Tottenham Hotspur 1-1 Watford Match Report
VAR once again proved to be Tottenham Hotspur’s get out of jail free card as some questionable decisions took the limelight once again.
It was another cagey afternoon for Spurs as they failed to beat an out of form and rooted to the bottom Watford side in the Premier League.
It was Watford who took the lead early on through Abdoulaye Doucoure as he guided the ball past Gazzaniga in the 6th minute which silenced the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium. It was a long diagonal ball played by Craig Cathcart out wide to Janmaat that should maybe have been cut out by Danny Rose. Janmaat’s cross found the advancing Doucoure who did well to guide the ball into the bottom corner. Not one of Spurs’ three centre-halves picked up the run from midfield towards the back post.
Spurs had a penalty shout waved away not long after as Danny Rose and Roberto Pereyra came together in the box – with the England left-back astounded he’d not been awarded the spot-kick. It’s certainly a soft one but it’s equally as naïve from Pereyra as you simply can’t make contact with a player in the box anymore, especially with the introduction of VAR.
It was then Watford’s turn to have a penalty appeal turned down and it’s quite simply astonishing it wasn’t given. The skilful Deulofeu got in behind the Spurs defence and advanced into the box past the desperate Vertonghen who lunged in and upended the former Barcelona man. A stonewall penalty and Vertonghen’s reaction said it all as he instructed Deulofeu to get up with a frantically panicked look on his face. The decision went to VAR and somehow the penalty was given. It’s a bizarre situation and Watford can certainly feel really hard done by.
Spurs went into the break 1-0 down but the scores were nearly levelled after Son Heung-min crashed a shot against the palms of Ben Foster as the former England international made a great save to deny Son.
Watford continued to hit The Lillywhites on the counter-attack as Spurs were caught with too many men upfield but The Hornets couldn’t capitalise.
VAR was again the centre of attention in the 86th minute as Spurs were wrongly awarded a goal which levelled the scoring. A Watford defensive mix-up led to Dele Alli pouncing onto the loose ball and scoring inside the area. However, his first touch was with the top of his arm and under the new ruling, whether the handball is intentional or not, it should have been a foul. VAR checked the goal and decided the goal should stand – another wrong decision but Spurs won’t mind. The screen in the stadium showed the decision was a ‘no goal’ just to add insult to injury for Watford.
Poch’s Thoughts
“Watford defended well, they were so strong, but I’m happy for the players because at the end we found a way to score. We maybe deserved to win in the second half, we didn’t, but this is the first step to build our confidence again after two bad games against Bayern Munich and Brighton.
“Five years ago, we started in the same way and then we made an unbelievable second half of the season and our objective now is to fix this as soon as possible and to be in the way I believe the team deserves to be.”
“The fans always help us and in the last 20 minutes they were pushing us, they gave us that last energy that we needed to score and yes, with maybe five minutes more we might have been capable of scoring. The effort was fantastic from the players, they never gave up and now we need to build the confidence again.”
Next Up
The games are coming thick and fast over the next three weeks as Spurs welcome the visit of Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League at the new stadium on October 22nd.
