Late turnaround sees off Sky Blues

Two goals in four minutes right at the end of the game gave us a dramatic 2-1 victory over Coventry City in the third round of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday evening.

A below-par performance from us had seen the Sky Blues take a deserved lead through Brandon Thomas-Asante just after the hour mark, but we stuck to our task and produced a late turnaround as Djed Spence opened his Spurs goalscoring account in the 88th minute before Brennan Johnson coolly slotted home the winner two minutes into stoppage time to give us the win on our first-ever visit to the Coventry Building Society Arena.

It was a much-changed side from the weekend defeat against Arsenal with the likes of Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray making their first starts for us, Fraser Forster returning in goal for his first appearance since the second round of this competition in August, 2023, with Ben Davies and Radu Dragusin at the centre of defence.

Less than 60 seconds were on the clock when Coventry were presented with an opening, Forster’s ball out to Bergvall not finding its target and it fell to Jack Rudoni, who hit a right-foot shot from 20 yards but Forster was back to push it away for a corner.

We were forced into an early change when Wilson Odobert had to come off due to injury, replaced by Johnson and as the half went on, we were seeing plenty of the ball once again but lacked an incisive pass at the end of our moves. The hosts, on the other hand, looked dangerous on the counter-attack and Timo Werner showed his defensive side when getting across well to block a Milan van Ewijk drive in the 28th minute.

We didn’t have a single shot at goal in the first 45 minutes while the Sky Blues fashioned two chances in the build-up to half-time. First, Jake Bidwell delivered a ball in from the left to the far post which found Rudoni unmarked only for his side-footed volley to hit Destiny Udogie and we cleared the danger but City came again, a long ball over the top releasing Norman Bassette whose left foot shot was tipped over by Forster even though a goal-kick was awarded.

Three minutes after the restart, Johnson rifled in our first effort at goal although it was blocked by a defender and, at the other end, Forster had to get down well to smother Bassette’s angled drive before another golden chance for the home side. One direct ball over the top saw Bidwell clear on goal, Forster rushed out but collided with Dragusin to leave the supporting Haji Wright with the task of tucking the ball into an empty net, only for Davies to slide in and block the shot for a corner.

Davies then almost gave us the lead in the 60th minute, meeting Bergvall’s corner with a strong header which Ben Wilson did well to save – his first of the game. We then introduced Heung-Min Son and James Maddison for Dominic Solanke and Bergvall but within a minute we fell behind, Thomas-Asante side-footing home from Bassette’s inviting cross.

Twice in quick succession, Coventry nearly doubled their lead but Ephron Mason-Clark was unable to get on the end of Ellis Sims’ efforts at the back post while we almost forced an equaliser with 10 minutes left, Spence’s endeavour winning the ball back on the byline but Dejan Kulusevski’s fierce shot was parried away by Wilson.

Then, with just minutes left, we finally created that one chance and made it count. Maddison flicked a ball in to Kulusevski, who played it in to Spence and he broke into the area and poked the ball into the back of the net. The drama wasn’t over though. Penalties were looming as we entered stoppage time at the end of the 90 minutes when we won the ball back on half-way, Rodrigo Bentancur picking up possession and threading a perfectly-weighted pass to release Johnson and he showed great composure to clip the ball right-footed past Wilson to send us into the fourth round – just!

Ange Postecoglou made eight changes to the team that started against Arsenal on Sunday with only Destiny Udogie, Bentancur and Solanke remaining. Coventry made seven changes themselves from their side that drew 1-1 with Watford at the weekend and included our former Academy graduate Luis Binks at the heart of their defence.

Match data

Goals: Coventry – Thomas-Asante 63; Spurs – Spence 88, Johnson 90+2.

Yellow cards: Coventry – Binks, Allen, Thomas-Asante, Kitching; Spurs – Maddison.

Referee: Darren England.

Venue: Coventry Building Society Stadium.

Weather: Partly cloudy, gentle breeze, 15 degrees.

Attendance: 24,606.