|
The traditional curtain raiser to Tottenham's
pre-season programme at Stevenage Borough saw a young Spurs side with a
sprinkling of first teamers ease to a win thanks to a better second half
performance against the home side's second string XI.
The game was held up slightly, as the long queues
made it difficult for everyone to get in on time and fans were still
coming through the turnstiles 15 minutes after kick off. The
summer sunshine that had arrived at last shone down as the teams took to
the field for their pre-match warm-up, with Darren Bent appearing for
the first time in a Spurs shirt. A huge over-sized bear was
present at the toss-up, as the fans mixed in all the stands of the
ground in a friendly atmosphere, with some good-natured banter between
them. The Hungarian flag waving Boro supporter on the standing
terrace gave a few fans the benefit of his repertoire of Stevenage
songs, although they might not have wished to experience them !!
Spurs links with Boro now abound. Former
defender Mark Stimson is the manager, Ronnie Henry skippers the side
from the back, Stuart Lewis of our reserve side last season lined up in
midfield and another reserve defender of years gone by - Mark Arber -
played the second half. It was Lewis who had the first shot of the
game, with a low effort in the first minute, but Radek Cerny dealt with
it easily. The response was immediate, with Phil Ifil running up
the right wing and setting up Robbie Keane, who struck a curling shot
that cleared the far post and in the third minute, Keane struck an
angled volley over the bar from six yards out on the left hand side of
the goal.
Tottenham were moving well, even though it was
their first game after starting training last week. The passing
was not quite as hot and Keane was growing frustrated with Taarabt, as
he failed to release the ball when Robbie wanted it. His dribbling
tended to hit the brick wall of the Stevenage defence. But then,
in the 18th minute that all changed. A neat one-two between Bent
and Keane saw the new striker try to burst between two defenders, one of
whom bundled him over and the referee, who was right on top of the
incident, pointed to the spot. After some words of wisdom from
Ronnie Henry, Keane stepped up, shimmied and sent the ball past Julian
in the Boro goal to put Spurs 1-0 ahead.
At this point, it looked like Spurs eased off a
bit and Stevenage came into the game more. A free-kick was curled
over the wall, but Cerny comfortably grabbed the high shot, which lacked
pace on it. The same result came at the other end, when Taarabt
could have played Darren Bent through, but chose to shoot straight at
the keeper low down. Some semblance of interplay began to take
form, with Bent and Taarabt linking and the £16.5 million man hit his
shot at goalie Julian, who was also on his toes to tip over the bar from
Keane's free-kick as it arrowed for the top corner. A free-kick
gave Boro a good opening, but the original shot was blocked by the wall
and Lewis' follow-up took a deflection for a corner. The player
taking the free-kick was Ollie Allen, the son of Clive, who was taking
the Spurs warm-up duties today.
Anthony Gardner and Ricardo Rocha started off
the game in the centre of defence and performed well against some
physical stuff from the two Stevenage forwards. Rochas stopped
Allen's shot on the turn with a block on 37 minutes, but when the
striker got the ball on the centre of the edge of the six-yard box, he
turned Gardner and buried his shot into the corner of the net to make it
1-1. It looks like his Dad has taught him well !! Before that Rocha had to block a Mitchell Cole effort and
Taarabt hit the target with a fierce shot that Julian had to palm over
the crossbar.
It was a completely different side who faced
Tottenham in the second half, with Stevenage making 11 changes, while
Spurs kept the same 11 on the field. It paid off for Tottenham, as
a crisp pass through the middle of the Stevenage defence found Darren
Bent and as the new keeper Ketteridge came out to meet him, the new
signing struck the ball over him and into the net. it was the sort
of finish you would hope for from someone that Martin Jol has placed his
faith in.
The passing was now reaping dividends and
cutting through the home side, with Murphy and Malbranque exchanging
passes to set up Keane, who laid it into Bent path, but he could only
drag it across the goal a yard wide of the left hand post. Then he
was there a minute later on the end of a neat one-two between Malbranque
and Keane to bring a save from Ketteridge from a half-hit shot.
Having decided to up their game, Spurs had
Stevenage penned in and a sweeping move saw Bent return the compliment
for Robbie, but his shot was well kept out by a low save from Ketteridge
in the Boro goal. Just after the hour, O'Hara ran through the home
side's midfield and played the ball to Keane, who shimmied past Arber
and hit a shot that was this time saved by the keeper's legs.
Ricardo Rocha had been doing well, but seemed
to be having trouble with his foot in the first half and he was replaced
by Leigh Mills, who looked comfortable alongside Gardner. Not that
he had too much to do, as all the play was at the other end. Keane
lofted a pass over the left back to find Steed and he cut in to hit a
shot that the keeper pushed away and Robbie then played through Adel
Taarabt, who curled a shot wide of the right hand post. The young
midfielder had a taste for a goal today and tried shooting at almost
every opportunity. Danny Murphy shot over from a good position on
the edge of the penalty area following Phil Ifil's right wing run and
Robbie Keane's dummy, before finally Taarabt got his reward.
Picking up the ball on the left wing, the big
man cut inside a few yards to hit a shot from 25 yards that, as a few of
his other shots, looked unlikely to trouble the keeper.
Unfortunately for Boro, the ball squirted under Ketteridge and into the
bottom corner of the goal to give Tottenham a 3-1 advantage with 67
minutes gone. The goal signalled an immediate substitution of Andy
Barcham for Bent, who had taken a heavy tackle on his ankle and shortly
after, the hard-working O'Hara left to be replaced by Jacques Maghoma
and towards the end, more Spurs subs gave some of the youngsters a taste
of playing with first-teamers.
Taarabt grew in confidence with his goal,
hitting the keeper's legs with another shot, spraying his passes across
the pitch and showing good skill to take on a number of Stevenage
players before running into another one and losing the ball. The
home supporters had been giving him a bit of grief over his passes not
coming off, but he had the last laugh with the goal and showing off what
he can do on the ball. In fact, the home support went pretty quiet
in the second half, apart from a bloke in the Main Stand, who squawked
out "COME ON BORO" like a nervous tic, making it sound like someone
shouting out "KOOKABURRA" !!
Altogether, a good run out for the players
after returning to training. Stevenage played hard in the first
half and in the second some of their players went in a bit hard in an
attempt to prove something to their manager, which was a bit unnecessary
- especially when Oliver went right through the back of Barcham.
But Spurs managed to play around them and ended up with a comfortable
winning margin.
Marco van Hip |
