This just in courtesy of NexGen…
Tottenham Hotspur progressed to the Semi-Finals of the inaugural NextGen Series following a tight clash with Liverpool at White Hart Lane.
Liverpool were unfortunate to bow out of the tournament creating the better chances in the 90 minutes but struggled to turn their dominance into goals and were subsequently punished by Spurs.
Shaquille Coulthirst pounced on a parried save from Liverpool keeper Belford to give Spurs the lead after 72 minutes. Raheem Sterling and Toni Silva caused havoc throughout the 90 minutes for the Reds, and spurned several golden opportunities to give Liverpool the lead.
Tottenham will now face the winner of FC Barcelona vs. Ajax which will be played at the Mini Estadi next Wednesday.
The full time score, and scorers, for the game were:
Tottenham Hotspur 1 (Coulthirst) vs. 0 Liverpool FC – Full match report on the game –
The two remaining English teams in the NextGen tournament faced off at White Hart Lane as Tottenham played host to Liverpool in a game that promised to showcase the crème de la crème of English academy football in a bid to progress to the semi-final stages.
Despite boasting a squad of undoubted quality, Liverpool were yet to show their best form in the tournament, qualifying out of NextGen Group 2 by virtue of Wolfsburg and Molde’s inability to capitalise on the Mersey giants stuttering campaign with coach Rodolfo Borrell hoping his fledglings used the opportunity against Spurs to show their true potential.
The visitors form is in stark contrast to their hosts, Tim Sherwood guiding his Spurs squad to four wins and two draws to qualify top of NextGen Group 4, highlighted by thumping 7-1 victory over Inter Milan in late August.
Given the disparity between the two teams results and the home advantage, it would have been easy to regard Spurs as favourites to progress to the semi-finals, but as Inter’s victory over Sporting proved, in a knock-out scenario, the form book can go out of the window, especially when faced with a side as dangerous as Liverpool.
And so it proved in an eventful first half with both sides having chances to score in the first ten minutes with Tottenham centre back Milos Meljkovic involved in both incidents.
The 16-year-old first forcing a fine save out of Tyrell Belford from a Alex Pritchard corner, moments before gifting Michael Ngoo possession in his own area, with the defender recovering before the big Liverpool striker could get the ball out of his feet.
Tottenham’s much vaunted midfield pairing of Massimo Luongo and Jake Munns had the majority of the ball in midfield, but looked vulnerable down the flanks with Raheem Sterling and Tony Silva pressing high up the pitch to support lone striker Ngoo.
It was a tactic which should have paid dividends in the 32nd minute, Sterling, in easily his finest performance of the tournament, beat his marker before finding Ngoo in the area with the striker again taking an age to get his shot away before dragging it tamely wide of goalkeeper Jonathan Miles near post.
The pair combined again, Ngoo collecting a pass from Suso, to play in Sterling but having jinked past a trio of Spurs defenders the winger couldn’t keep his shot on target and Spurs escaped.
Liverpool would let Spurs off the hook again before half-time with Toni Silva the guilty culprit, having found himself one on one with Miles, the Portuguese elected and failed to round the Spurs keeper when a shot might have been easier.
The half came to a close with another Liverpool attempt at goal, Suso firing straight at Miles from the edge of the area having been teed up by captain Conor Coady.
Having wrestled the initiative from the home side, the second half began as the first ended with Liverpool again on the front foot, Ngoo again failing to find the target after a sharp edge of the Spurs box.
Under incessant Liverpool pressure, Spurs became increasingly reliant on set pieces and nearly capitalised on 54 minutes, Veljkovic flashing a header wide from another Pritchard corner.
The Reds continued to batter on the Spurs door, forcing Jake Nicholson to bravely block an effort from Toni Silva with his keeper in no mans land following another Sterling raid down the Spurs right.
Having wasted a glut of opportunities to take control of the tie, Liverpool were punished for their profligacy in the 71st minute, Shaquile Coulthirst reacting first to give Spurs the lead after Liverpool goalkeeper Tyrell Berlford could only parry a deflected shot back into his own six yard box.
Liverpool continued to dominate and would have drawn level had it not been for the heroics of Jonathan Miles in the Spurs goal, first spreading himself superbly to deny Raheem Sterling, deflecting the wingers shot past the post, before reacting equally impressively from the resulting corner to deny Tony Silva.
The Reds rang the changes in an effort to draw level, introducing Adam Morgan and Krisztian Adorjan for Jesus Fernandez and Michael Ngoo with 15 minutes remaining, but the change did little to change their luck in front of goal, seeing two opportunities deep into injury time go begging.
Having won a free-kick near the corner flag, substitute Adorjan rolled the ball to Sterling at the edge of the box, striking the ball first time, Sterlings drive drive appeared destined for the bottom corner only to be deflected over the bar, with the last incident of the game coming from the resulting corner, Adam Morgan rolling a shot agonisingly wide of Miles post.
Spurs can count themselves lucky to be in the next round and await an enticing semi-final against either Barcelona or Ajax, but Liverpool, with by far their most impressive performance of the campaign, only have themselves to blame for failing to convert their dominance into goals.
Tottenham Hotspur (4-4-2): J Miles – J Barthram (sub: W Ekong, 79′), M Veljkovic, J Nicholson, K Stewart – A Pritchard, M Luongo, J Munns, T Gomelt (sub: N Bentaleb, 64′) – S Coulthirst, S Coulibaly
Subs not used: B Granger, C Ceballos, K McEvoy, L Angol
Booked: Nicholson, Veljkovic, Bentaleb
Coach: Tim Sherwood
Liverpool (4-4-1-1): T Belford – R McLaughlin, S Sama, A Wisdom, J Flanagan – T Silva, C Coady, C Roddan, R Sterling – J Fernandez (sub: A Morgan, 77′) – M Ngoo (sub: K Adorjan, 77′)
Subs not used: D Ward, M McGiveron, M Pelosi, K Emilsson.
Booked: Sterling, Adorjan, Coady
I cannot believe the what has just happened with the transfer window….leading in to the final straight with 16 odd games to go we get rid off players who granted weren’t playing regulary but would no doubt have played a crucial role in the final games. We have used pretty much the same 15-16 players this campaign, fatigue is creeping into our play and the niggly injuries are starting to become and will be an issue. releasing 4 established players has just cost us the final push we needed to compete with both Manchester clubs in the title race.
Never fear, Ryan Nelson is here!!! :whistle:
In reality we swapped Pav for Saha and Bassong for Nelson. So I make it only 2 players down. Corluka was never really gonna get a sniff unless Walker was seriously injured (touch wood) and we have cover for RB if needed. Peanut never set the world alight and I would rather loan him out and play Krancjar, so no real loss there. All in all not a great window but I don’t think we were ever going to get a world class striked in January and I was actually glad we weren’t linked to every player in the world for once! I guess only time will tell if getting rid of those 4 players will affect us greatly or not! COYS
I meant striker there, not striked!
Can’t see where the cover at RB is. Kaboom? NOOOOO. He’s our only fully fit CB and has to play there. Livermore has played one and a third games there.
We also look light in midfield. Blud has persistent injury problems and once Bale starts to miss games (it always happens) we’ll have no width. Who exactly are our midfield reserves? We’ve sent a couple of teams out on loan.
Mr Doom, can I introduce you to Mr Gloom?
We do look very light at Right Back (amazing considering we had half a team of them at one time.. Charlie, Hutton, Kyle, Kyle, Smith).
Would not even think about switching Kaboom to right back, he is probably the best centre half in the league at the moment (him and Kompany of City). It would surely have been sensible to bring Kyle Naughton or Adam Smith back as cover. As you say we also lack cover on the wings. Shame that Dos Santos has not really set the world alight even though his limited opportunities have all been against limited opposition. We could have kept Townsend back rather than loan him out to Leeds, especially as they have now sacked their Manager.
I guess Rose could play wide left but HR always seems to revert to playing either Modders or DVD wide if we are without Bale or Lennon. It makes us completely unbalanced , very narrow and wastes Modders or DVD as well. We have had our usual crop of injuries but so have ManU and Woolwich Wanderers, so just hope we can get/keep our key players fit from now.
Not including replays, if we get to Wembley, there are 19 games left to be played over the next 100 days. I don’t see that it is a big ‘ask’ for the players to manage three games every fortnight, especially when most of them were not involved in the EL or CC.
When we won the UEFA cup in the 70’s most of the players did 60 games and some even played 70.This was when only one sub was allowed. With the possible exception of Walker and Kaboul, I don’t think any of the squad will reach 50 games this season.
Just my opinion, but I find myself underwhelmed by players who claim they are tired because they are playing too many games.
I cannot see any benefits loaning out Bassong, Peanut or Charlie other than a solid agreement to offload them in the summer, when Nelson and Saha’s contracts will be terminated. But at this stage of the season, it really is a head scratcher, to provoke sod’s law by leaving us without cover on both defensive flanks, what if Benny’s ‘tackle’ got the punishment it really deserved? Flummoxed is putting it mildly as every game and every tackle, my heart-rate is going to go into overdrive.
I think Nelsen and Saha are both on 18 month deals.
Not according to the earlier press releases where it was quoted that Saha’s was six month deal and the same with Nelson, but not 100% either way;Saha would’ve been out of contract at the season’s end and on a freebie,so I’m 2nd guessing we’ve just taken on his existing deal.
You could be right. I just recall seeing 18 month deals somewhere.
Just seen six months reported for Saha. Apologies
No need ;-)
Just seen this re: Nelsen. Not good news.
http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11095/7475381/
It makes even less sense than before after that reading (say’s he draining his glass back to half empty)
Smith’s loan deal has a recall clause
It sounds as if Charlie and Bassong couldn’t cope with not playing much, and wouldn’t have been a lot of use, but why not bring back Naughton, as has been said, and Caulker? Play them in the cup games. If we should lose out on 4th place…Heaven forfend.
from code 46:
“that a picture of your kids?”
“yeah, they really are special.”
“it’s funny. i hear about so many special kids, but meet so few special adults”
says it all.
My old mans version of that was “Today, parents spend too much time telling their kids they’re special, the kids then spend a lifetime discovering that they’re not!”