Greatest Of All Legends-Chapter 806: Week By Week: Beginning of the End

At the 53rd minute, Tanganga was shown a yellow card after roughly tackling Zaha when Crystal Palace were on the attack.

Tempers flared and only after the referee intervene did things cool off, but just five minutes later Tanganga made another tackle, this time a mistimed one on Ayew.

Missing the ball, he brought down the Crystal Palace man and without bothering to waste any words, the referee pulled out his cards and showed Tanganga a second yellow, followed by a red.

Things were looking even worse for the already shaken Tottenham side, but they managed to soldier on, doing their best, but their best could only carry them so far.

Things finally came to a head when just 14 minutes to the end of the 90, a cross from Gallagher ended with the ball contacting Davies’s arm and the referee immediately blew his whistle, pointing to the spot.

The bad luck Tottenham had been battling with had layered one on top of the other and finally they conceded a penalty that was driven home by Zaha.

Zaha sent Lloris in the wrong direction with his penalty and claimed the lead for Crystal Palace among the loud cheers of their fans at Selhurst Park.

The match continued after that with Tottenham doing their best to equalize the game, but just eight minutes later, Zaha found the new Crystal Palace striker Edouard with a low cross and after trapping the ball, the striker drove it low into the far corner just seconds after coming off the bench.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the worst for Tottenham as another nine minutes later, three minutes after the ninety, Gallagher found Edouard once again and the striker once again struck the ball past Lloris.

Tottenham were stunned.

They were the top of the league just before the break, but now they were being utterly thrashed by Crystal Palace.

It was a day to forget for sure.

Of course many things fell wrongly for the Tottenham side almost to the point that one didn’t need to be a fan for conspiracy theories to think it was a set-up, but Tottenham only crowned their opponent’s efforts by not playing up to par with what their badge required of them.

In the post match press conference Nuno mentioned how disappointing it was that they had lost.

They had been coming off so much confidence, with the team being at the top of the table and he himself having received the manager of the month award for August.

"We knew it was going to be tough, but we didn’t perform like we showed before and we didn’t play a good game,"

"Honestly, I believe we should do better in all aspects of the game,"

"There were so many obstacles during the game and we were constantly trying to find solutions so it was tough on the boys and then we went a man down and it got even harder,"

"Trying to look for a goal with one man less, the imbalance comes. We have to analyse, and we have a lot of work to do," Nuno said to the reporters when asked about the game.

Back at Hotspur Way, it was an understatement to say Jason was shocked by the news of the results, but there was nothing he could do for the team right now.

Clearly, he wasn’t going to recover in time to deal with the team’s immediate troubles so he could only hope for the manager to find a way for the team to deal with the current situation before it became an injury crisis for the club.

Jason continued his recovery in silence.

It was already the fourth week of his recovery which meant it was time to begin rebuilding the achilles tendon’s strength as it healed.

His main work was on a stationary bike, cycling for tens of minutes and he did balance work and double leg calf raises every so often after getting off the stationary bike to rest.

Of course, he had to be careful not to overwork himself in the process of recovery, but since this was recovery training, the physio assigned to him ensured that he didn’t cross the line and stress his injury.

**16th September 2021**

The Tottenham side travelled to France for their first group stage of the Europa Conference League against Stade Rennais and trying to get back to winning ways after the shocker against Crystal Palace they had played exemplary attacking football.

A move involving Oliver Skipp, Harry Kane and Tanguy Ndombele led to Lucas Moura getting the ball on the flank.

Cutting in before making a low cross, the ball was somehow turned into his own net by the Stade Rennais defender, Bade.

With an own goal from Stade Rennais giving them the lead, Tottenham tried to double their lead, but Stade Rennais fought back just as hard.

Coming close a couple of times before Flaven Tait managed to unleash a curler from just outside the box that was too hot for Gollini to handle.

Things got worse for Tottenham after their opponents equalized as Bergwijn and Moura got injured and had to be replaced.

Things were getting tough for the Tottenham side and soon after the second half began, Stade Rennais took the lead for the first time in the game.

Another long-range effort from Rennais, this time from Sulemana, flew at goal but Gollini managed to get a hand to it, however he wasn’t able to hold onto the ball and it rolled into the path of Laborde.

The Stade Rennais forward kicked the ball into the back of Tottenham’s goal with his first touch, taking the lead and completing a comeback for his side.

However, Tottenham didn’t plan on going down so easily and just easily, Lo Celso found Doherty on the right flank.

Targeting Harry Kane, he sent the ball flying into Stade Rennais’s 18-yard box, but before the ball reached Kane, Tait lunged for it, trying to clear it, but he only deflected it into the path of Hojberg who was right in front of the goalkeeper.

With a left-footed poke on the ball to send it to the left side of the goal, Hojberg completely bypassed the Stade Rennais goalkeeper to give his team the equalizer they sorely wanted.

After the equalizer, things were even again and both sides continued trying to score, but there was nothing forthcoming other than a few close chances until the whistle to end the match was finally blown.