Mousa Dembele Scores but Tottenham Draw with Norwich City

Tottenham’s disappointing start to the season continued at White Hart Lane against Norwich City. Mousa Dembele making his debut as a half-time substitute appeared to have relieved the situation for Andre Villas-Boas and Spurs with his goal after 68 minutes but Norwich equalised with only f1ve minutes remaining to take a point their performance thoroughly deserved.

Tottenham Hotspur 1 Norwich City 1

Scorers: Dembele                       Snodgrass

Team: Friedel; Walker, Gallas, Vertonghen, Assou-Ekotto; Sandro (Dembele), Livermore; Lennon, Sigurdsson (Adebayor), Bale, Defoe (Huddlestone)  Subs: (unused) Cudicini, Naughton, Townsend, Caulker

Andre Villas-Boas made only one change from the team which drew against West Bromwich Albion last Saturday. Gylfi Sigurdsson started in place of Rafael Van der Vaart who was transferred to Hamburg on the final day of the transfer window. Tottenham’s new signing, Dembele, was on the substitutes’ bench.

Norwich with their manager, Chris Hughton, returning to White Hart Lane where he spent so many  years, opened the brighter and it was Brad Friedel who was the busier goalkeeper. If this were to be Friedel’s last game in his run of consecutive Premier League appearances, he could consider himself very unfortunate as he made two great saves to keep Spurs level at the interval. With Tottenham’s acquisition of France, Number 1, Hugo Lloris on Friday, Friedel’s hold on the goalkeeping position must be under threat. First, however, after nine minutes, Friedel reacted to a header by Russell Martin and touched it on to the bar. Later, a few minutes before half-time, he got down to block a bullet header from Robert Snodgrass.

Through the first half Norwich gave a very disciplined and well-organised team performance while Spurs were like a group of individuals who had just come together. Tottenham’s play was slow and ponderous, lacking any creativity and Norwich forced them to play the ball sideways, waiting for a misplaced pass or for a Spurs player to run into a cul-de-sac created by the visitors’ defence.

The half-time whistle was greeted with boos echoing around the ground.

At half-time Villas-Boas introduced Dembele to add quality to his midfield, replacing Sandro, and Spurs seemed to make an improved start as Gareth Bale got behind the defence and put in a dangerous cross. This improvement was short lived and Emmanuel Adebayor came on for Sigurdsson to play beside Jermain Defoe. Tottenham had their best period in the match as Bale and Benoit Assou-Ekotto created space and on the left. After 67 minutes Dembele put Spurs ahead when he received the ball on the edge of the box and quickly shot low to the goalkeeper’s left. Had Spurs gone on to win, Dembele, for that alone, would have been awarded ‘Man of the Match’ – the only Spurs player with the ability to create and take a chance

This looked to have set up Spurs for the three points but as last weekend, Spurs failed to make the most of their goal advantage and succumbed to a late equaliser. Having created problems on the left, Bale was then switched to the right with Aaron Lennon moving over and neither was as effective in the closing minutes. Tom Huddlestone was introduced for the final ten minutes in place of Defoe as Spurs tried tried to hold on to their lead. With five minutes left Spurs again failed to learn from last week’s match when Norwich drew level with a goal which was a carbon copy of the one conceded against West Brom.

Doug Livermore was penalised on the edge of the box but the danger from the free-kick appeared to have been cleared but again Spurs didn’t react when the ball came back in and Snodgrass beat Friedel with a shot similar to Morrison’s for Albion.

in the final minutes Spurs lost all composure as Norwich did everything possible to slow down the tempo of the game. Bale was booked for disputing a goal-kick and Huddlestone was sent off for a tackle in midfield. Friedel was called upon again to make a late save which denied Norwich a repeat of last season’s win at White Hart Lane.

More booing accompanied the final whistle as Spurs from a seemingly ‘easy’ set of opening fixtures have taken only two points. After the game, Villas-Boas commented,

"“It is disappointing to suffer in the dying moments of the game again. We have to accept the disappointment of the fans. They have to understand we are doing everything in our power to get our first win.”"

• You are told to learn from your mistakes, unfortunately, Tottenham didn’t learn from last weekend’s draw. They again failed to secure a win after going ahead in the final period of the match.
• Most disappointing about this match was the performance. It was by far the worst of the three games played so far. It was disjointed and players seemed unsure of themselves.
• Tottenham lacked a creative player. For the past two seasons Luka Modric and Rafael Van der Vaart have looked to provide that creativity but in their absence there was no-one else capable of producing a telling pass to unsettle a well organised Norwich team. Tottenham have struggled to find a way through packed defences with Modric and Van der Vaart in the team so without either of them the task is going to be even more difficult this season.

One player who appears to have learned from last week’s match was Jan Vertonghen who was much stronger in his play and not so easily unsettled as he has been last week. He stood strong to the challenge and threat provided by the robust Norwich forward play.

Reading away will further test Tottenham’s resolve and while it is a fortnight away, most of the players will be on international duty so Villas-Boas won’t have an opportunity to work with then in getting his ideas across and then begins a busy schedule of matches as the Cup and Europa League games come thick and fast through the autumn months. An interesting few weeks lie ahead for Tottenham to prevent it from turning into a season of discontent.