Tottenham’s FA Cup hopes were dashed by Aston Villa, but where does this defeat leave them? Ange Postecoglou’s side showed attacking intent but lacked the cutting edge to break down a resilient Villa defence. Their wait for a trophy now extends beyond 16 years, raising questions about Spurs’ ability to deliver in crucial moments. However, with key players returning from injury and a positive finish still within reach, there’s plenty to fight for. If Spurs can regain consistency, sharpen their finishing, and maintain their attacking style, their season could still end on a high.
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00:00James, looking at Spurs' latest, obviously we touched it was a massive week in terms
00:07of their season, a real defining one, sort of a bit unlucky if you think about how the
00:11fixtures have fallen, to have a Carabao Cup game and then an FA Cup game on the weekend
00:16in incredibly short spaces again and obviously Andrzej Puskoglu has pointed out his players
00:21are playing so close in terms of the games and the fixture stress is absolutely huge
00:26at the moment. In terms of the week, it obviously didn't go as planned and we mentioned what
00:32could happen if they did crash out of both competitions, they have done. It's a difficult
00:39place to be right now in terms of Spurs. How do you summarise the week out of both the
00:44Cups and not obviously the ideal start to this sort of running of the season?
00:52It's been a pretty disastrous week overall, hasn't it? Out of both Cup competitions and
00:58out with a whimper, I think that's the bit that hurts the most. We've got huge mitigating
01:04factors, we've spoken about it a number of times, 10, 11, 12 players unavailable and
01:09core players as well I think. I think Puskoglu was very, very praising and very defensive
01:15over the group that have been going to the well time after time after time. We played
01:20two big Cup games 60 hours apart. So there's lots of mitigating factors but I think the
01:26sort of disappointing thing from a fan's perspective certainly was the performance against Liverpool.
01:33We just never laid a glove, it was obviously our biggest game of the season, huge, huge
01:38test going to Anfield, never going to be easy. If you'd have asked most Spurs fans in the
01:43heart of hearts, would we get a result there, the majority would have probably said no but
01:47I think what we can accept, and I've said this before as Spurs fans, you can accept
01:51losing, you can't accept not turning up, not trying, there was no tackles, there was no
01:57heart, there was no desire, there was no fight. The players looked beat from minute one really
02:02against Liverpool and that was the most disappointing thing. To go through a semi-final second leg,
02:07biggest game of the season and not even have a shot on target, really, really disappointing
02:12and again, we heart back to the senior players who, albeit fatigued, are just not turning
02:19up and they're not showing that leadership. It's been said in a number of outlets, a lot
02:23of the players are hiding, the options are very limited when we're trying to play out
02:27from the back. Patterns of play just seem to have disappeared completely and again,
02:32all under the caveat of the injury situation but that was a really, really huge disappointment
02:38in the game against Liverpool. And then, against Aston Villa again, quick turnaround, disastrous
02:43start of course, the really, really poor error from Kinski in goal after what, 40-odd seconds,
02:49gives us a mountain to climb. But I did think, second half at least, we showed quite a bit
02:53of character in that game and you could see the fatigue, Villa were the better side but
02:57actually the second goal comes against the run of play. We had a couple of really big
03:01opportunities, Son missed a real gilt-edged chance to put us back in the game and who
03:06knows what would have happened there. But overall, very, very disappointing and deservedly
03:11out of both cup competitions as well, it must be said.
03:14But in terms of that Villa game, there were some positives, could you sort of pick out two?
03:19Yeah, I mean it is hard, isn't it, at the moment to find the positives but I do think
03:24Antonin Kinski is a small positive. A lot of sports fans might disagree with me on that
03:29one, it is a bit of a controversial selection. He was obviously hugely at fault for the first
03:33goal, whether he took his eye off it, I am not sure, he seemed to be playing on emotion
03:37rather than actually playing the occasion and obviously threw one into the net and cost
03:42us a goal there. But actually, for a 21-year-old, I think that was his seventh starting goal,
03:48he has just come into the league, he has played in some huge games already, a lot of mitigating
03:52factors around for Kinski, he is playing with a different back four every single game and
03:56half of the team that are playing in the defence are not defenders. And he made three or four
04:02really, really big saves after that to keep the score down, particularly in the first
04:05half. Second half he made a big save from Ramsey and that will do his confidence to
04:11the world of good actually. The last thing you want to see is a young goalkeeper void
04:15of confidence and making errors and it is not a very good start to his first career.
04:19So, I actually think in terms of a positive, he stood up, he showed real character and
04:24a lot of desire and as I say, made a couple of really, really big saves there to keep
04:28us in the game.