Categories
Spurs match reports

Villa 2-1 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. The Tactics

Ryan Mason still seems to be receiving a free pass from great swathes of our support. For reasons I don’t particularly fathom, truth be told, but there we go, and I voiced a few of the yays and nays around him last week, so won’t bother going into that again.

This week, his grand masterplan was a dastardly plot to beat Aston Villa’s high line by releasing Sonny with passes from deep, to sprint off into the wide open spaces and make merry.

Here at AANP Towers we spotted three critical flaws.

Firstly, the bally thing just didn’t work. Say about it what you like, and who knows, perhaps the Villa back-four spent the afternoon close to tears with the stress of it all – but the facts are that this approach brought us zero goals. In fact, this approach brought us zero chances, because every blasted time we tried it, Sonny or Richarlison stuffed up their lines and strayed offside.

Once or twice would be forgivable – “teething problems’, would no doubt have been the gist of the exchange amongst the Brains Trust on the sidelines – but when it came to minute 96 and Sonny was yet again caught on the wrong side of the red line, there was nothing for it but to sink the old head into the hands and hope that when reincarnated I come back as something less exasperating than being a Spurs fan.

And when I screech that it happened ‘every time’, this is not a spot of hyperbole, thrown in for dramatic effect. It just happened over and over again. Our heroes simply didn’t learn. Richarlison one understands might want to sneak in a headstart; but goodness me Sonny ought to have worked out that an extra six inches or so were not really necessary when blessed by nature with a pair of size sevens as spring-heeled as his. Surely, ran the train of thought, if Sonny started level he would still have had a decent chance of outsprinting the Villa mob over fifteen yards or so?

Secondly, even if this tactic had born a spot of occasional fruit, one would have thought a Plan B might have been tried at some point too, or even a Plan A, Version 2. Mix things up a bit, what?

Take that lad Porro, out on the right. A flawed sort of chap no doubt, but if he brings one asset to the table it’s his capacity to sling in a decent cross. One might have thought that Mason’s pre-match pearls of wisdom might have included the suggestion that every now and then we keep the Villa mob on their toes by feeding Porro, sticking an extra body or two in the area and seeing what might happen. Maybe just once or twice.

But the evidence of the eyes indicated that Mason & Chums were not having any of it. As far as “Villa (Away)’ was concerned, the strategy was evidently to be “Beat the offside trap, or nothing”. No matter that it failed the first half-dozen times, for a good hour it was our one and only idea.

Thirdly, the whole setup made for a football that was pretty dreadful to watch, from a lilywhite perspective. After a whole season of games, pretty much every one of which has made the eyes bleed, it takes some doing to find a brand new method of boring to tears the watching masses, but this Low-Block-And-Beat-The-Offside-Trap approach managed it.

Central to the approach seemed to be the mad idea to just let Villa have as much possession as they wanted, which as a year of Jose proved, even if successful sucks every ounce of joy out of the thing. Whenever we did stumble upon possession, our heroes seemed strangely unable to master the art of the six-yard pass, picking out opposition players a little too frequently for comfort (and to be fair, young Mason can hardly take the fall for this one; this is just down to the players’ own ineptitude).

And of neat triangles or the whizzy stuff that lights up the eyes and quicken the pulse, there was none. It was just left to Kane, or Lenglet, or whomever to try sticking the ball behind the Villa back-line for Sonny to dash onto and over-complicate everything before the flag went up anyway.  

So in short, this plan brought no success (and did not even get as far as sticking within the rules of the game long enough to gauge whether it might bring any success); had no alternative; and was awful to watch. The ‘Give it to Mason’ campaign, as much as there is one, will need a few additional compelling arguments before AANP is swayed.

After an hour of this nonsense however, Mason had the good grace to bang his head against the nearest wall and try something different. Richarlison was relieved from duty, Kulusevski was stationed out on the right, and for two minutes or so the entire collective bucked up their ideas a bit. Irritating, then, that that particular balloon was punctured by their second goal, after which both sides pretty much shrugged their shoulders and were happy to bump into each other and shout for the remainder.

As if to really twist the knife, the only time our heroes showed any genuine urgency was for approximately five minutes of injury-time at the death, after Kane’s penalty. If they’d bobbed about their place with that same meaning and dash from minute one I’d have been all for it. Our lot might have had a decent stab at the win, for a start, and we the viewing public might have had something about which to make a racket. It might even have added a bit of gusto to the “Mason In! (Permanently)” campaign.

But when they only muster that energy for added time at the end of the ninety, I’m afraid they won’t get much more than icy glares and a few stinging words of rebuke from these parts.

2. Kulusevski

As mentioned, just about the only time things picked up, added time aside, was during a brief, post-substitution surge. Bissouma looked game, possibly just excited to be on a real pitch again, but the lightning rod for that halcyon ten minutes seemed to be Kulusevski.

He beavered away in that curious manner of his, bludgeoning past people in that ungainly fashion that suggests that while he was not born to be a footballer he has nevertheless hit upon something so might as well keep going until told otherwise.

It was already a big day for trying the same old trick over and over again, but whereas springing the offside trap had failed miserably, Kulusevski’s party-trick of chopping back inside his full-back (again, in the ungainly manner of someone who prefers football not to involve a ball) seemed to keep working, no matter how many warnings his opponent had.

With the first few steps of Operation Kulusevski working so well, it was slightly maddening that the final element kept missing the mark, but life – particularly in Season 22/23 – is like that, what? Where last season the young specimen would cut in on his left and either find the net or hang the ball up for an arriving surge at the back post, this time around the ball has tended to fly off into the galleries, leaving all in the vicinity with hands on heads and a general chorus of “If Only…” echoing about the place.

There’s no real knowing what zany idea Mason will magic up next week, but having injected the faintest murmur of a pulse into a collective that had otherwise looked for all the world ready for a toe-tag and body-bag, one wonders if Kulusevski might be involved from the start next week.

3. Forster

In the great Lloris vs Forster Debate, AANP comes down pretty heavily on the side of the latter. Monsieur Lloris has played a fine old innings, no doubt, but in the last season or three the old bean has seemed to lose the faculties somewhat, so if he is lofted on the shoulders and carried off into the sunset, he has my blessing. ‘All hail that Foster chappie, at least for the time being’, is very much my motto.

As such, having nailed my colours to this particular mast, I rather find myself bending over backwards to applaud Forster’s every contribution – never missing an opportunity in so doing to pointedly highlight how Lloris would never achieve such glories – and excusing his mishaps. And there were arguments in both camps yesterday.

For a start, and in the debit column, Forster made a couple of very good saves. One in particular, in the first half, involved some of that quick-reaction stuff, which always looks good when replayed from multiple angles. It was a low shot, well within his vicinity, but involved him bringing the entire frame down towards the dirt in double-quick time. This he achieved within the necessary timescale, managing to scoop back a ball that seemed almost behind him. Buoyed by feverish anti-Lloris sentiment, I applauded as if he had taken a bullet for the Pope.

I also noted that at one point a corner was hoisted into the general mess of limbs that is the penalty area, and where Lloris tends to flap around in such situations, Forster got such a meaty paw onto the thing that it flew off towards somewhere near halfway. Again, the reaction at AANP Towers was mightily overblown.

The whole propaganda machine was thus pootling along pretty smoothly until that second half free-kick. Even I can admit that Forster did not really cover himself in glory at that juncture.

The shot may have ended up at the opposite end to that which he had opted to patrol, but still. It was not in the top corner for a start, and more pertinently, he actually did the hard part well enough, transferring himself from right to left in good time. All that was left was to bring that same meaty paw back into play, and bat the thing off into the gay old meadows of Villa Park. Instead, he got himself in a bit of a tangle, and batted the thing into the roof of the net.

Now my Spurs-supporting chum Ian, not being one to hold back on a spot of constructive criticism, duly acted as judge, jury and executioner and delivered an instant take on Forster’s attempts, and not a complimentary one.

My immediate reaction was to point out that at least he tried to save the thing; Lloris, I inevitably argued, would have stood rooted to the spot and watched. And Forster, in his defence, did have a lot of bodies around which to peer. Failing to slap the ball away may be a flaw; not being able to see straight through the human body is not.

But nevertheless, he might have done better. Coming at a time when we were just beginning to impose ourselves, it did much to kill off the game too. While there’s no knowing what the hell will be going on at the club next season, the AANP vote would be for a younger, shinier upgrade on Lloris to be unwrapped pretty sharpish; and for Forster to remain in situ as this season, backing up when required.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 1-0 Palace: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. The Change in Shape and Personnel: Porro

After a couple of weeks that have been heavy on action and light on plot, our latest Glorious Leader did the honourable thing and picked the option marked “Do Something – Anything – Differently”. Which translated into the hooking of Messrs Perisic, Dier and Kulusevski; and a line-up that, while still seeming pretty lopsided, was at least lopsided in a new and interesting way.

The change in formation struck me as one of those jobbies in which in possession the gang adopts Format A, but out of possession they revert as one to Format B, if you follow. So at various points Emerson was tucking in as a third centre-back, while at others he seemed to be surreptitiously shuffling off towards the flank to adopt a more conventionally right-back pose. In fact, it appeared at certain times as if our heroes were going about their business in a 4-4-2, which rather took me back to my salad days in the 80s. A pleasing riposte to false nines and that sort of thing, what?

Back to the general mass of humanity on our right side, and the reappearance of resident eccentric, Emerson Royal, was quite the pleasant surprise. For a start, he displayed a hitherto unknown sense of inconspicuousness in returning to the fold completely under the radar. I’d pretty much written the fellow off for the season, and rather forgotten about him in truth, what with one damn thing and another at N17.

But there he was, in that unspecified, hybrid defensive role on the right, crossing all t’s and dotting all i’s in the manner one would expect of arguably our greatest ever player. However, if the reception he received from the paying masses was rosy, I suspect it paled into insignificance next to that he received from Pedro Porro.  Poor old P.P.’s eyes may light up when charging into the final third, but if he’s shown us one thing over the last couple of months it’s that he couldn’t look less comfortable in his defensive duties if he slung a sandwich board about his frame bearing the legend “I Just Want To Be A Winger”, and continued wearing it while trying to defend.

With Emerson babysitting him however, it was a different story. Porro was able to shove most of his eggs into the attacking basket, and on balance one would say he ended up with a few more pluses than minuses to his name.

He slung in enough crosses that sooner or later he was bound to strike oil with one of them, duly doing so to create our goal; but as well as his general output I was pretty satisfied to see him scuttling into view, stage right, with every attack. Again, the goal was a decent example of that, Porro getting his head down and hurtling over halfway out on the right, even as the attack was still having its genesis somewhere nearer the left flank – all of which preliminaries meant that when Kane lobbed the ball off towards the right of the area, the young frijole seemed to have approximately a quarter of the stadium at his mercy to do as he pleased.  

2. The Change in Shape and Personnel: Dier (and Romero and Lenglet)

The other principal consequence of the rejig was the removal of Eric Dier from any area in which his slightest involvement might spark the usual disaster. It is, of course, a little difficult to judge the success of someone’s absence. One could, in theory, emit a joyful whoop at the fact that Dier was not in situ to dither on the ball or play a chum into trouble or mistime a lunge or get dragged out of position or get outpaced; but this seems a little hollow. Rather like celebrating the fact that a piano hasn’t fallen on one’s head – good news, of course, in anyone’s book, but more the sort of thing one curses when it does  happen, rather than celebrating when it doesn’t.

More usefully, the absence of Dier seemed to have a calming effect upon Romero, who, since returning to the day-job with a World Cup winner’s medal around his neck, has given the impression of turning up for work every day since absolutely sozzled in celebration.

Yesterday, however, with the absence of a calamitous defender on one side of him, and the presence of a capable defender on the other, Romero appeared pretty steady on his feet. Of wild lunges and cavalier shimmies forward, there were none. He still found time to pick another lovely 50-yard pass or two – hang your head in shame, Sonny – but it was the principal business, of keeping things under lock and key at the back, that were of concern, and he seemed focused enough.

I’m not sure how much credit Monsieur Lenglet should be given for this. I’m never really sure how much credit Monsieur Lenglet should be given in general. He seems to be one of those chappies who has loosely the right sort of idea, and can also contribute a bit bringing the ball forward, which helps; but who will just shrug the shoulders and let out a sad gallic sigh if an opponent gets the wrong side of him, accepting his fate as irreversible, which nettles a bit.

Be that as it may, not being Eric Dier seemed to work in his favour yesterday, as did the fact that alongside him (I’m shuffling right-to-left here) he had Ben Davies in Cautious Mode, both full-backs for the day clearly having been drilled on the importance of being as boring as possible, for the greater good. Anyway, the nub of it was that Lenglet-and-Romero more or less worked, as a central pairing, at least when up against Palace at home and with Fraser Forster’s enormous frame behind them.

3. Ryan Mason

A triumph for Ryan Mason, then, a bean about whom I can’t really make up the mind, three games into his second stint.

That he cares about the club, with all the loveable idiocy of you, I or any other long-suffering fan, is beyond doubt. Cut Mason open and he bleeds lilywhite. Thrust a microphone in his face immediately after the final whistle, and within ten seconds he’ll forget the rules of diplomacy that the PR mob have spoon-fed him, and instead launch into some pretty impassioned stuff, his voice rising an octave, which is really the tell-tale sign that it’s all coming from the heart. After the public sabotage of Conte and Jose, this sort of thing is welcome stuff. This sort of thing makes me want to clasp his hand with firmness and meaning, and there’s not much stronger sentiment than that.

The players are apparently fond of the chap too, or at least happy enough to do his bidding and enquire how high when he yips ‘Jump’. Again, after a couple of years’ worth of managers taking every opportunity to advertise to the world how inept the players are, this seems a pretty useful commodity.

Tactically, I find him a bit harder to fathom. The changes made yesterday seemed to do the trick, at least suggesting a spot of welcome clarity at the back, as well time well spent behind closed doors. It’s hardly his fault that there is not a creative midfielder to be found at the club; and his adjustment to a back-four featuring bona fide full-backs, while seemingly about as common sensical as it gets, was much needed (and yet, bizarrely, completely beyond the grasp of those who trod the path before).

I also rather like the spirit with which he approaches in-game tweaks and substitutions, as if struck by a realisation, which again had completely eluded his predecessors, that by virtue of his role he possesses the capacity to move the pawns about a bit and thereby effect change in real-time. The famous Dier-related adjustment against Man City was apparently his bright idea; and he can take a sizeable chunk of the credit for second half comebacks against both Man Utd and Liverpool, improvements of sorts being evident after his tuppence worth at half-time.

But nevertheless, I have my doubts in this regard. Improved though we may have been after half-time in the aforementioned matches, they were still his troops, under his orders, who fell behind in the first place. (One sympathises here, admittedly, for he was dealt an abysmal hand; but one cannot really have it both ways – credit for the comeback goes hand-in-hand with chiding for the deficit.)

Nor does young Mason exactly come across as particularly Churchillian in manner. Fun though it is to see a genuine fan taking charge of things, for all his being a likeable young soul I struggle to imagine him either stirring fire in bellies or plotting tactical works of genius. Not his fault, of course, that he’s a contemporary (or junior) of half them, but still. Gravitas and nous do not really seem to be his selling points.

The big caveat here, of course, is that this judgement is based purely on the evidence of what Mason presents to the public in press conferences and interviews and whatnot – and here I may well do him quite the injustice. The impression he gives in front of the camera is that of a passionate fan, rather than one of the game’s great thinkers; behind closed doors there may well lurk a far more astute mind (indeed, the murmurs one hears from behind the scenes suggest as much), and one heck of a communicator too.


For now, at least, his presence at the helm makes a goodish amount of sense. Whatever the problems at the club, they were not of his making. If he can inspire our lot simply to care as much as he does, politely demote those worth demotion (irrespective of reputation) and continue to instil the same level of organisation and clarity that was evident on Saturday, then it will be a job pretty well done.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Newcastle 6-1 Spurs: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Happy Birthday AANP Senior

This weekend was the 90th birthday of my old man, AANP Senior, which is a solid innings by most metrics.

Having seen our lot lift all but two of the trophies in their history, and seen in their entirety the lilywhite careers of Messrs Greaves and Kane, I classify the aged relative as something approaching Spurs royalty – so it seemed a bit rotten that he should spend his birthday sitting through that garbled nonsense yesterday. But I suppose if we’ve learnt anything it’s that our heroes will repeatedly find new and innovative ways to plumb new depths, what?

(He was pretty philosophical about it though.)

2. The Players

I recall in my younger days one of the female chums giving me a funny look, and possibly patting my head, saying, “There are many, many things wrong with you,” and it was a sentiment that sprung to mind last night as I recollected the day’s events and tried to make sense of them. For there was not really any single issue that sprung to mind. In fact, one cannot think back to the game without about eighteen different problems immediately jostling for position at the front of the queue.

But amidst the behind-the-scenes circus currently in full effect at the place, the players certainly contributed to the general spirit of full-blooded incompetence yesterday.

I could bang on all day about Romero waddling around from minute one in his own area with his hands behind his back, and it wouldn’t begin to address the problems in the vicinity – but nevertheless, why the dickens was Romero waddling around from minute one in his own area with his behinds his back? Yes, yes, we all know the handball rule means that merely possessing arms is in some cases a punishable offence, but really. The chap was facing down a fellow about to shoot, the situation seemed to demand a spot of spread-limbed antagonism. Instead of which, Romero made himself as small as possible, the complete opposite of what the impending crisis required. On top of which, this arms-behind-back nonsense had the unhelpful immediate consequence of constricting all his subsequent movements in the adventure, Romero hereafter proceeding about the place with all the freedom of one bound by a straitjacket.

Not that Romero was the sole culprit. Right from kick-off, Dier opted against bringing down an aerial ball when given the time and space to do so, instead heading it first time in a manner that stacked the odds against Sarr, who duly lost it. This may sound a pretty incidental detail, and a lot of the time it wouldn’t amount to much I suppose. But in a way, just carelessly tossing the ball around without too much concern for its eventual whereabouts sums up a lot of what is wrong with the troupe. Put another way, next time someone wonders aloud what is meant by the players lacking a winning mentality, I’ll plant them in front of a screen and show them a clip of Dier aimlessly heading the ball with the air of a fellow who thinks it’s someone else’s problem.

On top of which, it wasn’t quite such an incidental detail, because Newcastle promptly scooped up the thing and opened the scoring.

Perisic reacted to the save from Lloris, immediately prior to the first goal, by taking the sight of the loose ball squirming free as a cue to take his first break of the day. Perisic instead adopted a watching brief, as a Newcastle sort politely shuffled forward to poke the ball into the empty net.

Porro for possibly the second goal (I think, one rather loses count) had the decency to check over his right shoulder for imminent threats, and having clocked one such foe lurking with a spot of menace, reacted to the incoming cross by giving it his best Perisic impression and letting the ball sail past him, seemingly convinced that a strategy of non-interference must eventually come good. To his credit, where Perisic had simply goggled a bit, Porro at least made a perfunctory attempt to appear engaged, by raising an arm to appeal for offside. Pointless of course, and infuriating too, in this age of play continuing so that VAR can sort it out at a later date, but if the drill amongst our lot was to find ever more appalling ways to stuff things up then Porro was fitting right in.

Of course, no abject lilywhite capitulation would be complete without Monsieur Lloris adding his signature move of just not bothering to move at all, and he rolled out one of his best for number three (or was it four?), making zero effort even to stretch out an arm, or even twitch a limb, as the ball sailed past him.

This, of course, is but a selection. Everywhere one looked, there seemed to be one of our heroes stumbling off into some new crisis that only ended with the ball in our net and Eric Dier puffing away angrily as they marched back to starting positions. So, chronic and deep-rooted though the problems at the club may be, the current mob out on the pitch are certainly adding their tuppence worth of hokum to the mix at every opportunity.

3. The 4-3-3

The pre-match announcement of the switch to 4-3-3 struck me at the time as ripping news. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that it raised my level of expectation from ‘Nil’ to ‘A Flicker Of Hope’. I’d been baying for the thing all season after all, the sight of our midfield pair repeatedly being outnumbered and generally cut to ribbons week after week having an oddly discouraging effect upon the juices.

Of course, it’s difficult to measure such things as the success of one formation as compared to another, all sorts of wacky metrics being available in these days of Opta stats and XG and so on and so forth. But it’s seems a fairly safe bet to suggest that most right-minded folk would point to a 5-0 deficit after 20 minutes as evidence that the thing had not quite transpired as an unparalleled success.

So no real quibbling on that front, but nevertheless the whole thing left me rather miffed. Like most things in life, done properly a 4-3-3 would seem a perfectly reasonable way to conduct one’s day-to-day. Somehow however, our lot managed to take a pretty normal state of affairs and turn it into the sort of nightmare to rival a stretch in the flames of Hades.

Now there are a few rummy elements to this. One thing that occurred to me is that the club never waste an opportunity to bleat on about how our lot have one of the best training facilities in the business. As bragging rights go, it’s a peculiar one admittedly, but if it helps bring out the best in the troops then I’m all for it.

However, seeing them scuttle about the pitch yesterday like they’d not previously heard of football, let alone adjusted to the rigours of a 4-3-3, did get me wondering what they hell they’ve been doing all week in those gleaming training facilities. One appreciates that change is always a bit much to stomach, we homo sapiens being creatures of habit and whatnot, but honestly. They began proceedings looking uncertain if they were in the right half of the pitch.

Another challenge that has been widely highlighted is that apparently having a wing-back play at wing-back is hunky-dory, and a full-back play at full-back is tickety-boo; but if a wing-back is every required to play at full-back cracks will appear in the sky and the very fabric of reality will come crashing down.

This seems to be the expert take, and is used to explain why, for example, Perisic was utterly incapable of exhibiting any signs of life when the situation at Goal 1 yesterday required him to extend a leg and poke the ball clear. Wing-backs, after all, are incapable of defending. Similarly, Porro’s inability to jog back alongside the striker on his shoulder was not so much his fault, as a desperate flaw in the system – wing-backs are incapable of defending.

So if that’s the unquestionable truth then I suppose we ought to accept it, but I did occasionally pass a hand over the fevered brow and wonder, as our lot fell apart at the seams, whether anyone had tried training Perisic and Porro – and indeed Romero and Dier – to adapt to this new and mind-boggling setup, viz. The Back Four. In this age in which every baked bean ingested is recorded and every drop of perspiration monitored, I’d have thought they’d have the resource at the gleaming training facility to sit down with a couple of the players and shove a few hours of analysis at them, touching on some of the key do’s and don’ts of the role.

4. Kane

It obviously got rather lost in the mists of general wretchedness knocking about the place, but Harry Kane popped up with a heck of a goal. On another day I would have lit a cigar, been pretty liberal with the bourbon and scrawled some of the best prose going in salute to it. There was a spot of one-touch stuff at the outset, completely out of character with the general sentiment of not-knowing-what-day-of-the-week that had been adopted by one and all, before Kane was released on halfway.

And while his little dribble to beat his man owed much to general bluster and force than any particular finesse, it achieved the objective, and left him to make a left-foot shot that many would have dragged wide.

So well done him, although for how much longer such jolly sentiments are lobbed his way remains to be seen. If he decided to sprint out the door as soon as the whistle blows on the final game of the season, one would understand the sentiment.

However, one point I have begun to mull in my quieter moments, is whether a permanent absence of Kane might work to our benefit. One treads carefully here, dodging the slew of incoming rotten fruit, and picking the words delicately, but the point I’m driving at is that we no longer press from the front, with any real sense of verve or spirit when Kane is leading the line.

Essentially this is because the poor fellow is completely out of puff, having strained every sinew non-stop for about four years under Poch. These days, his top speed is something of a chug, which is more than adequate for most of the tasks on his morning To-Do list – finish with the right foot; finish with the left foot; win a foul; drop deep and ping; finish from outside the box; and so on.

But when it comes to pressing the opposition, Kane is something of a spent force these days. This is entirely his prerogative, so no complaint there; it does, however, prevent the rest of our mob from effecting a high press as a team.

This is a bit of a tangent that probably needs some cove with a screen and some whizzy graphics to do justice to, and if push came to shove I’d certainly keep the fellow in the ranks and let him do his damnedest pretty much any way he pleases. But as well as wing-backs who can’t play full-back, the generally decrepit nature of whichever system we’re peddling does seem to include an inability to shove any pressure on the other lot when in possession at the back.

5. The Running of the Club


Well that Stellini chap has taken the well-trodden path, so no need to bother about him any longer, and poor old Ryan Mason is now faced with the gargantuan task of trying not to devastate his CV before he’s had a chance to write the first entries.

But further up the food-chain, if I have correctly picked up the occasional whisper, it seems that there might just be one or two murmurs of displeasure against one D. Levy Esquire.

If he would stick to the business side, steer well clear of the football side and bring in a few qualified eggs with a good knowledge of the club, AANP would probably be happy enough, in truth. Off the pitch he knows his beans well enough, and if things pootle along well on the pitch then I’m happy not to give him a further thought. But things on the pitch could not really be much worse, which does rather bend the argument a good 180 degrees.

The complete lack of strategy in the pre-Nuno and pre-Conte appointments (as evidenced by shortlists containing all manner of managerial styles) was troubling stuff, and since then it seems like the blighter has stumbled upon a whole series of choices on the football side of things, which, while no doubt well-intentioned, have really piled one steaming mess upon another.

The ominous silence around the managerial situation in recent weeks – bar, bizarrely, a few off-topic lines at the old alma mater last week – may have been just the job in the 1970s, when one waited patiently week to week for news from the club, but these days serves only to infuriate an already pretty restless bunch of natives.

And frankly twenty years at the head of any company strikes me as pretty unhealthy, although I don’t suppose I’d be giving tongue to too many grumbles if we’d picked up some trophies and waltzed into the Top Four with Levy still at the helm.

However, be all that as it may, we appear to be stuck with the chap, for the foreseeable anyway. And in truth, if we could only appoint a manager capable of giving some direction to the current rabble, I’d once again shove Levy from my mind and just enjoy the ride. One understands the calls for the entire useless shower to be shoved out the door and start from scratch; but looking at Villa, Newcastle and, to an extent, Man Utd, turning their fortunes around with only minimal cosmetic surgery, I do still cling to the hope that a competent manager would give a spot of direction to the existing squad.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-3 Bournemouth: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Actually Not A Bad Performance

A pretty distracting feature of this latest drama was the overbearing urge to fling the head skywards and yowl away in despair. Difficult to focus on much else I mean, when beating the chest, tugging great clumps of hair from the scalp, uttering every oath known to man and similar such healthy mood outlets.

But having stared vacantly off into the mid-distance for a good few hours, Reason gradually returned to her throne, and the old silver-lining-finder in the AANP blood kicked in and started doing its thing. At least, I began to muse, this wasn’t one of those defeats in which we sat back, ceded possession and gradually dropped deeper and deeper until stuffing up the whole thing in the dying seconds.

Replaying the whole dashed thing in my mind, I actually thought that this wasn’t one of our worst performances of the season. In fact, it was probably one of our better ones – although the bar here is admittedly low. In the first half hour or so, we looked pretty threatening each time we buzzed forward, and before and after the opening goal we might have had another, if those tasked with such things had taken a bit more care.

Things drifted a bit thereafter, and by the hour mark we were behind, which is pretty poor form at home to Bournemouth, dash it; but then for the last half hour we again got our affairs in order and hammered away.

Moreover, even The Brains Trust seemed to up their game, dispensing with that back-three guff and going full Ossie by the climax, with no fewer than 5 attackers (plus two others christened by Mother Nature as wing-backs) flitting about the place. The naysayers may point out that a fat lot of good it did us, but after the negative dross of the last three years – and three managers – I don’t mind admitting to feeling a gentle thrill as one after another forward were shoved into the mix and the strategy became ever more akin to teenage AANP gaily throwing caution to the wind on Football Manager.

For all that I still thought we rather obviously lacked someone in the centre with a twinkle in their eye, but the poking and prodding around the area, and steady stream of half-decent crosses at least made us look like a team pretty annoyed to be behind and pretty determined to correct the situation. Just a shame that amidst all the excitement we rather neglected the whole business of sweeping up behind us. And frankly, with the upcoming fixtures as they are, losing this one verged on criminal negligence, but still. Nice to see us doing some attacking, what?

2. Sonny

Nice also to see Sonny zig-zagging about the place with some of his old joie de vivre. I hesitate to suggest that he is now fully restored to his former glories, but after last week’s throwback goal, yesterday I eagerly lapped up every hint provided that his tendency to collect the ball and dribble north was slowly morphing back towards that of 2021/22.

And whether it was to do with the Bournemouth approach or some other cause, in the first half in particular it did seem to me that the Son of old was occasionally hoving into view. It helped that rather than collecting the ball inside his own half, and promptly failing to hold it up, he generally received the ball yesterday around the final third and pointing in the correct direction. After all, a Sonny jinking towards the opposition goal is infinitely more pleasing upon the eye than a Sonny trying to shield the ball when facing his own net.


He popped up with his goal, of course. Not necessarily one about which to write home, but if a recent Golden Boot winner struggling through leaner times finds a straightforward close-range opportunity thrust his way, one doesn’t ask questions. Sonny tucked the thing away with minimal fuss, and one could almost see the injection of additional confidence ooze onto his map as he wandered off for the regulatory knee-slide.

So that was welcome stuff, but as mentioned it was his general air, in the first half in particular, that brought a bit of fizz to proceedings. Those moments when he picks up the ball around 20-25 yards from goal, in an inside-left sort of channel, and then dips the shoulders this way and that, makes to duck outside, and then inside, all the while with a general air of a bumblebee that has stumbled upon a whole gaggle of flowers in bloom and can’t decide which to get at first.

At one point when Sonny scuttled off into the area he cut in and out so often, and threw in so many stepovers, that I rather fancy the Bournemouth laddie tasked with stopping him was struck with a spot of motion sickness. It would have been one heck of a goal if a defensive foot hadn’t spoiled things; but the general sentiment remained – the fellow had hit a bit of an upward trajectory.

Bar perhaps that hat-trick against Leicester, this seemed the first time all season that Sonny had looked a genuine nuisance at the top of our attack. The onus changed a bit in the second half, as our heroes took to swinging in crosses, but and of course it all fell apart fairly miserably at the end, but this at least gave reason to stride off into the next coiuple of fixtures with a bit of purpose.

3. Perisic

I also thought in that first half that Perisic was having one of his better days. This stood to reason – if not really required to do much defending, and allowed simply to park himself in the final third, jiggle between left and right clog and swing in crosses with either of the aforementioned, Perisic becomes quite the attacking asset.

And so it transpired, at least in the first half. At this point, Porro was seemingly still adjusting to things and appeared to have received special dispensation not to get involved with any attacks until 4pm local time, so it was all Perisic.

This got my vote. The Bournemouth right-back became the latest in a pretty long stream of souls who have this season discovered that Perisic doesn’t actually have a weaker foot, so it didn’t really matter in which direction he tried to escort him. Perisic’s crossing was a constant threat in the first half, and he chipped in pretty regularly in the second too, at least until the formation switched from Wing-Backs to All-Guns-Blazing.

Oddly enough, given that all season the theory has been peddled that Sonny’s ills have been at least partly due to Perisic stepping on his toes, the pair seemed to stumble upon quite the understanding. As Son drifted infield, Perisic overlapped, a routine that, despite its breathtaking simplicity, seemed sufficient to have Bournemouth defensive brains melting, and amongst other delights brought about our opening goal.

Given the struggles of Son to date this season, I presume that the winnings pocketed by the Perisic-Son combo yesterday were at least in part due to obliging opponents; and the thought of Perisic being shoved back and forced to dig in defensively against more accomplished opponents does bring out the cold sweats; but as an attacking asset he’s a pretty handy chap to have around the place.

4. Porro

As mentioned, it was a while before the memo about wing-backs making merry in the final third reached Pedro Porro. Unfortunately, before he was able to crack on with this part of the routine, he made an almighty hash of things at the back, landing the collective right in it.

I’m all for our heroes trying to be proactive, and looking forwards before all else on receipt of the ball; but there’s a pretty obvious asterisk to be slapped against such recommendations: viz. that one carry out such undertakings without imperilling the entire blasted operation.

So when Porro received a pass on the touchline, deep inside his own half, one could salute his initial pivot – infield and forward, bearing all the hallmarks of a wing-back looking to inject a bit of fizz and impetus into things. At that point however, a splash of good old common sense would not have gone amiss. Red and black shirts were converging en masse. Porro had made his point, about beetling forward and showing intent and whatnot; now was the time for him to shovel the ball elsewhere and move on.

Alas, the blighter made a pretty serious error of judgement, in trying to take on and dribble through the advancing Bournemouth horde. It was a pretty wretched attempt all round actually, as he didn’t achieve anything near a successful dribble, his touch so heavy that it amounted virtually to a pass straight to an opponent. In a trice he had ceded possession to no fewer than three attackers. The rest was rather a formality, and well might P.P. have hung his head in shame.  

This punctured the atmosphere like the dickens, which was a real shame because, as mentioned above, we had tucked into this one with a bit of appetite in the early knockings.

However, to his credit, Porro set about his business in the second half looking every inch a man who wanted to redeem himself. He was a pretty willing galloper to the byline, as occasion demanded; but vastly more eye-catching was the stream of crosses delivered from his right boot to the penalty area. True, one or two went a touch askew, but in general he sent them over with lovely whip and shape, and I was pretty dsigruntled to see so little fruit borne from them.

Ultimately then, for all his second half efforts, the chap ended the afternoon in debit rather than credit, but whereas some amongst our number attract a fair bit of stick for their faux pas, Porro seems the sort of egg who will make a few decent contributions to the cause in his time.

5. Davinson Sanchez

Hard not to mourn a bit for poor old D. Sanchez, what? Full disclosure, of course, I think the fellow is an absolute disaster of a defender, and ought to have been carted off the premises long ago – but to err is human and all that guff, and in fact yesterday I’m not sure he even erred so significantly.

True, his attempted challenge on the Bournemouth nib in the build-up to their second was at the half-hearted end of the spectrum, but it seemed to me that the ball’s journey from his foot to that of the goalscorer (Solanke) was as unfortunate as it was inept. It seemed fairly reasonable to expect a nearby teammate – of whom there were several – to do the decent thing and step across to hammer the ball clear.  

Anyway, nobody did, and having begun that move by losing his bearings in what is unfortunately rather trademark style, he ended it by delivering the assist for the Bournemouth goal. A pretty standard day at the office, by his wretched standards.

But apparently thereafter the chap was booed when he next got involved, and that just isn’t cricket. I’m all for filling the air with a choice curse or two in a moment of instinctive reaction when a lad really stinks the place out; but to wait until his next involvement and deliberately give him the bird says more about those doing the cat-calling than the object of the cat-calls, if you follow.

I suppose the thought probably entered the Sanchez dome at that point that a spot of public support from The Brains Trust would not go amiss; but if he had set his heart on any such vote of confidence he was in for a bit of a shock. An ugly business, substituting a substitute, and unlike a mass brawl involving all 22 plus the benches, I’m not sure it is a sight that too many people genuinely do enjoy. Sometimes, however, the greater good demands these things. Tactically, one understood. On a human level, however, I did rather want to shove a consoling bourbon his way.

That said, if Sanchez never plays for our lot again, I will chalk that up as a major bound in the right direction. The long-awaited overhaul ought to start with him. His confidence is on the floor, and I get the impression he doesn’t exactly instil much steady assurance amongst those around him either. Pack him off to Ligue Un or some such, and let him start again. I’ve no idea what fate befell Monsieur Lenglet yesterday, but if he remains incapacitated a pretty sizeable call awaits for the trip to Newcastle next week. It could be sharp intakes of breath all round.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-1 Brighton: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Danjuma

Being the sort of chap who likes to keep an audience on their toes, I thought I’d begin with a spot of wittering on the rarely-sighted Danjuma, not least because he was the principal object of a spot of post-second goal gushing from yours truly yesterday.

It might not necessarily be the view clung to by the masses, but I was already greeting with boyish enthusiasm the energy of Danjuma, even before it led, in a slightly convoluted way, to our second goal.

Danjuma came bounding on with all the perk and vim of a man who had spent several months in a Conte-induced purgatory and had a few sackfuls of energy to release. In that respect I suppose he had much in common with Lucas Moura at Everton last week, but whereas Lucas channelled his efforts into imprinting his size nines across someone else’s shin, Danjuma’s approach wasn’t quite so lacking in a few spoonfuls of common sense.

Which is to say, in the first place, that he didn’t stamp on anyone – an obvious baseline, one might think, but nevertheless the sort of thing one can’t take for granted amongst a gang as low on the grey stuff as ours. Anyway, having confirmed the ability to chase everything that moved without getting himself sent off, what really grabbed the attention was the fact that, having buzzed from one outfield player to another in pursuit of the ball, Danjuma then turned everything upon its head by daring to chase down the Brighton goalkeeper as well.

This was front-page stuff. I had noted over the course of the game that our high press was being applied with a little more meaning than usual, but that once the ball beetled its way back to this ‘keeper, Steele, our lot tended to slam on the brakes, and subject him to little more than a beady eye.

No doubt this was part of a masterplan concocted by the Brains Trust. Something to do with cutting off angles, or not leaving gaps, or some other such gubbins. Be that as it may, Danjuma was clearly having none of it. Goodness knows what his superiors made of it, but the first chance he got he put his head down and fairly raced off towards that Steele fellow, leaving the latter in no doubt that the time for a pause and restorative break was long gone.

I don’t mind admitting that this sent a quiet thrill through me. After all, if one is going to press 90% of the way up the pitch, why not shrug the shoulders and go the distance?

It is probably important to note that Danjuma’s press did not in itself draw a mistake – Steele with ball at his feet is no Hugo Lloris, and simply funnelled the thing off to his nearest chum as if it were something done since he were knee-high. However, Danjuma’s lust for involvement, as well as drawing a satisfied nod from these parts, also seemed to have the infinitely useful knock-on effect of prompting everyone else in lilywhite to look at one other and murmur, “Well if he can do it, dash it, I might try as well!”

And so it happened that Danjuma’s charge on the ‘keeper was followed by Son charging at the next chappie in possession (Webster, apparently). This Webster fellow then popped along the hot potato sharpish to that Mitoma lad, who had Romero charging at him; and at this point all that charging paid dividends, as Romero emerged from the argument with his inventory reading: Size 5 Football (x1). And from there, within 3 passes, Kane was doing his thing and we were up 2-1.

The extent to which the goal can be attributed to Danjuma is of course the sort of debatable stuff that will sit right up there for centuries to come, alongside butterflies flapping their wings and causing cyclones and whatnot – but at a point in the game in which we were looking as likely as we’ve done for several weeks to craft a goal, I was glad to see Danjuma raise the energy level a notch and have some level of involvement in a goal.

2. Hojbjerg

A propos the goal, P-E Hojbjerg would no doubt have given the chin a slightly irritated scratch as he read the above, and rightly so, for it misses the point rather wildly to bang on all day about Danjuma chasing a back pass to little avail and then omitting to mention the critical pass that set up the goal.

But that, and more, was contributed by the same P-E H. Having been released by Sonny, Hojbjerg’s interest in affairs suddenly rocketed, as has often happened this season when he is granted temporary dispensation to rub shoulders with the elite in the final third. Off he galloped into the area, before, crucially, taking a deep breath or two, as I understand these Scandinavian types are fond of doing. This was an important move, because if he had simply attempted to pick out the only teammate in the box – my golden boy, Danjuma – he’d have had a dickens of a time manoeuvring the ball around four Brighton defenders to reach him.

Just as well that Hojbjerg’s fabled capacity to hear at bat-like frequencies kicked in, this no doubt allowing him to catch the heavy breathing of a lumbering Kane, arriving in the second wave. Hojbjerg effected his pass to perfection, a good ten yards behind everyone else, after which there still followed a pretty lengthy interval, as all in attendance waited a little longer for Kane to catch up, but when he did the fruits were ripe.

On a tangent, I have to admit that that pause – as the entire stadium took a sharp old intake of breath, and held it, before exploding – was one of the AANP highlights of the season.

Back to Hojbjerg, and a big old tick against his name, for the run, awareness and delivery. The problem, however, is that that same big tick is both preceded and followed by a couple of emphatic red crosses.

Not five minutes earlier, it had been Hojbjerg’s errant leg that thrust itself into the limelight for no good reason, clipping the twin limb of Mitouma inside the penalty area. Inadvertent it may have been, but in these days of constant and panoramic surveillance, one ought to be pretty darned sure about whether or not one will clip the leg of another in the area. The fact that the VAR spook gaily waved it on should not exonerate our man.

He followed up later in the piece by conceding a couple of pretty unnecessary transgressions – more clipping of legs, actually. And from one of these free-kicks the similarly bone-headed Lenglet played pretty fast and loose with the rules, grabbing at a shirt with two hands, which at the very least prompted those concerned to institute polite enquiries.

So much though I enjoy Hojbjerg’s spirit of willing and general fire-in-belly, and, of course, his contributions when let off the leash in the final third, I do wish he would focus a bit more on the basics within his own defensive game. But in a way, it rather sums up the chap – a mixture of valued contributions and lamentable, avoidable gaffes.

3. Skipp

Alongside Hojbjerg, young Master Skipp beavered away in his usual understated manner, and as ever I was all for it.

I suspect that beyond N17 few would afford him more than a shrug of the shoulders and a nonplussed look, but his lack of glamour ought not to mislead. Skipp keeps things ticking.

I suspect I have prattled on about this before, but I am particularly drawn to the fact that if a winning pass does not immediately present itself, he does not dwell or dither. The chap distributes as if on a timer. Speed – of distribution – is of the essence, in the mind of young Skipp. Whatever the circumstance, his motto is that gag about things being best done when done quickly, and if that means he should simply shovel the ball sideways or backwards then it’s fine by him, seemingly aware that there will be another day and another opportunity to show his full passing range.  

And it is quite some range. We saw a few weeks ago when he set Richarlison free for a disallowed goal, that he has in his armoury a pass of the 40-yard ilk, and he was at it again yesterday. Neither led to goals, but both – one in each half, from memory – found their man and helped turn defence into attack pretty neatly.

On top of which, he also set off on a couple of healthy, long-distance gallops, as circumstances dictated were prudent. Running at full pelt with the ball for 40 yards or more is pretty impressive stuff, and it all nudges towards the sense that here is a lad who might eventually grow into quite the all-round sort of bean.

4. Sonny

Not that there were any headlines for young Skipp. That was Sonny territory yesterday.

One might, I suppose, if in particularly curmudgeonly mood, complain that Sonny did little of note apart from score one and pop up with a spot of behind-the-scenes assistance for the second  – but this, to me, would be pretty rich stuff. The whole point of Sonny is to score and do a spot of behind-the-scenes lifting and shifting for others to score, so if he can check both boxes I think the appropriate reaction is a slap on the back and reminder that his bank account will be credited in due course.

His goal was an absolute dream. Different goals please in different ways of course, but Sonny in particular has long had a line in those curling efforts that start outside the post and curve inwards, leaving the goalkeeper fully extended and still falling short, for added aesthetic pleasure. I suppose part of the reason we see so few of them from him these days is that various opponents nowadays know better than to let him try that particular party-trick. It was a delight therefore, to see him unleash it once more, for old time’s sake.

And as mentioned, he also did his best, in understated fashion, towards the second. Once Romero had won possession near halfway, the ball was fed to Son, who for reasons to be fully investigated, had at this point popped up on the right flank. Sensibly, rather than try this season’s choice routine of running into a brick wall and tripping over his own feet, Son opted to pop off a quick pass; and what a pass he popped. The nutmeg is one of AANP’s personal favourites at any given point in any given game; when it is effected in the build-up to a goal, all the better.

Son’s nutmegged pass was just the excuse for which Hojbjerg had been looking to bound forward, and as mentioned above, the Dane duly did his thing. Sonny may have offered little else in an attacking sense, but if this is to be his weekly output then I would happily sign him up to it pronto.

5. An Oddly Enjoyable Win

I emerged from that win in vastly better spirits than anticipated. Admittedly, this is not least because I fully expected our heroes to collapse in a heap at the first sign of trouble, but even though we had less possession, and were not half as competent in midfield as the other lot, this produced one of those ear-to-ear grins across the map.

I suppose it is partly because in those moments when we did counter, the mechanics seemed to whirr and hum as well as they have done for some time. A low bar, admittedly, but still enough to get me off my seat a few times.

Kulusevski, while still not exactly the swashbuckling hero of last season, seemed to have a few vague recollections of dance routines and jinky steps that have served him well before. In the second half, I fancied that we even looked likelier to score than they did. At one-one, with the game approaching its finale, I experienced something other than the usual dread; and all of this, coupled with the marvellous pause before our second goal, put a spring in the step and song on the lips.

No doubt we had a couple of helpful interventions – or, I suppose more accurately, benefited from the absence of a couple of unhelpful interventions. The AANP tuppence worth is that the disallowed goals were scrawled from the record books rightly enough, but the penalty shouts were another matter.

However, the outrage accompanying all this has been rather entertaining. One understands the Brighton howls of indignation. Tough to swallow, no doubt. More than happy to administer a sympathetic pat, if it helps. But it is all rather amusing, what? One would think, from the outpouring of apoplexy that no other side has ever suffered a VAR bruising since the thing was unveiled. And frankly, the rarity of benefitting so obviously from a spot of VAR fumbling has contributed all the more to making this an absolute delight. Heaven knows we’ve suffered at its hands often enough in the past, and will no doubt do so again soon enough – so that being the case, I’m happy to throw back an extra bourbon in celebration of it tonight! But a sympathetic pat to our guests, of course.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Everton 1-1 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. The Post-Conte Era

AANP is pretty sharp. The former Commander-in-Chief may no longer have been of the parish, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour or so into proceedings last night when it dawned on me that actually, for all the bluster and announcements, not a dashed thing had changed.

For a start there was the formation. Now one generously acknowledges that, thirty games into a season, one can hardly force a completely revamped model down every available throat, and expect everything to fall into place without so much as a squeak. The newly-installed Brains Trust had had by my reckoning about five days to inspect the troops. So, much though the wretched 3-4-3-featuring-two-defensive-midfielders grates, one understood the logic and waved an accepting – if grudging – hand.

But nevertheless, while tearing down the foundations and creating something completely wacky and new might have been a bit rich, a few nuanced adjustments would have been nice, what? Brave new era, and all that. Would it really have cost the earth, I asked myself, to have rearranged the deck-chairs and including an extra creative soul in midfield? Not that we seem to have any such souls left, but with a bit of jiggery-pokery – and maybe a Pape Sarr – I thought we might see Hojbjerg pushed further forward, or Kulusevski more central, or Kane and Sonny as a front two, or literally anything that indicated that Conte had biffed out the door in deed as well as word.

But nope. The formation was exactly the same. And if that was not enough, the performance ended up being even more Conte-esque than it had been under Conte, which takes some doing.

In fairness, there were patches of play in the first half that weren’t too bad. Everton had obviously got into their heads the ridiculous notion that we were the sort of mob that would fold immediately under questioning, and so spent the opening exchanges charging in a frenzy at whichever of our lot were in possession, lacking only a bayonet to brandish and a war-cry to shriek. And our lot responded pretty impressively, at least at various points between approximately minutes 5 and 25. Whomever was in possession tended to do a quick tap-dance, shimmy around the nearest swinging Everton leg and pop the ball off to a nearby chum, at which point the whole routine began again.

So we looked competent enough in possession, and able to sidestep the Everton press. Most notably to the AANP eye, we moved the ball pretty quickly. One got the sense that Team Stellini had spent their five days barking a few choice phrases celebrating the virtues of the quick pass and one-touch football, because there was a welcome dash of urgency about the place.

On top of which, whether by our design or the accident of Everton being rather narrow, Messrs Perisic and Porro had a few moments of joy up the flanks. Hojbjerg seemed to be having one of his better days in the centre. Kane had a couple of near-ish misses. Rumours of a new-manager bounce were no doubt miles off the mark, but for half an hour or so I at least thought that we might just about edge our relegation-zoned, lowest-scoring-team-in-the-division opponents.

2. The Performance at One-Nil

I should have known better of course. From the latter part of the first half onwards, our lot absolutely stank the place out. Whatever upper hand we might have had early doors was old news by the midway point, and there was not much improvement in the second half.

It took some pretty generous and unsubtle interventions from Everton to get our noses in front, because goodness knows our clueless heroes weren’t going to manage it themselves. First that laddie got himself sent off; but on seeing that our lot hadn’t really taken the hint, and were still scratching their heads a bit, another Everton slab of meat took it upon himself to give us a penalty, just to make sure.

And at that point, I fancy I even allowed myself a smile, which just goes to show one never really learns. The one-nil lead was not really a deal-breaker; but a one-nil lead against ten men with under half an hour remaining struck me as the sort of binge even our lot couldn’t foul up.

Of course, it is a little hard to describe what happened next. One simply stared in disbelief, and rubbed the eyes a few times. After Sheffield United and Southampton – and seemingly every other game we’ve played this season, in truth – it shouldn’t have come as any surprise, and yet this seemed to be one of the worst performances of the lot. By just about any metric available, we managed to let ourselves get comprehensively outplayed by ten men. Even now, 24 hours on, the recollection of it seems to hollow out my insides.

It is tempting to get a bit Shakespearian about things and declare this the worst I’ve ever seen from our lot, but having had my teenage years fashioned by the delights of Francis, Graham and Gross a little perspective is probably in order.

Nevertheless, though, this collective offering – let’s call it The Conte Tribute Act – was down there amongst the absolute dregs. If a chum had suggested to me that with twenty minutes to go against one of the worst teams in the league, and up a man, our lot would choose the option of dropping deep, ceding possession and praying for the final bell, I’d have laughed them out of town and suggested for good measure they had over-indulged in the sauce. And yet our lot did precisely that! Forsooth!

The amateurish passing from the back; the aimless hoicks upfield; the introduction of Davinson Sanchez as a means to shore up the defence; the brainless red card; the continued absence of Danjuma – I’m not one to betray the emotions unnecessarily, but when I tell you that at least one of my lips quivered with despair as I watched matters unfold I rather fancy you get the picture.

3. Son

The rest is mere details. By full-time I was in such a state of shock that I found myself groping blindly towards the drinks cabinet, but at half-time, when thoughts were slightly better ordered, one of the principal points of concern was the latest dithering performance from young Sonny.

The wise old coves have it that form is temporary and class permanent, which is true enough I suppose, but it makes this dip in form one of the longest temporary contracts in living memory.

The poor blighter was dreadful yet again, in just about every area of his game. I admired to an extent his diligence in trying to track back or drop deep to receive the ball, but seeing him trip over his own feet and fall to the dirt upon every contact, I did look skywards and utter a silent prayer or two that he might just relocate to the top of the pitch and stay there. I much prefer the chap playing on the shoulder of defenders and scurrying off towards the opposition goal.

Not that his attacking manoeuvres bore much fruit either, mind. The days of him dipping a shoulder, side-stepping a defender and whipping a shot goalwards seemed pretty distant specks as we watched him shuffle straight into an opposition frame and, more often than not, complete his routine by yet again hitting the turf.

After last night it is admittedly hard to make a case to suggest that Lucas is the answer, but one does cast a longing look or two towards Danjuma on the bench and wonder what on earth that is all about.

4. Lloris

Amongst the bigger decisions our newest Glorious Leader had to make was between the sticks. Absence, of course, makes the heart grow fonder, and Fraser Forster has not been without the occasional flaw, but I did puff the cheeks and think it rather a shame that he was automatically elbowed aside and the red carpet rolled out for Monsieur Lloris.

In Lloris’ defence he did grab a cross or two of the high-and-swirling variety in the first half, which lowered the blood pressure a bit around these parts. However, with the ball at his feet he seemed, as ever, to be not entirely sure of what day it was or which sport he was playing, and there were more sharp intakes of breath than any right-minded nurse would consider healthy whenever our lot tried to play out from the back. An admonishing clip should be aimed around the ear of Romero at this point, for his bizarre inputs into this particular nonsense, but the whole fiasco did have me pining for the return of Forster.

The real blow to the ribs, however, was the goal. The objective viewer would, naturally enough, raise an appreciative eye at the quality of the strike, but at AANP Towers the headline was all about Lloris and that utterly infuriating habit of his, of simply standing and watching, rooted to the spot, as the ball sails past him.

I don’t mind admitting I could have absolutely screamed at him to use his bally hands. Why the dickens does he keep doing this? Adopting the pose of readiness, as if coiled to leap into action, and then, as the crucial moment approaches, instead of leaping as advised, simply swivelling the hips to watch the ball? It happens over and over, and drives me to absolute distraction. What is stopping him from extending the frame and at least broaching the possibility that he might reach it?

It is galling at the best of times, when he is nowhere near the ball; but last night the thing whistled within his wingspan! I’m not sure he even needed to dive in order to reach it, simply extending an arm might well have done the trick. That the ball was travelling at a fair old lick is beyond doubt; but geographically this was no insurmountable challenge.

Utterly bewilderingly, after that utter crate of garbage – and all the other ones we’ve witnessed – we sit fourth in the table, but given the games played and whatnot (and, more pertinently, the utter guff we keep peddling) we’ll be waving that one goodbye pretty sharpish. One can only look onwards, and hope yet again for an upturn on Saturday, but this really is getting a bit thick now, what?

Categories
Spurs match reports Spurs news, rants

Conte (& the Southampton Draw): 5 Tottenham Talking Points

1. Conte’s Rant

I must confess that a good deal of what you might call the specifics of Conte’s rant escaped me. This is certainly not a pop at the fellow’s English, which is a dashed sight better than any other tongue in which I’ve dabbled (when it comes to asking for a cheese sandwich in DuoLingo Spanish, I’m your man; when it comes to discussing the merits or otherwise of my colleagues in a foreign vernacular, I demur to Conte).

But still, this was not one of those systematic jollies, in which each point is clearly labelled and unpacked, leaving the listener in no doubt about the way of things, before moving on to the next item. First listening to his words, and then poring over the transcript, it seemed to me that Conte had about half a dozen different ideas swirling around, and they all oozed out on top of one another.

Nevertheless, one got the loose gist. “Angry man ranting” was the nub of it. Whatever calm and considered plan he might have prepared before strolling out to meet the assembled press, once he had taken his seat and got down to business he seemed not to be able to contain himself. Nor did the passage of time soothe the savage beast, and by the time he had finished ten minutes later the whole thing reminded me of that scene in Predator in which Arnie and chums unleash their heavy artillery and spend a good minute or two of screentime just mowing down every tree in sight.

So while the small print of his frustration was a little mysterious to me, it was pretty clear that one or two things had got up him. Most notably, he seemed at pains to communicate that he was less than entirely enamoured of his beloved players. If I understood him correctly, I also fancy that he aimed a swipe at the board and owners; and for good measure he then veered down a side-road into the theoretical and peeled off a strip or two at the club generally, as an entity. At that point a few questions from my undergrad days about personal identity came swimming back to mind, but they swam off again sharpish.

The underlying feature seemed to be that Conte had just about had enough of the current state of things. And, indeed, the state of things for the past twenty years. So what to make of it all?

2. Conte On The Players

His principal target was the playing personnel, and here he has a point. Whether or not one also drags in the board, the manager or both is pretty racy stuff, but as starting points go this is actually pretty straightforward. That the players repeatedly foul things up on the pitch is difficult to dispute. I doubt there’s a lilywhite in the land who hasn’t at some point this season wanted to grab various of our heroes, give them a pretty violent shake and then smack them across the face with a wet fish.

“Selfish” seemed to be Conte’s word de jour yesterday, but more generally the notions of our lot being unable to cope with pressure and offering little more than half-hearted shrugs in the face of trouble certainly rang true. Far too often this season and for several previous seasons, the players have stunk the place out.

3. Conte On The Board

The board – I think – were next in the firing line, but at this point the mood darkens rather. This seems to be a matter that turns family members against each other, if you follow my thread. Some are ‘yay’, and some are ‘nay’, but everyone seems to voice their point with gusto.

Those who side with the owners can point to the large sacks of cash flung around to bring in such luminaries as Sanchez, Ndombele and Lo Celso in recent years, the argument being that money most categorically has been spent.

More pertinent to the serving monarch, Messrs Kulusevski, Bentancur, Perisic and Porro each seem to have Conte’s personal seal of approval emblazoned across their foreheads. Added to which, Richarlison and Bissouma, whilst each having so far had much about them of the damp squib, nevertheless seemed to receive from the Big Cheese a satisfied nod of approval upon arrival last summer, as if to say, “Precisely the squad member needed for a campaign on several glorious fronts.” Conte, the argument runs, has had his wish-list pretty handsomely indulged.

However, no sooner would the Defence nestle back into its seat than the Prosecution would leap up and start raging that Conte wanted but two things last summer, viz. a right wing-back and left-sided centre-back. On the RWB front he has had to wait half a season for one shiny new Porro to arrive. As for the left centre-back, the whole sorry episode reminds me of that gag from the Good Book, which asks what sort of fellow would hand his lad a stone if he requested bread, or a snake if he requested a fish – both of which suddenly seem pretty rosy deals when compared with receiving Clement Lenglet, when asked for a world-class left centre-back.

A messy old business then. The AANP take is that the players certainly deserve stern words; the culture of the club has indeed been severely lacking in the Winning Mentality department; and that while the board has chipped in with cash it has made various howlers in other areas.

4. Conte Himself

Much of which, however, is for a different day. Following Conte’s tantrum, the burning question at AANP Towers was around the responsibilities of the fellow himself. Shaking an angry fist at the players, for their displays every week for the last year, is all well and good until one remembers that they set foot on the pitch each time with Conte’s own words ringing in their ears. If things have been so bad, what the devil has he done about it himself? Listening to the chap whinge away you would think that he has been barred from speaking to them for the past year.

Conte himself bleated that our lot today are worse than last season, which seems true enough. But given that he is the one running the whole operation it does rather suggest that he ought to have a solid chunk of the responsibility shoved across his shoulders.

To howl about the selected players not being up to the task (or being too “selfish”), whilst resisting any personnel changes as if his life depended upon the same XI, has a bit of a whiff about it. Which is to say nothing of the rigid tactics, or the peculiar reluctance to give things a shake mid-match with a few substitutions.

It is possible that this entire episode was part of the old psychological one-two, aimed at instilling a spot of fire in the bellies of the outraged playing personnel. I suppose I have heard wilder theories in my time.

The drearier conclusion, as pointed out by various more knowledgeable sorts, seems to be that the whole monologue was Conte’s attempt to protect his reputation. That is to say, with pastures new awaiting him, and a sorry end to the season fast looming at N17, it is in Conte’s interests to position the club as beyond saving, the players as empty-headed dullards and the managers – both present and previous – as pretty helpless innocents.

All of which might be true, I suppose. He’s laid it on a bit thick though, what?

5: The Match Itself

After all that – which enfolded, lest we forget, after our heroes had thrown away a two-goal lead in the final fifteen against the divison’s bottom team – to pop back and pick out the positives from the match itself feels a bit like coming home to find the house burnt down, but noting that the sun is shining so it’s not all bad.

Still,  there were some plus points, as Conte’s dearest pals are no doubt reminding him. Pedro Porro looks a handy addition, for a start. I’ve previously given quite the salute to his crossing in the final third, and on Saturday I noted that he also possesses a mightily impressive cross-field diagonal from deep. This was unleashed a couple of times, the first of which had Sonny clean through in the opening moments, and really ought to have brought a richer harvest than a shot so wide it headed out for a throw.

On top of which, Porro showed himself to be fully signed up to this business of wing-backs appearing in the penalty area to try their luck at goal. As well as his actual goal, he treated himself to two other pops from close range, both of which, alas, sailed over. Encouraging stuff though, for the remaining ten matches in which we continue to use wing-backs.

Sonny did little to impress throughout, but his pass to create Porro’s goal was an absolute delight. It got rather lost in the tornado that followed, both on and off the pitch, but his one diagonal seemed to take out literally half the Southampton team in setting Porro free on goal.

The other fellow who caught the beady AANP eye – yet again, it should be noted – was young Master Skipp. There were, admittedly, a couple of errors that might have been more severely punished, and his usual rather harsh yellow card, but otherwise Skipp delivered a near-faultless central midfield display. As often sighted winning possession as picking a pass, he hummed away incessantly, generally taking on life’s grubbier jobs as if thrilled simply to be asked.

So much for the silver linings. Heartening though Skipp and Porro were, the lip I chewed throughout was a pretty dashed frustrated one. At no point in this match did our heroes look to be in control of things – which may be acceptable against PSG, dash it, or even AC Milan, but not against the league’s bottom side. At best, our lot threatened on the counter; but on balance it seemed the slight majority of the game was spent diligently trying to keep Southampton at bay.

Even if this had succeeded, it is a dreadful approach to life against a team in that position. And having got ourselves two goals to the good, all as one dropped deeper and deeper, chanting in unison “Backs to the wall” as more and more defensive sorts were thrown on to give it the old skin-of-the-teeth routine. As such, one understands the manager watching that and then promptly losing his sanity – but if this nonsense is still unfolding after a year and a half of Conte, either he is too dim to notice the problem or not good enough to solve it.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 3-1 Nottingham Forest: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. Richarlison

Senor Conte’s popularity at AANP Towers has dropped in recent weeks at a rate that would have lead balloons looking on enviously, but if he were aiming to worm his way back into AANP’s affections (this no doubt being amongst his primary concerns) his inclusion of Richarlison from the off was a smart move.  

And the Brazilian didn’t disappoint. The headlines alone attest to this – with a goal pedantically disallowed, a penalty won and some robust spots of jiggery-pokery in the build-up to two other goals all featuring on his CV. Had he contributed nothing else of note these would have been worth the entrance fee, but it was Richarlison’s broader performance that prompted a spot of proud avuncular clucking from this end.

Ask me for the likely tactical instruction bestowed upon the chap and you’d be treated to one of my blanker looks, as it wasn’t particularly clear to me whether he were being asked to fulfil specific duties in specific situations. I mean, presumably he had all sorts of tactical equations ringing in his ears, as Conte hasn’t really come across to date as the sort of egg who will simply give a shrug and tell his players just to go out on the pitch and make it up as they go along.

So it is safe to assume that Richarlison was under various orders, to be in certain places at certain times and whatnot, but aside from all those specifics I was taken by the more general way he set about his business. He seemed to adopt an attitude that if a job were worth doing, it were worth doing with energy and aggression. His To-Do List seemed to include both exploratory trips into the right-hand side of the final third, and the less glamorous business of nibbling at opponents when we were out of possession, in order to win back the thing; but irrespective of the nature of the task at hand, he always went about in a way that was quintessentially Richarlison-esque. One watched on rather approvingly.

He took his disallowed goal mightily impressively. I had been under the impression from his various considered observations of the last few days that his lack of playing time had had a detrimental effect upon his mood and performance levels and such things, but one would never have known judging by the way he walloped home his effort just three minutes in.

He made it look pretty straightforward – which, I understand, in industry circles, is quite the seal of approval – but from my vantage point it seemed anything but. The ball was bouncing for a start, which tipped the scales heavily in favour of a shot disappearing off into the upper stand. For added complication the ball also looked for all the world like it was more interested in getting away from Richarlison rather than teaming up with him for collaborative adventures. That our man made light of both challenges, and simply leathered the ball into the roof of the night, was massively to his credit. Just a shame that it amounted to naught, what?

Quite when he will register his first league goals for us is anyone’s guess (I noticed him shoot a rather pleading look at Kane when the penalty was awarded), but his contributions elsewhere were valuable, and his ability to add presence within the penalty area as well as outside it offers a handy extra attacking string to the lilywhite bow.

2. Pedro Porro

Another whom AANP eyes with affection is young Master Porro.

The fellow is certainly eager to please, taking every opportunity to yell angrily in the face of the nearest opponent, presumably in order to convince us of how much he cares. It all seemed a bit of an act, in truth, working himself up into a state after every tackle, successful or otherwise. Perhaps it is something in the Latin blood. Either way, it didn’t matter much to me one way or another as long as he continued that business of whipping in his crosses.

Now that was where the lad earned his beans. He crosseth like a demon. In fact, if anything I chide the chap for not doing so more frequently. I’ve bleated away often enough about the need for our wing-backs to offer some attacking flavour in order to make this whole 3-4-3 business hum and whirr, and in Pedro Porro we finally have a lad who can make the eyes water with a hot line in crosses whipped at pace from the flank and into a general area of mischief, the sort that does all the hard work itself, requiring the forward only to make contact in order to complete the deal.

Funnily enough however, the goal Porro actually created relied upon a lot more finesse than the sort to which I allude above. Instead, this was more of a delicately-nurtured chip, tailored for the head of Harry Kane, and coming with a pretty specific set of next-step instructions. Rather than ‘Any Contact Will Do’, this required Kane to angle himself and steer the thing (which, being Harry Kane, was barely an inconvenience).

Nevertheless, Porro’s work was still an underrated masterpiece. Both time and space were in short supply when he took possession of the thing, for he was not roaming the great plains of the flank, but was jostling for space within the rather crowded confines of the penalty area. When he took possession it was already rush-hour. With Richarlison dinking in crosses from the right, Davies effecting full-body sliding passes on the left and no fewer than eight extras from Forest scattered around the area, one could not have swung a cat without bumping into at least three other sweaty frames . When the ball eventually came to Porro, it was clear that this was no time to pause and take stock.

However, if such concerns weighed on him, he certainly didn’t show it. Within a trice he had the ball out of his feet and curling inch-perfectly toward the head of Kane, somehow making time in his crowded schedule for a brief glance to identify his target in the process. On top of which, being a short-distance sort of affair, this was not the type of cross one could deliver through a gay old swing of the clog. In order to hit his mark from a distance of no more than ten yards, Porro had to re-programme from Power to Deftness in double-quick time.

That Porro executed the entire manoeuvre precisely the required proportions of speed, delicacy and accuracy suggested that here was a chap for whom this was not his first time. Porro is clearly a man who knows his apples from his oranges when it comes to delivering for his forwards. This could be the start of something special.

3. Ben Davies

On the subject of wing-backs, I aim a sightly grudging nod of appreciation at Ben Davies over on the left. Make no mistake, it pains me to voice such a sentiment. A chap like Ben Davies, while never wanting for effort, and almost certainly a thoroughly pleasant egg, is hardly the sort whose presence makes the heart skip a beat or two. ‘Handy Reserve’ about sums it up.

Always pretty game, Ben Davies’ principal failing as a wing-back is that his crosses miss as often as they hit. And having banged on a fair bit above about the virtues of a dead-eyed crosser of the ball from the wide positions, you will understand that this shortcoming grates. Perisic may have offered precious little value in literally any other field since joining the gang, but he does at least swing in a mean old cross. Ben Davies does not.

However, as amply demonstrated yesterday, Ben Davies does make the most of whatever other tools he lugs around with him. Take his positional sense, for example. It may sound like the faintest possible praise with which to damn a poor chap, but when our heroes scurry forward he does position himself in locations that make the opposition think a bit, and occupy a spot of their manpower, be it out wide on the flank, or scuttling off into the area to offer the option of a slide-rule pass towards the by-line. Most of the time he’s ignored by his colleagues, a decision-making route one certainly understands, but his presence in these spots does assist the general operation.

And his eagerness to toe the Conte line, requiring all wing-backs to augment the attack by taking up positions inside the penalty area because the midfielders sure as heck won’t, bore some fruit yesterday when he kept the ball alive by the skin of his teeth, in the build-up to our opener. Indeed, he popped up as an auxiliary attacker on a couple of other occasions – a header here, a drilled effort this – this being the sort of game in which a wing-back didn’t have to worry too much about what was happening at the rear.

And there’s the rub, I suppose. This was not the sort of game in which we had to worry too much about the defence, it was the sort of game in which Ben Davies caught the eye as a handy contributor. One might say it was “only” Nottingham Forest, but a week ago it was “only” Wolves, and that didn’t stop our heroes making a solid pig’s ear of things, so I’ll happily take this week’s harvest – and Liverpool’s little gift – and move on.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Wolves 1-0 Spurs: Just The One Tottenham Talking Point

The vicissitudes of life mean that AANP is no longer able to watch 3pm games most Saturdays (although, oddly enough, this has barely prevented me from watching our lot in recent years). It does mean, however, that I couldn’t rattle off anything about yesterday’s game beyond the five-or-so minutes offered up by Match of the Day.

1. Forster’s Saves

But as it happens, a heck of a lot of Spurs-supporting angst can still be shoved into five-or-so minutes, if you select the right bits. And the bits that caught the AANP eye were both the goal conceded and also another Wolves effort earlier in the piece (circa minute 55, apparently). The common denominator in these two were that both featured resident goalkeeping giant F. Forster Esq. beating away goalbound efforts.

So far so successful, one might think, and indeed, in a sense, the most basic requirements of the role had been met. After all, there have been a few occasions this season alone on which I’ve subjected Monsieur Lloris to a spot of choice Anglo-Saxon for his failure to master such essentials. But yesterday, Forster waved a meaty paw first at a close-range header from Jiminez, and then at a longer-range hit-and-hope sort of job from the same chap, and in both cases achieved the basics.

But mark the smallprint. The footnotes. In each instance, while Team Forster were still high-fiving one another on a job well done by their man, a troubling spin-off was in immediate development. For in both cases, Forster had made the pretty short-sighted call to bat the dashed thing straight back into the heart of what might be called ‘Hostile Territory’.

The close-range header he patted in a neat parabola that had its terminus around the penalty spot, or would have done Porro not made the executive decision to smash the ball away first and take questions later. And while goalkeeping is one of those subjects about which, as soon as any given expert starts prattling on, the old mind downs tools and sets off on a wander, I nevertheless recall that one of the fundamentals of the art is to make sure that in making a save the ball ends up comfortably out of focus, preferably nearer the aisles.

(Having said that, the ill-informed AANP take on such things is to yearn for the days when the goalkeeper would simply catch a shot – seemingly a forgotten art now. But such robust situation management would no doubt have current coaches going weak at the knees in horror. The current vogue is to give the ball a friendly pat back into play, and AANP’s goalkeeping masterclass be damned.)

So as mentioned, the Jiminez header was bobbed gently up towards the penalty spot, which seemed a mightily risky approach to me. And in fact, given that Forster had had to transfer his frame horizontally off to the right in making the save in the first place, it also seemed to me that it would have been a dashed sight easier to have sent the ball off even further to the right, rather than scooping it back into the centre of the stage. Physics, and all that, what?

Anyway, the gods smiled on him and the danger was duly averted, but no such luck half an hour later when Jiminez had a pop from outside the area. Again, Forster went a-tumbling to his right, and manoeuvred a significant proportion of his frame between ball and goal; but again, the curious young cove somehow manged to bat the thing straight back into trouble, in the centre of the penalty area. The finish from Traore was surprisingly good, but that seems beside the point: Forster really should have ensured that the ball would head off into a completely different part of the mainland.

And watching the beastly sequence replayed from all angles, it all reminded me of a moment against Chelsea last weekend, when Sterling had a pop from the edge of the area, and again Forster produced a big thick tick in the box marked “Save The Thing First and Foremost”, but then spilled the ball into prime goal-poaching territory, and was bailed out by a closely-situated chum.

From memory the Chelsea episode involved the ball bobbling off his chest and various assorted limbs; but for both of yesterday’s he had rather more control of the thing, getting a solid hand to the header and a delivering a two-fisted punch to the second shot. As such, in each instance the blighter really ought to given more thought to the entire story arc.

So much for Forster. Those five-or-so minutes of highlights revealed precious little else. It was, I suppose, nice to see Harry Kane pass on the opportunity to thump another free-kick straight into the wall, instead allowing Pedro Porro to demonstrate a pretty handy additional string to his bow (Kane’s generosity in this matter, my spies inform me, extended only so far, and the following free-kick he duly claimed, and did his usual thump-and-wall job).

But as for the rest, it’s a mystery to me – and a one-nil defeat away to Wolves is, in truth, one of those into which I would rather not delve too deeply. As mentioned after the Sheff Utd loss, the stage now seems set for Dr Jekyll to emerge midweek vs Milan.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Sheff Utd 1-0 Spurs: Six(ish) Tottenham Talking Points

I remember in my school days occasionally studying those morbid poets who would rattle off 12 lines or so about a dying cat on the side of the road, evidently feeling that nothing could have better captured their mood at the time.

And I was reminded of those miserable souls last night when Sheff Utd slotted in their goal, because like a dying cat on the side of the road back in the day, at that moment nothing could have summed up our performance better than the sight before my eyes (specifically, the quite ridiculous ease with which that chappie gaily skipped through our defence.)

In a match that our heroes couldn’t have approached more casually if decked out in sun-hats and flip-flops, it made perfect sense that some lower-division soul should weave past 5 of N17’s finest without actually having to ride a tackle, before beating the ‘keeper at the near post of all blasted things, to really twist the knife in.

1. Hojbjerg’s Role In The Goal

Given that literally half the team were involved in the above dereliction of duty, it’s not difficult to go around pointing the finger with some meaning. Hojbjerg was one of the principals here. It drifted under the radar a bit, amidst the mass of limbs resolutely not putting in a tackle when the laddie went on his run, but immediately prior to that an attempted Sheffield United pass was aimed straight at Hojbjerg, who rather than control or clear the thing, pretended not to be there, turned away and let the ball bounce off him.

An odd one but no matter, thought AANP, convinced that the chap would rectify the situation at the earliest opportunity. And as luck would have it this opportunity arose pretty much immediately, the ball rebounding to the SUFC cherry, who duly put his head down and ran straight back at Hojbjerg. And while understands that our man was not really in the market for a wild lunge in order to regain position – this being the penalty area and all – I couldn’t quite wrap the bean around the choice of action for which he instead opted.

As this Ndiaye chap approached him, Hojbjerg took one step towards him and then promptly aborted the interaction, withdrawing his frame and waving his hands in the air in some gratuitous act of surrender.

This I absolutely could not stomach. Refraining from clattering the man would have been one thing, but explicitly showing the world that he would have no further part in Operation Tackle The Blighter – waving surrendering hands, forsooth! – was absolutely galling. Why did he not shepherd the fellow away from goal? What’s the point of avoiding concession of a penalty if you instead just let any dandy who pleases waltz right in and score? And what’s the point of being on the pitch at all if you’re not going to put body and soul into stopping the other lot? I ask you!

2. Porro’s Role In The Goal

Pedro Porro was next up, or, more accurately, simultaneously up. As the rebounding ball fell to Ndiaye to rather obviously cut inside, Porro dedicated his entire bodyweight to covering the outside. And having flung himself off towards the wrong postcode, Porro sized up his options and evidently decided that regaining his balance and charging back to rectify things was not The Tottenham Way. A fast learner, this one. So as Ndiaye set out scaring Hojbjerg into timid surrender, Porro simply gave up, deciding that he would grab the nearest bucket of popcorn and just watch how things panned out.

3. Sanchez’s Role In The Goal

Enter Davinson Sanchez (although I use the term ‘Enter’ pretty loosely, as that would suggest this particular wretch had something meaningful to contribute). With Porro and Hojbjerg having shrugged shoulders and let their man walk straight between them, Sanchez at least appeared to present a specific and considerable obstacle in between Ndiaye and the goal. It would not have taken too much effort, it appeared, for Sanchez simply to remain in between Ndiaye and the goal. The concept of effecting a tackle was probably a wild one at this point – this was Davinson Sanchez, after all – but simply standing firm and blocking off the fellow’s route to goal appeared both sensible and feasible.

Instead, as Ndiaye adjusted his compass and turned about forty-five degrees to his right, a move that raised the stakes but by no means sealed the deal, Sanchez’ brain began to melt at the complexity of what he was witnessing. At which point, he then appeared to malfunction and stop completely, dash it. He just stopped! Ndiaye carried on with his merry dance, and Sanchez stopped participating, as if the whole incident had evoked some unhappy memory from his childhood and he couldn’t bear to be involved any longer. What the blazes is wrong with this utterly mind-boggling fish?

Honestly, if I were Master of all I surveyed and granted endless power, there are a few obvious first steps I’d take. Curing some of the incurable diseases of course, and regular breaks during the working day for a refreshing bourbon – say one an hour, on the hour – but top of the list would be some form of legislation forbidding Davinson Sanchez from every darkening our door again.

4. Dier’s Role In The Goal

Eric Dier was next on the rollcall of ignominy. He at least had the dignity to appear interested, adopting that ‘long-barrier’ pose, with a knee on the floor, no doubt with the intention of saving the day by blocking whatever shot might be unleashed. I suppose in principle it was not a bad plan, given that Ndiaye was now very clearly at the ‘Fire’ stage of his ‘Ready-Aim-Fire’ routine. Where all else had lost interest and stopped bothering, Dier was essentially telling the world that he had had enough of this nonsense and was going to resolve it himself.

All of which would have been absolutely bucko if he could have got himself into position lickety-split. The shot would have been blocked, and the deadlock would have remained. But alas, Dier’s masterplan fell apart when it came to swift reorganisation of the relevant limbs. Dier, one sometimes feels, was intended by Nature for Walking Football, or some other sport played at a more sedate pace. As Dier was manoeuvring the knee towards earth and creaking the joints into the appropriate stance, the SUFC laddie was already sprinting off for his celebratory knee-slide. A nice idea, Eric, I felt like muttering, but far too slow for heaven’s sake.

5. Skipp and Forster’s Roles In The Goal

I actually felt a pang of sympathy for Oliver Skipp, who deserved better than to be found guilty by association in this ghastly affair, but he was last on the scene. No real blame attached here, it wasn’t really his problem to fix but he had a go anyway, flinging a pretty meaningful leg at the problem, but alas too late. The shot was already away.

And Forster? That whole mantra about not being beaten at the near post is arguably a little over-played, but it was still pretty crushing to see the whole sorry mess end in that way. One understands Forster prepping self for the action to reach its climax at various locations to his left, but he still ought to have included ‘A Shot To My Right’ in the old Risk Assessment.

6. Dreadful

And to be honest, beyond that goal it was difficult to muster words for anything else. Partly because the goal itself was one of those ghastly scenes it was difficult to stop seeing, even with the eyes clasped tightly shut; and partly because our heroes appeared not to possess one creative fibre between them for the entire duration.

The absurd insistence upon playing a back-three continued, even when up against a single Championship 37 year-old, and as a result our midfield remained, as ever, utterly bereft of creativity.

Having banged on all season about how this 3-4-3 system requires decent wing-backs to make it work, we finally took to the pitch with Signor Conte’s WBs of choice in situ, and then silently wept as the chosen pair were repeatedly swatted away without making a dent. Porro showed a spot of pace, so no doubt Eric Dier cast a few envious glances his way, but there is no escaping that this was dreadful stuff throughout.

And these repeated Cup defeats to lower-league side really seem to sum up the side we are – to wit, possessing neither the fight to match nor flair to hammer a lower-ranked team. (Which means, by the by, that I’m now expecting us to turn over Milan at home next week, as that’s precisely the sort of incomprehensible guff our lot would roll out.)