![\"Josh](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0_Josh-Martin-Spurs.jpg\")
Josh Martin(Image: George Marriott\/CTFC)<\/p>\nCheltenham Town 2 Tottenham Hotspur Under-21s 2 (Cheltenham win 3-1 on penalties<\/p>\n
22:06, 28 Oct 2025Updated 22:15, 28 Oct 2025<\/p>\n
Josh Martin(Image: George Marriott\/CTFC)<\/p>\n
Your immediate thoughts on that performance?<\/strong><\/p>\n Good. I was really pleased with the boys. After not playing any football and then going and playing 90 minutes, there are quite a few who haven’t played since the Bristol Rovers game, some of them for even longer. All credit to them for going out there and putting on a really good performance, sometimes attacking, but most of the time it had to be that we got into defensive organisation with ourselves. A few of the boys couldn’t finish the game, so we are making lots of changes towards the end and you are hoping maybe you can get away with a 2-1 win. We were slightly disappointed when they got their second goal because with five minutes left on the clock they could maybe go and get another one. But they are a team who are going to play on a regular basis, young players aspiring to play in the Premier League and we have lads who want to play in League Two, but haven’t played for a long time. They were incredible tonight, the energy, effort and team spirit. Some of their passing and movements were really good. We didn’t get to have as many as I’d have liked, but we are playing against a good team.<\/p>\n Have you worked much on penalties?<\/strong><\/p>\n We didn’t work on them, but we did our homework on them, ie the opposition. To be honest, how many of those we did our homework on that took penalties, I don’t know because they have numbers 50, 60 and 70 on the pitch. We did a little bit of homework on them, but it’s more down to Joe (Day), getting around the goal and being athletic enough to make those saves. He’s been super since I’ve been here and I was really pleased with him tonight.<\/p>\n How pleased were you with Josh Martin’s early goal?<\/strong><\/p>\n Yes, really pleased to get an early goal, then you want to build on it and maybe get another one. It was a good finish from Josh and we started the game really, really well, then they got control of it a little bit and we ended up going into a mid block and a bit of a low block at times. Then they had the first 25 minutes of it after the goal, then we had the 15 minutes where we could have scored, with a couple of great opportunities with headers we put wide, one we put across the goal, Tommy (Taylor) had a header against the back of their lad, so we could have gone more goals up, but it wasn’t too much about the result tonight. It’s nice to win it, but it was more about the boys getting 90 minutes.<\/p>\n A cameo from Harry Tustin, how important is it now his loan’s been extended to go and get that senior experience?<\/strong><\/p>\n Very important because we can’t always give it to them here. We are looking at a few of our boys out on loan for sure and there are already a few out.<\/p>\n How are you feeling about the FA Cup on Saturday, at home to Bradford City in the first round?<\/strong><\/p>\n I am feeling like it’s late, we want to go home because it’s been a long day. We started prepping for Bradford this morning. We’ll do a bit more prep tomorrow, then work on Thursday and Friday and look forward to another home game at the weekend, which will be a really big crowd.<\/p>\n Tommy Taylor’s first senior goal and also a successful spot kick – how pleased are you with his performance tonight?<\/strong><\/p>\n Great, really pleased for him. He works his socks off. Still trying to find out what his position is at the moment. Pleased for a lot of the boys tonight. I really, really like Tommy, he’s an infectious kid. Wherever you ask him to go…I said to him the other week when I went to put him on, can you play as a nine? Yes. Can you play as an eight? Yes. If I said right-back he’d go yes and want to get on the pitch, but that’s brilliant isn’t it. When he grows into that big body of his and the coordination becomes a bit better, he’ll be a good player in the future, I think.<\/p>\n What did you say to the lads before the shoot-out?<\/strong><\/p>\n I gave them a few tips about taking a penalty at that end. Always be careful you don’t kick it over the bar, down that end and one of their lads did.<\/p>\n And the Under-18s have got through 1-0 at Cardiff City tonight as well in the FA Youth Cup.<\/strong><\/p>\n I know, brilliant. It’s been a good night.<\/p>\n READ MORE: Cheltenham Town v Tottenham Hotspur U-21s RECAP: Shoot-out win for Robins in Trophy<\/a>READ MORE: Praise for Wrexham loanee, goalkeeping situation and gratitude for players, staff and fans – Cheltenham Town manager Steve Cotterill after Walsall win<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cheltenham Town 2 Tottenham Hotspur Under-21s 2 (Cheltenham win 3-1 on penalties 22:06, 28 Oct 2025Updated 22:15, 28…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4100],"tags":[135092,94,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-535080","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-cheltenham-town-fc","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115456605978201852","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}