Tottenham Hotspur vs. Doncaster Rovers: Head-to-head record and past meetings after Thomas Frank's side win 3-0 in EFL Cup

Tottenham Hotspur kept their focus to avoid a potential banana skin as they continued their excellent start to the season on Wednesday, beating Doncaster Rovers 3-0 in the EFL Cup at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Thomas Frank's Lilywhites dealt with two early efforts from Rovers before racing up the opposite end of the pitch and creating a significant chance of their own, only for Mathys Tel to misfire.

However, Premier League Spurs managed to open the scoring moments later when Joao Palhinha netted an impressive bicycle kick after the League One visitors failed to deal with a corner from Xavi Simons.

Grant McCann's men would then inflict their own issues as Jay McGrath scored an own-goal, before Brennan Johnson sealed the Londoners' place in the fourth round with a second-half stoppage-time chip.

Here, Sports Mole takes an in-depth look at the head-to-head record and previous meetings between the two sides.

Head-to-head record

Previous meetings: 10

Tottenham Hotspur wins: 7

Draws: 2

Doncaster Rovers wins: 1

Given the long-running disparity between Tottenham Hotspur and Doncaster Rovers quality-wise, it should come as no surprise to learn that the two teams have only crossed paths on 10 occasions in all competitions down the years.

The Lilywhites have triumphed in seven of those meetings, while playing out two draws and suffering one defeat, which came in their inaugural battle in the 1935-36 Second Division campaign.

Doncaster edged out Spurs 2-1 that day, but the Lilywhites have since navigated each of their last nine head-to-heads with Doncaster without suffering defeat, while also winning every home game to boot.

Doncaster did hold Tottenham to 1-1 draws at home in April 1937 and February 1948 - again in Division Two - and the two clubs have not contested a league match since the latter date 77 years ago.

Therefore, Rovers and Spurs have only done battle in cup competitions over the past seven decades, firstly an FA Cup fifth-round showdown in the 1955-56 season, which Tottenham won 2-0 before losing to Manchester City in the semi-finals.

The merciless Lilywhites then put seven past Doncaster in the fifth round of the 1975-76 EFL Cup, before also teaching their lower-league visitors a goalscoring lesson in the second phase of the 2009-10 tournament.

With Harry Redknapp at the helm, Spurs trounced Doncaster 5-1 at the Keepmoat Stadium, where Tom Huddlestone, Jamie O'Hara, Peter Crouch, David Bentley and Roman Pavlyuchenko all found the net.

Most recently, the two clubs met in the the third round of the EFL Cup in September 2025, and Thomas Frank's side won 3-0 in pursuit of silverware thanks to an overhead kick from Joao Palhinha, an own-goal from Jay McGrath, and a 94th-minute sealer from Brennan Johnson.