A look back at a disastrous week as Spurs exit both domestic English cup competitions.
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00:00James, looking at Spurs' latest, obviously we touched it was a massive week in terms
00:05of their season, a real defining one, sort of a bit unlucky if you think about how the
00:09fixtures have fallen, to have a Carabao Cup game and then an FA Cup came on the weekend
00:14in incredibly short spaces again and obviously Andrzej Puskoglu has pointed out his players
00:19are playing so close in terms of the games and the fixture stress is absolutely huge
00:24at the moment. I mean, in terms of the week, it obviously didn't go as planned and we
00:29mentioned what could happen if they did crash out of both competitions, they have done.
00:34I mean, it's a difficult place to be right now in terms of Spurs. How do you sort of
00:40summarise the week out of both the Cups and not obviously the ideal start to this sort
00:47of running of the season?
00:49Yeah, I mean, it's been a pretty disastrous week overall, hasn't it? Out of both Cup competitions
00:56and out with a whimper, I think that's the bit that hurts the most. We've got huge mitigating
01:02factors, we've spoken about it a number of times, 10, 11, 12 players unavailable and
01:07core players as well, I think. And I think Puskoglu was very, very praising and very
01:12defensive over the group that have been sort of going to the well time after time after
01:17time. We played two big Cup games 60 hours apart. So there's lots of mitigating factors,
01:22but I think the sort of disappointing thing from a fan's perspective certainly was the
01:28performance against Liverpool. We just never laid a glove. It was obviously our biggest
01:33game of the season. Huge, huge test going to Anfield, never going to be easy. If you'd
01:39have asked most Spurs fans in their heart of hearts, would we get a result there? The
01:43majority would have probably said no, but I think what we can accept, and I've said
01:47this before as Spurs fans, you can accept losing, you can't accept not turning up, not
01:53trying. There was no tackles, there was no heart, there was no desire, there was no fight.
01:57The players looked beat from minute one really against Liverpool and that was the most disappointing
02:02thing. To go through a semi-final second leg, biggest game of the season and not even have
02:07a shot on target, really, really disappointing. And again, we hark back to the senior players
02:13who, albeit fatigued, are just not turning up and they're not showing that leadership.
02:18And it's been said in a number of outlets, a lot of the players are hiding, the options
02:23are very limited when we're trying to play out from the back. Patterns of play just seem
02:27to have disappeared completely. And again, all under the caveat of the injury situation.
02:32But that was a really, really huge disappointment on the game against Liverpool. And then against
02:38Aston Villa again, quick turnaround, disastrous start, of course. The really, really poor
02:44error from Kinski in goal after what, 40-odd seconds? Gives us a mountain to climb. But
02:49I did think, second half at least, we showed quite a bit of character in that game. And
02:53you could see the fatigue, Villa were the better side. But actually, the second goal
02:56comes against a run of play. We had a couple of really big opportunities. Son missed a
03:00real gilt-edged chance to put us back in the game and who knows what would have happened
03:05there. But overall, very, very disappointing and deservedly out of both cup competitions
03:11as well, it must be said.