Tag: Bournemouth

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Spurs match reports

Bournemouth 0-0 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Jose’s Masterplan

Being the trusting sort – the sort who, when a friend says they’re popping out for a minute, will dutifully count to sixty before wondering whether to call the police – I’ve always been inclined to trust that my elders and betters have a pretty panoramic view of things and know exactly what they’re up to.

It would happen under Sven, when, like an obedient dog wagging the tail at its master, I’d ignore the evidence of every previous knockout game in which we clung on to a one-goal lead for dear life before losing on penalties, and assume that this time the chap had learnt from mistakes and hatched a more nuanced plan.

So when Jose breezed through the front door, despite having yowled beforehand that he wasn’t the AANP choice, I sucked up the theory that here was a chap who by hook or by crook – or by downright negativity – ground out results, and duly toddled over to present him with the benefit of the doubt.

Alas, that innocence of youth has now been ground into the dust, and replaced by the sort of cynical and weary scowl generally reserved for Dickensian undertakers who go around startling folk in the shadows. Where previously I would have stuck up for the blighter in charge, match after match, this time I’ve seen enough, and I sneer at the man who claims he hasn’t.

The bods who know about these sort of things define “despair” as “the absence of hope”, and if that’s the case then it exists by the sackload within these four walls. There is nothing to offer a semblance of hope at present. To a man, not one of our lot seem to be playing above themselves; as a team there is no sense of a plan. Regarding the former, it would be a handy bonus if Jose could coax a little individual improvement here or there; but in terms of the latter the chap ought to take full responsibility, and this absence of a plan has seen AANP fly through all seven stages of grief within the space of 90 minutes while observing our heroes impotently flail away.

I now watch our lot out of a sense of duty, rather than any sliver of hope, excitement or enjoyment – and if that isn’t a nadir I don’t know what is.

This season is now a write-off. Much therefore hinges on how well – or otherwise – we begin 20/21.

The hope is that, irrespective of results, we start playing with some flair or, at the very least, some semblance of a strategy (beyond soak up and hope to counter). If Jose has a masterplan, it absolutely has to be unveiled this summer.

Likelier, and presumably the subject of Daniel Levy’s bedtime prayers, is that the turgid style of play remains in situ but results at least improve. This strikes me as the worst of all worlds, as it would mean this bizarre brand of anti-football remains without a cat in hell’s chance of shifting the man at the helm.

The other potential scenario is that even after a pre-season and a signing or two, we start next season peddling this same garbage, and results remain no better than mid-table fare, or worse. If CL qualification next season appears unlikely from the autumn, Paymaster Levy’s trigger finger would presumably itch. By virtue of including the most welcome by-product of the sacking of Jose, this is numero uno on the AANP wishlist, scrawled in block capitals and double-underlined.

2. Lo Celso: Counter-Attacking vs Static

When one can witter away about the manager for so long and still struggle for comment about the game itself, you know it’s been a stinker, and this, yet again, was another contender for “Worst We’ve Witnessed.”

For the second time in a week, Lo Celso, having slightly desperately been heralded over here as the great hope for our future, was given the luxury of a couple of more defensive-minded sorts behind him. As such, he appeared to have a licence to slink forward and do his darnedest – and while the awfulness of recent weeks has tempered excitement levels, there was still a little hope here at AANP Towers that this might be the moment for the lad to puff out his chest and take on the responsibility of string-puller-in-chief.

No such luck. Whatever malaise is infecting our heroes, Lo Celso is not immune, and he pottered around no more or less toothless than anyone around him.

It currently appears that he is at his best when taking the reins as we counter-attack. When everything is a blur of limbs, and everyone is on the gallop towards the opposition goal, Lo Celso sparks into life. He seems to be blessed with the knack of spotting a pretty smart pass whilst on the run, as well as the ability to weight it just so.

By contrast, when the game stodgily meanders, with the opposition in defensive position and our lot endlessly knocking the ball sideways, Lo Celso seems no better informed than anyone else on how to put an end to the dreadful torpor.

3. Important Save From Lloris

The stock of our World Cup-winning captain has just about fallen off a cliff in the last season or two, as needless clanger has followed needless clanger, but yesterday he earned his weekly envelope in pretty smart fashion, on the one occasion on which some quick thinking was required.

It was towards the end of proceedings, when a Bournemouth chappie randomly scampered into our area, his progress completely unimpeded by anyone in light blue. A disastrous finale appeared imminent, but Lloris displayed a hitherto unseen sprinkling of common sense by dashing from his line, spreading himself in the manner of one attempting to frighten a small child and generally doing enough to smother the incoming shot before the attacker had a chance properly to weigh his options and do anything decisive.

It was worth a goal, and having stocked up on rotten tomatoes with which to pelt Lloris for errors in previous weeks, decorum dictates that I tip the cap in his direction for this.

4. Toby and Jan

It might not necessarily be a popular view, but I was far from disappointed to hear that Eric Dier was to be marched off the premises and locked in a dungeon for the next couple of weeks. Weighing the chap’s pros and cons, I find little to recommend his presence amongst the troupe.

His principle asset appears to be that aggressive, no-nonsense outlook he has on life, which typically translates into crunching tackles, the like of which, admittedly, are not usually a feature of Team Lilywhite. However, such challenges are of little value when mistimed, which his seem to be as often as not. Rather than keeping a lid on things they tend to result in free kicks and yellow cards.

Neither is he blessed with blistering pace, and when stationed in central defence, the notion of him being one of life’s natural leaders and organisers is not necessarily supported by the evidence of recent weeks, in which our defence has shown all the organisation of a gaggle of toddlers on a sugar rush.

In contrast to the shambles of recent weeks, for which Dier was not the only culprit but certainly amongst them, yesterday we were treated to the restoration of the Jan-Toby axis, and life at the rear of the team immediately appeared more serene.

Blistering pace they might not boast, but both Belgians know their eggs and position themselves adroitly, and their performances were notable for the general absence of drama throughout. No Dier-esque mistimed challenges, no Sanchez-esque misjudgements of flighted balls. Two appearances by Toby have brought two consecutive clean sheets. All set for Sunday then.

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Spurs match reports

Bournemouth 1-4 Spurs: Five Tottenham Observations

1. Reaction to Defeat

“The true test of a team is not how they celebrate victory, but how they react to defeat.”

I’d be deceiving my public if I claimed that line – paraphrased, don’t you know – as one of my own. In fact I’m not sure who said it, and frankly with gags like that, whoever did say it could hardly have been the life and soul of a Saturday night jaunt on the town, but whatever the chap’s personal flaws he certainly had a point when it came to football.

The mood at AANP Towers over the last few days since Juve has pretty much boasted all the joyous revelry of the wake of a fondly-remembered family pet. Morose, gloomy and pretty starkly lacking even a splash of the traditional joie de vivre. I imagine it has been the same in lilywhite households across the land too, so heavens knows how the players felt as they laced up the footwear and prepared for today’s skirmish.

Unsurprisingly, they began proceedings with the same moroseness and gloom with which I had become so familiar in recent days, and when Bournemouth hit the bar and then hit the net within the first five minutes, the reaction to Wednesday’s defeat appeared to be one of general listlessness. The omens, it is fair to say, were pretty negative.
Matters worsened when the poster boy limped off, so our heroes deserve enormous credit for snapping out of their hangovers and raising their level.

Undoubtedly the scoreline flattered us, but the win was richly deserved, and in truth having lamented our lack of midweek ruthlessness in front of goal like one of the miserable Greek poets who only ever bangs on about the bad things in life, I was buoyed like nobody’s business to see us bury our chances so efficiently today.

I had remarked on these very pages last time out that there was a danger of feeling sorry for ourselves and needlessly dropping points; thumping backslaps all round then, to the players for bouncing straight back.

2. Front Four

As mentioned, the rolling of the precious Kane ankle might have been the cue for a general waving off the white flag and a whole cacophony of wailing and gnashing of teeth, so it was good to see that instead our lot took the opportunity rather sneakily to showcase their talents. There was something of “The King is dead – I say, rather than lament the chap, we could go and make names for ourselves here” about it all.

The decision not to bring on Llorente was hardly surprising, as the old bean simply is not at the required quality notch, irrespective of his Rochdale hat-tricks and whatnot. Moreover, tactically I had feared that wheeling him out would have made us a little too one-dimensional. Firing everything at a static beanpole, if you get my drift, for Llorente’s assets cannot be truthfully said to include indefatigable energy levels.

Instead, Lamela skipped on, brash young buck that he is, Son moved upfront, and those two, along with Dele and Eriksen spent the following hour buzzing around all over the place. The loose plan was Son up top; but each of the aforementioned appeared to have been granted carte blanche when it came to whizzing hither and thither into each other’s nominal patch of turf, and with the full-backs providing width we had a decent attacking armoury, even sans Kane.

Admittedly the full-backs’ actual crosses nine times out of ten ranked under the Pretty Dashed Woeful column, but their very presence helped stretched things, and like a broken clock Serge Aurier took time out from foul-throwing and other general acts of imbecility to deliver a peach of a cross for young Dele’s goal.

3. Life Without Kane

Digressing from the 90 minutes in question, the likely absence of Kane for presumably 4-6 weeks can hardly be greeted with thunderous cheers of acclaim, but we have managed without him for such periods in recent seasons, and today did demonstrate that we have the personnel to at least maintain the sprightly style of play.

The presence of Lucas on the bench provides another option, as I suppose does Llorente, in his own loveable way, so I suspect we’ll muddle through. Mind you, the first hint of a below-par showing and the internet will presumably combust under the weight of rabid commentators insisting that we cannot cope without the chap.

Much rides on our next two encounters.

4. Son’s Miskicks

Having retreated into his shell somewhat during February, Son has responded as one would expect to the indignity of being sold from the AANP Fantasy Football Team. He now boasts a couple of fancy new party tricks in his repertoire, as well. The rounding-the-keeper gag never fails to impress onlookers, and it was entertaining to see him wave an arm at Lamela as part of the routine to deceive the Bournemouth custodian into thinking that he would square the ball. The scamp!

But as deception goes, he will have to go some distance to top his array of miskicks. First the scuff onto his standing foot vs Juve, and this week the thump into the turf to create a delicate loop over the goalkeeper.

It does all suggest that he ought to stop watching Sissoko for his footballing inspiration, but on a less facetious note the chap should be applauded for getting into the right positions, and if a slice of luck is shoved his way then few can begrudge him.

5. Eriksen

So the record books will record for posterity that Son scored twice, and decades down the line few will be the wiser as to the intricacies of the job, but one really had to watch matters unfold with one’s own two eyes to appreciate the role played by Christian Eriksen in all of this.

Unruffled and in control throughout, he was patient in his passing, always looking for the killer ball but more often than not simply nudging it more straightforwardly if the circumstances dictated it. Yet he just makes things tick, and when the opportunity arises will supplement things with an outrageously well-spotted and weighted through ball.

The pass to Kane (for the disallowed goal which brought about the injury) was one such example, and the pass to Son for his second, while being simpler, was still delivered to perfection. I can certainly imagine some amongst our number who would have made rather a pig’s ear of that one.

Also worth noting the energy the chap displays week in, week out. Not for the first time he could be seen leading the chase when Bournemouth countered, shepherding the ball out for goal-kicks of all things.

So a particularly knowing tip of the cap to Eriksen, but it’s high-fives and elaborate handshakes all round, for this might have been the moment when our season started to unravel. Not a bit of it.

Like what you read? AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes is pretty reasonably priced on Amazon…

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Spurs news

Spurs 3-0 Bournemouth: Six Lilywhite Observations

1. Fast Start

No time to bed in and have a few early sighters, not with our lot. The opening toot of the whistle was the signal for the hounds to be released, and before one even had time to pour a stiff something into a tumbler and give it a swirl, young Kane was already racing away to dish out back-slaps and “What hos”.

Many a sage has trotted out the slightly peculiar adage that the best time to score is just before half-time – I’ll be pickled if I know quite why – and there certainly can be occasions when an early goal actually has a negative effect – disrupting game-plans, spurring on the opposition etc (I’m looking at you, England-Germany in Euro ’96).

But on this occasion a goal in the opening 44 seconds was happened to be the exact scribbling on the doctor’s prescription, absolutely verbatim. This Sunday kick-off business by and large means that every time we kick off we are already a decent glug behind Leicester in the timetable, and the tension around the place was lingering in a none-too-healthy way as the clock ticked down to 4pm today – so credit in abundance to Messrs Walker and Kane for coming up with the idea of scoring in the first minute. For thereafter our lot oozed confidence, Bournemouth looked like a team who would willingly run for the hills if the laws of the game allowed such things, and the whole jamboree resembled a fairly breezy cakewalk.

2. Top-Notch First Half

The first half was very much the stuff of the new-look, consistent and effective Tottenham. A world away from the Spurs who made my childhood such dashed agony, it appeared that confidence, rather than perspiration, oozed from the pores, as our heroes kept the ball for what seemed like full ten-minute stretches at a time and ground down the opponents with relentless efficiency. The full-backs set up camp alongside the midfielders, chances were carefully created, every man in lilywhite bobbed along with a spring in their step and all was right with the world.

Understandably enough the energy and enthusiasm dials appeared to be turned down considerably in the second half, as frankly the first half contained so many spoilers that we all knew how things would turn out fairly early on. And as our heroes dozily toyed with Bournemouth in the second half, every inch as flies to wanton boys, the thought struck me – ought we to have demonstrated the more clinical edge, of say a City or Chelsea of yesteryear? In their title-winning pomp, City have not simply gone through the motions in such instances, but instead put opponents to the sword and racked up five, six, seven.

Or did it make more sense simply to do as our lot did, take no risks, avoid any over-exertion, and simply see the thing out? Given that our goal difference is already comfortably superior to the other mobs, there is a strong case to be made for suggesting that our heroes got things absolutely spot on today. Three nil with minimal effort is more than enough at this stage of the thing.

Not a criticism, you understand, more of an idle musing as things wound down in the latter stages. (Although during those latter stages, we still came dashed close to scoring one of the goals of the season – that moment with the nifty Eriksen footwork and a few one-touch passes, before Alli got himself in a muddle and shot wide.)

3. Substitutions

With the game up before the hour mark, the next point of interest was the substitutes’ bench, as seasoned people-watchers subjected Pochettino to the usual scrutiny. I must confess I found myself raising an intrigued eyebrow as his first action was to give young Lamela the hook, particularly as the game was won. With Dier having been an injury doubt beforehand, and Alli, Demebele etc fairly critical to the upcoming denouement, it surprised me a smidge that one of the supporting cast was deemed ripe for plucking.

Still, Pochettino has demonstrated many a time and oft that he knows his apples from his oranges, so I will graciously allow him the benefit of the doubt. He will, no doubt, be thrilled.

4. What Now For Full-Back Rotation?

There are few sights in nature more eye-catching than young Kyle Walker flicking the switch to Turbo and absolutely steaming forward 50 yards to join an attack, and having struck oil with his very first foray he remained in the mood throughout.

The routine of swapping him and Rose for Trippier and Davies appears to have worked well enough, ensuring that all of them have enough puff in their lungs for their weekly assignment – but with our heroes now having been unceremoniously elbowed from European competition, I am intrigued to see what the official party line will be for full-backs in the coming weeks. There is now but one game a week, yet Pochettino is a man who will swap his full-backs if his own life depended upon retaining the same ones. An interesting little sub-plot, and for what it’s worth I think he will stick with Walker-Rose as the games tick by and push meets shove.

5. Vindication for Rotation

On the subject of rotation, Pochettino is far too polite a sort to brag, but having been subjected to various snuffles of disapproval (not least from within the four walls of AANP Towers) for abruptly deciding to wave the white flag at Dortmund in the last few weeks, our glorious leader will presumably allow himself a discreet nod of satisfaction that the resting of various luminaries in midweek paid off so handsomely this afternoon.

Credit where due, and if our lot do indeed wave the shiny thing around come May, nobody will care two hoots about squad rotation in Dortmund.

6. Wimmer Tribute

The whispers from behind the bike-shed suggest that Jan Vertonghen will be ready to burst back onto the scene, singing, dancing and looking immaculately coiffured, after the international break. Should that be the case he would, naturally enough, be welcomed back with a manly handshake and possibly a rugged back-slap, but if events should indeed transpire thusly, it seems only right to pay a brief but heartfelt tribute to his young deputy, Kevin Wimmer.

Despite appearing oddly like he ought to be wearing a tux and playing the bassoon in an orchestra somewhere, the chap has managed to put barely a foot wrong in the last few months. When Vertonghen limped off against Palace there were furrowed brows across N17, as we wondered whether our Title push was limping off with him, but Wimmer has patrolled the grounds with considerable aplomb.

There are ten others who can justifiably feel a tad miffed at having not had their five minutes here at AANP Towers tonight, for this was a top-notch stuff throughout the team. Sterner tests await no doubt, but while we could not win the league today, we could well have lost it had things gone South today. A most professional performance to take us into the international break. Merry Easter one and all.

Shameless Plug Alert – AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes, continues to retail at Amazon and Waterstones, hint hint