Cartilage Free Captain

This is the biggest game of Spurs’ season and a do-or-die moment for Ange Postecoglou, whose career seems to hinge on whether or not Tottenham progress in the next round of the Europa League.

Things are getting pretty intense. Now feels as good time as any to look at some cute animal photos and videos.

Here’s one:

Who doesn’t love golden retrievers? They’re lovable and a little goofy. I mean, look at that one getting the dirt on its face.

Here’s another:

That’s right. It’s a seagull riding on top of another seagull. Pretty darn cool!

Enjoy the animal vids before an intense fixture against Frankfurt.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Confident, by Cliff Beach featuring The MB’s

And now for your links:

Alasdair Gold: “Micky van de Ven delivers strong Ange Postecoglou response and makes clear injury statement”

Ange Postecoglou and his Tottenham Hotspur team have made the short hop from London to Germany ahead of Spurs’ Europa League second leg tie against Eintracht Frankfurt. And while he’s got about as healthy a squad as Spurs have had in months, he’s without one key player: club captain Son Heung-Min.

Postecoglou confirmed that Sonny was left back in London nursing a foot injury that he’s apparently been playing through for a couple of weeks.

“Sonny didn’t travel and he’s the only one who hasn’t travelled. He’s been struggling with his foot for a couple of weeks now and has been in pain. Everyone else is good. Kevin [Danso] trained and is available.”

That’s good news on Hold Me Closer, Kevin Danso but bad news for Son. That said, a nagging foot injury might explain his somewhat lackluster performances the past few games. Ange had previously said that Dejan Kulusevski, who made a brief cameo near the end of Spurs’ loss to Wolves at the weekend, will likely feature at some point but is unlikely to start.

So what does that mean for Spurs’ lineup? Probably Wilson Odobert will slot into Sonny’s position at left wing, and either Mathys Tel or Brennan Johnson on the other flank. Otherwise I expect we’ll see a strong lineup, as strong as we can get, as it’s a must win match that very well could determine whether Big Ange has a job by weekend’s end.

The recent announcement that Tottenham Hotspur are appointing former Arsenal executive Vinai Venkatesham as club CEO signaled a significant change to Spurs’ leadership structure. And many fans, upon reading that Venkatesham would be in charge of “all on- and off-pitch operations,” what that meant for Chief Football Officer Scott Munn.

The Australian Munn has been at the club since 2023 and has spearheaded a backroom reorganization of many aspects within the club, but according to Jack Pitt-Brooke in The Athletic, Venkatesham’s future appointment now puts Munn’s job potentially in doubt. The report says that several sources at the club have suggested, privately, that Munn could be on the outs soon.

But even the arrival of Venkatesham is unlikely to be the end of the changes to executive roles at Spurs this summer. Multiple sources have told The Athletic that Munn’s future as chief football officer is in severe doubt, too.

— Jack Pitt-Brooke, The Athletic

If you were looking for more detail about how and why Munn might leave the club, well, so was I. Unfortunately, this is one of those articles where you can basically get the entire point by reading the headline, and that paragraph basically is the only juicy bit in the entire piece. The rest is background info about Munn’s current role, what he has and hasn’t done, and how it’s kind of impossible to quantify or qualify his job performance based on what we know.

That’s not really Jack’s fault, of course — you work with what you have, and the mere fact that Munn could be departing Tottenham Hotspur is newsworthy in and of itself. (I also sympathize with having to write an extended article based on one single nugget of off the record, backgrounded information.) It’s a pretty intriguing nugget, though and nobody’s quite sure what it means just yet. Venkatesham coming to Tottenham is seen by many with familiarity with football executive structures as something of a coup, and it could be simply that Vinai is a better fit for that role than Munn.

Tottenham, angry fans notwithstanding, is already a well-run football club, but when faced with the prospects of competing with other clubs who are just, or nearly, as well-run and are backed by literal nation-states, Spurs are likely finding that they have to be exceptionally good at the background stuff in order to compete on the pitch. That could be what we’re seeing here, or maybe Munn displeased Daniel Levy with his job performance. It’s difficult to speculate, but don’t let that stop you from trying.

At any rate, it seems like we’re on the precipice of a mass Aussie exodus from Spurs. Interesting times.

Not every single training session goes to plan. Sometimes it goes horribly awry. At a certain point we have to accept it. I’ve delayed this hoddle for more than a month. Now it’s time to write it.

——-

The last time I wrote about running I was training for the Avenue of the Giants Marathon. I had just endured a 14-mile run and I felt something was wrong. I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time.

A few weeks passed. I did a few more runs. Then one day I couldn’t run. The pain was too loud for me to ignore. I had to stop. I took a few days off, thinking this simple hamstring problem would resolve itself in a couple days.

It didn’t resolve itself. I couldn’t run. Every step hurt. So I visited the doctor.

It’s a hamstring strain, he said. He couldn’t tell me the timetable but felt confident I could run the May marathon. I was less optimistic.

——-

My fears were well-placed.

I missed roughly five weeks of my marathon training. Everything’s gone to shit. I kept looking for signs that maybe I could do the marathon but I knew it wasn’t possible. Not when I’m gunning for a fresh personal best.

So I found myself back in physical therapy. And that’s what I’ve been doing every week since then.

I started running two or three miles, then spending 30-45 minutes on the exercise bike at my apartment gymnasium. It’s not substitute for running though.

What I missed most of all, though, was being outside. What a cruel fate it was to endure the doldrums of winter only to not reap the rewards of spring.

——-

I was determined to not let this sideline me for too long. I ran, I stretched, did my exercises, cut back on the drinking and excess food and got to work.

My average heart rate dropped, as did my heart rate when running. I ramped up the miles again. First 6 miles, then 8, then 12 and, this weekend, 14 miles.

It’s odd how much stronger I felt during my most recent 14-mile run than I did back in February. Was it the weather? I’m not sure.

The May marathon is all but gone. There’s no hope there. But maybe one during the autumn. And I know I’ve got an extraordinary base to build on if I decide to do the Marine Corps again. A 1:41.00 14-mile run should translate to a marathon of roughly 3:15. Not shabby.

——-

What I enjoy the most, though, now that I am running again is the weather. About being outside. About running on the C&O Canal, waving to other runners, seeing wide-eyed tourists, the Tidal Basin, the sun shining brightly above the Washington Monument.

I wave to the ducks, the crows, the beavers, the dogs and the other runners I come across during my run. It makes it all worth it to me.

——-

How many times have I written about the insecurities and anxieties we fight during our runs? I must’ve lost count by now.

I’ve learned that, in running, it’s often not about the race. Marathons are a one-time event, the culmination of months of hard work and sacrifice. Of setting aside every doubt in your mind. Of running through it.

I don’t think most people realise how taxing it is to train. Of course the physicality stretches beyond our imaginations. But the mental and emotional toll it takes also goes far beyond how much we think we believe we can endure.

Sometimes the most courageous thing you can do is to run with them, and carry them, with you. There wasn’t a moment during my Sunday run when I forgot about the marathon I will not be running next month.

Maybe this will make be a better runner. I hope it will. And I hope I look back on this in the autumn when I set a new personal best.

And whilst it is heartbreaking to have a “Did Not Start” on my resume, at least I have the ducks.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Take On Me, by a-ha

And now for your links:

The Athletic ($$): “Tottenham captain Molly Bartrip says lack of energy in games was ‘reality check’ in dealing with anorexia”

Alasdair Gold: “Leeds United set stance on Manor Solomon transfer amid growing interest in Tottenham winger”

There’s no point in denying it any longer — Ange Postecoglou is in some serious trouble at Tottenham Hotspur. While Spurs have been standing by their man for much of the season due to the incredible string of misfortune and injury that saw them forced to play literal teenagers repeatedly during the Christmas fixture season and start of 2025, several outlets, including David Ornstein, have reported that the sense is that Postecoglou is no longer getting the best out of the players at his disposal.

The club is almost certainly putting out feelers for a new manager this summer, and one of the names most strongly linked to a move to north London is Bournemouth’s 42-year old gaffer Andoni Iraola, who has impressed over the past two seasons. But a new article in the Telegraph is casting doubt on whether he’d want to leave the Cherries at all.

Mike McGrath writes that Iraola is “moving towards committing his immediate future at Bournemouth” despite the Tottenham interest and the sense is that he could even sign a contract extension, taking him off the board entirely. Bournemouth are currently eighth in the table behind the strong performances of players like defender Dean Huijsen, Antoine Semenyo, and Milos Kerkez and are in contention for a European place this season, which would be attractive.

Now, a couple things here. First, this report names Spurs as a “possible destination” for Iraola along with Fulham’s Marco Silva and Brentford’s Thomas Frank, but while the source of that info could be club briefs it’s still a pretty thin foundation for these kinds of rumors. It’s also important to note that while it would make a ton of sense for Spurs to be reaching out and contacting Iraola about a hypothetically available managerial position at Tottenham Hotspur, we don’t actually know that’s the case. Ange Postecoglou still has a job, after all, and it certainly wouldn’t be unprecedented for links to managerial candidates to “fall apart” in the media only to find out later that Spurs never contacted them at all.

Or to put it another way, here’s noted Spurs historical author Gareth Dace:

So yeah, we should be extremely careful about these kinds of rumors, especially those about a job that isn’t even open yet. That said, if Spurs were to move on from Ange Postecoglou, I would absolutely want the club to have their ducks lined up and a successor to be named in short order, if only to avoid the chaotic and depressing “process” post-Jose Mourinho that led to the appointment of seventh-choice manager Nuno Espirito Santo (his tenure at Nottingham Forest notwithstanding). When Spurs fired Conte, it didn’t take them long to settle on Postecoglou. I would hope for a similar, pre-considered process this time around as well.

Yesterday was a rough day for Tottenham. We all have our coping mechanisms for dealing with Premier League disappointment.

My coping mechanism: Pretend that Tottenham doesn’t even exist as a football club.

That helps with today’s hoddle, where we are going to check out a couple fun pictures from this weekend’s action:

Marc Cucurella puts kit over his face after draw vs Ipswich

Can you imagine not beating Ipswich Town at home? Let alone allowing them to score twice? That’s pretty embarrassing.

If anything, Ipswich should be the disappointed ones after being up 2-0 in the first half. Relegation is a near certainty for the Tractor Boys, but at least they took a couple points from Chelsea.

Doucoure with the winner for Everton

What a great picture this one is.

Abdoulaye Doucoure hit the back of the net in 90+4 to secure the 1-0 victory for Everton against Nottingham Forest.

Yoane Wissa scores vs Arsenal

We love seeing Chelsea drop points. We also love to see Arsenal drop points.

Here is Brentford’s Yoane Wissa celebrating after drawing Brentford level versus Arsenal away.

With this result, Arsenal are nearly mathematically guaranteed to not win the Premier League title. And we can all get behind that.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Back In Our Minds, by Funkadelic

And now for your links:

The Athletic ($$): “Wolves 4 Tottenham 2 – Vicario shaky as Spurs suffer yet more away day woe”

The Telegraph: “Error-strewn Tottenham beaten again to edge Ange Postecoglou towards sack”

Dan KP: “Embarrassing Tottenham display was insulting to fans and ultimate blame lies with Ange Postecoglou”

Tottenham Hotspur is not exactly a football club acquainted with success of late; but that will be just another obstacle to overcome as they attempt to push for their first trophy in over 15 years in what has been a season to forget.

That’s right, it’s the Europa League, and Spurs host Eintracht Frankfurt in their search for European glory. Frankfurt are no pushovers, and this instance of Spurs will be pushed to their limit. Ange Postecoglou (and the players) likely know this is potentially the last chance for the Australian to retain his job next season as well, which adds both extra context and challenge to an already tough fixture.

It’s time to stand up. Who will answer the call?

COYS!

Lineups

Live Blog

How to Watch

Tottenham Hotspur vs. Eintracht Frankfurt

Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London, UK

Thursday, April 10, 2025

Time: 3:00 p.m. ET, 8:00 p.m. UK

TV: Not televised in USA, TNT Sports 3 (UK). Check international listings at livesoccertv.com

Streaming: Paramount+

Match thread rules

The match thread rules are the same as always. To any visitors coming here for the first time, welcome! We’re glad you’re here! Wipe your feet, mind the gap, and be sure to check out the other pages at this outstanding site. While you’re here, though, we have a few rules and regulations:

Absolutely no links to illegal streams. They’re bad and they get us in trouble. Violators will be warned or banned.

We have rules against “relentless negativity.” Nobody likes a Negative Nancy. Don’t knee-jerk and post outlandish or hurtful things just because you’re frustrated.

Along those lines, outright abuse of players or match officials is also not allowed. It’s fine to say “wow, that was a really bad call,” but it’s NOT okay to direct copious amounts of abuse in the direction of said official over a call you did not like.

Treat other people in the match thread the way you would want someone else to treat your grandmother. Be nice. This is a community of fans, not an un-moderated message board.

NO SPIDERS!

Finally, while we don’t have a rule against profanity, please try and keep the naughty words in check. Also, language that is sexist, racist, transphobic, or homophobic in nature will be swiftly deleted and you will be immediately banned. This is an open, supportive community.

Have fun, and COYS!

Sunday’s win over Southampton was the latest excursion for Tottenham Hotspur that felt relatively meaningless, a distinction that has sadly become the club’s reality in the Premier League since the calendar hit 2025. The importance of the Europa League could not be any more different, with the season hanging on Spurs’ performance in this competition and Ange Postecoglou’s job attached to it as well.

It took a second-leg comeback — and surviving a second-half scare — against AZ Alkmaar to enter into the quarterfinals, and the level of competition ratchets up significantly from here on out. Still, no one left in the bracket is unbeatable, including Thursday’s opponent, Eintracht Frankfurt. However, the margin for error is razor thin, especially with next week’s fixture being played at the Waldstadion.

Quarterfinals (1st Leg): Tottenham Hotspur (0) vs. Eintracht Frankfurt (0)

Date: Thursday, April 10

Time: 3:00 pm ET, 8:00 pm UK

Location: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London

TV: Paramount+ (USA), TNT Sports 3 (UK)

Frankfurt finished fifth in the League Phase, just one place (and one place) behind Tottenham. A 6-2 aggregate victory over Ajax last round sets up this rematch from the 2022-23 Champions League Group Stage, which saw teams end 0-0 in Germany before Spurs won 3-2 at home thanks to a Harry Kane goal and a brace from Heung-Min Son. Speaking of the Champions League, Frankfurt is currently in the top four of the Bundesliga table, but has far from guaranteed qualification next season.

The big thing to highlight with this opponent is scoring. Third in Germany at 1.96 goals per match, Frankfurt has kept this pace up in the Europa League, tallying an even 20 goals in its 10 fixtures this campaign. The defense is closer to average, but is in decent form recently, allowing just seven goals (on 6.6 xGA) over its last six matches across both competitions.

Put up or shut up

Manager and fans alike have lamented the unavailability of the first-choice defense all season long, but finally that is not the problem. Micky van de Ven and Cristian Romero should be good to go Thursday, and any combination of Destiny Udogie, Pedro Porro, and Djed Spence will work just fine around them. At the most crucial point of the season, Postecoglou actually has the needed resources at the back (including Guglielmo Vicario), meaning there are no excuses.

Of course, we know that this center back pairing does not ensure a clean sheet by any means. Frankfurt’s attack is going to cause some scares, even with Omar Marmoush now residing in Manchester. French striker Hugo Ekitike is the name to watch, but really any of the attackers will be more than happy to pounce on Tottenham mistakes. If Spurs’ best defenders get beat too many times, this will likely be the final nail.

Come and take it

While the defense seems sorted, it definitely is not clear who will — or should — start for Postecoglou ahead of them. It feels like Son and Dominic Solanke are locked in up front (though perhaps that should be debated), but how long they stay on the pitch is up in the air. That leaves right wing open, with two spots in midfield next to James Maddison as well. How the manager chooses to fill out these positions may determine the tie.

It is not solely up to making the selection, though. Wilson Odobert, Brennan Johnson, and Lucas Bergvall have all shown stretches of promise, but have not fully seized a starting spot. With the lineup in flux and the pressure boiling, the chance is there for someone to lunge ahead and stake their claim. Tottenham cannot head into Frankfurt down in the tie (and really will want to bring some sort of lead on the road), and it gets the benefit of facing a backup keeper. That means goals are a necessity Thursday, but predicting where they would come from feels impossible.

Great news, everyone. European football is back. After two days of watching the boring Champions League, the world finally gets what it deserves in the Europa League.

And guess what? Spurs play today! Against Frankfurt! What luck.

To celebrate the Europa League, let’s take a brief look at a few leagues across Europe.

Bundesliga:

This is Bayern’s title to lose, being six points clear of Bayer Leverkusen. And Harry Kane is top of the league with 23 goals scored. Could this be a first domestic title for our hometown hero? Let’s hope so!

Campionato Sammarinese di Calcio:

I know nothing about the San Marino football league, but I do know Virtus are in first with 72 points. Looking for Tre Fiori? They’re in third at 52 points.

Belgian Super League:

We’re in the second phase now, and Genk are top of the table at 40 points. It isn’t as exciting as the San Marino League. And how could it be when Jan Vertonghen, Toby Alderweireld and Vincent Jannsen aren’t competing for the title?

The rest:

What else is there to say? Inter are top in Serie A, Barca are top in La Liga and Copenhagen are first in the Danish Superliga.

Fitzie’s track of the day: Storms, by Fleetwood Mac

And now for your links:

Jay Harris ($$): “How Lucas Bergvall went from the bench to Tottenham’s trusted ‘lump’ in just a few months”

Alasdair Gold: “Every word Ange Postecoglou said about his Tottenham future plus Tel and Johnson penalty moment”

There’s an article making the rounds on social media today from FourFourTwo that makes a pretty big claim — Tottenham have “begun talks” with Crystal Palace manager Oliver Glasner in the event that the club decides to cut ties with Ange Postecoglou at some point, whether that be after dropping out of the Europa League playoff or at the end of the season.

That’s interesting! We’ve seen Spurs linked with managers such as Bournemouth’s Andoni Iraola, Fulham’s Marco Silva, Brentford’s Thomas Frank, and even Ipswich Town’s Kieran McKenna. But Glasner? That’s a new, and intriguing, addition to the list of possibilities.

But is it really? If you’ve read this blog for any length of time or followed our coverage of past transfer windows, you’ll know that one of my big soap boxes is insisting that Carty Free readers be critical thinkers and consumers of transfer rumors and discourse. That starts with not running with every half-baked rumor that emerges from the worst of the rumor aggregators on X, but also to be discerning with media sources.

So let’s look at that FourFourTwo article. Scroll alllllllllll the way to near the bottom, and you get this sentence:

German outlet SportBild report via Sport Witness that Oliver Glasner is wanted the North Londoners, amid interest in the Crystal Palace boss from RB Leipzig.

Oh, so this isn’t a FourFourTwo exclusive after all! Dig a little bit and you’ll find the SportWitness piece, which is itself a summary and partial translation of a SportBILD article that’s locked behind a paywall.

And this is important — the BILD article (which you can’t read without a subscription) isn’t really about Tottenham Hotspur at all! It’s mostly about RB Leipzig’s managerial search, and how Glasner is potentially an option along with Danny Röhl for the Leipzig job. Tottenham, however, is briefly mentioned by BILD. Again, from the SportWitness piece:

This week’s edition of SportBild‘s magazine says Glasner remains a candidate and then states Tottenham ‘can offer a higher salary’ and therefore beat RB Leipzig to the Crystal Palace manager. The German media may want to dismiss Tottenham being more attractive as being solely down to money, but that probably isn’t the case given the previous reports from Austria.

Interesting. So representatives Tottenham may or may not have made contact with Glasner, and the feeling out of Germany is that if they’re serious about him, they’d be able to offer a better wage that Leipzig. But there’s a lot of heavy lifting in that excerpt, right? And what about those “previous reports from Austria?” No mention of what those are either. But that’s a whole separate dig.

Let’s set aside for now whether we think Glasner would be a good fit for Tottenham after Ange, which isn’t really the point here. None of this is to say that Tottenham Hotspur aren’t putting out feelers for new managers. I think they absolutely are and would be smart to do so. Glasner might even be on their list of potential Postecoglou replacements; that wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest. And at some level the fact that we’re being linked with managers and they aren’t running in terror at the idea of managing Tottenham Hotspur feels pretty good!

What we end up with is FourFourTwo aggregating a SportWitness translation of a paywalled BILD article that is really about RB Leipzig and not about Spurs at all. This is extremely thin gruel with which to end up with a headline that reads “Tottenham begin talks with Oliver Glasner.”

I want to be clear here — this article is not intended to call out any of the sources listed above. I don’t have an axe to grind against FourFourTwo, SportWitness (which provides a valuable service in translating foreign language and paywalled sports reports), or BILD (which is basically the German Daily Mail). The game, as Avon Barksdale said, is the game. Hell, I’m an aggregator myself and I’ve 100% spread rumors that turned out to be complete bullshit, merely because I determined that the rumor, while perhaps untrue, could at least be plausible, only to find out I was dead wrong. It happens!

And this is definitely me being tautological in my own discourse, but it’s important — my goal is to make Carty Free readers the most intelligent and discerning Spurs fans on the internet. The truth, or at least the nugget of an idea that percolates through Bat Country, is frequently buried beneath layers of aggregation and linked sources. So don’t believe everything you read! Dig for original sources! Dive deep down the rabbit hole and examine everything you see closely — is it true? Is it plausible? Should you embrace a rumor because you want to believe it, or should you wait for more info?

Transfer rumors are fun. I love them! They’re our bread and butter here. But as we careen to another silly season that could be impacted by [waves hands vaguely] EVENTS, it becomes more and more important to be discerning in what we read, and what we believe.