Wolverhampton Wanderers (Home) 27.09.2025

It was Pedro Porro’s turn to sit the match out, with Djed Spence filling in at right back, while the rest of the Tottenham side remained much the same as for Premier League matches set up in a 4-2-3-1 formation matched by the visiting side.  Their league form was poor with five straight losses, but they arrived on the back of a victory against Everton in midweek’s League Cup tie.

It wasn’t a great performance from either side in honesty.  Too often players misplaced passes and when they did find their target, they were to players who were under pressure causing moves to break down.  Spurs lacked the movement a lot of the time to pull Wolves out of shape and one second half incident showed that more than any other when Porro wanted to take a throw-in, but was stood there about a minute as no white shirt moved to receive it.  The way that Salisbury refereed the match, it was surprising that he didn’t get a yellow card !

Spurs kicked off and started brightly, but were repelled by the Wolves defence.

14 minutes into the game, Xavi put in a cross that bounced in the middle of the box as it swung towards the far post, where Richarlison and Mo Kudus were looking to get on the end of it.  Richi couldn’t as he was being dragged to the ground and Mo came in behind him to head it at goal and Johnstone for a touch on it pushing it up onto the bar.  It was the closest either side had come to a goal with set-pieces not being made to pay, with few open play openings being created.  There was nearly an own goal for the fourth consecutive match when Andrade cleared a low ball from Destiny Udogie, but only smashed it into the face of Buena, fortunately for them cannoning off him for a corner.  

Destiny then crossed with the ball taking a deflection that put Lucas Bergvall off as he shaped to volley it, producing an air shot, but the ball then hit Joao Gomes and Johnstone was grateful that the ball dropped into his arms, when it might easily have been sent past him.  Andre was then involved in taking Simons down as he ran past him and with bookings that Salisbury made later in the game, it was surprising that he didn’t pull out a yellow for this foul.  Lucas picked the ball up from a weak defensive header on the right wing, he got the ball to Kudus on the right returning it into Bergvall’s feet in the box.  Lucas then performed a perfect backheel back to the winger, who took the ball on and curled a shot past Johnstone into the far top corner of the goal …  only he had been offside and it was ruled out with 27 minutes on the clock.

Destiny and Richarlison worked a one-two that by-passed three Wolves players, but when Udogie had space in the box, he dwelt too long on the ball and it was blocked for a corner when there were options to find in the box.  Gomes was booked for sticking his leg across Simons and then proceeded to argue long and loud about it and a minute later, Bergvall tried to replicate Richarlison’s goal against Burnley with a flying scissors kick from Mohammed’s cross, but he volleyed it over the bar.  Then three minutes from half-time, Johnstone beat out a powerful drive from Kudus inside the right hand side of the box, with the ball travelling to the edge of the area, where Palhinha came onto it and was kicked in the hip by Munetsi.  VAR decided it wasn’t a penalty, but how many times have you seen players unaware of opponents coming onto them and making a foul to concede a spot-kick (Spurs at St. Marys in Conte’s rant match) ?  Kudus then played a cross in with the outside of his left boot that took a couple of deflections to the far post, where Richi was a foot off getting on the end of it.   

Arias looked as though he might get away, picking up a touch from Bergvall, who tried to intercept a through pass, but the striker was stopped by Udogie’s speedy covering tackle that sent the ball out for a corner.  That brought another one and it led to Wolves’ best chance came in stoppage time at the end of the first half, when a corner dropped to Matt Doherty at the far post, but the former Spurs defender side-footed his shot against the left hand angle of post and bar.  That was the last kick of the first half and it was a relief that it didn’t end in a goal.

The second half was seven minutes old when Romero lost his head a bit and charged forward to try to close down the keeper after his pass had been cut out and then he won a tackle on halfway that took him forward.  Unfortunately, this left us a man short at the back and Bentacur did his usual excellent covering job to knock a cross away for a corner.  Then it was all a bit of a mess.  A header knocked the ball down into the six-yard box with Vicario getting down to it, but only pushed it out onto Palhinha, with the ball falling kindly to Buena, who poked it over the line.  There was much talk of Dr. Tottenham prescribing struggling Wolves with a remedy, but this was a series of unfortunate events that brought them the lead.  

For most of the game, Tottenham’s shape had left a massive gap between the forwards and the defence.  It had left Spurs open to a breakaway, with Wolves’ players having the efficient passing to exploit the space.  It didn’t help Tottenham that the referee was aiding Wolves’ performance.  When Andre performed an action replay of his foul on Xavi, he escaped a booking again and then when Udogie went over to the bench to get some advice on what should happen with the free-kick, it was worked wide to him, but Salisbury pulled it back for some reason.  Bergvall was rightly booked for a bad challenge on Bellegarde, although when Munetsi caught Romero late, the game wasn’t even stopped for a free-kick.  The lack of fluidity in the Spurs side was bringing some boos from the home ‘support’.  Even more when Wolves played the ball across the 18 yard line from right to left resulting in Bueno running onto a shot that Vicario kicked out, although it went straight at substitute Pedro Porro and off for another corner.

Richi went down holding his face after clashing with Buena off the ball following Vicario’s catch at the corner and quick throw out that left Krejci and Johnson pulling each other around by their shirts behind him.  The game went through ten minutes of stultifying mediocrity before Romero livened things up with a crunching tackle on Wolves’ giant sub Tolu just before the board showed five minutes were to be added.  There was a great opportunity for Johnson to feed Richarlison in behind, but there was not enough weight on the ball and it was easily picked off.  

You might say that Tottenham saved the best for last, but there was little that went before that signalled that a goal was going to come with Palhinha and Romero firing hopeful long shots way too high.  Mathys Tel made a yard for himself on the left and played a ball into the edge of the box for Pape Matar Sarr, who cleverly laid the ball back for Joao Palhinha to side-foot the ball to the left of Johnstone’s dive to find the net from the point where the D joined the 18 yard line on the left.  It was four minutes into the seven added on at the end of the 90 minutes, mainly due to Wolves players being “injured” and not needing treatment and Johnstone taking a long time over almost every goal kick.  Having now scored three goals this season, Joao has made this a bonus, as it wasn’t necessarily what he had been bought for, but with the forwards still looking to gel, his contributions from midfield are most welcome.  However, we could probably have done without him picking up a cheap booking for taking his shirt off in celebration, as it is nailed on that he will get plenty for his tackling !

What followed was frantic and didn’t help Tottenham play the ball forward and while players were shaking hands, Buena wanted to start a fight with Porro, who had to be shepherded away from the Wolves defender.  

In all honesty, a draw was probably the fair result, but it took Spurs a lot of time to break down the stubborn Wolves rear-guard.  With the front-line not functioning to it’s maximum, with not a lot of link-up play on the wings and without someone at number 10 to unlock defences, it is difficult to create much for Richi and the others.  Things might improve with the return of Solanke and Kolo Muani, but, until then, it might be a bit of a slog.  With a tough match having been provided by Wolves, it is now back to the Arctic Circle for a repeat visit to Bodo/Glimt in the Champions League.  The plastic pitch awaits, but this time, it will hopefully be a little milder than the Europa League semi-final.

• Tottenham’s 300th Premier League draw.