Spurs did their business in the Carabao Cup, winning 3-0 v. Doncaster Rovers.
With two early goals, I had a chance to watch a lot more of the match strategically since Doncaster had very few dangerous opportunities.
Which gave me a chance to jot down some notes about things I noticed tonight and about the season so far.
Palhino has been a key piece:
Looking at Palhino's touch map tonight, he was all over the pitch. His defined role was right side centre back, but he took touches over about ⅔ of the pitch.
This highlighted his importance throughout the start of the season.
His ability to control a game was evident tonight.
He settled down the offense, controlled the defence, and was noticeable every time he rotated into a new spot.
Joao is often compartmentalized as a shield for the defence, but playing on defence allowed us to see him take control physically and vocally.
Plus, don't forget his goal and his tackle inside the box.
I'd give his effort tonight an 8.5.
Johnson does more than score goals:
Brennan Johnson is often divisive.
Does he do anything except score goals?
I don't know, but when you are the team's leading goal scorer...I don't know if that is a bad thing.
Tonight, Brennan had the chance to show off more of his game.
He was able to take on his defender, dribbling in space.
He also had three really big crosses to runners cutting towards the net that could have been easy goals if our scorers were a bit sharper.
And, don't forget...he scored the third goal after a perfectly played pass from Lucas Bergvall.
Tonight's performance highlights a lot of things that Brennan has been doing this season that haven't been noticed because of the emergence of Kudus on the right side.
But Johnson's game has expanded. He's been more apt to take on his defender, he's played more passes, and he's done much of this from the left side.
Our offense isn't clicking...yet:
Tonight, it felt like our offense never had much sustained intensity, even when we controlled the ball for large stretches of time.
This has been a bit of a challenge this year where our offense has looked a touch out of sync.
The old phrase of "possession without intent" comes to mind when I think about the periods when we have the ball but can't quite break through.
You can put some of this down to a new manager, new system.
But we also dealt with this a bit last season when the injury bug hit.
As much as anything, I put this down to the absence of Maddison for long stretches and Xavi's need to settle into the team.
We also haven't been helped by Tel and Odobert not completely finding form.
Xavi:
Has there been a more promising addition to Spurs since...I can't even say.
For me, he's a bit of a revelation so far.
His ability to find space and get into good positions is something unique to our squad.
He has the classic middle of the field not flustered in tight spaces ability that all really good centre forwards and central attackers have.
On the flipside, he also has that classic CAM habit of sitting back on defence and waiting for the match to come back to him.
Xavi hasn't been with us long enough to talk about his season in total, but the potential for an excellent player to front the team is there.
The big improvements on defence seem to be coming from the wings:
I put a huge part of our defensive improvement down to personnel.
We have healthy CBs and healthy fullbacks.
I found myself drawn to the work of our fullbacks tonight.
Especially, Pedro Porro.
Porro appears to have developed a stronger defensive focus.
This is likely helped by changing responsibilities attached to a new style of play because the team seems to always have a back three when in possession, allowing the defence to react much more quickly to counterattacks.
By the number of clean sheets we've had so far, that seems to be working.
