In the FA Cup 3rd round draw, Tottenham Hotspur defeated Peterborough United by a score of 4-0 at White Hart Lane. Spurs were without two key players due to injury, Aaron Lennon and Benoit Assou-Ekotto. Manager Harry Redknapp decided to rest a couple of players and go with Luka Modrić in right midfield and Niko Kranjčar on the left. The lineup was, Heurelho Gomes in goal, Alan Hutton, Gareth Bale, Sebastien Bassong, and Michael Dawson on the back line, Niko Kranjčar, Tom Huddlestone, Wilson Palacios, and Luka Modrić in midfield, and a strike duo of Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe.
Niko was first to score in the new year with a lovely shot in the 34th minute. It was nearly all Spurs the entire first half. Posh had only one real chance, however, Chris Whelpdale glanced his header well wide. The second half kicked off much the same as the first with a Spurs goal in the 56th minute, again by Kranjčar. While Joe Lewis had been hard at work in goal, on the other end of the pitch Gomes saw his first action in the 65th making an amazing save worth mentioning.
In the 69th minute, Defoe scored a quality goal, putting Spurs up 3-0. Harry made an array of changes around 70 minutes. Danny Rose came on for Kranjčar, Kyle Naughton for Gareth Bale, who received medic attention for his knee several minutes earlier, and Roman Pavlyuchenko for Jermain Defoe.
There was a disallowed goal on 90 minutes, after Modrić superbly released Keane into the box. Unfortunately the flag was quickly up. At 90+2 minutes, Posh had a penalty appeal after substitute Shaun Batt went down in the box, but the referee waved it away. In the next minute, Spurs had the same situation on the other end. Rose was taken down in the box, but, unlike Posh, it went their way. None other than Robbie Keane stepped up to the spot and made no mistake… The Final score, Spurs 4 – Posh 0. They have been drawn with Leeds, who defeated Man U 1-0, for the 4th round which will take place on January 23rd.
After the match, Redknapp happily said, “Winning football matches is all-important. Winning is a good habit, we want to keep playing well and there was no reason to mess around with the team too much. I gave one or two players a rest, but not too many. We’ve got the squad and the players to have a real go and we’ll give it our best shot.”
Commenting on Joe Lewis’ fantastic night in goal he said, “Their goalkeeper had an unbelievable first half. He made some world-class saves and it might have been four or five at half-time, in all honesty.” Continuing he said, “Credit to Peterborough, they hung in there, but we showed a great attitude. These games are never easy but we moved the ball around superbly at times.”
Next for Tottenham is a trip to Anfield for a rematch with Liverpool for Sunday’s Premier League fixture.
Jill Guthrie
