A comfortable 4-1 win for Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham Hotspur over Colchester United saw them into the fifth round of the FA Cup for the first time in four years.
Tottenham fans were delighted when they found out that they had drawn League One side Colchester in the fourth round of the FA Cup. The fixture looked to be an easy game with the potential for Pochettino to rotate and rest crucial players as they come up against a compact fixture list in the upcoming month; and it proved as such.
Pochettino made seven changes while still fielding a strong team. The Argentine gave starts to goalkeeper Michel Vorm, centre-back Kevin Wimmer and academy products Tom Carroll and Nabil Bentaleb, while dropping Dele Alli, Mousa Dembele and Toby Alderweireld to the bench.
The visitors saw a number of chances in the opening twenty minutes of the game but were put ahead thanks to a Nacer Chadli strike from the edge of the 18-yard box after 27 minutes.
The score line doubled when an Eric Dier shot from 25-yards out was heavily deflected and flew past Colcester goalkeeper Jake Kean. Chadli then got his second of the match when he headed a Kieran Trippier cross past the ‘keeper at his near post.
Colchester got a consolation as a shot from winger Gavin Massey hit the far post; an on running Ben Davies unluckily made contact with the ball, guiding it into the back of his own net. However, Tottenham responded well with Carroll scoring two minutes later, which put the cherry on the cake.
Colchester's game plan torn up
After just 20 minutes, Colchester had made two substitutions. Why? Because, with one minute gone centre-backs Tom Eastman and Alex Wynter collided heads when challenging Harry Kane for the ball.
The latter came out worst as he loss consciousness and suffered a small seizure. Wynter was stretchered off with an oxygen mask and taken to hospital, but was later reported to be sitting up and talking. Eastman, however, received stitches for a gash on his forehead and returned to the field of play before being substituted off in the 21st minute.
The two substitutions meant that the U’s had to abandon any game plan that they had. The situation left manager Kevin Keen with numerous difficult decisions to make had he wanted to make a tactical change or if another injury was to occur. Keen was left with no back up if his changes were wrong too.
In addition to this, Wynter and Eastman would have practiced numerous drills in training to cope with Tottenham’s attacking four, but in a moment that was all thrown out the window.
The Colchester team were left unbalanced and rattled as they saw their team mate stretchered off and this gave Tottenham an advantage as they led wave after wave of attack.
Trippier shines on the right flank
Summer signing Trippier proved continuously dangerous on the right side as he put in cross after cross on Saturday.
The Englishman was constantly free to bring into play and create space for Tottenham to attack. In addition, he linked up well with Dier to allow Tottenham to play out from the back while also connecting numerous times with Chadli and Erik Lamela.
The right back was hardly tested defensively but a second half change on Colchester’s behalf to stop his threat was successful and resulted in Trippier having a quieter second half.
The consistent string of good performances from the 25-year-old, nonetheless, will give the manager trouble as to who is Tottenham’s best option to play in the right back position, with Kyle Walker occupying this position for numerous seasons.
Goals, goals, goals
The scoreline of 4-1 seems to be a very popular one with the Tottenham team this season, with them having beaten Manchester City, West Ham United, Monaco and Sunderland by the same scoreline.
With fans rightly concerned about not having a back up striker for Kane, they seem to ignore that Tottenham have found goals from elsewhere on the park. Defender Dier as well as midfielders Carroll and Chadli finding the back of the net on Saturday was a prime example of this.
Tottenham travel to Carrow Road to face Norwich City on Tuesday in the Premier League as they look to continue with their fight for top four.