Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 Brighton: Match Report

29 October 2014 10:01
Tottenham Hotspur 2-0 Brighton: Match Report - view commentary, squad, and statistics of the game as it happened.


Spurs sneak into quarter-finals

Tottenham secured safe passage into the last eight of the Capital One Cup with an unconvincing 2-0 victory against out-of-form Brighton on largely uninspiring night at White Hart Lane.

This was just a fourth win in all competitions since August for Mauricio Pochettino's side but they made heavy weather of progressing into the quarter-finals as substitute Erik Lamela and top goalscorer Harry Kane struck in the second half to see off their Sky Bet Championship opponents.

With only two league wins all season and no victory since their round three success over Burton, there could have been much trickier visitors to north London than Sami Hyypia's Seagulls.

But, with kick-off delayed by 15 minutes due to gridlock on the streets around the ground, it was Tottenham who struggled to get out of first gear with 10 changes from the side that was beaten here by Newcastle on Sunday.

Despite his complaints about the small pitch at White Hart Lane Pochettino deployed two out-and-out wingers in Andros Townsend and Aaron Lennon - with the duo looking the most likely to make something happen for the nervous hosts in the opening stages.

Club-record signing Lamela was introduced at half-time and needed just nine minutes to open the scoring before Kane, dropped for the weekend loss, added to his Europa League hat-trick of six days ago to seal the tie.

Mark Clattenburg, dropped from Premier League duty for the coming weekend after his indiscretions following Crystal Palace's recent draw at West Brom, was in charge and infuriated Hyypia when he failed to give a penalty to the away side after Kyle Naughton appeared to handle in the box.

In truth Brighton never looked like springing a cup upset and go back to searching for form in their league campaign instead of continuing on in the hope of reaching Wembley.


Source: PA