A Hoddle of Coffee: Tottenham Hotspur news and links February 22, 2016

Happy Monday, Spursland!

How can I say such a thing as "Happy Monday" after a loss, you say? No, it's not because I am happy we came up short. I was never of the mind that we should "punt", the verb of choice, any of our competitions. I can maintain an air of cheeriness because the team is playing well despite the result. Tottenham took the football version of what in the poker world is called a "bad beat" yesterday. The trick after a bad beat is not to change the style of play as it's a winning style. The trick is to continue to do, or in our case support, the very things that ended in defeat last time.

It's easy and difficult to say this because nobody who follows Spurs wants them to lose. If that's a thing, come on, what are we doing here? So negativity of some sort is natural.

On the other hand, if a result like yesterday leaves me with prevailing negative feelings towards this team, then shame on me. To expect a team with 60% of the outfielders checking in at 23 years of age or younger (would've been 80 if the other fullbacks played) to be invincible is missing the forest for the tree.

This group has changed our expectations so greatly in a short period of time that we should be taking the time after a defeat like this to consider what a great run it has been from September until now instead of lamenting how Danny Rose isn't Javier Zanetti or why 18 year old Josh Onomah isn't banging in goals by the boatload yet.

That's not a loser's mentality, it's just an appreciation of how relatively good we've got it at the moment.

So goodbye Magic of the Cup. Hello again, Europa League and title race.

And now for the "news":

Laurent Depoitre is attracting interest from Tottenham| Express

I'll give you five guesses to name the other three clubs mentioned as possible destinations.

Mousa had a little groin problem-Mauricio| International Business Times

After he was subbed off, we played 20-25 minutes of good stuff at the beginning of the second half. Mousa has been amazing and we need him back to challenge for honors this year, but it's nice to know our team may not completely fall apart without him like it has in the past.

It was a collective mistake-Mauricio| London Evening Standard

Hard to blame Michel Vorm when Martin Kelly hits one of the shots of his life with no defender close enough to give him pause, even it it was a tough angle.