Spurs’ Solanke helps send Manchester United out amid chaotic Carabao Cup tie
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Like a song that changes time signature for the hell of it, like a friend that inexplicably blanks you, like a match report that noodles away for ages instead of just telling you what happened, Tottenham Hotspur remain medically incapable of doing things the simple way. This is becoming a kind of mania, a disorder, a cry for help. What is this? Who are you really? And, you know, can you not?.
![[Amad Diallo made it 3-2 when he put Fraser Forster under pressure and his block of goalkeeper’s attempted clearance bounced into the net.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/2c5f9b0434bece2fcef7f9ea3420878d978df3a5/950_259_3657_2195/master/3657.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
For all this, Ange Postecoglou’s side are Carabao Cup semi-finalists, the latest plot twist in a season in which nobody can really agree whether things are going well or not. Great football. But also some terrible football. But also, two games from a trophy. But also, 10th in the Premier League. But also two goals for the brilliant Dominic Solanke. But also two goals basically given away by Fraser Forster.
At least Tottenham’s late fourth goal, curled in direct from a corner, buried any illusions that Ruben Amorim may have harboured about the scale of the shambles still awaiting him. For all their new energy, Manchester United still look deeply uncomfortable in defence, deeply disturbed by teams who make them turn and run. For an hour Spurs ripped them up, Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison running amok, Yves Bissouma a pillar of poise in midfield.
And this was the version of Spurs that Postecoglou must wish he could roll up in a duffle bag and take everywhere with him, full of hard running and clever angles and flicks upon flicks. This is Spurs when it all makes sense. When the players are largely interchangeable because the parts are meant to interchange anyway. Djed Spence, a right-back at left-back. Archie Gray, a midfielder at centre-half. Kulusevski on the right but occasionally moonlighting on the left. Passages of humming chaos in which possession is lost, regained, lost again, regained again, to the point where you’re not quite sure whether they’re attacking or defending.
