Tottenham Hotspur suffered a shock defeat against Ipswich Town in the Premier League at White Hart Lane last weekend as the Lilywhites continued their woeful start to the new 2024/25 campaign. It was a game of fine margins, as despite all the possession, Ange Postecoglou’s side suffered a 2-1 defeat against Kieran McKenna’s Tractor Boys.
The visitors took a two-goal lead going into halftime after Sammie Szmodics opened the scoring with a beautiful overhead kick where he positioned himself mindfully in between Pedro Porro and Brennan Johnson before Tottenham linked Liam Delap tapped in to double the advantage. Delap’s goal was an accumulation of Radu Dragusin’s defensive mishap, which handed the 21-year-old an opportunity to score from a point blank range.
Spurs were able to notch one back in the second half through Rodrigo Bentancur’s header; however, that was all as the newly promoted Ipswich secured their first win of the new season.
Spurs defender Dragusin rated 3/10 after costly error
And owing to his error that led to Delap’s eventual goal, Spurs correspondent at Football.London Alasdair Gold gave the Romanian international a game-low 3/10 rating before lashing into the player for his underwhelming display.
Writing in his player ratings report following the conclusion of the game, Gold wrote:
Made a mess of an early header which allowed Ipswich to break towards Spurs’ goal but executed an important interception in his own box soon after. Was then beaten to the ball by Burgess from a corner with the Ipswich man’s header hitting the crossbar. Then, couldn’t react when Vicario pushed the ball against him from Szmodics’ low cross and the ball ran towards the goal line for Delap to score. Got better but this was a shaky display overall. 3 [out of 10].
Radu Dragusin has been warming the bench for a long time looking for an in-road into Ange Postecoglou’s starting lineup; however, he has not been playing his best football when given opportunities. The 22-year-old has put up a few disastrous performances when called upon, and this match was no exception.
The former Genoa defender will need to show significant improvement if he is to convince the Australian head coach about deserving a regular spot in the team, and his performance yesterday only raised further questions about his future at the club.
