6.4 goals per game in Spurs’ Oktoberfest until the Moyesy neighbours spoilt the party

22 goals in three games. That’s Spurs’ Oktoberfest.

They’ve scored sixteen of them and conceded six. You may think they mood around White Hart Lane would be jubilant.

Spurs followed a 7-2 win over Maccabi Haifa with that famous 6-1 away win at Old Trafford. Could they do the unimaginable and record three straight five goal wins?

At half time in their league game with West Ham, it seemed possible, even probable at half time as they led the hapless Hammers from six miles away 3-0.

Spurs at that point had scored 16 goals in 2.5 games in October. Put another way, that’s 6.4 goals per game.

In those 225 minutes, Harry Kane had scored seven (two penalties), Son Heung-Min had five and Giovani Lo Celso had two. Four additional players; Dele Alli, Lucas Moura, Tanguy Ndombele and Serge Aurier  has also scored.

You might even have said that 3-0 up at half time against a crumbling and disjointed West Ham, a 5-0 win would rank as a slight anticlimax.

But as Jimmy Greaves, a man who graced both these clubs, used to say “football is a funny old game”.

It was West Ham who found their shooting boots and replied with three unanswered goals to steal a point, silencing both Spurs fans’ online boasting as well as angry Hammers fans who had been directing their rage at David Moyes at half time.

So after a fantastic 225 minutes of free flowing goalscoring football, Spurs now find themselves slightly down in the dumps as they await their Austrian opponents, the Linzer Athletik-Sport-Klub (LASK).

The group also includes Belgian side Antwerp and Bulgarian side Ludogorets Razgrad in company that should not trouble Spurs inordinately.

Did COVID-19 cost LASK only their second league title?

The Black and Whites of Upper Austria finished fourth in last year’s Austrian Bundesliga and currently sit fifth with two wins and a draw.

However they surprised many including themselves with a 4-1 away win over Sporting Lisbon in the last round at the Estádio José Alvalade. They were already leading 2-1 when Portuguese side was reduced to ten men following the dismissal of Uruguayan international Sebastian Coates.

Embarrassingly for Sporting, that leaves just Porto, Benfica and little Sporting Braga to carry the Portuguese banner in Europe, none of which is LASK’s problem.

112 years old, in 1965 LASK were the first side from outside Vienna to win the Austrian league.

To date, that is their only league title.

Their current manager Dominik Thalhammer was yet to be born when that happened.

Thalhammer has had quite a varied managerial career with seven previous clubs before he took on the role of managing the Austrian womens team in 2011.

He led them to the semi final of the Womens EUROS in 2017 where they topped a strong group containing France, Switzerland and Iceland.

The Austrian women then drew both their knockout games 0-0, beating Spain and losing to Denmark on penalties.

When LASK sacked Valérien Ismaël this July for his part in the lockdown scandal, he was tempted back into the men’s game.

LASK came close to repeating their famous 1965 win in the 2018-19 season finishing an albeit distant second to Salzburg. They would have finished top of the regular season the following year but were deducted 12 points after continuing to have training sessions in contravention of pandemic regulations.

A secretly taped film of a LASK training session visibly led by Ismael came to light in mid-May featuring the full squad training together instead of small socially-distanced groups as stipulated, led to the initial deduction of 12 points.

In last season’s Bundesliga, the top sides went into a mini play-off league taking half their regular season points with them, so the 12-point initial deduction left them ruing just six in the final table. That six was later reduced to four but by then the chance of a first league in 55 years had gone and so had Ismaël.

They played English opposition last year in the Europa League going down 7-1 to Manchester United, their only meeting with an English side.

New signing Joe Rodon is unavailable for Spurs and eagle eyes will be watching Jose Mourinho’s selection to see if there is any fallout from that dismal second half on Sunday.

Lo Celso missed the West Ham game and Argentina’s World Cup wins over Ecuador and Bolivia but may be available. Eric Dier may also return having missed both West Ham and international duty.

Gareth Bale started on the bench on Sunday but may well get his first start in Spurs colours since leaving for Madrid.

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