The Guardian

It was a measure of Ange Postecoglou’s frustration, of his despair, that he said on more than one occasion that the journalists who cover Tottenham could join in with training and not look out of place. Just when the fans thought they had hit rock bottom, eh?

The manager’s point was that his injury-ravaged squad was not really training at all and the situation was very much a live one up to the FA Cup defeat at Aston Villa on 9 February. They were simply shadow boxing in between the matches, which came thick and fast – there had been only one midweek without a game since the November international break. Postecoglou’s absentees were sometimes in double digits and he worried about pushing those still standing too hard.

To listen to Postecoglou now, as he looked forward to the Premier League visit of Manchester City on Wednesday night, was to hear somebody who had emerged from a nightmare. If plenty of the walking wounded are back, with others on the way, then so too is Postecoglou’s optimism. Post-Villa, there have been two clear midweeks and two league wins against Manchester United (home) and Ipswich (away). Before that, results were poor for a prolonged period.

Postecoglou has had the right numbers in training, no longer needing to make them up by calling across to the youth team. And, crucially, he has had the right intensity. One of Postecoglou’s basic requirements is that his sessions mimic the conditions of a match. For so long, it was not possible. Now it is. At last, Postecoglou feels he has a basis.

“When you’re going through that period of so many games and with the small squad because of our injury situation, we couldn’t really train,” he said. “You want to rectify things and the best place to rectify things is on the training track and we just couldn’t do it. You try to replicate it [a match] but at a really low tempo and it wasn’t realistic. Whereas now …

“We saw the benefits in the Ipswich game. I think that’s as fluent as we’ve been in the middle‑to-front third in terms of our football and it’s because we did so much work leading up to it during the week. The players were able to train. It’s also that we’d got players back. We’re not training with the young players from our academy. We’re actually training as a squad, which again means the level is really good.”

Postecoglou joked that he would love to restart doing some double sessions. He was joking, wasn’t he? What he made plain was that he had to balance the needs of the recently returned players, those who are champing at the bit to work, and the ones who have been through the wringer. It was significant to hear him agree that the intensity of the training was back at the top level.

“Yeah, but not just intensity,” Postecoglou said. “The kind of match [replication] work that we’ve been able to do that we’ve had to steer away from because we had to protect the players. You try to simulate match conditions so players can find solutions in those areas. You can’t do that when you try to protect them from the physical load. And it’s also the quality of players we had.

“Now we can work on our patterns, whether that’s in an attacking sense or defensive sense in match-like situations and at a match tempo, [albeit] not for the duration. The players would much rather feel like they’ve had a good session rather than go out there knowing they’re going to have to hold things back because there’s another game in a day’s time.”

After City, Spurs do not play again until next Thursday when they go to the Netherlands to face AZ Alkmaar in the first leg of their Europa League last-16 tie. There will be more time for proper work on the training pitch. After that, they host Bournemouth in the league on the Sunday before playing the second leg against AZ on the Thursday that follows.

Postecoglou has welcomed back Guglielmo Vicario, Destiny Udogie, James Maddison, Brennan Johnson and Wilson Odobert. Timo Werner is also back to fitness; he was just not named in the squad at Ipswich. What everybody wants to know is when Cristian Romero, Micky van de Ven and Dominic Solanke will return.

“The first European game … I’d say there’s [only] an outside chance for any of the three of them but certainly they’ll be back training fully by then,” Postecoglou said. “Then we’ve got Bournemouth and I reckon much better odds for that. And, definitely, by the second European game they should all be available to play.

“Dom’s the only one where we’ve got to be careful because he’s ahead of schedule so I don’t want to push that in case we need to pull the reins in a bit. But with Romero and Van de Ven that’s the plan.”

Radu Dragusin and Richarlison are longer-term casualties and Ben Davies will not play against City as he manages a knock. It says a lot that Postecoglou no longer has to press him into service.

It has been a strange season for Spurs, one of the quirks being that they have the opportunity to beat City for the third time, having done so in the league and Carabao Cup. They have scored more league goals than City (53 to 52) and have the same +15 goal difference. To Postecoglou, they are good indicators. He wants rather more.

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Some afternoons come like a kick in the teeth. Not only did Ipswich suffer a fourth successive home defeat in a game that never felt as one-sided as the scoreline ultimately suggested but fourth-bottom Wolves inflicted on Bournemouth only their second defeat in 16. After weeks of bubbling along in touch with the last safe spot, Ipswich find themselves five points adrift and survival is becoming an ever more distant prospect.

There was no sense in which this was an undeserved win for Spurs, some sort of smash-and‑grab to offend notions of dignity and propriety, but equally it was not entirely convincing. Not for the first time this season, there was a feeling that if only Ipswich had been able to seize their opportunity, it might have been very different.

“I’m really frustrated by the result,” said Kieran McKenna, the Ipswich manager. “We’re at the stage of the season when you’d like the points but we can ‘t lose patience with the good things that are going on. We started really well; we should have been ahead. That’s a couple of home games in a row we should go in with a lead and we go in with a deficit. Their execution whenever they got their big moments around our box was better than our execution and that was the difference.”

For five minutes there was only one team in it as Liam Delap tore at Archie Gray, creating two good chances and heading a free-kick against the post. But the opportunities passed, Tottenham rallied and Ipswich fell behind.

Gray had, unusually, been deployed as the right-sided of the two central defenders, and that helped create the angle for him to pick out Son Heung-min with a glorious long diagonal. Faced by Ben Godfrey and Dara O’Shea, Son jinked both ways to create room for a low cross that Brennan Johnson turned in for his eighth goal of the season.

Eight minutes later, Johnson, making his first start in a little over a month after recovering from a calf injury, had another. His was rarely the first name mentioned in discussions of the Spurs winter injury crisis, but his movement and instincts have been missed.

Son, again, was the provider, slipped through this time by Rodrigo Bentancur. It would be premature to say the South Korean is back to his best, but he made the most of being up against a full-back as heavy-footed as Godfrey, who was withdrawn at half-time.

As McKenna pointed out, as he lamented the way the margins have gone against Ipswich this season, Godfrey was only playing because of Axel Tuanzebe’s harsh red card last week. The sense of misfortune as compounded as both central midfielders were forced off: Jens Cajuste after turning his ankle and Kalvin Phillips with a calf problem.

There is no side in the country, though, who inspire less confidence with a two-goal lead than Tottenham, who led 2-0 against both Brighton and Chelsea and lost. For a time after Omari Hutchinson had swept in Jack Clarke’s first-time pass, Ipswich had hope – but the truth is they are simply not good enough defensively. Any team who concedes at over two goals a game is going to struggle.

James Maddison’s quick feet set up Djed Spence to fire in his first league goal via a deflection off Luke Woolfenden to make the game safe after 77 minutes, and Dejan Kulusevski bent in a fourth seven minutes later. Ipswich protested that Jacob Greaves was down after a minor clash of heads with Dane Scarlett but, while they may have had a point, that was not why they lost.

Spurs have little to play for in the league, but at least the sense is of the gloom dissipating, and of players and energy returning as they try to ready themselves for the challenge of AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League. “We’ve benefited from a couple of midweeks off,” said Ange Postecoglou. “I thought we did the hard things very well. We lost a bit of concentration in the first half but our front-third play was exciting and clinical. Sonny was unplayable in the first half and it’s good to get Brennan back.”

Ipswich, meanwhile, for all McKenna vowed to keep on fighting, should probably start preparing for a return to the Championship.

MADD MEN

The last time Tottenham Hotspur fans organised an official protest to voice their contempt for the manner in which Daniel Levy is running their club they occupied 11th place in the top flight and were still fighting on three other fronts. A few months, two predictable cup exits and with their team in freefall down the Premier League they decided it was time to highlight their displeasure again. While Football Daily has long questioned the effectiveness of the kind of protests that involve people walking from a pub they were almost certainly going to be in anyway to a stadium they were already planning to attend, Sunday’s march did at least serve to raise awareness of the frustrations that come with being a high-spending fan who unconditionally loves a football club that doesn’t love you back. And while it is almost certainly fair to say that Levy was already under no illusions about the low regard in which he is held by most Spurs supporters, news of the protest did at least spook club suits into sending out a pre-emptive email containing the usual bland and detail-free platitudes about “the need to be united”, etc and so on.

While fans are well within their rights to feel aggrieved by Levy’s apparent determination to provide them with whom they view as lemonade footballers on a budget that really ought to stretch to the finest champagne, at least they can have no quibbles about the opulence of the cathedral in which they regularly convene to cheer on (or lament) the trophy-dodgers who habitually line up for their team instead. And while it must be infuriating for them that, in terms of peak performance, Beyoncé remains the benchmark since the magnificent Tottenham Stadium first threw open its doors, at least on Sunday Spurs got to welcome opposition whose club is even more of a bin fire, with even more unlikable owners and whose once great stadium is now a complete dump. In a match that was in direct contravention of its Sky Sports Super Sunday billing, Spurs took advantage of extremely profligate Manchester United finishing to take all three points, their winner coming from James Maddison, one of the five players to return from knack that unsurprisingly improved their team.

While it would be naive for anyone who has even a passing familiarity with Tottenham’s work to read too much into this victory until we see if they can escape from Ipswich without blunderbussing themselves in both feet later this week, Ange Postecoglou was visibly relieved by his tactically inflexible team’s win, lifting them up from 15th in the table. In stark contrast, Ruben Amorim, his even more stubborn opposite number, spent the closing stages of the game hunched over in his touchline seat staring mournfully at the floor as they assumed the position. Having been the subject of criticism bordering on outright mockery by Roy Keane in the build-up to this match, Maddison’s celebratory “shush” to the cameras following his uncontested tap-in was widely interpreted and subsequently confirmed as a genuinely amusing riposte. Sadly, Keane wasn’t in London to give his thoughts on the matter, presumably because he was busy polishing his vast collection of medals at home.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I think with Bellingham’s red card, [the referee] didn’t understand the English well … I don’t think it’s something offensive” – yes, it’s the big semantical discourse of the weekend: Jude Bellingham getting sent off for effing and jeffing during Real Madrid’s 1-1 draw at Osasuna. “He said ‘[eff] off’, not ‘[eff] you’ – that’s way different,” added the Italian, although that didn’t stop Hansi Flick, from old rivals Barça, wading in. “It is disrespectful, but I’m not the one who should comment on it,” tooted Flick, commenting on it. “That’s what I’ve always told the players. Why waste time and energy arguing with the referee regarding the decisions he makes?”

Mikel Arteta started Mikel Merino on the bench for Arsenal’s match at Leicester. After 69 minutes he brought the midfielder on to play in attack and Merino scored the goals to secure victory. Was this woolly thinking on Arteta’s part?” – Ed Coutts.

Re: Noble Francis’s evidently prize-worthy letter in which he quotes Tom Lehrer (Friday’s Football Daily letters), I would like to be among the 1,057 Tom Lehrer aficionados who consume your semi-humorous daily missive to point out that, while the man is certainly ‘great’, it may come as somewhat of a surprise to the 96-year-old to learn that he is ‘late’” – Mick O’Regan (and 1,056 other Tom Lehrer aficionados).

Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Ed Coutts! Terms and conditions for our competitions – when we have them – can be viewed here.

Ruben Amorim has insisted that he will “stick with my beliefs” after watching his injury-hit Manchester United side endure a 12th Premier League defeat of the campaign that leaves them 15th in the table.

A first-half goal from James Maddison, who celebrated by putting his finger to his lips in response to criticism he received last week from Roy Keane, sealed Tottenham’s first win at home in the Premier League since they beat Aston Villa here in November. On his return from injury, Guglielmo Vicario produced a brilliant save to deny an Alejandro Garnacho shot in the second half.

It meant that United have now lost the most times after 25 games since they were relegated in 1974, with only 12 points separating them from the bottom three. But while Amorim refused to criticise his side’s efforts after Kobbie Mainoo, Manuel Ugarte and Amad Diallo were all ruled out with injury, he acknowledged that results must improve quickly.

“You grow and you learn a lot of things. We just need to face it and not run away, that is my feeling,” the United manager said.

“Today will hurt, it is a tough pain to lose so many games, but then you can change things in a week. I have a lot of problems, my job is so, so hard here. But I stick with my beliefs. We need to stop focusing on the big picture. Just focus on the next game. Let’s do everything to finish the season well and then think about the big picture. That is our goal. In this moment it’s about not even looking at the table or the schedule. That is my part.”

The defender Victor Lindelöf was the only substitute on United’s bench who had made a first‑team appearance and Amorim admitted losing three key players had not been ideal preparation. “At the beginning of this week we tried to train but day by day we were losing players. I don’t want to use that as an excuse because a lot of teams are suffering like that. Sometimes you have to face up to the challenge.”

More than 1,000 Spurs supporters gathered before kick-off in a protest against the chairman, Daniel Levy, that was organised by the Change for Tottenham action group. But while some remained after the full-time whistle to take part in a planned sit‑in protest, the numbers were significantly reduced.

“I thought the fans were great and they got behind the team. They contributed to us getting the result we needed,” said Ange Postecoglou, whose side have now moved up to 12th.

“It’s unacceptable that we are in the position that we are but the circumstances have dictated that. Today was an important game if we are going to start that process of improving. We certainly feel that we have an opportunity to climb up the table.”

Maddison admitted that he had used criticism from Keane as motivation after the former United captain questioned his ability to revive Tottenham’s fortunes and said that “he got relegated with Leicester and he’ll get relegated with Spurs”.

“I hope there’s a certain few that enjoyed me being the match-winner today,” Maddison told Sky Sports. “There was a little bit of outside noise this week. People will have their opinions. No one is more critical of me than myself. The gaffer prefers when we are in our own bubble, but it’s difficult with social media, you see this stuff.

“To be fair to the boys who’ve been fit all season, we don’t want to make excuses, but the last few months have been really difficult. These lads who have relentlessly been going every three days, it’s nice to be an injured player coming back to take the pressure off them.”

There was a gripping moment before kickoff outside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, as the Levy Out supporters’ march reached its final stop and a single protester stationed himself in its path holding up a Levy In sign, Tiananmen Square-style, a lone show of human will in the path of history.

The sign was snatched from his hand. But wait! He pulled out another one. A minor scuffle ensued. Police intervened. The marchers cheered, then milled off to their high-priced seats inside this spectacular mega-drome, monument to Levy’s commercial brilliance, there to watch their team take on Manchester United, the great ailing zombified giant of English football.

That energy outside the ground was visceral and entirely real, as it was inside where the travelling United fans chanted, as they always do, for the Glazers to go, which is also prima facie an excellent idea.

In the buildup, this game was cast as a kind of Jeremy Kyle Clásico, football as a daytime TV-style theatre of dysfunction, grudges and grievances on show, familial poison to be let. You half expected to see gum-chewing bouncers at the edge of the pitch, cutaway reaction shots to stunned members of the crowd, a scoundrel nephew swaggering on stage halfway through.

In the event the reaction of both sets of supporters felt like an entirely reasonable note of resistance and dissent. These two football clubs often seem to be asking the same question these days. What does this sport mean now? Who owns this thing? What is its energy for? What are these protests about, really? Transfer decisions. Poor governance. Modern life. The hyper-capitalism of spectator sport. A world where endlessly loyal supporters of these cultural institutions are made to pay through the nose to act as monetised passion, the commodified backdrop to a so-so game inside a dazzling multi-purpose piece of real estate. Here, it felt as though the energy off the pitch was as vital as the action on it.

And this was a good afternoon in the end for Tottenham, 1-0 winners of a breezy, fun, medium-grade game that looked for long periods like what it was, a lower mid-table arm-wrestle. It was a good game for Ange Postecoglou, who had some players back, and found in United the perfect opponents, a visiting club that makes his own look a deeply functional, happy, settled place, with an entirely sensible playing squad.

One of the odd things about Spurs’ season is the sense of individual players performing really well, even as the team stalls. Djed Spence had another fine, wholehearted game. Dejan Kulusevski was excellent again. Lucas Bergvall is a wonderful midfielder. It was genuinely entertaining watching Bergvall repeatedly skip around Casemiro in central midfield, a spectacle with its own kind of mismatched grace, like one of those Strictly Come Dancing pairings where some twirling professional is teamed up with a 25-stone middle-aged newsreader.

United began with a very closed team, a flat defensive five with Casemiro chugging about carefully just in front in thick black woolly gloves like a dad at the swings. They struggled to deal with James Maddison from the start. The Amorim structure is easiest to learn when it has parts to press itself up against. Maddison finding those odd little half-spaces presents a problem for players learning this on the hoof.

And it was Maddison who scored the only goal after 13 minutes. What does it take to score against Manchester United? A cross from the right. sloppy marking. A deflection. A shot half-saved. Nobody running back except Maddison, who finished neatly. No devil was required here, no clever play, nothing unexpected. It was like leaning on a door that was already open.

United had their chances over the next 80 minutes or so. But most of the time they looked like a team learning to play from a leaflet, which is essentially what they are. Has anybody ever thrown half a season away like this, trying to ingrain patterns of play? It presupposes an absolute belief that there is only one way to do this, that 3-4-3 really is the grail. Are wing-backs this important? It feels like having a house party where you get so obsessed with the lasagne being ready you forget to dance, have a good time, buy any booze or say happy new year.

But then, the real problem for United is the squad, and not just its poverty but its cost, the length of contracts, the sheer witlessness in assembling it. Rasmus Højlund expended energy quite near the action, like a photographer covering some other men playing football. Joshua Zirkzee played close to him up front, rumbling about usefully, eager to be of service, like a friendly scaffolding tower.

Even the bench here was a jaw-dropper, like an A-level geography trip waiting for the train to Lyme Regis, a row of eager haircuts on best behaviour. The worst part is that there is nothing jarring or startling about this, just a sense they are extremely lucky Ipswich, Leicester and Southampton are so far behind the rest of the field.

For Spurs there was at least hope here. For the rest of us, hope just in the energy outside the game, of resistance to the world that brought both of these clubs to this strange place.

For Ange Postecoglou and Daniel Levy, the relief was palpable. On the same day that Tottenham fans had gathered to voice displeasure at their chairman, a first‑half goal from James Maddison ensured it was Manchester United who ended the battle of the Premier League’s crisis clubs with a 12th league defeat of the campaign.

Rarely can a match between two sides that started the day in 14th and 15th positions in the table have garnered so much attention. But while Postecoglou was at last able to call on some experience off the bench to see out this vital victory as his side moved up to the dizzy heights of 12th, by contrast United had to rely on the ageing Casemiro and a bench full of teenagers in a match that reflected the situation Ruben Amorim has inherited. Yet had Alejandro Garnacho remembered to pack his shooting boots then this could have been a very different story, with Guglielmo Vicario producing a stunning save on his return from injury to keep Spurs ahead in the second half.

It was a measure of how disaffection has grown in this part of north London that only around 300 fans turned out for their last protest before the 6-3 thrashing against Liverpool here in December when Postecoglou’s side were 10th in the Premier League. But with Spurs having crashed out of both domestic cup competitions in their last two games and finding themselves 10 points adrift of the top half before kick‑off, feelings were clearly running high among the more than 1,000 who joined the peaceful march from Lordship Lane to the ground as they vented their feelings towards the Tottenham chairman. Winning football matches can change everything, of course, and there were significantly fewer Spurs fans who stayed behind for the planned sit-in protest afterwards.

In a campaign that has been severely undermined by injuries, the return of Vicario and Maddison to the starting lineup and Destiny Udogie, Brennan Johnson and Wilson Odobert on the bench proved to be the difference here in the end as a nervy Spurs clung on to their win. “It makes such a difference to us,” Postecoglou said. “It’s given everyone a boost.”

The Italian goalkeeper had not featured since Spurs’ 4-0 rout of Manchester City in November and was called into action after 10 minutes to thwart Rasmus Højlund – one of only nine touches he managed in the first half – and then Garnacho as United made a promising start.

Yet with Kobbie Mainoo and Manuel Ugarte missing and Amad Diallo having sustained what is likely to be a season-ending injury, Amorim was forced to hand Casemiro his first start since 30 December and named a substitutes bench with eight players aged 19 or under who had yet to even make a first-team appearance, including Darren Fletcher’s son, Jack.

The United manager insisted last week that he and his squad must take some of the blame for the next round of redundancies that are expected at Old Trafford under the Sir Jim Ratcliffe regime and the opening goal of the game was a good example of how playing standards have been allowed to slip.

Lucas Bergvall was afforded too much space to unleash his shot from the edge of the area but Matthijs de Ligt was statuesque as Maddison reacted first to gobble up the rebound. Amorim was furious when Garnacho failed to take a golden opportunity to equalise when he was set up by Bruno Fernandes although United had at least showed some attacking intent.

Bergvall was clearly enjoying his duel with the pedestrian Casemiro in midfield as Tottenham dominated possession, with Mathys Tel drawing a smart save from Onana at his near post before the Brazilian was booked for bringing down Son Heung-min.

The hosts returned for the second half with renewed vigour and could have doubled their lead when Djed Spence left Noussair Mazraoui for dead but Tel could not turn his cross into the net.

United’s ploy of trying to hit Spurs on the break by playing long balls over their high defensive line almost paid dividends when Garnacho raced through on goal but could only shoot straight at Vicario. It needed a much better save to deny the Argentina forward when Spurs failed to clear their lines, with Vicario somehow repelling his fierce left‑foot effort at his near post.

The on-loan Bayern Munich forward Tel provided Tottenham with a fulcrum in attack and he and Son came close to giving his side some breathing space as both had shots that were deflected wide. Postecoglou threw on Pape Matar Sarr and Johnson to refresh his side but Spurs could not find a way through United’s defence.

A header from Joshua Zirkzee that drifted just wide of the target served warning that United were not out of it but the referee, Robert Jones, waved away protests from Casemiro when he went down in the area. Surely recognising the growing danger, Postecoglou was on his feet remonstrating with his players before deciding to introduce Archie Gray and Yves Bissouma. Amorim had no such luxury and waited until added time to bring on the 17-year-old forward Chido Obi for Casemiro as yet another three points slipped away from their grasp.

Renee Slegers’s final message to Chloe Kelly before she came off the bench, an hour into Arsenal’s 5-0 thriller against a rudderless Tottenham, was simple: “This is your ­welcome back in an Arsenal shirt and it is a very special occasion, so enjoy it.”

Kelly’s emotional second debut for the Gunners followed her ­deadline‑day loan move from Manchester City, after an acrimonious end to her time at the club.

“She’s passionate as a person. You can see she’s smiling a lot and is very happy with where she’s at,” Slegers said. “It’s important that you have players in a good place, feeling good and feeling motivated. That is when you get the most out of yourself and we can keep building with Chloe.”

The bar denied Kelly a dream return late on, but it mattered little. In front of an Emirates Stadium crowd of 56,784, Arsenal asserted their north London derby dominance, securing their ninth win in 11 league games against their local rivals.

Slegers had promised that they would make things “uncomfortable” for Tottenham at a packed-out stadium and they delivered. In the first half the Gunners kept Spurs pinned in their half, dominating with more than 72% possession, 15 shots to Spurs’ two and 31 touches in the opposition box to Tottenham’s two.

Slegers has rested five ­players for the defeat of London City ­Lionesses in the FA Cup fifth round last ­weekend but the big news was on the bench, with Kelly prepared to make her ­second debut after being cup tied in the FA Cup and ineligible to play against her parent club Manchester City in the league and League Cup semi-finals following her move in January. There was a roar from the crowd as a grinning Kelly limbered up early in the first half, 2,815 days separating her last from her final game for Arsenal before she joined Everton on loan in search of first‑team football.

The home side’s press was relentless, the Australian midfielder Kyra Cooney-Cross particularly energetic, ­forcing ­turnover after turnover and pro­viding the assist for the opener. It took 15 ­minutes for Arsenal to make the breakthrough against a Tottenham side that seems to have lost its way this season – Cooney‑Cross delivered from the right and a glancing header from ­Alessia Russo deflected off the thigh of the defender Clare Hunt and in. It was a deserved opener, and they should have been three or four up by the time the ­second goal arrived. ­Mariona ­Caldentey was the provider, her shot blocked by Hunt only for the Spain international to leap forward and rifle the loose ball past the goalkeeper Lize Kop.

Robert Vilahamn had stressed before kick-off the importance of Spurs being strong defensively, and there could be a modicum of solace in the two-goal margin, with the home side arguably complacent in front of goal. By the hour, though, Arsenal had doubled their tally, first a Frida Maanum effort took a heavy deflection off a beleaguered Hunt and sailed in and then Russo fired low into the far corner.

The stadium rose soon after, as Kelly was introduced to the pitch for her first minutes in red since 2017. That was the same year Arsenal beat Tottenham 10-0 in the FA Cup with Kelly on the scoresheet. Since then, the chasm between the two sides had seemingly narrowed, a 1-0 defeat of Arsenal in December 2023 giving Spurs a first Women’s Super League win against the Gunners. However, that was perhaps a false dawn. At the Emirates Stadium the visitors struggled to escape their own half, a first of only two shots on target coming in the 65th minute when Drew Spence’s header from a corner was palmed away by Daphne van Domselaar, before Emily Fox added Arsenal’s fifth in style with a rising long-range effort.

“Most teams will lose away at Arsenal, but if you lose 5-0 that’s not good,” Vilahamn said. “You can look at why you play too many short passes and try to have this build‑up. We want to develop that game, but we need to find the right balance. To find the right level with that is to be brave. When we don’t succeed, of course I’m sitting here looking a bit stupid, I get that. That’s the part of my journey with this team and what we want to do so I’m still going to do that, but I’m also going to analyse what we can do better because I’m not going to be stupid – but I also want to make sure we have an identity that we follow.”

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A reminder of the teams

Tottenham Hotspur (4-1-4-1) Vicario; Pedro Porro, Danso, Davies, Spence; Bentancur; Kulusevski, Bergvall, Maddison, Son; Tel.

Substitutes: Kinsky, Udogie, Gray, Bissouma, Sarr, Moore, Odobert, Johnson, Scarlett.

Manchester United (3-4-2-1) Onana; De Ligt, Maguire, Mazraoui; Dalot, Casemiro, Fernandes, Dorgu; Zirkzee, Garnacho; Hojlund.

Substitutes: Harrison, Amass, Fredricsson, Heaven, Lindelof, J Fletcher, Kone, Moorhouse, Obi.

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Updated at 17.29 CET

Some of the best writing about Manchester United can be found on Substack, particularly Tim de Lisle’s newsletter, United Writing. Do your brain a favour and sign up.

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I can’t be the only person who, upon seeing that Man Utd subs bench, was transported back to the days of Russell Beardsmore, Tony Gill, Jules Maiorana and Deiniol Graham.

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“Imagine the scene in the two dressing rooms,” begins Richard Hirst. “In one the manager is saying ‘come on lads, it’s Spurs’, and in other the manager is saying ‘come on lads, it’s United’. The glorious thing is that they are both right, so we can expect an hour and a half of chaos, comedy and red cards (Betancur/Maddison v Fernandes/Casemiro anyone?).

“On the other hand it might be 0-0.”

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Ange Postecoglou’s pre-match thoughts

Having the players back in training has been a big thing. We’ve hardly trained for the last two-and-a-half months, and when we have it’s been with a lot of under-21 and under-18 players. Training this week has been outstanding because we’ve had a pretty much a full complement of senior players involved.

Having Vic and Madders back is big for us – not just the players they are but the people they are as well.

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Updated at 17.19 CET

Ruben Amorim on Man Utd’s multiple absentees

It’s a mixture of illness and injury. It is what it is. We have the kids and they are ready to play. It’s a really hard season and we have to deal with it.

In bad situations, sometimes good things happen.

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Updated at 17.19 CET

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The fan group Change for Tottenham are protesting against Daniel Levy ahead of today’s game. Banners on show include “24 years, 16 managers, 1 trophy - Time for change” and “Our Game Is About Glory, Levy’s Game is About Greed.”

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Updated at 17.02 CET

Team news

Spurs are boosted by the return from injury of Guglielmo Vicario and James Maddison, with Ben Davies also coming into the side. Archie Gray, Mikey Moore and Antonin Kinsky drop to the bench. Brennan Johnson and Wilson Odobert are also among the subs.

Man Utd are down to the bare bones, with Amad Diallo, Kobbie Mainoo, Manuel Ugarte, Toby Collyer, Leny Yoro and Christian Eriksen all unavailable. Casemiro comes into the team, while the exciting 17-year-old Chido Obi – who scored a hat-trick against Chelsea in the FA Youth Cup this week – is in United’s matchday squad for the first time. He’s one of eight teenagers on the bench.

Tottenham Hotspur (4-1-4-1) Vicario; Pedro Porro, Danso, Davies, Spence; Bentancur; Kulusevski, Bergvall, Maddison, Son; Tel.

Substitutes: Kinsky, Udogie, Gray, Bissouma, Sarr, Moore, Odobert, Johnson, Scarlett.

Manchester United (3-4-2-1) Onana; De Ligt, Maguire, Mazraoui; Dorgu, Casemiro, Fernandes, Dalot; Zirkzee, Garnacho; Hojlund.

Substitutes: Harrison, Amass, Fredricsson, Heaven, Lindelof, J Fletcher, Kone, Moorhouse, Obi.

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Updated at 17.15 CET

Preamble

Hello and welcome to live coverage of two bald millionaires fighting over a comb. At the start of the season Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United had eyes on the top four, not the top 14, but both have had such miserable seasons that today’s game is 15th v 14th.

Both are still among the favourites to win the Europa League, a reflection of their status and potential. And although there is nothing tangible to play for in the league, both teams – and managers – could really use a positive result today: for their confidence, and to stay off the back pages.

Kick off 4.30pm.

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Arsenal manager Renee Slegers spoke to BBC Sport about Kelly’s return: “She has been a really good addition to the squad. She’s got fire inside her and she has been showing that in the training. Hopefully, you will see some of that on the pitch today.

“She has integrated easily and smoothly with the rest of the group. She already knew a lot of girls because of her spell with Arsenal before and also from the England squad. We have seen the quality that she can bring in the final third during training. I am also very impressed with her willingness to work hard in training.”

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Tottenham manager Robert Vilahamn spoke to the BBC: “We need to have a really strong defence today. We need to make sure we are very disciplined. We will get a few chances but we need to be sure that we are very clinical with that. We need to do it together today.”

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Yes, Chloe Kelly is on Arsenal’s bench with Kim Little. Goalkeeper Daphne van Domselaar and defenders Leah Williamson, Steph Catley and Emily Fox, all return. Lia Walti also comes back with January signing Jenna Nighswonger deserving a quiet night on the bench.

For Spurs, Martha Thomas and Josefine Rybrink drop to the bench, while Anna Csiki and Matilda Vinberg come in.

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Preamble

If Chelsea stay beyond reach, still plenty to play for at Arsenal. Tottenham, less so, and we’ll get to that in a moment. Three points could be enough to see Arsenal overtake Manchester United in the table, and close the gap on league leaders Chelsea, though perhaps more realistically keep in the Champions League hunt. A crowd of 55,000 is expected at the Emirates, it’s a big day in north London.

Kick-off is at 12.30pm. Join me.

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Updated at 13.13 CET