first half Spurs enjoyed much of the ball and, especially after Aaron Lennon had established an early ascendancy over the left-back Alexander Lukovic, threatened the Udinese goal.
Darren Bent, as expected, played in front of a five-man midfield but there was plenty of offensive support from Lennon and Jermaine Jenas in particular, with Gareth Bale, playing wide on the left, also causing Marco Motto some consternation.
They might have broken through as early as the 14th minute when Jenas crossed from the right only to see Bent produce the tamest of headers.
But all that promise was cancelled out midway through the first-half when Ramos’s beleaguered team conceded their third penalty in two matches. Benoit Assou-Ekotto’s back-pass was controlled by Heurelho Gomes but then the goalkeeper slipped and gave the ball to Fabio Quagliarella before bringing the forward down as he skipped past him. It was such a clumsy penalty that Felix Brych, the German official, looked almost embarrassed as he blew up for the penalty, which was converted by Antonio Di Natale.
Gomes, who was in some distress during Sunday’s defeat by Stoke, lost confidence visibly after that and on the half hour almost punched Motta’s cross straight into the path of Quagliarella. Gomes was punching everything apart from his weight. Quagliarella was clearly under the impression that lightning might strike twice. It always can with Spurs.
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Original post by Paul Weaver
Tags: Antonio Di Natale, Capello, Critical Comments, Daniel Levy, David Bentley, Disarray, England Manager, England Squad, Italian Club, Londoners, Midfielder, Mishap, Northern Italy, O Hara, Rock Bottom, Tottenham Hotspurs, Tottenham Tottenham, Uefa Cup, White Hart Lane, Winger