Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 1-0 Inter: Five Tottenham Observations

1. All Hail Sissoko. Again.

Nowhere else to begin, of course. The chap’s stock continues to soar, greeted from all sides with a peculiar mixture of bewilderment and delight. The all-action defensive style, which sees him gallop like a thoroughbred before using a vast array of limbs to wipe out opponents, has been of great value in our two most recent jaunts, in patrolling the right-and-central defensive areas, providing some friendly companionship to Serge Aurier.

But his occasional forays up the pitch, rarely in anything more than a straight line, have been weirdly mesmeric, and yesterday they struck oil when oil was the one thing we jolly well needed to strike most.

To begin at the beginning, once it became clear that Inter were not about to do as Chelsea did, and simply roll over to have their tummies tickled, we became embroiled in one of those tense, suspenseful larks, like the twisty spy thrillers one occasionally reads, in which everyone is actually double-crossing their dearest chum and one never quite knows what is coming on the next page, other than a heck more tension.

Patiently we prodded and poked, and introduced our starry subs, and admirably did not panic – but the problem remained. We needed a spark.

Enter Sissoko, simultaneously the least and most likely hero. His run was, again, little more than a gallop in a straight line – but what a gallop! Inter folk bore the look of a mob who had never quite seen this sort of thing before, torn between being drawn towards him and backing off him.

Mercifully, he ended his little dash by following the instructions that appear to have been hammered home to him by the entire coaching stuff, namely to keep it simple. Keep it simple he duly did, slipping the ball to Dele, and the rest was marvellous, fabulous history.

2. Nagging Concerns About Sissoko

After the rotten start to his N17 career the young fish deserves every plaudit going. He also deserves quite the formally-worded letter of apology, from AANP Towers amongst others, which I am quite happy to pen myself.
In my quiet moments, however, I do still stroke the chin and scratch the head and murmur to myself, “Really? I mean, dash it, really?”

There can be no doubting the empirical evidence: Sissoko is now a crucial component of this team, providing a defensive barrier, of strength and pace, as well as an attacking outlet – also of strength and pace, as it happens.

And as noted above, he is well aware of the need to keep things simple, and that he does, with his awkward, very telegraphed, but successful six-yard passes to the nearest lilywhite.

My concern remains that the bubble looks at any and every given moment like it is about to burst. I would be deceiving my public to say I wake up in cold sweats thinking about it, but I cannot shake off the worry that at any given point his control will utterly desert him, and he will once again become a liability. And by “control” I refer both to his control of the ball, when in possession, and his control of his limbs when moving up the gears. Put bluntly, it always seems as if his control of ball and limbs is as much a matter of luck as design. I sense he is about to overrun the ball, or trip over his own feet, every time.

This may well be thoroughly unfair; it may well just be the inherent pessimistic Spurs fan inside me; but I suspect I will need a few more months of this new, magic Sissoko before I am truly converted.

Still, the chap’s cult hero status is already pretty much secured, what?

3. Irreplaceable Eriksen

I suspect anyone with their ear pinned to the walls of the Away Dressing Room would report back that there were few grumbles from the Italian quarter about the outcome. A tight old joust it might have been, but our lot were superior, and 1-0 seemed about right.

1-0 it almost wasn’t however, because for all our superiority, and the generally more forward-thinking attitude, we did lack that little sprinkle of ingenuity in the final third. In short, we lacked Eriksen.

This is not to quibble with the team selection – more on that below – but just to note that the one, crucial position in which lack a quality reserve seems to be Eriksen’s. Even Kane, if removed, can be handily deputised for by Sonny’s scampering – a different kettle of fish, admittedly, but one that proves effective.

But remove Eriksen, and the wit and devilry of the whole troupe seems to dial down a notch. The nifty one-twos on the edge of the area fall a tad short, attempts to dribble past countless opponents are thwarted at the last, crosses are swung in, shots are fired from outside the area. Sissoko’s burst did the trick yesterday, but the moments of true guile come from Eriksen.

It presents a two-fold problem, of how to cope without the honest chap, and whether we can hang on to him beyond his current contract.

4. Squad Rotation

The pre-match natter was all about Eriksen and Sonny mooching on from the sidelines, with plenty of scribbles in both the Credit and Debit columns on this one.

Hindsight, surprisingly enough, has just about come down in favour of Our Glorious Leader’s position – we won, just, and kept the two imps fresh for Sunday.

The Case for the Prosecution, at kick-off and throughout the first hour or so, was that the front four of Eriksen, Son, Dele and Kane had absolutely shredded Chelsea at the weekend, so why the devil weren’t they being unleashed again here, when victory was essential?

A compelling point, actually. Poch’s Sustitution Gambit was risky, even if ultimately successful, but the philosophical AANP view at kick-off was that simply picking Son and Eriksen was no guarantee that they would replicate their success of Saturday. It is not impossible to imagine that they, like Lucas and Lamela, might have huffed and puffed from a distance of twenty-plus yards and to little effect, if played from the start.

As it happened, Sonny’s impact was immediate. He may well have been as effective if he’d started, or he may simply have benefited from being introduced against wearying limbs. Who knows?

It’s all a little moot now, and it ended well enough. On an uplifting sidenote, the lad appears to have rediscovered that joie de vivre that appeared to be absent in the opening weeks of the season, when he was shuttling across the globe.

5. Maturing

And so this most taxing of weeks is beginning to assume a surprisingly sunny hue. A romp against Chelsea, a tough old points-victory against Inter, and just the wretched Woolwich lot left to come. (And then another hundred or so games between now and 2019.)

One thing that strikes me in the final analysis is that our current vintage seem finally to be playing with a generous splash of maturity. The late PSV win, from one-down after a minute, was a triumph for persistence, skill and discipline, when it would have been easy to have neglected any or all of those three.

And here again, to keep ticking along patiently until the 80th minute, without panicking or losing their discipline, and against pretty high-quality opponents, was another little marker.

(On the discipline point – I didn’t really spot what happened with Winks, but Erik Lamela needs to be on the receiving end of a damn good thrashing, because his challenge was appalling. Could have injured the opponent, could have had us down to ten men with a lot of the game to play. But that aside, I thought our heroes kept their heads fairly well.)

Our ability to hang on to a lead for any length of time against top opposition still remains questionable, I suppose, but when we’ve needed goals we’ve found a way. It’s almost the sort of thing that is enough to win a trophy.

Need a Christmas present for the Spurs fan in your life? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon…

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 3-1 Chelsea: Five Tottenham Observations

1. Pochettino’s Tactical Triumph

Here at AANP Towers we have always looked kindly upon Our Glorious Leader, but more for his cherubic features, endearing humility and general good way with the youth of today. ‘Tactical Nous’ has always ranked a fair few rungs down the ladder, so to speak, when it comes to dishing out the gold stars.

Well not any more. I won’t pretend to be an expert in the dark arts of tactics, but by anyone’s rope Pochettino delivered a masterclass last night.

The whole delicately-planned jamboree reminded me of that scene in 80s rom-com Predator, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger and his sunny chums rig a whole array of nets and trip-wires and booby traps for the eponymous predator, the only difference being that whereas in the film the predator promptly escaped and killed them all, yesterday Pochettino’s traps left the Chelsea mob trussed up and at our mercy.

Right from kick-off, Poch’s tactics had Chelsea feathers ruffled, with glances exchanged amongst their number as if to say “What’s going on here then chaps?”

In a glorious throwback to around two seasons ago, Poch hit upon the nifty idea of pressing the life out of every Chelsea player who looked remotely dangerous. No sooner had one of them received possession and begun clearing their throat to voice their grand plans than lilywhite shirts were swarming around them and snapping at every available ankle.

2. Dele on Jorginho

Principal amongst ankle-snappees was Jorginho. I hadn’t been keeping up with current events myself, so was not aware that this chap was actually the second coming of something pretty special, but apparently he starts attacks, stops attacks, cures cancer and unmuddles Brexit, so he was evidently what is known in circles as A Big Deal.

Muzzling this blight upon society was therefore top of the agenda, and Our Glorious Leader hit on the unlikely plan of using Dele as a loose approximation of a man-marker.

On paper this might reasonably have been described as lunacy of the highest order, but as it happened, on grass the reinvigorated 2018/19 version of Dele was absolutely the perfect man for the job, loitering closer than the man’s own shadow.

Pochettino’s tactical masterclass wasn’t just limited to the deployment of Dele as one of history’s less likely man-markers. The use of Son as pretty much an out-and-out striker, always available as a blurry, whizzing outlet in the top right quadrant of the pitch, was another on his list of masterstrokes. The midfield diamond in general, and use of Sissoko in particular, pretty much kept Hazard kept securely under lock and key. Even Aurier, whose name I pretty sure translates into English as “Liability” kept Alonso on the back foot, and was pretty much faultless in defence throughout.

The whole set-up was a triumph, nabbing our rotten opponents hook, line and sinker. It was 2-0 after 15 minutes or so, 3-1 at full-time, but could, peculiarly, have legitimately been 6, 7 or more.

3. Glorious Goals

As our goals flew in yesterday, the thought occurred that despite being as different as these things can be, each was a thing of beauty in its own way.

Eriksen scattered the game with flashes of his impish best, and never more so than in the absolutely vicious delivery that set up our opener. It would have been an affront to decency for Dele to do anything else but glance home a cross like that.

Much comedy ensued for the second, with Chelsea defenders waggling their limbs and leaping out of the way of the ball, but a long-range shot has a unique and glorious quality, and although every man, woman and child who saw it took a brief moment to register that it had gone in, aesthetically it was a smashing effort.

(As an aside, I do rather wonder at the wisdom of the Chelsea bods for that one. Kane is hardly a new face on the scene, and has basically spent the last four years picking up the ball from distance and immediately belting it towards goal. Did none of them anticipate that this was going to happen? Really? The mind absolutely boggles.)

As for Son’s goal, it was the stuff of Hollywood scribes. My Spurs-supporting chum Ian casually opined that “He did not have to do much,” a sentiment with which I immediately took exception and delivered a lengthy rant, strong on emotion and light on fact, as seems to be required in this internet-based age.

The pedants amongst us will have noticed that Son actually collected the ball in his own half – therefore having a heck of a lot to do, Ian – before scuttling exactly half the length of the pitch, producing a slick two-step dance move that befuddled Jorginho (who by this stage was looking anything but the saviour of humanity) and then outsprinting the chap despite having to do so with the ball at his feet.

He then sprinted exactly half the width of the pitch, from touchline to near enough penalty spot. Admittedly he was not required to do much to beat David Luiz, who was busily haring away towards the corner flag, but as a grand finale Sonny then had to pick the right finish. And this, as he had proved repeatedly in the first half, was not something that had been coming particularly easily to him during the preceding hour.

4. Many, Many Misses

I don’t mind admitting that the inner Spurs fan who resides deep within my soul – sullying every fun moment with the ominous warning that this is Spurs, and it might therefore all come crashing down within five minutes of expertly-executed kamikaze – was at it again yesterday. At 2-0 I was adamant that the next goal was crucial, and that if we conceded we might as well wave a white flag at 2018/19 and tear down the new stadium while we were at it.

Mercifully, the next goal was handed on a plate to Sonny, who did not have to do much, but for all the joyous yelping and back-slapping, we were still outrageously guilty of missing an entire sackful of dashed presentable chances.

It may seem jolly ripe to complain about profligacy having put 3 past a previously unbeaten team, but you all saw the thing play out, and can therefore corroborate – we had enough straightforward chances to have scored six by half-time, and nine by full-time. Son missed three straightforward first half chances, and one of Toby or Foyth (I think) ought to have scored from a corner; while in the second half Kane and Dele forgot to factor in gravity when applying their finishing touches.

Still, might as well miss them on a day when we don’t need them, what?

5. Sissoko

As ever on these glorious nights, I feel I ought to prefix any personal praise with apologies for a whole raft of others who will go unmentioned despite doing sterling work – but yet again Moussa Sissoko delivered a performance that was as brilliantly effective as it was utterly baffling.

In a team full of technical geniuses and silky attackers, Sissoko’s uncontrollable limbs and unstoppable power ought not to fit, yet increasingly seems he like the crucial cog in the machinery.

As he has been doing for weeks now, he ran rampant in the defensive midfield area, blitzing everything in his path when not in possession, and somehow gliding away from challenges when he was, like a weird, malfunctioning Dembele.
Should the day arrive when he gets things wrong it will be absolutely ghastly to behold, but for now he gets most things right, and we have somehow stumbled – and never was there a more appropriate term – upon something utterly marvellous.

Need a Christmas present for the Spurs fan in your life? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon…

Categories
Spurs match reports

Palace 0-1 Spurs: Five Tottenham Observations

1. Foyth

When Juan Foyth’s name and number was fanfared pre-kickoff, we lilywhite hordes did the civil thing and wished the young bean well, with images of his rather painful flurry of mishaps from last week’s debut trot still pretty fresh in the memory.

The early signs in this week’s concerto, it seems fair to say, were not the rosiest. A clumsy foul here, a strong contender for the 2018 instalment of Most Idiotic Concession of a Corner there, and within fifteen minutes one was already casting anxious glances in the direction of Our Glorious Leader as to whether the decent thing might simply be to hook the young fish and let him pass out the rest of his lilywhite days in the U23s.

Such a rush to judgement proved wildly misguided. Thereafter, young Foyth handled himself with several hefty slabs of aplomb.

Now one might argue that the Palace attack, baring as it did all the threat of a kitten entangled in a ball of wool, did not pose the fiercest threat, particularly when shorn of young Master Zaha.

However, spirited defenders of the boy Foyth might very reasonably counter by pointing to the weather, the nerves, the rollicking home crowd and the fact that everyone in Palace colours had read the memo recommending that whenever young Foyth went within sniffing distance of the ball he was to be homed in upon by anyone in the vicinity not otherwise engaged. The nub of the thing is that this was no cakewalk for the chap.

To his credit as a ball-playing footballer, and as a man of mental fortitude and fire-filled belly, he metamorphosed during the following hour or so into one heck of a dependable egg. His composure in possession did give the occasional palpitation but was broadly laudable, while his actual day-job of defending became increasingly impressive, in a right-place-right-time sort of way.

With Messrs Sanchez, Vertonghen and Dier at differing stages of fitness, Foyth’s performance does makes the world seem a cheerier place.

On top of which, his goal was poached with impressive swiftness of thought and movement, and was greeted with pretty unrestrained joy by his colleagues, which suggests that he’s a popular chap amongst the gang.

2. Sissoko

It speaks volumes about the instantly forgettable first half that its highlight was a marauding stroll past four opponents, finishing with a blocked shot, by one Moussa Sissoko, but that was where we found ourselves.

Let not that detract however, from the latest oddly impressive showing from our limited but effective cult hero.

Seemingly now fully aware that his role in proceedings is simply to follow two or three basic instructions, Sissoko patiently fed early balls to Trippier/Aurier in no-frills fashion; obediently tracked back to assist the aforementioned in defence as required; and occasionally trotted out his mesmerising dispossess-and-gallop routine.

Simple it might have been, but it also became pretty dashed effective, and as all around him laboured to unpick the Palace defence Sissoko suddenly started to emerge as a star shining particularly brightly amongst the lilywhite ranks.

By the time the second half was in full swing, the honest fellow was beginning to display hitherto unknown flashes of quality. A delightful first-time cushioned lay-off, some wrong-footing of oncoming foes whilst on the charge – it was bewildering, but mightily impressive stuff.

I still wouldn’t trust the blighter to knock a square pass five yards to a team-mate unchallenged if I were told to pick any professional footballer ever and have my life depend on it, for he retains within his genetic constitution something of the clumsy and calamitous; but in recent weeks the applause for Sissoko at AANP Towers has segued from ironic to sincere.

3. Lloris

The occasional panicked flap there may have been, but this will go down as one of Monsieur Lloris’ performances from the column marked “Game-Saving Stuff”.

Some saves were relatively routine, and some were of the faster-than-the-naked-eye-can-clearly-detect ilk, but after an unflustered opening hour or so our resident gate-keeper was called upon on several occasions, and can reflect with some serenity today as he collects the weekly envelope that this was a salary well-earned.

Doubts still nibble away, around his catching, kicking and sprinting hopelessly from his line, but the case for his abilities as a shot-stopper is pretty cut and dry.

4. Lack of Forward Thinking in Midfield

If sitting through the opening hour made your heart swell and pulse race then you’re made of sturdier stuff than I.
Palace, as noted above, might as well not have bothered crossing halfway for all the threat they offered until around the 70-minute mark; but our heroes, for all their possession, seemed to consider actually exploring the route to the opposition goal to be way down the list of priorities.

It was pretty infuriating stuff to behold, particularly in central midfield. Perhaps the weekly diet of Eriksen, with his keen eye and delicate thread of pass, has spoiled me, but none of those employed for the task seemed to cotton on the fact that taking their own sweet time about things, and looking sideways and backwards as a first instinct, served only to swell the massed ranks of Palace defenders.

Where Dembele or Winks will receive possession and immediately explore the options that lay in a northerly direction, yesterday Wanyama, Sissoko and Dele seemed to treat forward distribution as the absolute last resort.

A win is a win, as sure as eggs is eggs, and a goal from a set-piece has value in its own special way, but good grief – until we nabbed them on the counter late on there was precious little about which to beat the drum and yell a rousing chorus.

5. Hanging On. Again.

So after a turgid opening hour in which we hogged possession and did nothing with it; and a ten-minute spell after our goal in which we hogged possession and smoked cigars a little more nonchalantly than a one-goal cushion really merited; the game culminated in the inevitable nail-biting final twenty minutes in which we desperately clung on to the lead with the sort knuckle-whitening tension of which Hitchcock would have been proud.

On paper this string of victories, and the cosy position snugly ensconced within the Top Four, might give the uninitiated the impression that all is bright and breezy at Casa Tottenham. Oh that this were so.

The truth is that given the choice between an eternity spent in the fires of hell or the opportunity to escape and instead watch Spurs trying to close out a win, the souls of the damned would as likely as not opt for the never-ending flames, for there really is no strain upon the nerves comparable to seeing our lot doing the last-ditch routine for the final ten-to-fifteen, particularly given that they will have spent the previous half hour casually missing chance after chance.

Somehow, incredibly, we pull it off every time, in the sort of fashion that would have Houdini stroking his chin suspiciously. But this skin-of-the-teeth stuff seems utterly unsustainable; and if it is indeed sustainable it should frankly be banned on the grounds of being damaging to public health, because viewing it is enough to prompt any man of even the most regular constitution yelp in anguish and start birthing kittens.

Can someone please instruct our heroes to do the honourable thing and start wrapping up these matches by three or four goals so that we can all let the final ten minutes drift by with the serenity of an ocean cruise?

That aside, this was most satisfactory.

Need a Christmas present for the Spurs fan in your life? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon…

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-1 PSV: Four Tottenham Observations

1. A Welcome Change of Narrative

Well this rather cocks the hat at a jaunty angle, in response to all those harbingers of doom, gloom and mockery.
Admittedly in the grand scheme of things it is unlikely to make too much difference, for our CL campaign has “Dreadfully sorry, but it’s 3rd place and Europa” etched all over it, but nevertheless. For a spineless, gutless mob incapable of seeing out games, there was a decent slab of spine and gut about the manner in which we clawed this back, particularly so late on in proceedings, and with our margin of error amounting to precisely the square of zero.

All the pre-match bubble and hype was about the need to win at all costs, eradicate mistakes and all that cheery guff – so naturally, this being Spurs, we were one down within a minute.

Not that there was too much in the way of sackcloth and ashes at AANP Towers when that opener landed, for the motto around these parts is that it’s vastly preferable to concede in the first minute than last. Plenty more time to adjust one’s settings, don’t you know?

And thereafter we tore away at PSV like a team of rabid cats feeling particularly irate about their lot. Chances came and went so frequently I wanted to set my watch by them, and the PSV goalkeeper, a chap who appeared at first glance designed for chopping trees and lugging oxen, spent the first 80 minutes thrusting a well-timed mitt at just about everything we threw at him.

It’s worth hammering away the point that, given all of the above, this was tailor-made for a night of ignominy. Instead, we played well throughout, just about kept our discipline and found a way to snatch victory from defeat. One hopes that such stirring sentiments and rousing performances are adopted by our lot every time they set foot on greenery from here on in.

2. Moura

It was one of those nights on which it doesn’t quite seem the square thing to go singling out such-and-such a chap for his efforts, because just about everyone involved worked up a pretty honest sweat for the cause, and with the exceptions of Davies and Son I thought they just about all delivered a meaty thrust too.

But in those irksome first half minutes in which we just couldn’t quite connect the dots, it warmed the heart no end to see Lucas get his head down and set off on a series of mazy dribbles that involved beating every PSV player in sight and haring straight into the middle of their area.

In the land of neat but often sideways passing and probing, the dribbler is king, and Lucas’ contributions to the cause seemed to get the watching hordes on their feet and give everyone a handy shot of adrenaline.

3. Gazzaniga

The murmur for Gazzaniga to be elevated at least one rung up the goalkeeping ladder has gathered momentum in a gentle, underground sort of manner over recent weeks, and to his credit the young bean didn’t disappoint when handed his chance.

The Cruyff turn seemed wildly unnecessary, and there was one errant pass, but that aside his distribution was sensible and his shot-stopping accurate. One in particular, when we were caught on the hop at 1-1, was notable for having been struck like an exocet missile by the looming PSV bod. Gazzaniga, evidently, has reflexes like a cat and wrists like hardened cement for he managed to paw it northwards in what is technically known as a Blur Of Motion.

Not much he could have done about the goal. All told, this chap keeps the pulse of the onlooker a darned sight steadier than Michel Vorm, so it appears that the pecking order might have been permanently altered.

4. Substitutions

By and large there’s nothing but praise for Our Glorious Leader in these parts; except, of course, for when I’m criticising him. And that tends usually to happen when a mid-game change is needed to right a few wrongs.

On this occasion, admittedly, the hooking of Moura, who, as mentioned, had been running pretty rings around PSV – while Sonny laboured to effect but one ring all game – seemed a rummy move. Perhaps fatigue and fitness was the decisive factor in this thinking?

More of a game-changer however, was the addition of Llorente into the mix. Rocket science it admittedly was not, for lilywhite crosses were already raining in, so why not throw in the lumbering giant? But these things are best judged on hindsight, and for his immaculate cushioned lay-off to Kane for the equaliser, Llorente justified his selection, and Pochettino earned a small gold star.

Elsewhere, Winks was excellent; the Eriksen belly appeared brimful with fire; and Dele’s return continues to add a frisson of excitement (even if his tendency to hog the ball continues); but all told this was a triumph for the whole bally mob.

Need a Christmas present for the Spurs fan in your life? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon…

Categories
Spurs match reports

Wolves 2-3 Spurs: Five Tottenham Observations

1. Mild Joy

Well the first thing to do in such trying circumstances as these is to search for the positives, what? Actually, I mislead my public. The first thing to do is re-start my heart, check that the pulse still throbs away in honest fashion and apologise to all those offended by my bellowed curses of rage uttered at around 2100 hours last night.

But the second thing is to search for the positives, and in a sense, this was quite the triumph. After all, it feels like I have wittered away game after game this season the same old crushing lament, that we cannot and do not and will not take our blasted chances. To illustrate the point, just consider how bonny, blithe and gay our CL prospects would like if we had done.

And in that context, I strongly propose that we pop every champagne cork available to celebrate that on a day on which we didn’t play particularly well, and barely deserved a one-goal lead, we managed to establish a three-goal lead of all things, through the medium of three pretty clinical finishes.

Moreover, all that on a day in which the game-plan took a pretty drastic 90 degree swivel after just one minute when poor old Dembele was replaced by Sonny.

And that just three days after our second game in three days, making this our third in sixth.

So while the post-match interview faces could not have been much longer, I was whistling a pretty upbeat number come whisky and cigars last night.

2. Kane

It is a peculiar quirk of AANP Towers that we tend not to remark too often on the heroics of Harry Kane.

Should Serge Aurier attempt a six-yard pass I’ll have the notepad open and nib dipped in ink; if Michael Vorm cleanly gathers a gently lobbed pass there’ll be steam coming from the AANP typewriter; but Harry Kane can bang in goals of every angle, distance, size and gender, and one will find barely a mention in the AANP footnotes.

Well this feels as good a time as any to right that particular wrong, because the hard-working buck certainly caught my eye yesterday.

Having been completely starved of the ball in the opening thrusts, he evidently decided that any time it popped into his sphere of influence thereafter he would not hang around for How-do-you-dos but simply get his head down and thrash the thing goalwards before anyone in gold knew what had hit them.

There was a low first-half effort that the keeper saved; one in the second half when he shifted the ball a yard right from a standing start and curled it; plus a couple others. None of which involved much in the way of preliminaries, all of which were struck pretty crisply.

And then he scored while running the wrong way and falling backwards and with three Wolves bodies blocking the goal.

His logic-defying antics have become so much the norm that one can easily greet them with a simple shrug, and a yawn, and a comment to a neighbour about the weather. When in truth the chap should have a vat of liquid gold poured all over him in order to commemorate what a fabulous plyer of his trade he is.

3. Foyth

If Juan Foyth ever decides to put pen to paper on his time at the Lane he’ll have one heck of an opening chapter to kick things off.

Before cracks appeared in the sky and the four horsemen dropped in on him, I actually thought he made a decent stab at things. He certainly brought the ball forward out of defence with the air of one trying very hard not to look concerned.

His actual defending landed fairly squarely somewhere between Triumph and Disaster, and that came on the back of 90 minutes against West Ham midweek that had natives nodding appreciatively.

One should not just excuse his two penalty concessions mind. Trippier no doubt should hang his head in shame for his role in the first, but nevertheless Foyth’s foul was as open-and-shut a case for the prosecution as one will see.

And while I’m no scholar of psychology, I can’t help thinking that Penalty B was in part prompted in some way by Penalty A. That is to say that I doubt that the young, confident buccaneering Foyth of the first half would have hauled down his man quite so despairingly as he eventually did for the second pen. The boy’s confidence, it appeared, had taken a thwack.

4. Lamela

Amidst the furrowed brows, and scraped points, and endless soul-searching of recent wins, the gusto and vim of young Senor Lamela has lit up the place like a particularly well-oiled beacon.

The goals rather neatly garnish things, but of greater import is the young egg’s general vivacity. Whereas at West Ham in the league a few weeks ago he displayed the full gamut of party tricks, last night was more a showcase for his indefatigable energy levels, as he bounded towards a succession of Wolves defenders, often in hopeless causes, but never losing his enthusiasm for the task.

It rather evoked the spirits of Messrs Walker, Rooney, Tevez, Rose et al. Whether he does it for love of Spurs or just because his very fibres have been natured and nurtured thusly, the end product is a chap who is able to marry non-stop off-ball workrate with some jolly effective attacking trickery and, now, end-product.

5. Other Parish Notices

Having subjected Monsieur Lloris to a healthy dose of the infamous and red-hot AANP ire, the like of which hell hath no fury, it seems only cricket to give the old bean his dues when he hands in his homework on time and with legible handwriting.

So let the annals record that in the second half he delivered three saves that managed the impressive feat of simultaneously looking both straightforward and not entirely straightforward, if you get my gist.

The chap still couldn’t save a penalty if his life depended upon it, but this was a welcome reminder of his virtues.

By contrast, the sooner we can yank Ben Davies out of the N17 door and cast him into a field full of those weeping and teeth-gnashing souls one always reads about, the better. The chap is a pest, make no mistake, a footballer of stunningly average abilities far too many basic errors.

Not many alternatives, alas, with both Rose and Vertonghen injured, but Walker-Peters might legitimately clear his throat and shuffle discreetly towards the front of the room next time Our Glorious Leader is compiling his teamsheet.

Need a Christmas present for the Spurs fan in your life? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon…