It would be a lie to say that it ‘doesn’t matter.’ The EFL Cup has provided Spurs fans with considerable entertainment over the years. Until last year, it represented the last three trophies that the team had won, with the last of those coming with the cherry on the cake of beating Arsenal 5-1 in the semi-final and then Chelsea in the final.
But then, Spurs record away to Liverpool was always famously abject. In the early 1980s it was customary to start any televised meeting at Anfield with the fact that it was \[insert high number here\] years since Spurs had last won at Anfield. That last win had come on the 16th March 1912, a month before the Titanic sunk in the icy waters of the North Atlantic. They finally broke that record 73 years to the day later with a 1-0 win at Anfield.
In the context of 2026, losing 3-1 there in the Third Round of the competition wasn’t particularly surprising. Liverpool themselves are flawed, but Spurs did outplay them over much of the last twenty minutes after having finally scored a goal against Premier League opponents, and were one extraordinary save from pulling it back to 2-2 with five minutes to play. The home side were slightly flattered by the score, if we’re solely talking about the 90-minute performances of the team.
I like the injection of pace and urgency that Savio brings, though I do wonder whether he’ll turn out to be one of those players who never quite attains the status of being a “finished article”, and I very much enjoyed how much it all seemed to mean to Tosin, who spent much of the match shouting a lot and getting furious at others, occasionally no particularly discernable reason. There’s a germ of an idea there, and it’s clear that they are improving.
But. Losing is a bad thing. Let’s not be settling for tiny incremental improvements which aren’t really including, yanno, _winning football matches_. And there is something concerning about the defensive frailty on display last night. A lot of money has been spent on rebuilding that defence, and the defence is always a team within a team in a way that midfield and attack isn’t; it’s worrying to see the coach employ press-baiting when this team have been so uniquely adept at giving the ball away inside their penalty area for so long.
They scored a goal, but they didn’t score a second one, despite having opportunities to do so. It says something for the absolute state of things, that having done so is being treated as progress. Brighton & Hove Albion have scored 18 in all competitions so far this season, and they’ve played the same number of games ahead of their trip to Old Trafford tonight. They’ve also conceded the same number as Spurs have in the Premier League, and fewer in all competitions.
The problem is time. Spurs have 34 League matches left this season, and that’s really not many. We all understand that every single match counts in the Premier League, and that margins can be extremely fine indeed, whether we’re looking through a macro-lens at individual officiating performances or in terms of goals or goal difference through the ultra-wide lens at the entire season, or longer.
The middle of September is not the time to be trying experimental ideas. It’s Christmas Day and the guests have arrived. And while they may not expect the finest dining, but they do expect to be fed, and not version 2.0 of your brand new patented anchovy pie, which is thirty per cent less salty than your previous attempt, but still likely to provide diners with their recommended annual intake of salt in one bite.
They shouldn’t sack the head coach. Not because there isn’t already some degree of justification for doing so. Managers have been sacked over one win in six before. And certainly not because I like him. He said what he said, and his subsequent attempts at amelioration over that has never been convincing. They shouldn’t sack him because they’ve decided on a strategy and they should stick with it. Beginning this cycle _yet again_ would be literally repeating the same experiment and expecting different results.
If they’ve made a massive policy shift - and the summer’s transfer was nothing if not a policy shift - then they need to have the courage of their convictions and stick with it. Ignore the panic-mongers - many of whom on social media are earning money with every outbreak of gurning and shrieking for the cameras that they can muster - and the shit-stirrers. Maybe even issue a firm statement, should it become necessary, affirming what the club are doing, and what the plan is. Some honesty in communication would make a pleasant change.
On Saturday lunchtime come Aston Villa, a section of whose fan base have decided that its Spurs’ fault that they’ve had to sell all of their best players in order to satisfy new financial rules for which a majority of clubs in the Premier League voted, and to comply with tough UEFA rules which require clubs to keep their wages-to-turnover ratio (WTR) at or below 70%.
In 2023-24, Spurs’ WTR was 42% while Villa’s was 96%. Spurs have a 60,000-capacity stadium and the third-highest season ticket prices in the Premier League, at between £856 and £2,223, while Villa not only have fewer season ticket-holders (30,000 compared to 50,000), but they also pay less, at between £703 and £1,297 per ticket. Villa made £45 million more in Premier League TV and prize money last season, but Spurs made £72 million from reaching the last-16 of the Champions League while Villa made £46 million from winning the Europa League, which accounts for more than half of that.
A 96% WTR was horrific, especially in the Premier League (a division below, most Championship clubs run at this crazy ratio, many of them spending more on their players wages than the club brings through in total revenue, but they only bring in £10 million a year in TV money, rather than the £164 million that Aston Villa received in 2023-24), and _especially_ when knocking on the door of European football. Villa had to get their WTR down to 70% to comply with UEFA rules on spending. That previous overspending had caught up with them. In Morgan Rogers, Ollie Watkins, Ezri Konsa and Emi Martinez, they lost a lot of big-game players during the summer.
So both teams land at The White Hart Multiplex on Saturday for a match optimistically scheduled for a 12.30 kick-off. Neither have been very good this season, but Spurs have two points to Villa’s one, while Villa have one goal to Spurs’ none. They travel to Coventry City in the EFL Cup tonight, and a win form either match would do them a bit of good ahead of an international break which might get a little tense otherwise, with more or less three weeks between matches. Spurs, meanwhile, could do with a little reminder that it’s goals that win football matches rather than commercial contracts. Ever was it thus.