Author: AANP

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Spurs match reports

Arsenal 2-2 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

(With apologies for silence last week and brevity this – AANP is still ringing a bell and yelling ‘Unclean’)

1. Ange-Ball Until the First Goal

Our Glorious Leader had promised that he – and by extension we – would not abandon his principles, so I suppose I ought not to have been surprised to see our lot stroke the thing around our own penalty area right from the off, a good half dozen Woolwich chumps in pursuit at every turn, all as if this were the most natural way in the world to approach the Away leg of a North London shootout.

It was all perfectly terrifying of course. Vicario and chums seemed to approach the job as if they had just got together to sip cocktails at a pool in Vegas. Good for them I suppose, the laid-back approach apparently likely to add years to one’s life – but had I been anywhere near the vicinity I’d have been inclined to vault the advertising hoardings, leap onto the pitch and grab one of two of them by the shoulders, to give them a good shake and bellow in their ears that their own net was only a couple of metres behind them dash it, they seemingly laid-back about this detail to the point of being completely oblivious to it.

Indeed, even when young Maddison received the ball on his own penalty spot, put in a solid dawdle and promptly had his pocket pilfered, the general reaction seemed to be at best philosophical. Such things happen, seemingly the gist amongst those in lilywhite. Nothing about which to worry.

Which is precisely the point of Ange-ball, when you think of it. Our Shot-Caller-In-Chief has been adamant throughout that our heroes are actively encouraged to embrace their inner Maddison and swan around on their own penalty spot, dipping shoulders and escaping a press, because sooner or later the harvest will be rich. And if it’s all too much for the delicate constitution of such as AANP, who does indeed make good on that long-held promise and keel over while watching our lot, never to unkeel, well then that can simply be marked down as ‘Collateral Damage’.

But the manner of the thing in that opening half hour was rummy, to say the least. It was pretty gripping viewing, for sure, so no concerns on that count. The Woolwich press, particularly in that opening half hour, was, as expected, pretty intense stuff, and although those in lilywhite tasked with navigating the priceless orb from our goal to theirs fairly regularly evaded this press, one did not have to be an expert in the field to detect that this was not a straightforward routine.

So few complaints there; on the contrary, I raised a glass and murmured a salute, for there trod braver souls than mine.  But what made the whiskers bristle a bit was that our heroes seemed convinced that if they could triangle their way to approximately 30 yards from Vicario’s goal, then it was job done and Ange would be along with his treats.

Of genuine inclination to slap on a backpack and go exploring the Woolwich half of the pitch there seemed to be few signs. Easier said than done of course, the other lot hardly likely to step aside and usher us through. But nevertheless, once the initial press had been craftily eluded and the confines of the centre circle hove into view, urgency seeped from our play.

Mercifully – and slightly oddly – the sands shifted like the dickens once we fell behind.

2. Ange-Ball After the Opening Goal

Actually, the sand-shifting probably occurred after Maddison’s own-area faux-pas, but thereafter, there was finally a spot of Ange-Ball as intended by its maker, viz. crossing the halfway line and approaching the opposition goal.

Senor Porro was responsible for the dinky little release from inside his own half that set events in motion for the Brennan Johnson shot that was clawed off the line; while Maddison was at the controls when it came to setting Kulusevski free down the right in the rather long-winded build-up to our equaliser. The common feature here being that in both instances our heroes did not approach halfway brimful of ideas and then rather lose enthusiasm as countdown neared zero, but instead lived by the sword and went adventuring into the unknown.

As such, I had our lot down as fair value for the draw by half-time, and every bit as likely to win it by full-time. Which might not sound like much, for a Sunday afternoon’s efforts, but in the grand scheme of things is a bit of a doozy. For our lot to go to that place, bounders and hoodlums baying at us from every corner, trail twice and not just stick around for the ride but actually gain the upper hand and mooch off a tad disappointed not to have won – all in the historical context of countless capitulations  at the first sign of trouble – was telling indeed.

If AANP allowed himself a private chunter or two at the curious absence of swashbuckling elan in the opening 30 or so, there was plenty about the remainder to sate the appetite. In particular, the eye was irresistibly drawn towards the glorious move near the end, no doubt described by the experts as ‘ping-ping-ping’, and requiring only a better final ball from, of all people, the absolute master of final balls – Pedro Porro – in order to allow Sonny a tap-in for his hat-trick.

In short, both in the mentality – in approaching a dashed intimidating atmosphere, giving the chest a good puff and somehow emerging as the Alpha – and in quality of play throughout, our lot were as impressive as I suspect we’d all hoped, but few amongst us would genuinely have believed us capable of being. As first acid tests go, it was ripping stuff.

3. The First Goal

Plenty went on about which to lose track of time and excitedly chew the ear off a long-suffering loved one, but I was particularly taken by the precision involved in our first goal. As ever, step forward Master Maddison for a rosette, whispered compliment from a dignitary and pointless bunch of flowers to wave at the crowd, for his were the critical touches of precision.

Spinning Saka to such an extent that the young bean seemed briefly to slip out of existence was a strong start. But then as the ball raced off towards the by-line, providing little opportunity for our man to pause proceedings and summon the great minds for a conflab, Maddison was forced to roll up his sleeves and start earning those millions. And earn them he did. The AANP eyes aren’t what they used to be, but I’m pretty sure there were 3 Woolwich sorts polluting the atmosphere around Sonny at what might be deemed the point of impact. A quick spot of maths told me that that left not more than half a smidge of space to hit in order for the outcome to be anything other than a bit of a washout.

All of which is to say that the odds were stacked so heavily against Maddison that they rather threatened to topple upon him and bury him alive. Those whispered compliments and pointless flowers ought therefore really to be top of the range stuff, because to say that Maddison picked a needle from a haystick – at full stretch, at full pelt and with some red-clad fiend lumbering into view – would be to understate the thing.

At which point, one might suggest that Sonny had little to do in order to earn his accolades and make his little hand-camera-square thing. ‘Pop Ball In Net’ would have about covered the instructions.

Again, however, this final part of the operation was a tad more nuanced. As alluded to earlier, one could hardly suggest that when Son crept into view the coast was clear. The coast was crowded, and in fact fast becoming something of a claustrophobe’s nightmare, with bodies advancing upon the poor lad like vultures getting right down to it for their daily spot of carcass.

Throw in a goalkeeper who had only minutes earlier demonstrated a penchant for the elastic, and the equation upped a few notches in difficulty.

It is therefore to Sonny’s immense credit that he put into effect just about the only type of contact that would win the day. The computer in his head, no doubt whirring like the dickens, told him that a first-time poke, using the pace of the ball and placed as far as physically possible from Raya was required; and Sonny’s left peg rather stylishly did all of the above.

There is of course a further volume or two to be penned on this one. Destiny deciding that they could brandish all the early yellow cards in the world at him but he’d be dashed if such nonsense would prevent him from dedicating his evening to keeping under wraps one of the world’s premier right wingers. The entire back-four exchanging some furtive nods and seeing to it that not a single, clear second half chance would be ceded. Bissouma gliding effortlessly this way and that, no matter the geography or number of chasing foes. Vicario making saves that, while of the standard one would expect, might still have brought a concerned frown to the map of a previous custodian or two – whilst also proving his value as the final ball-playing option with his feet.

On this occasion however, there will be no further elaboration. AANP is off for several species of medication, and with hopes unreasonably high about what damage we might inflict upon Liverpool.

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Spurs match reports

Burnley 2-5 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

UPDATE 24/9/23: A little note of apology for the absence of thoughts on Sheff Utd and the NLD – unfortunately my immune system flung open its doors and forgot to say when. A little under the weather. Hopefully back for Liverpool!
AANP

1. Son Up Top

(With apologies for tardiness. Was off gallivanting this weekend, don’t you know.)

The decision to give Richarlison a quiet bump off onto the sidelines and begin with Sonny up top certainly got the tongues wagging like nobody’s business. Never mind that Richarlison  was diagnosed with that peskiest and most prevalent of injuries (“a knock”) – around the campfire the conclusion was fairly firmly established: Richarlison had been dropped, paying the price for that alarming surge of ineptitude in front of goal.

Now much like a troublesome female juvenile in a nursery rhyme, when good Richarlison is rollicking, and when bad he’s something of a wash-out. And given that he’s spent the first few weeks of the season mooching about the place like a surly teenager, one can only imagine the sort of company he must be now, having seen his replacement dink and ping his way to a pretty effortless hat-trick.

The peculiarity in all this is that aside from his three goals, Sonny can hardly be said to have got up to a great deal during his little afternoon jolly at the weekend. Not a criticism in the slightest, to be clear, for as long as he’s knocking away hat-tricks he can spend the rest of the game grabbing a spot of shut-eye down by the corner flag as far as AANP is concerned. The point is more that Sonny’s while principal role was to crack away the goals, and crack away the goals he did, beyond that it’s difficult to rack up much in the way of his inputs.

He certainly hared away with all the energy and enthusiasm of a puppy chasing a stick when it came to closing down the poor old Burnley goalkeeper, which is actually a pretty critical part of the whole Ange-ball operation; but if anyone were donning the spectacles and keeping close track of the moments when he dropped deep or brought others into play or whatnot, they’d have been in for a disappointment.

And as such, poor old Richarlison’s sour expression would not have sweetened one jot. “Pfft”, one can well imagine him snorting, when being regaled with tales of Sonny’s heroics. And if invited to elaborate, no doubt the unfortunate young bean would have muttered something along the lines that bounding after a goalkeeper is pretty much the art that he (Richarlison) has mastered above any other, so far this season. It’s become his signature move, over the last four weeks (well, that and tripping over his own feet when in sight of goal).

Of course, the critical difference between the pair is that Richarlison spent three games looking like he’s been specifically programmed to do anything but score goals, finding ever more elaborate means of stuffing up opportunities as they fall to him. Sonny, by contrast, breezed about the place on Saturday looking the sort of young slab who has been hitting the bottom corner every time he touches the ball.

For a lad who hadn’t scored in a good half a dozen games, he took his first goal with a remarkable breeziness. A dinked chip, of all things! If he had put his head down and thumped the thing home, or carefully picked out a bottom corner, I’m sure we’d still have serenaded the loveable young charlie all the way back to North London – but to dink-chip the thing really made you stop what you were doing and mutter an admiring, “What ho!” Quite where that level of confidence sprouted from is anyone’s guess, but one cannot in month of Sundays imagine Richarlison tucking away his chances with such care-free nonchalance.

And there’s the rub, what? As long as Richarlison is labouring away up top with the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Son is sending goalkeepers and defenders flying before dreamily flicking the ball over them and into the net, then the forward-line conundrum is actually devastatingly straightforward, and not in the least controversial. Sonny’s dead-eyed accuracy (easy to dismiss his second and third, but both were as emphatic as they come) complements the rest of the Ange-ball apparatus perfectly. If Richarlison can discover such alchemy I’m sure he’ll be welcomed back into the fold pretty readily, but it would be a pretty rummy sort of prune who adjusted the starting XI to reinstate Richarlison up-top after this weekend’s activity, and Big Ange certainly doesn’t seem the sort.

2. Manor Solomon

The other critical element in the whole ‘Richarlison Demotion’ episode was the introduction into the plot of young Manor Solomon, the musical chairs setup dictating that he took up Son’s station on the left, while Son, as discussed dashed around at the apex.

I’ve been a little taken aback to find opinions of the fine young fellow hovering around the “Unconvinced” sort of marker. Thought young Solomon beavered away pretty effectively myself, but it just goes to prove that old gag about Chap A’s meat and Chap B’s poison.

I suppose if judging Solomon by the very highest standards (and why wouldn’t we?) then one might argue that his outputs were in the ‘Solid but Unspectacular’ category. He had his moments, and set up two goals, which is not to be sniffed at (just ask Richarlison); all of which was useful, but I suppose some might argue that he did all of the above without necessarily giving the impression of being the pre-eminent performer in the whole spectacular.

And frankly, if this were indeed the criticism to be levelled at Solomon, I’d mark it down as mightily harsh. In his first meaningful start for the club I thought he did a spiffing job of things. He looked pretty dashed lively every time the ball was rolled his way – and not a ‘Lucas Moura’ brand of lively either, that involves bowing the head, setting off on a dribble, losing all sense of direction and falling over at the end of some obscure cul-de-sac. Rather, I thought that his eyes generally lit up and he wasted little time in taking on whichever foe was shoved his way, often with a goodish level of success.

He set up Son for two goals, popped a few shots away, pinged a few threatening passes across the area and looked as likely to skin his man as not each time he opted for a dribble. Admittedly, the general sense was of someone of a Bergwijn or Gil sort of level, the sort of imp who can dizzy an opposing defender on a good day, but who may well infuriate a bit on other occasions – but as mentioned, for a first stab at the role it was decent enough. Truth be told, he struck me as being every bit as effective – if not more so – as Sonny had been in the previous three games.

3. Udogie

The disinterested observer might not have registered, and Gary Neville would presumably have described his efforts as Championship-standard or some similar rot, but with his each passing interaction I became increasingly taken with young Signor Udogie.

As alluded to above, if you one were the sort watching proceedings in the way AANP watches a game of cricket – glass charged, conversation flowing, typically not more than three-quarters of an eye on the match itself – one might feasibly have taken in the match in its entirety without even noticing Udogie on the pitch. For here was a chap who operated, if not exactly by stealth, then certainly in fairly unobtrusive fashion.

If the ball needed to be won, down in his little patch on the south-western corner, he simply put his head down and went about doing exactly that, with minimum fuss or fanfare. Similarly, if a pretty incisive pass needed executing, or even a tight corner needed wriggling out of, Udogie seemed always to be one step ahead. The more one noticed it, the more impressive it became.

And the gold stars rack up even more freely when one considers that young Udogie has been fulfilling a role that presumably is a tad foreign to him, what with inverting and popping into central midfield areas one moment, and then sprinting off in a diagonal towards the left wing the next, in order to fulfil his precise role within Ange-ball.

Maddison understandably attracts the headlines, and Son toddled off with the match-ball, but in terms of scuttling around behind the scenes making sure that everything was perfectly in place for the principals to hog the limelight, few can compare with the boy Destiny.

4. Maddison, and the Scenario One Dares Not Contemplate

So after a slightly gormless opening five minutes, our heroes rolled out yet another pretty breathtaking demonstration of Ange-Ball at its finest. All concerned spluttered out their superlatives at Pedro Porro’s pass for our fifth, but to me this detracted from the preceding 14 consecutive passes, which brought about the goal. Few passages of play this season will better sum up the quality of the fare currently being peddled by the soon-to-be-crowned Premier League winners 23/24.

At its heart once more was the marvellous young Maddison, and rarely has a lilywhite looked to be enjoying the nine-to-five quite so much as this fellow. His goal could not have been struck more perfectly, flying off to its destination like a missile, and boasting, when viewed from one particularly becoming angle, the joyous quality of starting outside the post before curling just sufficiently to wind its way back inside. A rarely-spotted specimen, and one that certainly prompts some pretty excited nattering amongst the regulars.

So all is rosy in the N17 garden, and we would be well advised simply to drink it in and enjoy the moment. Nevertheless, at that point in the evening in which one realises with horror that the whiskey bottle has run dry, I did find myself contemplating a more severe scenario, in which young Master Maddison, for whatever reason, might happen to become incapacitated; and here, the thought experiment took a pretty jarring turn.

For this chap really is the heartbeat of the operation. Bissouma is an absolute diamond; the VDV-Romero axis is surely destined for greatness; but Maddison really makes the thing tick. Should some ill fate befall him, I’m sure Our Glorious Leader would shrug it off in that philosophical and ever-so-slightly intimidating manner of his – but a certain unspeakable trouble would most definitely be afoot.

As it happens, I thought Lo Celso looked a pretty shiny sort of object during pre-season, all well-spotted passes and intelligent positions – but Maddison has swiftly elevated himself to the level of the indispensable. Put in the most vulgar terms, Lo Celso would have to play out of his skin to replicate the chap’s efforts.

Truth be told, the concern can be repeated for a couple of other positions. As mentioned, the central defence pairing looks ever more impressive; but remove one of VDV or Romero for a few weeks, and replace with Davinson Sanchez, and I suspect we’ll be squirming in our seats. See also Messrs Udogie, Bissouma and so on. The main cast is breathtaking; the first reserves, decidedly less so.

But fie upon such dreary supposition – it may never happen, and if the gods smile upon us (which will be necessary in order to confirm the Title in May) it never will. Going into an international break, when have we ever enjoyed life this much? The football is scintillating, the results are excellent and one simply doesn’t want the matches to end.

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Spurs match reports

Fulham 1-1 Spurs: Two Tottenham Talking Points

1. Ange’s Selection

You’ll be pretty relieved to hear that the drill today at AANP Towers is to err on the side of brevity, what with the need to spend the midweek daylight hours earning the monthly envelope rather than nattering away about our heroes. As such it’s just a couple of the standout points of discussion, but they don’t come much fruitier than what the daring amongst us might term Big Ange’s First Wrong Move.

Hindsight, of course, is always flawless, and it would be pretty easy to clear the throat and spend a goodish amount of time chirping away about how ill-considered was Our Glorious Leader’s choice of personnel in the aftermath of last night’s limp old showing. But I can at least look my fellow lilywhite in the eye and state with all sincerity that AANP has never bought into this business of mass changes in personnel. Never liked it at international level, don’t like it at club level. In fact, search long enough and you’ll find one or two souls who received a bit of a lecture from me making this point immediately before kick-off.

The principal objection is that for a fringe player to take a deep breath and deliver a performance that has the paying public rising to their feet and strewing the place with garlands, he really needs those around him to be regulars in their roles. Put another way, if we want to see what young Skipp is made of, then throw him in alongside two of Sarr, Maddison and Bissouma, rather than instead of. Or to get the real lowdown on Manor Solomon on the right of attack, make sure that the usual suspects are patrolling that flank alongside him. And so on. The principle generally applies across the team, and as mentioned, can be mimicked in national colours – if for example one wants to assess the cut of Ivan Toney’s jib in attack, or gauge the ticks and crosses of Trent in midfield, one keeps all (or most) other things equal, and lets them off the leash amongst established company.

This business of changing nine of the eleven, by contrast, generates precious few useful insights. They can be the best players around, but if they’re all new to their surroundings then they all rather stumble around the place in pretty rudderless fashion, not quite knowing who’s in charge and at what precise hour to unleash hell.

As it happens, I rather fancy that a Skipp-Hojbjerg-Lo Celso triumvirate would, after a few weeks of working together, function well enough to hold their own quite competently against someone like Fulham. But it would be a dickens of an ask to expect them to start purring from Minute 1 of their first appearance together. And the odds lengthen considerably when ahead of them they have Perisic and Solomon making their first starts, and behind them four more fresh faces out of five.

AANP would much rather have seen one of two of the usual midfield three in situ, and similarly one change in each of the defence and attack. The flow would not have been too wildly disrupted, and those brought in would have enjoyed more becoming conditions in which to peddle their wares.

The counter-argument, of course, is that Maddison and Bissouma in particular are the sort of fellows whose health and wellbeing for the bigger pond of the Premier League is just too bally important to go frittering away in the Carabao Cup. And one certainly understands the point. It is loaded with merit. Should Maddison have bounded around from the off and then twisted a limb at a right-angle half an hour in, a few pitchforks would have been grabbed amongst the faithful without too much delay.

Nevertheless, some sort of balancing act ought to have been achievable without too much strain upon the grey cells. Much like I understand is the case with the Royal Family, one wouldn’t shove the whole lot of them aboard the same aircraft – but that doesn’t mean forbidding any of them from flying at all. Which is to say, perhaps Maddison could have been rested, but Sarr and Bissouma started; Romero wrapped up with slippers and a bourbon while at least two of the other defensive three were readied for action. After all, playing twice in a week, once in a while, ought not to be too much of a stretch for these fine young specimens.

However, Our Glorious Leader presumably had his reasons. For a start he would have expected, reasonably enough, that even if they did resemble a bunch of strangers speaking in differing tongues, the eleven selected would at least each show the individual acumen to win their own individual battles and make more of a fist of things than they did in the first half in particular.

He might also have seen this as a rare chance to give as many as possible of his troops as close to 90 minutes as possible, there being limited opportunity for this sort of thing in the coming weeks without the benefit of European jollies. And with the transfer window looming rather awkwardly over proceedings, he might have considered this whole exercise a necessary precursor to a spot of September 1st culling.

Whatever the reasons, the dice has been cast, recorded and put back in its box now, so there’s no turning back. In truth it’s not really too great a blow, and frankly I struggle even to pretend to be particularly upset; but it is a dashed shame to toss away quite so casually a fairly straightforward opportunity to challenge for a trophy.

2. Richarlison

On the bright side, at least Richarlison pocketed some winnings. Considerably assisted though he might have been by the curious incident of the Fulham bobbie whose absence was temporarily enforced by a boot in a state of disrepair, one does not shrug off gift-horses when they rumble into view. One does instead precisely what Richarlison did, and loop a header back across the goalkeeper and into the net.

At kick-off, the list of wants from this fixture was pretty short and free of frills. Win the thing; have one or two of the reserves catch the eye; and by hook, crook or a penalty rustle up a goal for Richarlison. And one out of three will have to do.

It’s a good job that the wish-list did not extend to Richarlison delivering an all-round performance that blew the minds of all in attendance, because once again he stomped around the place looking like he didn’t quite belong. No shortage of effort, but whatever he tried, be it linking up the play or racing onto forward balls, it didn’t really work.

Even after his goal, which I rather bobbishly expected to stuff the lad full to bursting with confidence and brio, he continued to bump into others and generally bang the old loaf against a brick wall. For what it’s worth, I remain happy to keep giving him time, and remain confident that the goals will at least trickle, if not flow; and more to the point Big Ange seems similarly inclined, at least until such time as another striker worthy of the name is yanked into the building. Nevertheless, his overall performance was a bit of a non-event, punctuated by one isolated cause for cheer. Rather summed up the whole thing, what?

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Spurs match reports

Bournemouth 0-2 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Maddison

New to the fold though he might be, but young James Maddison doesn’t seem to have needed more than about 30 seconds to work out the way of things in lilywhite, and as ever, was bounding about the place like he’d been behind the controls for years.

It would do quite the injustice to the other ten to suggest that every good thing about us emanated from Maddison’s size nines, but even allowing for the merits of the collective – and they were plentiful from opening toot to final curtain – Maddison had clearly decided that he wanted to be string-puller-in-chief, and went about his business making it so.

Particularly pleasing was the fact that he did not limit himself to the final third. Here was a man not simply in the market for the headline-making stuff, with a mind to put his feet up and catch his breath when the action drifted back south. “If the ball is in play then I dashed well want to be involved” seemed to be his motto, and as such it didn’t really matter whether the thing was being parcelled out around our own area or the opponents’ – Maddison was as likely as not to be ten yards away, waving the arms and hollering for it.

I suppose if one were formally to state his position it would be ‘Midfield: Left-ish of Centre’, and as such I fancied I saw he and Sonny each beginning to detect the other’s wavelength, which bodes well for the coming months; but in common with his chums Maddison did not take this positional title as anything more than a loose guide, and tended to drift wherever he fancied, as long as it meant he could grab hold of the ball and start improvising.

It is the addition of Maddison, a bona fide creative soul in midfield, as much as the bright and breezy new setup, that has made this current vintage such fun to watch. This does of course raise a whispered question of what might happen should he be indisposed at some point, and in this context I watched Senor Lo Celso’s late cameo with a particularly beady eye.

Despite murmurs of a tearful farewell in the coming days, Lo Celso appears to be the obvious first reserve for Maddison, and from what I saw in pre-season he has grasped the gist of things, poking and prodding appropriately enough from midfield. Yesterday, in truth, he did little to impress, hardly bounding about the place with the same energy and creative verve as his predecessor, but one can probably excuse him for failing to set the world alight in a sodden 20 minutes off the bench. Tuesday night at Fulham might provide a better gauge of his suitability for the role.

2. Van de Ven

Part of the fun of Ange-Ball is that we have so much possession that one doesn’t actually spend too much time worrying about the defence, but as and when required we seemed to do the necessaries. Bournemouth had their moments, particularly at the start of the second half, but they rarely amounted to clear sights of goal (the only that spring to mind being a botched effort just before the half-time gong).

As with our attacking efforts, one is inclined to share the praise around the various contributing members, given that each got their head down and worked up an honest sweat as required. But even allowing for this, I was rather taken – and not for the first time – by the efforts of young Master Van de Ven in the centre of things. Much has been made of the young bean’s turn of pace, but this particular asset did not really need to be unwrapped yesterday.

Instead, it was a day for the more cerebral sort of interventions. Judging when to step up; temporarily departing from his berth to snuff out danger; extending a well-timed leg – that sort of thing. I was at times reminded of dear old Ledley, in the way VDV would negate the need for some lung-busting run and last-ditch tackle, by simply giving a moment’s thought to the situation and nipping in well before matters escalated.

There was a certain finesse to his game, and with Romero alongside him taking the occasional opportunity to remind us how much he loves to go thundering into the heart of matters, muscles flexing and bones crunching and so forth, it struck me that these two might complement each other pretty well in time. The pair of them will presumably have sterner tests in due course, but this was not a complete cakewalk, and VDV in particular did a pretty neat line in making things look a tad easier than I hazard they actually were.

3. Richarlison

If Maddison shimmered away throughout, and VDV neat and tidied his way through the afternoon, then poor old Richarlison belonged way over at the other end of the spectrum.

In case it was not already pretty blindingly obvious that this was not really his day, that vaguely comical moment early in the second half rammed home the point, when he trod on the ball and followed up with a hack at the nearest Bournemouth leg, to vent a spot of that rage that had almost visibly been bubbling within.

To his credit, and in the interests of balance, it should be noted that Richarlison works like the dickens to close down opponents, principally goalkeepers. Hardly the stuff of which headline-writers dream, I accept, but it’s a pretty critical component of Ange-Ball – and not the sort of thing the previous chap could sustain throughout a match. But Richarlison will plough this particular furrow pretty indefatigably, and it means that opposing goalkeepers and centre-backs are granted limited time for pausing to survey matters and run through their list of options and so forth. The chap will rush them, and those around him in lilywhite tend to take their lead from him.

Which is all well and good, but we do all want our strikers to stick the dashed thing in the net, and here the poor old shrimp is making a terrific pig’s ear of things.

Now in his defence, not all the chances he had were entirely straightforward. That header from a corner in the first half, for example, while presentable enough, was not without its challenges. It was mid-air for a start, which I suppose ought to be negotiable enough for a professional footballer, but still adds a certain complication; on top of which the angle was pretty acute and there was a Bournemouth soul pretty nearby doing his damnedest to impede our man in his task. In short, not an easy chance.

However, the other notable chance presented to him – by Maddison, inevitably, when the ball was fed onto his right foot while bearing down on goal – ought really to have been popped away without too much fuss. One understood that Richarlison tried to drag the ball inside the sliding challenge of the defender, but thereafter his feet seemed to take off on their own separate project, dancing infield and effecting semi-Cruyff turns, when what we really wanted to see was the chap blast the ball into the net and toddle off for his knee-slide. Inevitably, having added layer upon layer of complication to the task, Richarlison ran out of both room and feet, and the whole thing ended in an ungainly mess that rather summed up the way things are going for him at the moment.

Thereafter he mooched about the place in the sort of strop that would have been the envy of any self-respecting teenager, before being hauled off; at which point our attack became infinitely sharper with Sonny at its stem.

I suppose there are some demanding that Richarlison be banished from the premises and have a limb or two lopped off for good measure. AANP understands the frustration, but remains pretty sanguine about the honest fellow’s performances. Primarily because if he can bang in goals as Number 9 for Brazil in a World Cup, I don’t see too much reason to fret about a few missed chances for our lot in August. He does rather visibly let his mistakes affect his performance, but I suppose this also means we can look forward to a pretty irresistible force once he does find that first goal or two. Not too much need to panic. Yet.

4. Ange’s Substitutions

I don’t think he can take too much credit for throwing on Ben Davies when poor old Destiny limped off with his mysterious injury at the end, but otherwise Big Ange can allow himself a pretty satisfied puff or two of the Cuban when he reflects on his in-game mix-and-matching.

It would be no stretch to suggest that hooking Sarr and Richarlison for Perisic and Hojbjerg had precisely the desired effect upon things. Few of sound mind would suggest that Hojbjerg can match Sarr for youthful exuberance and boundless energy between the two penalty areas, but the Dane was hardly brought on for this purpose.

Rather, with Bournemouth having emerged from the interval with a number of guns blazing, Hojbjerg added a decent-sized dollop of sense and stability to proceedings in the middle of the pitch. On winning and shoving onward the ball, rather than gallop forward à la Sarr he held his position, and what had previously been an ever-so-slightly wobbling ship was once again steadied.

The addition of Perisic was similarly abundant in common sense – principally because it meant that Richarlison could throw no more toys from his particular pram. Sonny instead took on the forward role with gusto, and Perisic created a fresh and slightly different brand of mischief on the left.

It worked swimmingly, not least in creating the rather critical second goal, and in general the numerous combined years that Perisic and Hojbjerg brought to proceedings served us well.

Skipp and Lo Celso were also shoved on, and while these were perhaps less striking – Lo Celso, as mentioned, underwhelming slightly in his role as Maddison’s first reserve – they still made some sense – fresh legs and whatnot.

So while these substitutions were hardly the foremost innovations of our time, they still felt like sensible moves at sensible junctures, and given that some managers can be fairly chided for failing to make in-game tweaks, it all merited an approving nod, and helped to see out another serene win from what had looked beforehand a tricky old engagement.

Who amongst us could not simply watch this stuff all day and all night? Yes, the clean sheet was nice, and goals from different sources is a pretty useful box to tick, and we were even briefly top of the league – but it’s the sheer aesthetic pleasure of watching our lot ping their way through opponents that is making this the most fun I’ve had watching Spurs in years. As the sages in the stands astutely observed – we’ve got our Tottenham back.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-0 Man Utd: Six Tottenham Talking Points

1. Sarr

Not to be uncharitable to Oliver Skipp – as honest a bean as ever trod the hallowed turf – but when tasked with recalling his contribution to last week’s affair I drew a blank for an uncomfortably long time, before a single word floated to mind: ‘nondescript’.  

The news that young Master Sarr had inherited his berth for this one was therefore met with a raised eyebrow of intrigue in this neck of the woods. Certainly, the mood around these (and, as I understand, many other) parts had been that while Bissouma and Maddison were doing all their respective necessaries, and with flying colours, a job opening was presenting itself for the final part of that midfield triumvirate. Mid-game (last weekend) there had been a few understandable yelps for Lo Celso; give it a few months and the knees will weaken considerably when Bentancur bobs back into view; but I was as curious as the next fellow to see what Sarr might bring.

And to his credit, the young egg brought a decent-sized sackful of the good stuff. Admittedly in the first half hour or so he seemed to be peddling an Oliver Skipp impression – working hard but to little great effect – but for this he could be excused, as Bissouma aside, not too many in lilywhite were having the game of their lives.

Thereafter, however, seemingly struck by the realisation that this stage was actually a pretty good fit for him, he began belting out a few greatest hits. Tackles were won (and as often as not with a spot of additional biff, for meaning), and crisp passes were passed, which meant that he fitted right in with the happy campers all sides of him. That aforementioned triumvirate had a pretty balanced look to it, which might sound like a rather dreary physics experiment but is actually intended as a compliment of the highest order. To Bissouma’s all-action defence-to-attack dribbling, and Maddison’s creativity, one could add decent wedges of energy and intelligence from Sarr.

On top of which he made a difficult finish look pea-shellingly easy. Having already dipped into that well of energy and intelligence to Platt/Scholes/Dele his way into the penalty area at just the right moment, he then managed to keep under control a ball that was both bobbling and moving away from him. Lashed into the net it might have been, but as he swung back the appropriate limb in preparation for his shot, the AANP mortgage was on the ball sailing off into the gods.

Big Ange still seems to be in Test Mode when it comes to identifying the right fit for the starting eleven, but P-M Sarr’s struck me as one heck of an audition for the coming 36 games.

2. Bissouma

As mentioned, however, it was Bissouma and Maddison who again elevated the thing.

Some may have cleared the throat with a spot of indignation at the comparisons to Mousa Dembele being tossed about the place when it comes to Yves Bissouma, but if a fellow is going to collect the ball from his own defenders and then glide past an endless stream of opposing midfielders with little more than a spot of upper-body misdirection, then what else is there to do but draw precisely such comparisons?

A common lament echoing around the walls of AANP Towers last season was that none amongst our midfield number seemed either confident or capable of collecting the ball under pressure, much less shielding it and turning with it and finding nearby chums and whatnot. Close the eyes, and it is not too difficult to conjure up an image of a Skipp, Hojbjerg, Winks or whomever facing their own goal and being bundled out of possession, ensuing catastrophe not far behind.

Bissouma, however, is a different and vastly preferable kettle of fish. Whether receiving the ball just inside his own area or just outside the opposition’s, he seems to exhibit a pretty minimal level of concern either way, and just gets on with the business of dipping a shoulder and easing his way around swinging opposition limbs. It is an absolute joy to behold. Presumably there will come times when this approach backfires and Bissouma comes to look something of a chump, but frankly he is already amassing a decent wodge of credit in the bank.

The newly-signed misfit of last season is unrecognisable. If he really were unable to master Conte’s tactics, then I rather scorn the tactics and the man who oversaw them, because Bissouma has twice in a week looked comfortably the best player on the pitch.

3. Maddison


And Maddison was not far behind him. At times in the first half, and then regularly in the second, he seemed to delight in first demanding the ball and then strutting around with the thing once it had been sent his way.

Nor was it just for show. Be it a pass or a dribble, Maddison seemed pretty adept at picking an option that caused a fair amount of consternation – or blind panic – amongst the United bods. He may not have scored or created a goal today, but his contribution was considerable, not least in that glorious period after half-time when our heroes really had the other lot against the ropes and gave them a good old-fashioned pummelling.

I particularly enjoyed seeing Maddison share a midfield with one Christian Eriksen, the last creative spark to bound about the place. A regular grumble about the latter was that he was a bit too polite about things when in lilywhite, happy to let others grab the mic as it were, while he sidled off into the background.

By contrast, Maddison seems always to be popping up about the place demanding to be involved. I suppose strictly speaking his official position is on the left-ish side of the centre, but the net result seems to be that if the ball is in play then he is merrily bobbing towards it, happy to take on the responsibility of pulling a few of the key strings.

4. Porro

Not that it was all a bed of roses in midfield. As well as Sarr, the other tweak from last week’s line-up was Porro for Emerson, in that right-back-cum-who-the-hell-knows role. It was not Master P.P.’s finest hour and a half. That whole collect-the-ball-on-the-half-turn-outside-one’s-own-area gambit may look a whizz when Yves Bissouma casually unveils it, but Porro’s attempts were rather more on the ham-fisted side of things. Whether it was lack of technique, lack of awareness or lack of eyes in the back of his head, it soon became evident that popping the ball to Porro outside our area was a manoeuvre absolutely dripping in risk.

In truth I felt rather sorry for the young nib. I mean, there he was brought to these shores under the beady eye of one chappie, who then exploded in rage and biffed off, to be replaced by another chappie with vastly different ideas about the way of things. Because lest we forget, Porro was beginning to demonstrate himself to be one of the better wing-backs about the place. Play a vaguely conventional system, and ask him to bomb up the right flank, and he’s your man. Be it crosses, cute passes or pretty lethal finishing, his final third armoury was well-stocked.

And instead, he’s now being asked to tuck inside and spend a goodish amount of time pretending to be three-fifths of a defensive midfielder. As with Emerson last week, he seems to be a fairly capable square peg being asked to rearrange the features in order to squeeze into a round hole. Porro, like Emerson, is pretty decent at what he does best, but this system seems to ask him to do something rather different.

5. Vicario

A successful afternoon’s work for young Signor Vicario. Opinions ranged a bit last week – I was rather taken by his calmness on the ball; others seemed to resent being driven to the brink of coronary failure by it – but this time around we can probably agree that, like or loathe the approach, he did not put too many feet wrong.

His presence certainly adds a pretty natty line of operation to our defensive setup. Whereas in the days of Lloris, on seeing our lot attempt to play out from the back the anthem on the AANP lips was typically some variant of “Just clear the bally thing, dash it,” nowadays I watch on with a curiosity bordering on admiration.

Vicario seems awfully comfortable in possession. Heck, I rather fancy that if necessary he could do a better job than Porro in that spot just outside the penalty area. Well maybe not, but you get the gist. Picking a pass from within the six-yard box seems to be just another unspectacular part of the day-job for the fellow. This brave new era will certainly take a bit of getting used to, but having a goalkeeper as available for a spot of keep-ball as any of the outfield mob certainly makes things a few notches easier.

Vicario also had a handful of saves to make, many of which were straight down his gullet, but one or two of which involved a spot of the old spring-heeled action. And again, say what you want about the aesthetics of it all, but he did precisely what was required in each instance. For all the leaping around in the latter stages, I personally thought that his low block in the early moments, when dashing off his line to face Rashford, was the pick of the bunch.

Still too early to opine wisely either way, but this at least was reassuring stuff.

6. Ange-Ball

So another day, and another triumph for Ange-Ball. Not just in terms of the result, but very much in terms of the performance too. As with last week, and the various pre-season jaunts, this was something that brought the joy back to watching our lot.

The usual caveats apply – we might have been well behind before we really got the hang of the thing; the whizzy football was produced in fits and starts; Richarlison still seems to be playing the wrong sport – but this was often marvellous stuff to take in.

Worth bearing in mind too that we are, in patches, purring away after only about six or seven weeks of the new regime. The draw last week was against a side that has had a settled and organised way of doing things for a season; the win today against a Top Four team whose manager has been in situ for over a year. Frankly, the thought of where our lot might be after a year of Ange makes me rather giddy.

Oddly enough, one of the moments that really left its mark over in this corner of the interweb came from the size nines of Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, a chap who has generally been shovelled well off into the background since Our Glorious Leader came rumbling into view (to the extent that this might have been his final appearance in lilywhite, Atletico-infused rumours doing the rounds).

In the dying embers, Hojbjerg, having been brought on to wise-old-head the game to its conclusion, popped up in a right-back sort of spot – and I mean a conventional right-back spot, rather than the new-fangled midfield-ish one. From out of nowhere, Hojbjerg produced a rather thrilling turn to leave his man groping at thin air, and for a moment he seemed to be away. The pitch opened up ahead of him; momentum suddenly shifted onto the front-foot; that opponent was still groping away in the wrong direction. Opportunity knocked.

But Hojbjerg, being Hojbjerg, responded to this new and exciting possibility by picking the option that I suppose made him so undroppable under Jose and Conte, and put his foot on the ball before spinning around and passing the damn thing backwards. And one understands – the game was almost won and the lead well established, so playing it safe would bring its reward.

But the whole episode jarred rather, precisely because it was so out of keeping with the 180 minutes of Ange-Ball we have witnessed to date. This current Tottenham vintage turns its man and doesn’t look back, but puts its head down and races forward, or at the very least pings off a pass in a northerly direction for some well-intentioned colleague to do the racing forward instead. Watching Hojbjerg default to safety-first seemed to ram home the fact that he was one of the last of the old era, while all around him were Bissoumas and Maddisons and the like, for whom receiving the ball was basically a prompt to go wandering off on the attack.

All a rather long-winded way of saying that this newly-adopted style is absolutely ripping stuff, nascent and rough around the edges though it might be, and I for one cannot wait for the next instalment.  

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Spurs match reports

Brentford 2-2 Spurs: Seven Tottenham Talking Points

1. Vicario

Beginning geographically, and our newest custodian actually began his lilywhite career by making a solid pig’s ear of things, with a pass firmly planted off into the stands. Thereafter, however, Vicario certainly gave the impression of being well fitted by Nature for life with the ball at his feet. In fact, at times he came across as one of those chappies in a 5-a-side team who takes their stint in goal only because they absolutely have to, but is far happier outfield and will make the point by regularly straying out of their area to join in the keep-ball.

And in that respect I thought he ticked along nicely. Easy to forget, but in recent years we’ve been treated to the sight of Lloris’ brain appearing to melt every time he had to deal with the ball at his feet. Vicario by contrast was pretty laid-back about ball-on-turf matters.

I must admit that the sight of him casually stroking the ball to a chum on our penalty spot quickened the old pulse a dashed sight more than is ideal on a Sunday afternoon, but he seemed to consider it all a bit of a non-event and just kept doing it. And since nobody around him demurred, and given that it was also entirely in keeping with the broader Ange-ball approach, I fairly quickly became a fully paid-up signatory.

In other respects there were limited grounds for wild and premature over-reactions. He had no chance with either goal; claimed the occasional cross; and pootled off on one ill-advised little wander late one, which on another day might have resulted in another penalty. But by and large he kept his head down and amused himself by milking every opportunity to play the ball with his feet.

2. Van de Ven and Udogie On the Left

A nervous eyebrow was raised pre-match at the sight of both of Messrs VDV ^Udogie stationed across the left side of our back four. Not to cast aspersions on their characters or abilities of course, or to question the impeccable judgement of our newest grand fromage, but still. Throwing in one fellow for his first taste of life in a Spurs defence does prompt the sharp intake of breath and silent prayer – and, frankly, carries the risk of traumatising the young nib in question – but one generally reassures oneself by looking along the line at more experienced bods east and west.

To have two such new faces stationed at the back suggested that Ange either brimmed with confidence in the abilities of both, or was happy to play pretty fast and loose with our back-line.

Mercifully, it proved a pretty inspired call. Van de Ven came across as one of those chaps who knew where and when a crisis might brew and his services be required, and conscientiously galloped off to the appropriate coordinates on schedule. He was pretty unfortunate to pop the ball into his own net, but that deflection aside his touch looked pretty assured, and the fabled burst of pace was in good working order throughout.

Young Master Udogie was even more impressive. I’m glad that he rather than I was asked to bob about the place as an ‘inverted full-back’, because the concept makes my head swim a goodish bit, but he seemed pretty up-to-speed with the T’s and C’s of the deal. It seemed a nifty concept, allowing for an extra body in attack, and Udogie did it well; but crucially also had the good sense to keep an eye on his defensive duties at all times. He is evidently the sort of johnnie who takes the defensive stuff pretty seriously too, as witnessed by some robust thou-shalt-not-pass stuff at various points in the second half in particular.

When one realises that the main defensive lapses had their genesis on our right side, one appreciates all the more the efforts of VDV and Udogie, the contrast between this pair on the left and the Emerson-Sanchez axis on the right being noticeable.

3. Bissouma

Possibly foremost amongst a healthy selection of positives were the works and deeds throughout of one Yves Bissouma. After some pretty underwhelming stuff from him last season, this felt a lot more like the laddie about whom we all raved and back-slapped last summer when he first pitched up at the door.

In fact, this actually surpassed what I had been expecting of him last season. To my shame, I had him down as pretty much Destroyer of Opposing Bright Ideas, and little else. Mark my surprise, then, when I realised as today’s frolics unfolded, that the fellow is actually also an impish master of the Fleet-Footed Skip Around Attempted Opposing Challenges. Put another way, I assumed Bissouma’s trademark would be his tackling; I was ill-prepared for adeptness also in the field of dribbling.

And yet, with a dip of the shoulder and a spot of close control, he could often be spotted weaving his way forward past a challenge or two before handing the mic over to a nearby chum to clear their throat and hammer out a line of their own. I’ll whisper it, and qualify it as dreadfully early to say such things, but it even reminded me of the way one Mousa Dembele would transfer matters from his own half to the opposition’s, leaving bystanders to do little more than flap at him.

With Maddison (more on whom below) alongside – or, rather – further forward to receive Bissouma’s produce, the midfield actually began to glisten a bit, a million miles from the drudgery of last year. Give everyone a bit of time to get used to the new way of things, and then throw in Bentancur in a few months, and this really could be mouth-watering stuff.

4. Maddison

Maddison was another who attracted the approving nod from this quarter. It’s no particular exaggeration to suggest that he is the first creative midfielder we’ve had in our ranks since Eriksen oiled off, but whereas a bête noire of mine about the latter was that he would too often drift on the periphery of matters, Maddison seemed possessed of just the right level of confidence-bordering-on-arrogance to elbow his way into the centre of things and demand possession at every given opportunity.

And once given possession, he peddled a dashed handy line in making things tick. Not all his attempted tricksy diagonals and cute reverse passes necessarily came off, but he tried them throughout, and fed into the overall narrative of our lot as a team with a bit of zip and creativity about us.

He also has a most becoming habit of collecting the ball on the half-turn and leaving a flailing opponent in his rear-view mirror. The progressive shuffle from Bissouma around halfway, to Maddison inside the opponents’ half, and then on again towards Richarlison or Kulusevski or whomever, was pleasing to observe.

On top of which, that free-kick delivery for our opener was as much a joy to behold as it was no doubt fiendishly difficult to defend. Another most useful string to the bow.

5. The Rest of the Midfield (Bundling in Emerson, Son and Kulusevski Here, As Well As Skipp)

However, while Bissouma and Maddison caught the eye, I feel I would be wilfully deceiving to suggest that Skipp reached similar heights. He was certainly there, in the flesh, no doubt about it, and presumably statistics abound to suggest that he completed passes and covered a few miles, but I do struggle to remember contributing much to the overall jamboree. This may be a good thing, I suppose, in a ‘ticking things over’ sort of way. But nevertheless, as he departed the scene, the words ‘Hojbjerg Tribute Act’ rather cruelly sprang to mind.

The other questionable element in midfield was Emerson Royal. I use the term ‘midfield’ a little loosely, but you get my drift – part of the new whizzy set-up evidently involves the right-back shuffling into a deep-lying central midfield sort of area, and one understands the logic. Credit to the chap also, for daring to take a shot, a strategy that most of his chums seemed to regard often with suspicion and at times a deep-rooted aversion.

But nevertheless, if we are to stick an extra body in midfield, I would vote in future for someone a bit cannier on the ball than Emerson. Put bluntly, Trent he is not.

Moreover, for all the modern tweaking to his roles and responsibilities, Emerson’s job title remains ‘Right-Back’, and in this respect he was far from flawless, not least in allowing the equaliser (and very nearly a third on the stroke of half-time).

And one further, slightly deleterious consequence of the new-fangled formation is that it struck me as slightly limiting the contributions of Messrs Son and Kulusevski. I suppose they might just have had subdued days, or not quite grasped the intricacies of their respective roles, but both seemed a little marooned out wide, and either reluctant to or forbidden from venturing into more central areas. One about which our newest Glorious Leader can give the chin a few further strokes, perhaps.  

6. Richarlison

A brief note on poor old Richarlison, who will no doubt be eternally damned by some for the crime of not being Harry Kane.

I suspect even his most ardent fans would admit that his afternoon’s work was fairly unspectacular stuff. He had perhaps two chances, neither of which were entirely straightforward, and neither of which he made the most of. In truth it seemed to me that for all their willing and endeavour, those around him did not quite know how best to service the chap, and, as a result, for all his huff and puff there was little chance of him blowing anything down in a hurry.

A slightly more developed understanding between Richarlison and the other 10 will presumably evolve in time – and this hits upon a point I was yammering on about to anyone who would listen pre-match, viz. that his dubious stats from Season 22/23 were based on intermittent appearances and rarely in the Number 9 role. To suggest that his limited output last season is down to plain ineptitude would rather overstate things a bit too dramatically.  Given the opportunity this season for a run of matches, in the central striking role he occupies for Brazil, I would have thought there is a good chance he’ll start popping away his opportunities.

Moreover, as my Spurs-supporting chum Dave pointed out, Richarlison’s out-of-possession strengths, specifically in leading the high press, adds an element to our play that we didn’t necessarily have with the last chap leading the line. Specifically, he conjectured that part of the reason we had so much possession and looked the likelier winners, in the second half in particular, was that Richarlison’s beavering meant Brentford’s centre-backs rarely had sufficient time to play the ball out.

7. Ange-Ball

AANP’s pre-match prediction had been “4-3, to whom I’m not sure,” and if that were a tad fanciful I was pretty satisfied nevertheless with what I witnessed. There’s the obvious caveat that we didn’t actually win the bally thing, and to emerge with a draw despite having dominated a lot of possession hardly screams a successful day out; but that I grudgingly accept a draw away to a proven and settled Brentford side already seems an improvement on last season’s (and indeed the previous seasons’) drudgery.

For a start, this was vastly more fun to watch than the previous seasons’ fare. Whichever member of our gang was in possession today was pretty intent on finding a short pass as a matter of urgency. While this led to a few comical exchanges of multiple short-distance one-twos, overall the effect was most pleasing upon the eye. Unlike in previous seasons, those in our colours seemed pretty clear on the game-plan.

Understanding between those on the pitch will presumably take some time to develop, but whereas in previous seasons the poor blighter in possession would often give his arms a flap and spend a good five seconds searching for an option before spinning around and blooting the dashed thing south, today the default was to venture north, and passing options abounded.

There are, naturally, plenty of areas for improvement – as mentioned earlier we were rather shot-shy; Sonny and Kulusevski seem a tad forlorn; right-back remains a slightly squiffy issue; and so on – but here at AANP Towers this certainly felt like a pretty sizeable breath of fresh air, and a marked change from and improvement upon what had gone before.  

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Spurs news, rants

Spurs’ Pre-Season: Eight Tottenham Talking Points

What ho. With the new season rumbling into view we might as well pour ourselves a splash of something with a bit of oof to it, and bring ourselves up to speed on recent events, what?

1. Ange Postecoglou

Now here’s a man the cut of whose jib I can straight away give the approving nod. Ultimately, of course, it will all come down to the meat and veg of the Premier League, but nevertheless, Ange has all made all the right moves so far.

For a start there are his no-nonsense interviews, giving short shrift to baiters and sycophants alike, and generally cutting through the guff. His response to the Bayern shirt stunt in particular, and the Kane noise in general, has neatly summed up much of what there is to like about the fellow – not one to suffer fools, not one to skirt around a point and, one gets the impression, not the sort of chap one wants to antagonise any more than is absolutely necessary.

Nor does the new man give the impression that this set of players, fans, team and whole bally undertaking is beneath him, à la the last couple of incumbents. Whether or not one whole-heartedly buys into every quirk and idiosyncrasy, the broad approach – of wanting to roll up the sleeves and get the best out of our mob – is easy enough to get on board with.

I was also rather taken by Postecoglou’s comments about our heroes’ collective approach to those last few minutes of the first half against Shaktar. The gist of his thoughts on the matter were that, as a collective, they needed a slap about the face with a wet fish (I paraphrase) for indulging in a spot of motions-going-through and clock-playing-down as the half-time whistle approached.

Ange-ball, it appears, does not tolerate taking one’s foot off the pedal and batting for the close of play, as it were. His anthem is something more along the lines of ‘If we have the ball let’s dashed well attack, irrespective of the clock’, and this attitude meets with a pretty rousing chorus of approval at AANP Towers.

2. The New Style of Play

And then there’s the breath of fresh air that is our new style of play. Having spent the last three years positively yowling for something at least vaguely progressive, and instead being treated to a diet of deep-lying defences and vain attempts to soak up pressure – despite the attacking riches available – to say that Ange-ball is a pretty welcome sight understates the thing just a bit.

My spies who like to sit there and count these sorts of things reckon that in the three games so far we’ve totalled over 100 shots on goal. Now caveats abound of course. Our opponents have been so alarmingly weak that I suspect we’d have triumphed even if playing with boots tied together and blindfolds about the head. But nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine racking up a century of shots against these three in the Jose or Conte eras.

And the football itself has quite simply been a lot more fun to watch. It’s all a bit zippier for a start, with one- and two-touch gospels evidently having been drilled into hearts and minds throughout the place.

There seems to have been a collective agreement amongst our lot that these days the ball is going to be shoved from Defence to Midfield to Attack without too many wistful glances backward.

The days of having two poor saps in midfield outnumbered and flogged until they can barely stand also appear to have been given the Orwellian heave-ho. It’s a three-man job these days – or at least it will be on the shiny TV graphics pre-match, but once the starter’s gun fires our lot seem to be buzz about all over the place, with full-backs inverting and midfielders dropping and goodness what else. But AANP is not one to get too bogged down in the minutiae of life. Give me a good bourbon and some one-touch triangles, and I’m a pretty content sort of conker. And the early indications are that Ange-ball’s attacking 4-3-3 will hit the spot.

Until we have to defend, of course.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose is the rather wearied AANP take on our the current state of our back-four. Which is to say it’s pretty much the same old rot in the southernmost quarter, what? Better minds than mine can no doubt grab a scalpel and get into the small-print of precisely how and why we’re conceding chances and goals to even the most amateurish teams out there, but the general sense is that it remains awfully straightforward to waltz through our lot and have a pop.

Reinforcements are apparently incoming (and for what it’s worth, I’d give serious consideration to sacrificing one of my lesser-used limbs in order to secure the services of that Laporte bean), but when Ben Davies is being preferred at centre-back to Messrs Sanchez, Tanganga, Rodon and whomever else, one does conjure up the image of a rather stern-looking Ange giving the barrel a good scrape.

Still, such things take time to perfect, I suppose, and the grand fromage does at least appear acutely aware that the current back-four, and in particular the coterie of centre-backs, is not really fit for purpose.

3. Maddison

So to our new arrivals, and the early indications are that James Maddison is pretty much everything we hoped and dreamed.

Not without good reason Daniel Levy takes the occasional slosh around the ear from the faithful, but credit where due, he didn’t hang around in crossing t’s and dotting i’s to get young J. M. bunged into an uber heading up the High Road. The apparent price was pretty reasonable, and again, a silent prayer of thanks was offered for Levy not pulling his usual stunt of haggling over the last fiver and whatnot.

And the chap himself seems to have taken to life in our midfield without too much fuss, and actually with a fair amount of pleasure. It’s no exaggeration to say it’s been years since we had a spot of creativity in central midfield, and with a couple of chums handily placed around him to keep an eye on things, Maddison has appeared to have a whale of a time so far. Long may that continue.

4. Manor Solomon

The ins and outs of his transfer may be a tad confusing to simple folk such as AANP, but on the pitch young Solomon seems to have a few good habits about him.

Some quick-footed trickery is always a good bet to melt the hearts of the watching public, but counts for naught if it ends with a fellow skipping off into a cul-de-sac and ending up in a heap on the floor. Mercifully however, this Solomon bean appears to have the good sense to attach a spot of end-product to his hop-skip-and-jumping, and is happy to hang up a cross or deliver a pull-back as appropriate.

One rather disappointing offshoot of the Solomon Gambit appears to be the elbowing out of shot of young Bryan Gil, a creature of whom I’d grown rather fond in his occasional cameos last season. Injured, at the moment, apparently, but once fit I imagine he’d be quite a long way down the waiting list.

I also personally hope that Ivan Perisic sticks around, particularly if he is to be relieved of defensive duties and deployed solely in the wide attacking role for which Nature appears to have fitted him. Not necessarily a popular opinion, that one, so I won’t labour it, but if the ability to beat a man and whip in a cross with either foot is of value, then he strikes me as an egg it is worth having about the place.

5. Vicario

The brow furrows a bit here, I must confess. A bit early to make any sort of call on the new chappie tasked with ensuring the back-door is locked. All goals he’s conceded so far seem to have come from close range and not really given him too much chance.

That said, of the snippets of action over which I’ve cast my eye, I’ve not really had the old skirt blown up by his attitude towards dealing with crosses, he not yet having given the impression of being of the school of wiping out all in his path and thwacking the ball away with a bit of meat.

He does at least appear to be a bit more comfortable with ball at feet than poor old Monsieur Lloris – a low bar admittedly – and these days all the young folk are starting attacks from goal-kicks, so we might as well not fight it. But one over whom to keep a watchful eye, for now.

6. Van de Ven

AANP has spent his summer in man edifying ways – improving the mind, penning a book or two, giving the Aussies some clobber from the sidelines – but alas, I must confess that that time has not really been spent poring over hours of footage of young Master Van de Ven.

As such, he’s a bit of an unknown quantity in these parts; but consider at least what is known about the fellow. For a start, he’s supposed to one of the quicker of the featherless bipeds plying their trade in these parts – and if we’re going to be playing a high line, that will likely be a handy trait.

He’s also left-footed, which might not sound like much I suppose, but in his line of work, and given the current state of our centre-back menagerie, actually fits rather swimmingly into the broader piece.

None of this conjecture counts for much of course, until Sunday lunchtime, but with Eric Dier still knocking about the place as first reserve I fancy we have a further spot of shopping to do. In theory at least, a Romero-VDV defensive combo sounds like it ought to hit the spot. Fingers crossed for the chap.

7. Fare Thee Well, Young Master Winks

A quick valedictory note on poor old Harry Winks too, who’s biffed off down a division, which seems a tad unfortunate, to Leicester.

The young sport was never short of willing or devotion to the club, and as such will always be welcome for a bourbon at AANP Towers, but he was definitely one of those – and we’ve had a few – who appeared to have a lot of the ‘Cultured Midfielder’ about him but somehow seemed unable to kick on.

A decent enough first touch, and a willingness to collect the ball from his defensive chums seemed to bode well, but was too often topped off with an immediate shovel straight back to the defence, rather than an instinct for something a bit more ambitious.

Still, the chap was arguably our best player in the Champions League Final, which sounds like being an unlikely quiz question in years to come. So he’s no doubt deserving of kind words, but sic transit gloria mundi and all that. Better for everyone this way.

8. Kane

Who knows, eh?

Opinions differ, naturally, and the AANP take is that I’d rather have Kane for a season than £100 million. Not least because our record of exchanging great big swathes of cash for footballers has been pretty patchy (the mind cannot help but flit back to the Bale money, and Soldado, Chiriches, Paulinho et al); but also because even if we did spend wisely, we would never bring in someone of his quality. There’s a train of thought that if he gets us into the Champions League (which apparently extends to a Top Five this season) then he immediately nets us £50m or whatever, but even brushing aside that argument, I’m still firmly rooted in the ‘Keep The Blighter’ camp.

I’m quite content with the thought of 25 or so of his goals, a dozen or so assists and a cheery wave goodbye next summer. In fact, given that we didn’t spend anything to acquire him there’s even a spot of the from-dust-he-came-to-dust-he-shall-return about losing him on a free. Obviously not ideal, but if that were to transpire I’d lap it up happily enough. And who knows, if Ange-ball really takes off he might hang around and start scouting out the retirement homes of N17.

Bayern have been doing their pantomime villain stuff pretty well, going about their business in dastardly and, frankly, wildly ill-advised fashion. Most peculiar, actually. For a start their Brains Trust seems to have spent several weeks missing the quite straightforward point that they won’t get their man unless they pay the required fee. Seems a pretty obvious one, that.

On top of which, at least one of their number ought really to have done a bit of basic homework on Daniel Levy and his negotiating style, but again, they’ve sailed through that one with seemingly blissful ignorance, presumably adopting an approach that works domestically, of simply demanding and expecting then to receive. To give Levy another little doff of the cap, that he allegedly responded to their arbitrary deadline last week by first ignoring it and then jetting off on holiday is, if true (and it’s debatable) pretty ripping stuff.

As for Kane himself, he’s obviously convinced it’s the move of choice, but it seems a rummy old one to me. I suppose if the chap absolutely desperately wants a medal, then there are fewer surer bets than a Bundesliga at Bayern; but when the curtain comes down on him I doubt anyone will remember him for that rather than his goalscoring records with club and country (in the same way as Alan Shearer is generally thought of as a record goalscorer rather than Premier League winner with Blackburn). But to each their own. These young people will follow their own peculiar whims.

And that pretty much brings us up to speed. Admittedly it’s all a state of flux, and it seems there will be quite a few more bodies shoved out of one door while one or two are dragged in another, but one gets the gist – and by the time our paths next cross, the new season will be upon us!

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Spurs news, rants

Postecoglou at Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. Attacking Football

Evidently not one for the “If it were done when tis done then ‘twere well we get a wriggle on” school of thought, Grandmaster Levy has given it a good couple of months before crossing t’s and dotting i’s on the arrival of our latest permanent Glorious Leader. But he’s here now – or will be as of 1 July apparently – so that’s plenty of time to give him the quick once-over.

The beady AANP eye has immediately been drawn to all this talk of Postecoglou playing attacking football. Of course, various adoring proteges have been queueing up as far as they eye can see to fete the fellow like he’s Cruyff reincarnated, so one takes with a decent-sized pinch of salt the drooling opinions of the man that have been circulating in recent days. Something of a hero to Australians and approximately 50% of Glaswegians, no doubt. In fact it’s been near-impossible to locate anyone with a bad word to say against him, which is pretty rummy going if you ask me.

But nevertheless, even in more objective circles, a consensus seems to rumble along that Postecoglou is not one to die wondering. “Live by the sword,” appears to be the anthem – and an anthem repeated irrespective of the opponents, which ought to make for some fun viewing in the coming months. In fact, so wedded is the fellow to his attacking principles, apparently, that he’ll instruct his troops to carry on swinging, even if they have already lost a few key limbs and are looking an incoming coup de grace squarely in the eye.

By all accounts, this chap is also rather a dab-hand when it comes to dishing out a motivational speech for the troops. I have to admit, I’m not quite as sold on this as various others. Nothing wrong with it, I suppose. Will make for good stuff on the next behind-the-scenes documentary, no doubt.

But if our lot can’t already summon the spirit to give every last ounce of sweat and blood for the lilywhite cause, without needing a spot of Henry V or prime Al Pacino to rouse them into it at half-time or whenever, then it strikes me that they’re in the wrong job. Some modern-day Churchill is fine, of course, then; but AANP is rather more concerned about this cove’s tactical acumen.

In terms of which, it sounds like the back-three, wing-backs and a two-man central midfield can all be shoved into a darkened room to gather dust for some time, because Postecoglou is a back-four sort of fellow. 4-3-3 to be more specific, and with full-backs tucking into midfield and midfielders spilling over into attack, as is so achingly fashionable these days.

All of which sounds pretty dreamy stuff over in this corner of the interweb, particularly after the joyless diet that has been shoved down the gullet by each of the last three chappies at the helm. No doubt I won’t waste any time in chiding the fellow for the kamikaze approach when circumstances call for a degree of circumspection, but it will certainly make a pleasant change from the dreary way of things under Jose, Nuno and Conte, what?

2. Newbie in England

The other concern is that he arrives in N17 pretty light on experience of managing in what might one might euphemistically term the more monied leagues. Compare him to Poch, for example, as pretty much the prototype for this sort of thing. A little green behind the ears M.P. may have been, but he still had 3 years in La Liga as well as 1 in the Premier League before arriving on our doorstep and snagging every last one of our hearts.

De Zerbi had seen a few managerial sights in Italy before his Brighton jolly; Slot knows his way around the Netherlands; and while I consider Xabi Alonso something of a bullet dodged, even he is currently picking up the monthly envelope in the relatively exalted surroundings of the Bundesliga.

You get the gist. Shiny pots in Australia, Japan and Celtic are a dashed sight more than I have ever collected on my travels, so if Postecoglou about-turned, jabbed a finger towards my face and demanded to know who the hell I was to cast aspersions on him, I wouldn’t have much in the way of damning riposte; but nevertheless. Ideally, one would have wanted a chappie whose backstory included a bit more slugging it out with Europe’s finest. (The fact that his European record at Celtic is pretty middling fare also makes one bite the lip a bit.)

And while absolutely wiping the floor with all-comers in Scotland is solid stuff – and he did so from a starting-point of some disadvantage, as I understand – I cast the mind back to Steven Gerrard, arriving at Villa fresh from similar success in that part of the world, and steadily making a pig’s ear of things.

There are, however, some decent counter-arguments simmering away. For a start, just about every pundit blessed with a pulse has been tripping over themselves to hammer home the point that there are a few similarities between the mess A.P. is inheriting here at the world-famous home of the Spurs, and the mess he inherited a few years back at Celtic Park. As I understand it, he took on that particular gig at a time when Celtic had finished 25 points behind Rangers, were haemorrhaging star players and had to contend with plagues of locusts and meteors falling from the sky upon them, amongst various other irksome challenges.

The moral of the story seeming to be that if you want a man to un-muddle a situation that has rather spiralled out of control at your once-proud football club, Postecoglou has spat on his hands and got down to brass tacks in precisely these circumstances before.

On top of which, the last fellow who made himself comfy behind the desk place, without too much big-league glamour on his CV, was one Martin Jol (blessed be his name). An illustrious history, it would therefore seem, is hardly a requisite for success at our lot. And when you consider that both Jose and Conte stalked about the place as if the whole dashed thing were beneath them, Postecoglou arriving for his own personal career highlight sounds a pretty solid bet.

(He also happens not to be Brendan Rodgers, which in AANP’s book goes down as a fairly hefty positive, but that’s possibly one for another day.)

3. Relationship With Levy and Chums

The principal draw of this Postecoglou creature is, as mentioned, his attacking football (and the more I think of it, the more I am drawn to him as some sort of modern-day Ossie); but an intriguing sub-plot swirls around his relationship with Daniel Levy. Put delicately, Postecoglou doesn’t really come across as some pliant puppy-dog, who likes to solve life’s troubles by rolling over and having his tummy tickled.

For a start, he looks rather a barrel of a man, which ought not to count for anything but does make one gulp at the prospect of exchanging views; and he also has rather an angry look about his map at all times – again, not a pointer worth reading into, but again, lending a bit of oomph to the overall impression. Far more pertinently, his reputation is apparently as one who goes in for the ‘Heated Argument’ approach to life’s disagreements, rather than ‘Conciliatory Peacemaker’, so quite how he and Levy settle differences of opinion will be anyone’s guess.

I’m also impatiently scanning the wires for hints about his transfer targets. By and large, our lot don’t tend to fling sackfuls of cash around with gay abandon each transfer window, so it’s probably safe to assume that Postecoglou will be shopping on a budget (although I’m rather encouraged by murmurs of Raya, Laporte and Maddison – and less so by echo of ‘Maguire’ about the place).

Apparently, however, the ability to pick up a bargain from amongst the great scrapheap of lesser-heralded mortals is one of the fortes of our new man. If that is indeed the case, then it’s probably another tick against his name.

Thinking about it, he will have an equally sizeable task in trimming some of the fat of the current squad, the cast-list already far too bloated, even before one considers that there is no European football to bung at the secondary members. There is also the question of what H. Kane Esq. makes of all this, but the identity of the new grand fromage is presumably just one amongst many factors swirling around in that chap’s mind at present.

All things considered, then, it’s a pretty satisfied AANP uncorking the bourbon at this announcement. Postecoglou might not have been the first name to have sprung to mind when Conte shoved his chair under the desk and stormed off without even a wave goodbye, but given this fellow’s experience with a similarly tough crowd at Celtic, and his commitment to a spot of the all-action brand on the pitch, I’m rather looking forward to seeing how this one pans out. All hail our newest Glorious Leader!

Categories
Spurs match reports

Leeds 1-4 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Kane

This seems as good a time as any to stand to attention and offer a pretty meaningful salute to our finest. As if anyone needed reminding quite what a different plane it is on which Harry Kane operates, he belted in our opener with his first kick of the game, pretty much by way of a warm-up. Thereafter, I thought he beetled around hither and thither, in rather an understated way, popping up occasionally to inject a bit of impetus whenever we needed it.

He gave the impression that, having stumbled upon the general midfield vicinity almost inadvertently, he enjoyed himself enough to set up camp in the area, occasionally surfacing to join in with the lesser mortals and chivvy things along.

It worked out splendidly. Whenever the ball bounced off our defence and out towards halfway, Kane was happy to collect the scraps, wriggle free of surrounding limbs as necessary, and ping a pass off into the wide open for spaces for Sonny or whomever to gallop off after.

Leeds, for all their bluster, were amongst the worst we’ve played this season – which makes sense, when you think about it – meaning that the biggest impediment to Kane, as to most of our lot, was that pitch. Not that Kane let it get to him. I’m not sure it could have bothered him less if he had been one of those royal horticulturalists who knows every blade on their lawn inside out. The ground being bobblesome, Kane simply took to lofting his passes through the atmosphere, bypassing the middle man, as it were.

The piece de resistance of his performance came at the halfway stage. And when you consider that on a day on which he scored twice his highlight was something else altogether, you know it was something pretty special. As ever, he received the thing back to goal and somewhere near the halfway line, the sort of situation in which even the Leeds mob, dreadful though their day had been from start to finish, would not have had the alarms bell ringing with any great fervour.

Kane, however, was in that Magic-Something-From-Nothing mood, and having flicked the ball back over his own head, in a pleasing homage to Gazza at Euro 96, he gave the ref a polite shove from his path and set off towards goal. Leeds duly dispatched two of their finest to put an end to Kane’s rampage, and this pair reasonably enough decided that squishing the fellow between their combined frames would do the trick; but Kane was having none of it. As is often the case when he builds up a head of steam, he opted for brute force over any semblance of finesse to surmount this particular obstacle, and simply shoved his way between the two of them like an irate bear.

That done, the attack was still really only at ‘Promising’ level, there being a far bit of legwork left before we got to the really salacious stuff, but Kane didn’t hang around. At this juncture admittedly he received a fairly thick wedge of assistance from the admiring gods, as his attempted pass inside the centre-back – which really would have made the eyes water if successful – bounced off the legs of the latest in a whole queue of hapless Leeds defenders, and kindly for Porro to do the rest.

It was the manner in which Kane received the ball on halfway, however – it bouncing and he with back to goal – and turned it, lickety-split and via two opponents, into an attack bursting at the gills with promise, that really took the puff.

There then followed his 30th goal of the season, made to look straightforward even though Richarlison ten minutes later would bungle a near-identical opportunity, but by this stage one simply took the chap for granted.

Which is a point worth pausing at and hammering on about for a while – he is rather taken for granted. As in that season in which he won both the Golden Boot and whichever object is doled out for most assists, and yet somehow didn’t win a Player of the Year trinket, so this year his 30 league goals, in a team as bad as ours (and having rather gone through the ringer of a World Cup-induced blow to the solar plexus halfway through) has simply been shrugged off, seemingly on the grounds that “It’s Harry Kane, what did anyone expect?” Which is a dashed sight less than he deserves.

As to whether he will still be lighting up our days and nights come August and beyond, the AANP tuppence worth is that I can’t really imagine a universe in which Levy simply shrugs and agrees to sell the fellow this summer, no matter how much Kane might want it.  

In terms of mooching off elsewhere, the Man Utd link makes little sense to me, given that they sure as heck won’t win the Premier League, and seem a pretty long shot for the Champions League. If he wants an FA or Carabao Cup, he might as well stick around in N17; but frankly a ’legacy’ at our lot would seem to be worth more than either of those trophies. I’d have thought Chelsea or possibly Newcastle (pending great big sackfuls of transfer cash being flung around) would therefore be likelier destinations than Man U, if he wants to win the meaty trophies – but who’s to say quite how the cogs whir from the Kane neck upwards?

2. Bissouma

Back to the match, and as mentioned, Leeds’ resistance seemed to be token at best. It’s rather easy to damn our lot by suggesting that the opposition weren’t up to the job, and I should probably slap on another lashing or two of praise, because pre-match I sure as heck was resigned to our heroes wilting in the face of a team needing a win to survive. A hammering by a team in the very act of getting relegated would have seemed the perfect coda to Season 22/23, what?

So credit to our lot, principally for dealing with the barrage of crosses and throws repeatedly hurled towards the frame, but also for having the good sense to transfer documents from back to front faster than a Leeds player could mutter “Dash it, we don’t have enough bodies to stop a counter-attack”.

If Kane was pivotal in the countering, I thought Bissouma excelled in the more studious role in midfield, of collecting possession, hopping away from a swinging leg and spreading the play this way and that. He had a remarkable ability to do the above in a most unflustered manner, which had the benefit of puncturing any atmosphere or urgency our hosts attempted to manufacture, whilst also lending to our play a calmness that has been a pretty rarely-sighted beast this season. It wasn’t flawless, but it was certainly encouraging.

At one point a nearby chum, while watching Bissouma skate away serenely, murmured something about Mousa Dembele, and while all sorts of caveats abound when invoking this sort of name, and it would be remiss to take such musings seriously, one roughly got the gist. There is something in Bissouma’s size nines that lends a certain optimism to the piece.

3. Lucas Moura

It feels like the Lucas Moura Farewell Tour has been trundling along for a goodish while now – which actually stands to reason, as he announced he was off a good few months back, since when every sighting of him has been accompanied by a brief eulogy, on top of which he was last week given a chance to wave to the galleries in the home stadium.

Anyway, the final leg of his great send-off was actioned in the dying embers yesterday afternoon, but by golly, if we thought this would just be a close-up of him entering the fray and then the toot of the final whistle, we were in for one heck of a shock. One could not have scripted a finale quite like this – something of a running theme for Lucas, come to think of it.

While it is easy to submit to recency bias and get rather carried away on these occasions, even 24 hours later that goal strikes me as one of the best individual efforts I’ve seen from one of our number. While not being of the occasion of Villa ’81 or Lucas himself vs Ajax, for sheer aesthetic delight it was right up there alongside Ginola at Barnsley, and close to Sonny vs Burnley. (A doff of the cap at this point to Gareth Bale, who has literally about half a dozen solo efforts to his name in lilywhite.)

Back to the goal itself, and even on repeat watchings it had a rather mesmeric unpredictability about it. On each re-watch Lucas somehow seemed to leap off in an unexpected direction at every point in his journey, all the while retaining complete balance and control of the ball.

First Leeds chappie slid in to chop him at the knees? Nothing he couldn’t hurdle. Three more Leeds blighters try to converge on him at once? Nothing through which he couldn’t slalom. Goalkeeper flinging six feet plus of muscle at his feet? Nothing over which he couldn’t dink.

Of course, this being AANP Towers, I couldn’t drink in this goal of perfect execution and timing without giving tongue to a grumble or two, so I don’t mind admitting a spot of bitterness that we didn’t see this more often from the chap. He tried it pretty much every time he received the ball in the entirety of his five years with us – and as yesterday showed, he’s been capable of pulling it off all along – yet I can only remember it working previously away at Man Utd. Blighter.

Anyway, a marvellous way for Lucas to ride off into the sunset, a little cherry on top of a career that is already permanently etched into Spurs folklore (and, cough cough, a second instalment of Spurs’ Cult Heroes).

4. Farewell Season 22/23

More broadly, it was actually a completely inappropriate way for our lot to sign off for the season. Some ignominious thrashing would have been more in keeping with the general fashion, but nothing lifts the mood around these parts quite like a Tottenham win, so I drank it all in as giddily as ever. It may only have been Leeds, but as mentioned above, we might also easily have folded, as we often do, so to see this level of verve and creativity about the place was quite the tonic.

Looking ahead, the mood amongst just about every lilywhite I know is one of absolutely doleful pessimism; understandable of course, but the AANP lineage has never really gone in for such negativity, and isn’t about to start now.

A few new signings are undoubtedly needed – only one of yesterday’s back-four ought to start for us ever again, and another day sans Messrs Dier and Hojbjerg stirred no sense of longing from this quarter – but there are a handful amongst our number, both on display yesterday and propping up the stools in the treatment room, who might inject a bit of life into the old beast yet.

Moreover, enough teams around (and above) us that have demonstrated that even with deadwood floating amongst the ranks, a spot of organisation and freedom can bring home a bit of a harvest.

The absence of midweek traipses around the continent will help. And frankly performances (both individually and collectively) like yesterday’s suggest that with a spot of pruning, and a few well-judged additions, we would have at least a nucleus of a side with a beady eye on the Top Four. All that remains is to bring in a manager of sound mind – and front-foot style – and Season 23/24 practically takes care of itself, what?




Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 1-3 Brentford: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. That Rather Enjoyable First Half

Say what you like about young Mason – and this particular pen has scribbled a few choice descriptions in recent weeks – but when it comes to binning what went before and trying something completely novel, he is not lacking in pluck and vim. Where Conte would stick to 3-4-3 even if his life depended on some minute alteration, Mason scatters around new approaches like confetti. Having flirted with some distant cousin of 4-4-2 in recent weeks, yesterday he made a pretty abrupt pivot off into the land of 4-2-3-1, earning an admiring glance from AANP Towers in the process.

And for 45 minutes, the thing operation tootled along pretty swimmingly. More goals would have helped of course, particularly if you are the sort who assesses these things with rather dead-eyed steeliness, caring only for wins won, no matter the fashion in which they are achieved (or, in other words, if your name is Jose or Antonio).

But for those of us who would have gladly donated a liver just to see some entertaining football at some point over the last three years dash it, that we only scored one goal was a pretty incidental footnote. The real headline was that there was genuinely enjoyable football on show.

No doubt Brentford played into our hands in that first half. They seemed as surprised as anyone else to see our lot take to the field with four fully functioning attackers primed and ready, and could regularly be sighted scampering back into position with looks of concern etched all over their maps, repeatedly undermanned whenever our heroes counter-attacked.

Members of our attacking quartet at various points took turns to station themselves in cunning pockets of space that seemed to fall under the jurisdiction of neither the Brentford defence or midfield, and also took to gaily swapping positions, looking for all the world as if this football business could actually be rather a lark, which is a pretty rare sight around these parts.

Moreover, once in possession, we positively brimmed with exciting and innovative ideas about how to jig all the way into the penalty area in order to get shots away. There were crosses, and one-twos, and AANP’s personal favourite, the neat diagonal passes played inside a defender. That our only goal was from a free-kick was rather a curiosity, because Sonny, Danjuma and even Emerson Royal each seemed to come within a well-placed Brentford limb of adding to the tally by virtue of some well-crafted routine during that opening 45. Frankly I didn’t know we had it in us.

2. Bissouma

The front four may have been the principals, but a pretty vital cog in this 4-2-3-1 was the 2, and Messrs Skipp and Bissouma were in imperious form, at least in that first half.

Bissouma carried out his duties with the relish of a fellow who wakes up every morning determined to wring every last ounce of pleasure from his day. Where some might react with a scowl to being told to spend all day tidying up in midfield, Bissouma flipped the thing on its head, treating every crowded coming-together as an opportunity to display his full range of nifty footwork. If Brentford johnnies descended upon him en masse and with nefarious intent, he simply pirouetted out of trouble, as often as not picking some eye-catching pass at the end of it all too, as an unexpected treat.

He threw in his usual needless crunch at one point, earning the standard yellow card that seems to accompany his every appearance in lilywhite, but that aside, he generally made the grubby job of midfield guard-dog look a lot more glamorous and elegant than one would have thought possible. As with much else on display in that first half, it gave a bit of a whiff of a potentially brighter future around these parts, if the right sort of bean can come along and make a fist of the old wheat-chaff separation routine.

3: Skipp

Young Skipp, while perhaps not quite as easy upon the eye, was also doing a heck of a job fighting the good fight within that deep-lying midfield pair. If it were Bissouma’s job to tiptoe out of increasingly complex situations and ever-diminishing spaces, Skipp’s role seemed to be simply to hunt down loose balls wherever they happened to spring up.

The young whelp’s motivation appeared in no way dimmed by his billing as the less refined of the pair, he seeming to be all in favour of spending his afternoon racing off to win the thing over and over again. Young Skipp also appeared to be blessed with a decent sense of dramatic timing, typically leaving his interventions until the last possible moment before haring in from distance to nick the ball away, amidst a flailing opposition leg.

It will no doubt go under the radar, but on one such occasion, having rolled out his nick-of-time routine to win a 50-50, he was dumped to the floor by an opponent by way of reward, bringing about the free-kick from which we scored. Kane might have hit the thing, Davies might have shoved the laddie aside in the wall; but Skipp earned the opportunity in the first place.

A shame, then, that his eagerness to show a spot of initiative later on went pretty seriously awry, resulting in the Brentford third. Skipp’s intent in this incident had been pretty wholesome, collecting a throw-in deep inside his own half, with a view, no doubt, to setting in motion some campaign for an equaliser. However, he got off to a poor start, taking his eye off the package and letting it bobble past him, which rather set the tone for how the whole incident would play out. While his attempt to bring the situation back under control by means of a spot of wriggling and opponent-dodging was laudable in theory, it met with some pretty significant obstacles in practice – not least being shoved to the ground and having his belongings pilfered from him.

Not his finest hour, but it says much of Skipp’s general attitude and contribution that there were not too many irate fingers wagging in his direction. “Accidents will happen,” seemed to be the gist of the reaction, on realising the identity of the culprit on this occasion. Young Skipp has a fair amount of credit in the bank. Our multitude of woes over the course of this season have many roots, but the efforts of O. Skipp Esq. is not among them.

4. Davies and Lenglet

By contrast, Messrs Davies and Lenglet do not get off so lightly. Even in the first half, in which, thanks to the efforts of those positioned north of them, they were not too onerously employed, they still seemed to make rather a production of the fairly menial tasks thrown their way. However, being swept along by the general gaiety of the occasion one brushed it aside.

There was no brushing it aside in the second half however, as that well-earned one-nil lead became a two-one deficit without Brentford having to do much more than wander into our penalty area and peer about the place, thanks to the idiotic bumblings of Davies and Lenglet.

That the equaliser should have been allowed to happen still makes the blood boil, a good twenty-four hours and more after the event. Brentford dully wibbled the ball from somewhere vaguely left to somewhere vaguely right, and with two defenders and a goalkeeper barring the path to goal, an immediate equaliser ought to have been one of the lowest-ranked of likely outcomes. That some danger was imminent was not in doubt, for the chappie was in our area, and behind the scenes various of our party could be seen scuttling to and fro to prevent any harm occurring once the ball was passed along and Stage Two of the operation got underway. But any immediate shot seemed to carry minimal threat.

And yet somehow, Davies and Lenglet, intent on a programme of utterly passive non-interference, contrived not only to allow that Mbuemo to have a shot, but between them constructed the flimsiest conceivable barrier. Had Mbuemo struck the thing like an Exocet, or had he shimmied and tricked until they lost their footing, one might have held up the hands and done him some homage. But the blighter did none of the above. Frankly, I’ve seen passes hit with more ferocity than his shot. And yet Davies and Lenglet backed off him as if he brandished a machete, and then somehow allowed his shot a route through all four of their combined legs.

And if any in the paying galleries were expecting the following minutes to bring a display of contrition and redemption from this combo they were in for the sort of disappointment for which only a season of this dross can really prepare the soul. As Mbeumo was released for his second, he and Davies were neck and neck in a straightforward sprint for the ball. Mbuemo arguably had the advantage, already being well in his stride, but nevertheless one would have anticipated Davies having sufficient pace to keep within clattering distance of him, or at the very least manoeuvring his frame in that cunning way of the wiliest old devils, blocking off the route of Mbuemo and resulting in a satisfying display of arm-waving frustration. As previously, at the point of release, danger seemed fairly minimal.

Incredibly, however, Davies managed to concede a five-yard gap over a ten-yard sprint. I simply could not believe what I was watching. He moved as if he had hoisted one of his teammates onto his back and then attempted simply to get from A to B without falling over, no matter how long it took him. Anyone convinced that a Premier League footballer, when required to sprint twenty yards, might whir the legs until a hamstring pinged and a lung exploded would have wept in dismay.

I suppose if Davies had been remotely competent then Monsieur Lenglet would not have been dragged into this; but dragged into it he was, and he reacted by unleashing, of all things, his Ben Davies Tribute Act.

Having gawped in disbelief at the sight of Davies running as if through quicksand, the rescue act five yards inside him ran as if with lead in his boots. Moreover, having been gifted an unlikely second chance to intervene, by virtue of Mbuemo pausing – to compose his thoughts, and untangle his feet and whatnot, ahead of his shot – Lenglet then slid in as if to block the shot, but neglected to extend his leg fully. Had he done so, there was a pretty strong chance he might have effected some sort of block; but instead he seemed, when sliding in, to withdraw the limb in question, as if convinced at the last that it would be better simply to avoid interfering and let the Fates decide.

That we lost the thing was not, of course, solely down to the deficiencies of this rotten pair, maddening as they were. In the second half Brentford seemed to exercise a mite more caution in their approach, flinging fewer bodies forward and keeping staff numbers high at the back, a tweak that left our lot completely stumped. As mentioned, they were barely made to work for any of their goals; but as galling was the fact that the footloose and fancy-free approach of the first half was replaced by one of laboured build-up and generally blank looks in the second.