Burnley 2-1 Spurs: Four Tottenham Observations

1. Dreadful

I don’t mind admitting that my eyes bled profusely on watching 90 minutes of that rot. Never mind losing a perfectly winnable game to a team drifting along in the nondescript rushes; the quality of the fare was utterly dreadful.

From the off it reminded me of my days playing amateur level Old Boys football on pitches boasting barely a blade of grass, in which the ball spent the majority of the game either rising into or dropping from orbit, with barely more than three passes strung together at any one time. Thus was the brand peddled yesterday by our heroes.

I must confess to having surveyed proceedings from the comfort of the AANP sofa rather than the Burnley terraces, so could not testify with any first-hand knowledge to the actual conditions faced, but the tellybox gave the distinct impression that something of a gale was blowing, and to say our lot struggled to adapt would be to submit a pretty robust entry for Understatement of the Year. If there was a five-yard pass on offer, one of our mob could be relied upon to misplace it; if the ball was in the vicinity, you could bet your life on one of our mob miscontrolling it. ‘Sloppiness’ seemed to be epithet on everyone’s lips, and Burnely, understandably enough, lapped it up.

There were intermittent periods in which we patiently shuttled the ball back in forth in search of a nook or cranny, but on the whole our heroes simply did not get into gear, and hardly created a chance all match. Gallingly, once we equalised, and with around half an hour to eke out a winner, we barely made it to the Burnley penalty area.

2. Refereeing Decisions

The mantra here at AANP Towers has long been to do the chivalrous thing by refereeing decisions, and accept them with stiff upper lip and not a mumbled word of dissent. And while Our Glorious Leader had the air of a man with a meaty list of quibbles come the final whistle yesterday, and thrust himself into the face of the officials to suggests as such, I was more inclined to shrug the whole thing off as part of life’s rich tapestry.

Getting down to the meat and veg, it seemed to this untrained eye that for the corner that led to the opening Burnley goal, one might objectively opine that the ball came off the Burnley player last. Be that as it may, the ref awarded a corner, and a corner is therefore what it was.

For the throw-in that led to the equalising lilywhite goal, one might subjectively opine that the throw was taken from the wrong spot, the sort of call which is very much open to interpretation, and tends to be waved on as long as nothing of note accrues. Be that as it may, the ref deemed it perfectly above board, and perfectly above board is therefore what it was.

That’s the AANP tuppence worth, and the eagle-eyed will note that both teams benefited to the tune of one pretty fortunate decision each, which some might suggest is enough to render all pedantry pretty null and void. Far more bothersome to the AANP eye was the defending that allowed Burnley to score from their corner; or the general manner in which our football petered away to nothing for the 25 minutes or so after we’d equalised. This game was not lost because of refereeing decisions, dash it.

3. Foyth: No Obvious Signs of Improvement

One is generally reluctant to chide the honest young troops sent out each game to try their damnedest, because nobody drops a catch on purpose, to coin a cricketing phrase. However, there are inspirational mantras, and then there is Juan Foyth.

In time the earnest young bean might morph into the second coming of the blessed Ledley; but in the here and now the chap bears the hallmarks of one has been removed from the oven still decidedly uncooked in parts, and it showed, yet again, yesterday. Be it complacency, poor judgement, naivety or just plain ineptitude, Foyth seemed to blend equal measures of the satisfactory and the suicidal into his defending, and those proportions are pretty much doomed to failure in the unforgiving world of Premier League centre-backery.

Just about every Foyth appearance is characterised thus, risky Cruyff-turns mixed with egregious errors. Poch’s faith in his youthful charges is to be lauded, but Foyth’s propensity for the groan-inducing is becoming one heck of a cause for concern.

4. Kane: A Machine

On the bright side, Harry Kane returned, and without looking at his rapier-like best, was nevertheless, in occasional bursts, quite the handful. This being the occasion that merited it, he dropped deep to spread passes hither and thither, and his long-distance effort in the second half had the regulars going a little misty-eyed.

As for his goal, it was Kane of the very highest order – somehow running with the ball with pace and purpose without ever looking like a natural, and then finishing clinically before the watching masses had truly registered that a chance had officially been created.

The chap is an absolute machine. He recovers from injury as one would expect a machine to do; and once on the pitch he hares around and does that for which is he employed with pretty ruthless efficiency. It was all for naught yesterday, but with Chelsea and Arsenal looming a fit and goalscoring Kane is a most welcome addition.