Tag: Eric Dier

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-1 Everton: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Emerson at Left-Back

Destiny Udogie’s chequered history having caught up with him, we found ourselves in the awkward position of requiring Emerson Royal to fill in at left-back-cum-midfield yesterday. On this matter three outstanding points immediately arrested the attention and refused to let go, viz:

  1. Emerson is right-footed
  2. Emerson has not dabbled much in the inverted-full-back role
  3. Emerson is as mad as a bag of cats

No shortage of reasons, then, to give the lower lip a nervous chew, and it is with a cheek burnished with shame that I report to having had the knives sharpened well ahead of time, in anticipation of the worst.

As it happened, what actually transpired was a performance so steady and reliable that, come the closing credits I toyed long and hard with the notion of feting Emerson with the prestigious Nod of the Head awarded for being the game’s outstanding contributor. Admittedly this was largely earned by default, our heroes having clocked a round of individual performances so middling that Emerson’s rose to the top by virtue of being amongst the least flawed, but nevertheless – some credit to the lad for overcoming each of the 3 challenges highlighted above.

Without necessarily contributing anything eye-catching and game-changing, I thought that Emerson got right just about everything at which he tried his hand yesterday. Positionally, he seemed up-to-speed from the off, knowing where to go and whose shoulder to lurk behind, when to give the arms a frantic wave and when to keep a low profile. He availed himself to Davies, Skipp et al when we were in possession, and kept a diligent eye on affairs in his jurisdiction when we were defending.

That said, he dithered away like nobody’s business and needed a sizeable dollop of luck with the disallowed Everton goal. Too complacent for my liking, and who knows how things might have panned out had that one been allowed to stand, what?

Equally, however, at one point in the first half he almost had a moment of glory, finding space for Sonny to set him loose up the left flank and curling a most inviting pass – with that rarely-spotted left appendage, no less – into the path of an incoming Brennan Johnson that, but for a rather wild finish, would have put us three up and afforded all concerned a much gentler snooze of an afternoon.

That was about as glamorous as it got for him but, given the anxiety with which I had anticipated Emerson taking the inverted left-back reins ever since Udogie’s yellow card last week, the young nib’s largely error-free shift was received with quiet but fervent prayers of gratitude.

 2. Skipp

The prospect of 90-plus minutes’ worth of out-of-position Emersoning was not the only element causing a few worry-lines to form on the AANP map pre-kick-off yesterday. Skipp for Bissouma is nobody’s idea of a fair trade, even allowing for the latter’s dreary dip in form, but there we were yesterday – and there we will remain for the foreseeable, given that Bissouma is currently being detained at His Majesty’s pleasure before flying off for that blasted AFCON next month.

Skipp at least came armed with a spot of positional experience, having occupied defensive midfield spots pretty much ever since he first learned to walk, but his presence there from the off still gripped me with an unspeakable fear. Stick Skipp in a Sean Dyche team and one would emerge pretty satisfied; ask the honest fellow to spend his afternoon Ange-balling and it’s a little difficult to know quite how events will unfold.

Understandably enough, once the whistle sounded Skipp just rolled up his sleeves and gave the impression of not giving too many damns about Ange-ball, Sean Dyche or anyone else. He just rattled through the catalogue in order to locate the most Oliver Skipp performance he could find, and delivered that with all the trimmings.

It was perfectly sufficient. Whenever our centre-backs were in possession he immediately scampered to within five yards of them, yelping to be allowed to play. They rolled the ball to him, he immediately rolled it back whence it had come and the sequence was able to begin again.

Those of us who have watched with quiet satisfaction as Bissouma, or indeed Bentancur or whomever, have received the ball from the centre-backs on the half-turn, and with one quick shoulder-dip been away from their marker and on the front-foot, had to moderate our expectations pretty quickly. This was Oliver Skipp’s world, and fancy shoulder-dips or changes of direction were pretty strictly outlawed. Skipp would dab the ball straight back to whomever passed it to him, and no more.

He served his purpose well enough. With Porro, Emerson, Romero and Davies on hand to do more of the heavy-lifting, in terms of picking the more incisive passes from deep, it was basically enough for Skipp simply to occupy appropriate areas and create space for others. He also beavered away earnestly enough when we were out of possession, holding a protective central position and occasionally taking it upon himself to snap at a pair of Everton ankles if the mood took him. There were occasional mistakes and fouls, but on the whole he did what was required.

As a temporary solution, filling in every now and then when an A-lister is unexpectedly withdrawn, I’ll shrug the shoulders and mutter that he’ll do I suppose, and prepare to scrawl a 6 out of 10 against his name. I can’t really say that the prospect of him scuttling about the starting XI for another month fills me to the gills with joy, but unless the January window brings a Connor Gallagher or some such, we may well be stuck with him.

3. Sonny

I mentioned that it was an odd sort of showing all round, with various cast members appearing a little off-colour, and few summed up this peculiar state of affairs better than our on-field lieutenant.

Sonny did of course pop away the crucial goal, and as such excuses a multitude of other sins across the other 95 or so minutes. That his goal was an odd, scruffy sort of job is neither here nor there – basking in the satisfaction of fourth spot the morning after, few amongst us will grumble that the second goal lacked a bit in the aesthetic stakes. ‘Shove the damn thing into the net’ has been a fairly critical instruction in the last couple of months, and not one that our heroes have necessarily adopted too gaily, so if Sonny wants to bobble the thing through a crowd in order to score his goals that’s fine by AANP. Bobble away through as many crowds as you like, is pretty much the approving response over here.

But his headline contribution having been thus secured, I thought that Son spent the rest of his afternoon mangling his lines in all manner of ways. Just a temporary blip of course, and his absence will be lamented with some pretty meaningful wailing and gnashing of teeth when he flies off for that blasted Asian Cup next month. But still. This was not his finest hour and a half.

If he were on the run with the ball, he found a bizarre series of ways to extinguish the threat himself, be it losing control of his own feet, treading on the ball or slightly forgetting who and where he was, and scuttling off on his own towards the edge of the playing surface while an Everton man collected the ball and trotted off with it in the opposite direction.

There was also a series of opportunities to feed a nearby chum who would have been in on goal, which Sonny curiously kept miscalculating, poking the ball out of play or straight to a defender or some other such oddly-judged ideas that didn’t quite hit the spot.

Anyway, there was no want of effort on his part, and the honest fellow is allowed an off-day – particularly as he got the most important part right, in front of goal – and moreover, even if his end-product was generally all over the place, he clearly kept the Everton mob on their toes throughout just by virtue of being Son and all the energy that entails.

4. A Mixed Bag

When the employer invites AANP to tick the boxes in one of those psychometric tests, invariably the findings are that I am one of those souls who likes things neatly squared off. Spades are called spades. Everyone knows where they stand. And it is in such a spirit that I generally like to assess the outputs of our heroes in lilywhite. A thumbs-up for a job well done; a thumbs-down when they’ve stunk the place out; and not too much time wasted sugar-coating things in the middle.

All of which leaves me in a bit of a spot about yesterday’s goings-on. It was a strange old showing from our lot, when one steps back and thinks about it. On the bright side, I could count probably a good half a dozen instances of Ange-ball at its finest. “Ping, ping, ping,” would be a pretty accurate way to describe those moments, when the stars aligned, everyone gave everyone else a knowing nod and in the blink of an eye the ball was being whizzed from our area to theirs.

The first goal was an example of the above, even if strictly speaking the whizzing took the ball from the middle third to their area. There was the usual flurry of one-touchery, a lovely spot of body-feinting thrown in by young Sarr (the one bean I thought might beat Emerson to the Nod of the Head when all votes were counted) and a finish that oozed confidence from Richarlison.

Even the second goal, for all the rougher edges about its coup de grâce, had a pleasing look about its build-up. But in general, our heroes seemed to be off the boil as often as they were on it.

Passes were misplaced as if there were an internal competition to which everyone had pretty feverishly dedicated themselves; and a lot of the time those in lilywhite simply lost possession. It was pretty rummy to behold, but on several occasions some well-meaning sort in lilywhite would have possession, without too much imminent danger presenting itself other than an Everton bounder surreptitiously edging into view – and before you knew it possession had swapped hands. The Everton bounder now had possession, our hero was forlornly nibbling at his ankles and the entire cast had to reconfigure and don their defensive hats again.

These days one does not see to much of the straightforward, honest tackle – interceptions and blocks being all the rage – but yesterday it seemed that every couple of minutes we were losing possession because an Everton sort had simply wandered over, and without having to put in too much thought or effort, positioned himself between ball and lilywhite and made off with the dashed thing.

We brought no end of problems upon ourselves towards the end of the first half, the whole business of playing out from the back being executed with pretty scant regard for the delicacies that such an operation requires, with the result that Everton time and again were presented with the ball some twenty yards from goal and invited to amuse themselves as they saw fit.

And towards the end of things, that blasted Danjuma was made to like a bit too much like Pele for my liking. A handy chap in the final third we can all agree, having been treated to his cameos at close quarters last season, but for him thrice in ten minutes to befuddle our defensive mob and blast a shot at goal seemed a bit thick. Porro, Dier and Skipp seemed to find the lad unplayable, which was alarming, and quite what strain of sorcery Vicario has signed up for is anyone’s guess, but he seems to have had other-worldly intervention on his side in his last couple of matches, and it’s no stretch to say we’ve been centimetres from conceding – and missing out on two points yesterday.

All told, it was a hard-earned win – against a team slap bang in the middle of a hot streak, and with our usual slew of absentees. The general sloppiness in our play suggests more than anything that our heroes could do with a few days off, with some massages and scented candles and whatnot, but to be four points off the top having had such a rotten old November reflects well.

Merry Christmas, on we trot to Brighton.

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Spurs match reports

Wolves 2-1 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. The Opening Salvo

A funny thing about watching Spurs over the years is that normally when the heart sinks it does so in the blink of any eye, prompted by production of a red card for example, or the sight of a star player pulling up with grimace on face and hand on hamstring. Yesterday, in a bit of a departure from the norm, the light of hope took the full 90 minutes to go out, which, as disappointments go, felt a rather cruel performance by the Fates, the flame finally being extinguished for good in minute 96, with just about the last kick of the game.

As it happened – and as actually always seems to happen these days – the first 15 minutes or so was a pretty triumphant era. Our heroes seemed to boss possession, moving the ball quickly and often between the lines, and doing a handy line in those neat line changes of direction, whereby they look for all the world like they’re about to pass to Teammate A, thereby compelling the opponent to shuffle in that direction to close down the space, before at the last minute passing instead to Teammate B. Simple stuff, but pleasingly effective, and for that dreamy quarter-hour or so I even wondered whether Maddison’s absence would actually be felt at all.

The goal arrived before the dignitaries had finished taking their seats, and while young Master Johnson got to run off and do the knee-slide, various members of the supporting cast deserve much of the credit.

Pedro Porro left his fingerprints all over the move, first popping up in an attacking central midfield sort of spot, to execute a dummy so convincing it seemed to make the Wolves lad opposite question his very existence. And moreover, P.P. was at pains to demonstrate that he is not one simply to complete a task and then sit back and admire his handiwork through a cloud of cigar smoke, for seconds later he could be identified in an inside right type of area, racing on to Kulusevki’s tee-up and delivering a pass that ticked all the box for young Johnson.

As mentioned, in between the good work from Porro and Porro again, the giveth and taketh was done by Kulusevski, and in those opening minutes he gave the impression that he was to be the central character in the afternoon’s entertainment. Our lot were on top in that period, and much of our good work was transported from back to front via his size nines.

He strikes me as one of the more curious beans around, in that he seems to be a pony of the single-trick variety, the sort who would cut inside onto his left foot even if his life depended on sticking to his right. I was therefore as shocked as any other seasoned Kulusevski-watcher to witness him, in the build-up to our goal, produce that delicate back-heeled flick into the path of Porro, in the process sending every nearby Wolves sort off into a different postcode.   

By and large, he seemed to be having the better of his particular thrashing out of matters out on the right. As ever, there was a degree of frustration at his eventual outputs, which, since his debut season, have tended to be pretty forgettable, either slammed into the nearest defender or sailing off into the mid-distance, but nevertheless yesterday one got the impression that he was set for great things.

2. Davies and Dier

Alas, after that pretty perky opening spell, our lot seemed to forget their lines somewhat. We didn’t have as much possession for a start, but as I’ve heard it put, under Big Ange our heroes have discovered the knack of controlling games even when not in possession, by virtue of the high-press and whatnot. This quality was sadly lacking yesterday, however. We may have led for 90 minutes, but there was much about our play of an aeroplane pilot who looks over his shoulders to see one wing has burst into flames and the other is disintegrating mid-air. Only the illusion of control, is what I’m getting at.

That we led for so long is largely due to the combined efforts of the defensive sorts, and in particular, the shift put in by of all people Messrs Dier and Davies. To say that this was a pleasant and most unexpected surprise would be to underplay the thing pretty seismically. It is not a stretch to report that feverish nightmares and cold sweats had been the way of things at AANP Towers all week as I contemplated the coming weeks of a central defence, and in particular a high-line, minus the delights of both Messrs Romero and VDV.  

Actually, rather sneakily, Dier and Davies largely avoided the nerve-shredding scenario of repeated sprints from halfway against the Wolves forwards by dropping a little deeper than anticipated – presumably a perk of taking to the field with a full complement of eleven.

Even so, any seasoned watcher of these things wouldn’t have had to give it too much thought before opining that the odds were stacked against our new-look central defence. For a start it has been so long since either of them have started one feared they might have forgotten what shape the ball was. Any rustiness would have been understandable, but no less acceptable. I watched on with brow duly furrowed with concern.

And early on I had good reason to throw a few well-chosen curses at Dier, for committing himself to a challenge on around halfway, missing his mark and turning to get back with all the swiftness of foot of a heavily-laden tanker. But I suppose in a way I had some reason to thank Dier for his leaden-footedness, for had he not erred on halfway then the world would not have been able to witness the stirring last-ditch challenge from Davies, scampering across from the left, to thwart an otherwise clear sight of goal for the relevant attacking Wolf.

And having been thrust – a little unwillingly, one suspects – into the defensive spotlight thusly, Davies proceeded to time to a similar level of accuracy just about every other defensive intervention he was called upon to make. The fact that we did not play quite such a shoot-self-in-foot high defensive line no doubt helped, removing from the equation the need for any breakneck pace, but nevertheless if his weary chums had on full-time formed a guard of honour and shoved Davies through it, few would have quibbled. (A dashed shame that the equaliser came from a run that might have registered on his radar a mite sooner, but I’m not sure he can be faulted too onerously for failing to prevent a strike of that oomph.)

Moreover, no doubt inspired by the smart thinking and acting of the chap to his immediate left, Dier gradually took the hint and started to warm to the task, using both head and feet to good effect defensively at various points, as well as demonstrating a clear grasp of the play-out-from-the-back memo slapped about HQ by The Brains Trust.

And had he continued to implement this approach into the 96th minute and beyond we might have tootled off with a point, but in the sort of misstep that he does tend to include in his baggage, he tried to execute an offside trap from twelve yards out in the last action of the game, rather than, say, racing across to block the shot, and the game was duly lost.

3. Hojbjerg

One of the other consequences of Monday night’s jamboree was the need to jimmy someone into the Maddison-shaped hole in midfield. While I’d offered up a sacrificial lamb or two in the hope that Bentancur might get the nod, it was presumably decided that the fellow is not quite ripe enough to pick from the start just yet. Instead, in a triumph for fans of the deeply underwhelming, the shirt was thrown at Master Hojbjerg.

And in a nutshell it struck me that if someone were to bottle the essence of Hojbjerg and uncork it at a later date, yesterday’s performance would be what would flow out.

He seemed pretty keen to make clear from the outset to even those of the meanest intelligence that he was very much not a like-for-like replacement for Maddison. As such, progressive passes were at something of a premium, and Hojbjerg instead generally kept things on the unremarkable end of the spectrum, focusing instead on his pointing and shouting.

As the game wore on he did occasionally seem to become inhabited by some intriguing sense of adventure that prompted him to venture forward into the final third as a temporary auxiliary attacker, but not really to any great effect.

Less pleasingly, his penchant remained undimmed for hurling himself to the floor at every given opportunity and campaigning for official intervention, which I suppose is hardly the front-page stuff it used to be but still grates no end around these parts.

Worse than that however, for all his pointing and shouting the chap still has a tendency to neglect his defensive duties when the cry goes up of ‘All hands on deck’. Whether he simply lacks the fitness or considers it beneath him I’m not too sure, but throughout his lilywhite career and again on Saturday, he could be spotted a good ten yards behind the action as Wolves bodies sped forward. (Indeed the winning goal might have been prevented had Hojbjerg carried on tracking back rather than slowing to a stop – although others around him were probably more culpable.)

The return of a presumably chastened Romero in a few weeks will hopefully ease the pain, but for all the good intentions there was a pretty significant absence of thrust about our work. If this really were a glimpse of how the coming couple of months will play out one might want to keep the bourbon handy.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 1-4 Chelsea: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. The First Twenty Or So

And that, lest there be any confusion, is why it’s called All Action, No Plot.

Easy to forget after a binge like that, but way back in the opening 20 or so minutes our heroes were playing some of the best football I’ve seen in any season at N17. These racy starts have become something of a trend amongst our lot, one amongst a number of bobbish habits instilled by Our Glorious Leader in double-quick time, but in a pleasing break from recent tradition we actually had the good sense to turn complete domination into an early goal (and were a moderately-sized whisker from two).

Maddison may not be credited in the record books in years to come with any meaningful contribution to our opener, but by golly he was front and centre of the action – albeit from a temporary left-back mooring. His was a pass for the ages, transferring events from defence to attack, and taking out the entire Chelsea midfield in one thoughtful swipe of the clog.

Nor was it particularly anomalous. Everywhere one looked there was the sight of a lilywhite playing what on paper would seem a pretty nondescript pass – not much more than ten yards, A to B, ordinary fare – but actually delivered in such a way as to temporarily remove from action at least two or three Chelsea rotters, and turn the rest of them completely on their axis.

These passes came from our centre-backs, from our inverted full-backs, and actually from pretty much anyone who happened to be wandering in the vicinity bedecked in white. Typically played first-time and typically reversed, they were lightning-quick, and Chelsea could barely get a sight of the ball, never mind a touch. Had life continued thusly for the following seven-ninths or so of the match, I can only assume we would have racked up dozens of goals and beetled away up the High St still top of the pile.

I was also settling in for a full evening of Brennan Johnson and his assorted delights. Pre-match I had rather hoped that he might get the nod, he having displayed in his two or three cameos that instant grasp of the mechanics that seemed every week to befuddle Richarlison. Not wanting to wade into any debate about who is actually a better player, it nevertheless seems apparent that the former is a better fit for this particular position and in this particular team than the latter. A dashed shame then, that life being what it was, young Master Johnson’s night was pretty abruptly curfewed – and not for the first time. At the current rate, he might actually get to complete a full 90 for us some time around 2028, what?

2. The Non-Sendings Off

“Dashed shame” is how I described it, but in this I perhaps misled my public, or at least withheld a decent wedge of the facts. For while the departure of Johnson was duly mourned, the events that precipitated it were a pretty different kettle of fish, and the AANP mood was not quite as forgiving.

Taking things in calendar order, Udogie’s two-footed lunge was as thick-headed as it was peculiar. I’ve never understood the strategic thinking behind a two-footed lunge. Apart from the fact that just about any referee with a pulse will delight at the chance to thrust a red card in the relevant face, it’s also such an odd manoeuvre. Unnatural, is what I mean. And one does not really need to have played football at the highest level to appreciate that. In fact, one only really needs to possess feet. In my experience, natural motion is generally a one-foot-at-a-time affair, anything else typically leading to physical disarray and a pretty significant confusion of the limbs.

So had Udogie had stretched a single leg for all his worth, I’d have been with him. Had he slowed down and attempted to block off young Sterling, I’d have understood his thinking. But to interrupt his usual stride pattern, specifically to introduce into proceedings an entirely unnatural act was rummy enough; to introduce such an act in the knowledge that it is specifically flagged as being immediately worth a red card – well, to say AANP was perplexed is to understate things.

Had his follow-through clipped the man – and that was well beyond his control, and in the lap of the gods – he could have had no complaints about a red card. Rather than moaning at the ref, I would have strongly urged the defender himself to have his head examined and do a spot of mental arithmetic or something, to jimmy the grey matter along.

Next up was Romero, another who seemed oblivious to the fact that we were giving the other lot a pretty emphatic tonking, with little cause to upset the status quo, and decided instead to pick up the nearest axe and swing.

Once again, his little off-the-ball kick at an opponent seemed unnecessarily to invite a dubious appraisal of things by the ref. And once again, had the officials taken a militant view there would not have been any grumbling towards them from over here, but a few paragraphs of the coarsest Anglo-Saxon directed at the player instead.

3. The Sendings-Off

Romero somehow walked away from that one with his rap-sheet in pristine nick, and perhaps by this point considering himself invincible in the eyes of the law he continued hacking away until spotted and ejected. As a side-note, I do rather miss the days when winning the ball was sufficient and not too many cares were given about the follow-through, but it’s pretty common knowledge that leaving studs on a shin as a parting-gift will receive a pretty dim eyebrow from VAR these days. Once again there were no complaints about the decision, only hands flung skywards at the fat-headedness of our man.

And that really was the turning-point – or the first of them at least. That led to the removal of Johnson, at a point at which it seemed clear that he was well on top in his own private debate out on the left, and ensured that Chelsea’s temporary dominance of possession would become more permanent.

As it happens, I’m actually inclined to shrug off Udogie’s second yellow card. He’s still a prime dolt for his two-footed nonsense earlier in the piece, and admittedly he ought really to have listened to the cautionary whisper from the angel on one shoulder, urging him to exercise a spot of restraint, rather than bowing to the demands from the devil on t’other shoulder, encouraging a lunge on Sterling when he’d already been booked.

But as I say, I had a degree of sympathy, because he had just foiled a 3-v-2 attack by Chelsea, rather heroically and against the odds – and who amongst us has not got a little carried away by a moment of success and promptly over-egged the thing?

4. The High Line

The injuries, of course, were just dashed bad luck. All season there has lurked in the background the nameless fear that an injury or two might rip the spine from our lot, but we had chugged along thus far unscathed, mainly due to the absences being enforced on a strictly one-by-one basis.

Well last night that all went up in flames. Last night I got the distinct sense that if it were not one bally thing it would damn well be another. Romero’s red was followed by VDV’s hamstring, which was followed by Maddison’s ankle, which was followed by Udogie’s red, and there went our spine, for the moment and for the foreseeable.

This four-part calamity, however – and in particular the removals of Messrs VDV and Romero – served only to introduce possibly the most eye-catching segment of the production, which is saying something on a night of 5 goals and 5 disallowed goals and 2 red cards and countless VARs.

The high-line, featuring at its heart Eric Dier, was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating. Defensively – and let’st start with the defensive aspect – it was utterly bonkers. Dier is a loyal servant, and a vocal presence apparently, and various other things that sound good and might serve pretty well in the SAS or some such – but a lightning-quick athlete he isn’t. As such, I found myself holding my breath each time Chelsea dithered around the centre-circle, and our lot lined up on halfway, ready to turn and sprint back to goal.

But it actually happened so often, pretty much most of the time the ball was in play, that I quickly worked out that holding my breath every time was not the way forward. Not enough oxygen. Anyway, we were helped out in this operation by the fact that Chelsea, for all their millions, were actually pretty vacant between the ears themselves, either too impatient or not quite bright enough to time their runs behind us.

On top of which, young Signor Vicario (more on whom later), turned out to take to the role of Auxiliary Sweeper in His Quieter Moments with a casual shrug that did a disservice to quite how capable he was. Whenever Chelsea did time their runs correctly and race off towards goal, they were generally greeted by the well-timed presence of a goalkeeper yet to put a foot wrong, in comparison to a few thousand feet he’s put right in his time at N17.

And so it happened that from a state of pessimism and doom, the mood at AANP Towers swiftly turned into one of enjoyment and hilarity. No matter what Chelsea did, they seemed utterly incapable of what ought to have been completely straightforward, and one could almost taste their frustration.

Whenever they did get behind us, Vicario swept up; and when he didn’t sweep up he made an extraordinary save, or one of our panting outfield mob caught up and hacked it away – and the general sense increasingly developed that this was going to be an absolute blast to watch.

It couldn’t last forever of course, but I have since wondered how it might have played out with VDV in the fold, even down to nine men. I rather fancy that Chelsea could have played all night and they would have failed to pick that particular lock.

Anyway, Big Ange seemed pretty unrepentant about it all, and while it made for a fascinating watch while we were defending, I have since filled the idle moment by wondering what the rationale might have been. The best I can come up with is that by playing such a high defensive line, our attackers were able to continue the high press of Chelsea defenders, and sniff around for opportunity. Or, put another way, down to nine men, Big Ange still wanted us to attack.

5. Vicario

As if the game itself wasn’t non-stop, madcap entertainment, I discovered later on that Nicolas Jackson had had the Man of the Match rosette pinned to his breast, which afforded me another chuckle, he having delivered one of the worst striking displays I’ve seen at the place.

From the AANP monocle the standout performer was pretty comfortably the lad Vicario. Again, it was easy to lose in the mists of time, but in the first half, when still 11 v 11, he pulled off a now customary Save-That’s-Actually-Worth-A-Goal, sprawling full length to his left and, that done, having the presence of mind to extend a beefy paw, to make sure of things.

There then followed his quite sensational display of judgement and timing in repeatedly scampering from his line and facing down the assorted Chelsea forwards while Dier and chums were struggling to keep up. On top of which he made some further, remarkable saves, flinging every available limb and, I’m pretty sure, his face into the way of danger to ensure that Chelsea were kept at bay and the hilarity continued.

For the umpteenth time this season I reflected that this was the sort of super-human produce of which our former custodian could only have dreamt. I’m not too sure whose brainwave it was to drag Vicario over to these shores; I’m pretty sure I gave him a murky and quizzical eye when he did arrive; but by golly I’d sell every material possession I own, and quite possibly throw in my soul too, to ensure he stays in N17 long into the future.

Three rousing cheers for Vicario then, and an additional yip thrown in for Hojbjerg too. I’m yet to be convinced that he’s really the man for Ange-Ball, but if ever there were a situation for which he most certainly is the man it’s when the team is down to nine-men. I half-expect his eyes lit up when the red cards were flashed. Hojbjerg scowled and tackled and crunched his way through proceedings, clearing one shot off the line and generally giving the impression that he was born to play in this particular match.

It’s just a shame we couldn’t quite hold out; and then, having failed to hold out, couldn’t quite nab the equaliser, before Chelsea finally worked out how to beat the world’s most obvious offside trap.

But by golly, if one is going to lose one might as well as go down swinging, and I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed such game, determined and entertaining swinging as that. We could all have done without the final three or so minutes of injury-time and what was contained therein; and I know that to admit enjoying a Spurs defeat is one of those cardinal sins for which one is expected to make a grovelling apology on some social media nonsense; and if we entertain while getting stuffed every week then I’ll have a pretty solid rethink.

But this was, yet again, just thoroughly entertaining stuff, the sort of fare I could happily gobble down for an hour and a half every week for the rest of my days. As you’re no doubt aware, the AANP blog began on a wave of still-flowing adrenaline the morning after our 4-4 draw at The Emirates, and last night’s adventure was two hours of the same madcap nonsense. Long may it continue.

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Spurs news, rants

Spurs’ Pre-Season: Eight Tottenham Talking Points

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

1. Ange Postecoglou

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

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

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

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

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

2. The New Style of Play

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

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

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

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

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

Until we have to defend, of course.

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

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

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

3. Maddison

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

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

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

4. Manor Solomon

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

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

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

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

5. Vicario

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

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

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

6. Van de Ven

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

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

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

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

7. Fare Thee Well, Young Master Winks

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

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

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

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

8. Kane

Who knows, eh?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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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.)

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-0 Chelsea: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. The Skipp Goal

Flitting over the first half handbags and jollies, that Skipp goal positively burst at the seams with all the right sort of stuff.

For a start, it came straight from second half kick-off. I suppose you might say there is nothing so remarkable about that – the game does have to restart somehow after all. Nevertheless I’ve sometimes watched our lot peddle this same routine each game, and wondered if they might not rustle up something with a touch more grace and elan than simply giving it to Dier to clout up into the heavens and loading the left flank with runners in preparation for when gravity does its thing.

I would have expected that Chelsea would a) have been wise to this approach, it being the one we adopt just about without fail every time we start a half, and b) not had too much difficulty in countering it.

But there it was, considerably higher on altitude than subtlety, with Davies, Richarlison and Kane queueing to see what would be on offer once the thing fell to earth. Davies and Richarlison were the principals in this instance, the former plucking the ball from the sky whilst the latter did an impressive spot of swivel-and-onward-shovelling towards the centre. And when the Skipp household crack open their umpteenth bottle of champagne tonight and light up a cigar or two to round the thing off, they may want to offer a toast to the neat footwork and general alertness of Richarlison, in rotating affairs from a position of no more than general promise, on an inside left perch and with back to goal, to a position of considerable threat, with Kulusevski and inside the D.

There then followed a sequence of suitably dramatic events in the build-up to Skipp’s big moment, which included a few helping hands from our odious guests. For a start Kulusevski found Emerson, whose presence in the prime attacking spot should no longer surprise anyone. His shot was handled by the Chelsea ‘keeper with considerably greater theatre than necessary, meaning that rather than slamming the door on the whole episode it instead created a even glitzier sequel.

Another Chelsea fellow picked up the baton and handily threw in a rubbish clearance, which kept things alive. And at this point young Master Skipp cleared his throat and marched onto the stage for his big moment.

Amidst all the fuss over his finish – and it oozed with quality, make no mistake – the preamble might easily be ignored, but I was particularly taken by it. It involved the fine young fellow winning a ball for which he was, if not exactly a rank outsider, certainly second favourite. But a spot of upper body beef, did half the job, and it was topped off by a general desire and will to win that I wouldn’t normally associate with our lot. And yet there it was, and against the odds Skipp emerged from the conflab as master of all he surveyed.

All that remained at this point was for him to close the eyes, swing the peg and hope that the outcome was one of those half volleys bestowed once or twice a lifetime from on high. Not only did he catch the thing on its sweetest possible spot, the ball also slapped off the underside of the bar – an element that, as is universally acknowledged, augments the aesthetic value of any goal by around a thousand per cent.


One cannot but help beam with avuncular pride for young Skipp. Such an earnest soul, and a Tottenham boy from root to stem, but by virtue of his role in life rarely the sort to receive much acclaim. It was pleasing enough to see him score his first goal for the club, but to do so in quite such glorious fashion really does make the heart sing a bit.

2. Romero

It says much for all concerned in the lilywhite defensive ranks that Chelsea didn’t really get a decent view of goal the whole match. Sterling’s first half sprints had me chewing the lip once or twice, and there may have been a long shot or two, but really nothing to make the blood freeze over and spine quiver.

On one of the few occasions in which they did threaten, courtesy of a couple of neat diagonal passes through the lines that shifted things from ‘Minimum Threat’ to ‘Clean Through On Goal’, I for one was grateful for the intervention of one C. Romero Esquire. On that particular occasion, Romero displayed in the first place a decent sense of awareness of current affairs, in springing from his usual spot on the right of the centre-backs, to cover a breach on the left. On top of which, he then had the bright idea to pursue a policy of minimal contact in order to see out the danger.

Romero, as is public knowledge, is the sort of egg who cannot resist solving life’s problems by throwing a full-blooded limb or two at it. Recourse to such action in the penalty area, and indeed in the six-yard box, might have had some pretty dangerous consequences. In this instance, however, he opted to insert his frame in between the ball and the onrushing Chelsea forward, and the ploy worked to perfection. What had threatened to escalate into a clear-cut opportunity, instead fizzled out quietly, as Romero guided the ball to safety much like a responsible adult escorting some unruly child across a road.

It was one of a number of pretty impressive interventions from Romero throughout. In recent weeks – just about every week, in fact – I have cocked a pretty dubious eyebrow as he has flung himself, body and soul, into a challenge, seemingly not content unless some furniture is damaged and a card brandished at him. Today, by contrast, the feist and aggression were on show, but always in controlled and regulated fashion. He tackled firmly, cut out passes and crosses and the like, and also did a spot of overtime covering in random areas like left-back whenever the situation arose.

Those casual moments when he mistook our one-nil lead for an eight-nil lead and rather complacently allowed the ball to be nipped from him took the sheen off things, but I wave a forgiving hand in this instance. He carried out the nuts and bolts of defending pretty robustly, and I was all for it.

3. Forster

Another chap whose name is likely to receive only the briefest mention, but whose occasional inputs caught the AANP eye, was Fraser Forster. Not that he was exactly overburdened – the five colleagues directly in front of him, and indeed the five in front of those, all contributing pretty diligently, leaving Chelsea unable to muster more than a shot or two in anger.

 And in fact, one of the few shots that Forster did have to deal with, in the first half, he made rather a pig’s ear of. It was one that either needed a clutching to self or shoving pretty mightily off to the margins, but Forster did neither, the ball popping from his frame and requiring an intervening bloot from Ben Davies to extinguish.

But in the second half, the gigantic chap seemed to get the message, seemingly struck by the benefits of doing simple things well. Most notably this happened when one or other of the Chelsea mob wriggled their way into the area and looked for all the world like the next item on their agenda would be one or other of rounding the ‘keeper or toe-poking into the net. Either way, a spot of pretty serious peril loomed.

Now wandering off on a tangent, I suppose it is possibly a mite unfair to criticise a chap both in his absence and for a crime he didn’t even commit, but at this point the curious thought that flashed to my mind was that if Hugo Lloris had been in situ and minding affairs, I would have bet my mortgage on him somehow uprooting the Chelsea forward, at considerable cost to the overall masterplan.

However, we were blessed in this instance not with Lloris but with Forster, and he pretty admirably addressed this crisis by catapulting every inch of his eleventy-foot frame forward across the turf, so as to snatch the ball from the toe of the blighter, thus averting either toe-poke or rounding-of-‘keeper scenarios.

In common with Romero’s intervention described earlier, since the net result was an absence of any damage, and what one might describe as a dot ball in the scorers’ book, it would be easy to shrug off the whole affair and pretend it never happened. But AANP has made a habit of getting rather too carried away with the small print when watching Spurs, and through this intervention (plus the handful of crosses caught with minimal fuss and dressing), Forster, in my book, earned his evening bourbon.

And there we have it. To a man our lot scrapped and fought as required, threw in a couple of moments of quality in the final third, and tootled off with another pretty comfortable win. Long live that Stellini chap.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 1-0 Man City: Six Tottenham Talking Points

1. Conte-Ball: Defending

I suppose the more smug amongst us would claim, on the basis of recent history in this fixture, to have seen this coming (although I’ve always thought there’s a certain wonkiness to such reasoning, namely that the results and personnel and whatnot from years gone by ought not to have anything to do with getting one’s hand dirty in the here and now).

Anyway, the point here is that if some of the smarter coves had pencilled in “1-0” beforehand then good for them, but I’m not sure any man, woman or child on the planet would have foreseen us accompanying that 1-0 scoreline with a masterclass of this ilk.

‘Masterclass’ was the term I used above, and I’ll fling it around a bit more now. From the off it was apparent that City were going to grab the ball and hang on to it for most of the evening. And frankly, not an eyelid was batted at that. I think we’ve all seen enough of this mob to know that that’s how they set about in life, and of itself it doesn’t really cause that much damage. One just learns to work around it, and our lot certainly seemed to take it all in their stride. Collective shrugs and diligent positioning seemed about the sum of it from our heroes, with everyone knowing their lines and the whole thing panning out as if it had been rehearsed this way for months.

When City oozed up towards our area, our back five generally did sensible things, which started off as a relief and quickly became a rather satisfying watch – doubling up on Grealish and Mahrez, blocking off shots, that sort of thing. It helped that Pep pulled his usual party-trick of wildly over-thinking matters rather than simply shoving the best midfielder around behind one of the best forwards around and letting them go wild; but that wasn’t really our concern. If City were adamant that feeding Haaland was only to be a last resort then that was their prerogative. The crucial thread from a lilywhite perspective was that as and when required, our back-five kept the other lot at arm’s length.

Nor was this set-up the sole preserve of the designated defenders. As City scratched their heads and popped possession around in the middle of the court, our attacking triumvirate obediently trotted off to their designated targets, allowing Bentancur and Hojbjerg to dash around putting out fires in midfield. It was all so well organised that one could well imagine Signor Conte lighting a most satisfied cigar, if such things were not – presumably – frowned upon in the healthcare centres of Turin.

2. Conte-Ball: Attacking

However, defending against City is but one part of the challenge, and a relatively straightforward one at that. The broader picture was more complex. The whole thing was like one of those GCSE Maths equations from back in the day, containing all sorts of garbled messages within various sets of brackets, and just when you’re patting yourself on the back for deciphering the contents of one set of brackets, you look up and realise there’s about fifteen others to come. So it can be with playing Man City. Setting up to defend against them is all well and good, but after about five minutes of that I did find that the ghost of Jose Mourinho was sidling up to me and quietly enquiring whether I could stomach it for a full 90 minutes.

Mercifully, Conte’s masterclass extended well beyond the perimeter of our own penalty area. There was also a plan for the opposing penalty area, and extraordinarily, the critical component of this was Eric Dier, of all people.

The gist of the thing was as follows. With City rolling the ball around their own playpen, casual to the gills, our front three shoved up in the faces of their back three. This was a steady start, thrusting the main characters into the foreground as it were. But it was the supporting cast who caught the eye, because Eric Dier then mooched forward from his position slap bang in the heart of defence, and stationed himself slap bang in the heart of midfield.

If one were a little petty and childlike about such things, one might gently clear the throat and refer to having banged on for weeks about the need to shove another body in midfield; but that is hardly germane. What was critical here was that Dier’s temporary foray into midfield meant that Hojbjerg and Bentancur had licence to press further forward. And the upshot of all this small print was that when our esteemed hosts shuffled the thing from A to B without due care and attention, Hojbjerg was on hand to snaffle the life out of the poor mite in possession, setting up Kane for his moment. Cue more cigar smoke billowing around the hospital wards of Turin.

The other element of the plan was arguably the most fun part, comprising as it did our heroes racing up the pitch on the counter-attack every five minutes, against a bizarrely undermanned opposing defence. In the first half this tactic kept things interesting, albeit the winnings never really extended beyond the occasional corner.

But in the second half, by golly it looked like every time we cleared the ball we would, within about three and a half seconds, be up the other end and clean through on goal. Of course, at one-nil, one always gives the fingernails a good going over, but nevertheless it was actually pretty riotous fun.

I had never quite followed the whirs and clicks of those “Expected Goals” statistics, but I think the point of them is to reflect that, in a game like yesterday’s, for all their possession City didn’t really look like scoring (even the shot that hit the post seemed to do so rather apologetically); while our lot could conceivably have had three or four in that second half. Possession be damned, this was a triumph for Expected Goals and cigar smoke.

3. Emerson Royal

And as if cantering to a pretty serene and composed victory against the Champions wasn’t already peculiar enough, the poster boy for the whole thing was none other than Emerson Royal.

I have heard it said that the rationale in shoving overboard Messrs Spence and Doherty while treating Emerson to pats on the head and tummy-tickles was that while the former pair are moulded in the same gung-ho shape as Pedro Porro, Emerson is a more defensive sort of breed, and therefore increases the options in the squad. This actually makes a decent wad of sense, but for anyone struggling to follow the thread, yesterday’s match offered a handy visual illustration of the key points.

There will doubtless be games in the coming weeks in which teams opt for the more conservative approach and sit back waiting to see what we’re about. In such instances, the more attacking wing-backs – those from the same conveyor belt as Pedro Porro – will doubtless be called upon for attacking input. Yesterday, however, was a day for clear-headed defensive thinking, and to his credit Emerson plugged away at his task like the dickens.

And it was quite some task, make no mistake. He was up against renowned trickster and professional ruffian Jack Grealish, a fellow as adept at beating a man as he is at tumbling over that same man’s outstretched lower limbs.

It was one heck of a contest. Emerson may have miscalculated the coordinates once or twice, but nine times out of ten he seemed to get the better of Grealish, at least depositing the ball beyond the boundaries of the pitch to let all colleagues to his left catch their breath and reset.

And while Emerson may have displayed hitherto unseen powers of long-term concentration in his defensive duties, he was still happy to throw off the shackles and jump on board whatever attack we stitched together. Indeed, in the second half, as Sonny, Kulusevski and Kane went through the gears and over halfway, Emerson could be seen regularly steaming up and straight through the centre like some demented Olympic sprinter, not necessarily waving his arms and pulling faces but quite possibly yelling “Give it to meeee!” as he motored into the heart of City’s holiest of holies. Quite batty, that chap.

4. Hojbjerg

The consensus seems to be that Emerson was the pick of a pretty impressive bunch, but P.E.H. was hoving into view in his wing mirror at a rate of knots. In fact, Hojbjerg seemed to appear pretty quickly in the wing mirrors of all present, having one of those games in which you looked in one direction and saw him ploughing over a couple of challenges, then looked in a completely different direction and saw him chasing down a City bod.

A lot of the fellow’s work tends to be undertaken in the shadows. Sounds a bit murky admittedly, but I mean his job often involves adopting an appropriate position and stance of readiness, and as such forcing whichever opponent to think twice about whatever perfidy was lined up. The chap aborts, and Hojbjerg, without appearing to do much, has averted a spot of danger.

Yesterday, however, felt a bit like that moment when the anonymous vigilante pops up from out of the shadows, removes his mask and gives cheery waves to all around him, drinking in a spot of applause for good measure. As well as covering a decent amount of mileage in shadowing runners and blocking off passing angles, Hojbjerg also waded knee-deep into the thick of things, and could regularly be spotted breaking up attacks and emerging from a melee of limbs with something of a limp, but the ball, nevertheless, ensconced in his care (his role in the goal being a case in point).

A word similar merit too, to Bentancur, whose ability to receive the ball in a pretty perilous range of circumstances, but calmly manoeuvre a course to safety like the best of them, is now rolled out so regularly I rather start to take it for granted.

5. Sonny

And while on the subject of brief words of commendation being sprinkled like confetti about the place because why not, I’ll reach over and give Sonny a playful punch on the upper arm.

I appreciate that some in the gallery might, at this point, think things are getting a little out of hand, and furtively shove the decanter to a spot beyond my immediate grasp. But while Sonny might not have been solid pillar upon which the whole jolly ruckus was built, he made his own little contributions here and there in our counter-attacks; and, more pertinently gave another glimpse or two that Form may be returning to her throne.

Last week saw the welcome return of Sonny’s Shooting Boots – lower league opposition or not, it was a relief to see the chap strike a ball with the sweet timing of a cover drive at Lord’s. And yesterday, I felt like a further box was ticked in his rehabilitation, as on several occasions he collected the ball and set off on a gallop.

Nothing particularly memorable there, you might think. But consider the context, of his inability all season to take three steps without stumbling like a chap having the dickens of a time remembering which leg is which, and the sight of him tearing through the wide open spaces yesterday made the the juices flow and pulse quicken.

There was a spot of end-product thrown in too, the loveable bounder picking a couple of sensible short passes to his left and right at the conclusion of his jollies, where previously in such circumstances he had seemed to get a little lost in a cloud of options and bounce straight into opponents. Not quite vintage Sonny just yet, but the evidence suggests it’s on its way.

6. Kane

The final word, however, belongs to Harry Kane. In truth, the first and middle words ought to as well but I’m sure he won’t mind. His finish was actually one of the less sensational variety, although it still boasted the impressive quality of being his first kick of the ball in the match.

But this was a day to salute the fellow’s longevity. As he himself noted afterwards, the years have rather whistled by – eleven of them now, since the Shamrock Rovers affair – but to rack up 267 goals in that time is really the sort of stat that makes you pause, compute and then widen the eyes and say “Golly”.

When I consider the hours my old man, AANP Senior, has spent rattling off the exploits of Jimmy Greaves as the stuff of legend, it is easy to take for granted quite what a privilege it is to witness Kane go about his relentless business each week. Kane will be spoken of in the way Greaves was, and while there is no real knowing what the blazes will happen to English football in the coming decades, it seems rather a stretch to imagine some other johnnie buzzing along and rattling off 268 or however many more. A privilege to have him about the place. Bravo, sir

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Spurs transfers Uncategorized

Spurs’ Transfer Window: 6 Tottenham Talking Points

Yes it’s a tad late, but quite appropriate for Spurs’ transfer window, n’est ce pas?

I’m not normally one for piping up about the comings and goings. Largely because one just ends up speculating, and then looking rather an oaf when the chappie one praised to the heavens turns out not to know his right foot from his left when he eventually trots out onto the field. Better to lay low, I’ve found, and let the various cast members pickle their own insides. Much easier to cast judgement on a fellow with the benefit of hindsight after all, what?

This time, however, I do feel moved to act. Not to such extremes as penning a violently-worded letter to The Times, you understand – there is, after all, a time and a place. But dash it all, packaging off Bryan Gil? Forsooth! Erasing from existence Matt Doherty because of a last-minute administrative error? What the devil?

Not to distract from the fact that we’ve ended up making a couple of natty moves, but one does sometimes look at our lot and find there’s no other thing to do but scratch the loaf and goggle a bit.

1. Pedro Porro

First the spiffing stuff. He may sound like the headline act of a nursery rhyme, but young Pedro Porro ought to be precisely the cog this particular machine has been yelling for. No need to insult anyone’s intelligence by banging on about how Conte-ball absolutely positively must, as a matter of the utmost urgency, deploy fizz-popping wing-backs in order to work. The problem has been staring us all in the face for months now, but finally the great purse-string holder in the sky has flung a bit of money at the problem.

Not that a thick old wad of notes is any sort of guarantee to solve this sort of frightful mess. After all, upon flogging Kyle Walker we threw half of the winnings on Serge Aurier of all people.

But in this instance, I’m willing to go out on a cautious limb and suggest that we haven’t necessarily bought ourselves a complete dud. (Which is pretty high praise around these parts.) Two Champions League games doth not a comprehensive dossier of a chap’s abilities make, but I do remember thinking when he played against us something along the lines of “Golly, I’d rather have that bounder than Emerson plugging away on the right”.

Admittedly the chap may not know the first dashed thing about defending for all I know, but on the front foot he seemed rather handy, and goodness knows our lot our screaming out for that sort of muck from a wing-back. Indeed, the notion of Messrs Romero, Bentancur, Kulusevski and – if he lives up to the billing – P.P. all ganging up together to cause a spot of mischief on the right, makes the AANP heart sing a bit.

Porro (Pedro? Some ludicrous nickname?) appears blessed with a burst of pace and a rather fruity right foot, which ought to help. On top of which he gives the air of one of those old boys who was rather miffed to be cast as a Defender when the jerseys were being handed out back at school, and has spent every day since pointedly charging forward into the final third in an ongoing act of pique.

There is, naturally, a Bissouma-shaped disclaimer here. For no matter how competent a laddie looks when coming up against us in days gone by, there’s a fair old chance that on arriving in N17 and donning the lilywhite he will immediately morph into an incompetent charlatan who is not entirely sure what shape the ball ought to be.

But nevertheless. We needed a right wing-back who a) is well acquainted with the do’s and don’ts of the wing-back trade, and b) Our Glorious Leader could actually tolerate. We now have the aforementioned. Time to get down to brass tacks.

2. Danjuma

I feel something of a fraud here, as there’s not much I can add about Danjuma that I didn’t rabbit on about at the weekend, following his Preston jolly. In short, never having set eyes upon him before, I was happy enough to witness him roll up his sleeves and muck in. No shirking from this one. He waded into the thick of things from the off, seemed nimble of foot and bludgeoned himself a goal by virtue of insisting that he ought to have one rather than any particular finesse.

Positionally, he appears to be rubbing shoulders with Sonny and Richarlison in the little tub of bodies marked “Kane’s Backup”, and apparently can also wander off to the left if the need arises.

With Conte evidently deeming young Gil the sort of egg whose exit from the premises couldn’t come soon enough (more on that anon) we seemed to need an extra pair of attacking legs, and in sharp contradistinction to the unfortunate young Gil, Danjuma seems to come with a few additional slabs of meat and muscle plastered about his frame.

I’ll be honest, the whole thing has more than a whiff of the Bergwijn about it, but that, I suppose, is no bad thing.

3. Bryan Gil

At this point, however, things take a turn for the rummy.

A couple of potentially handy signings (or, more specifically, one potentially crucial signing and one potentially handy one) is all well and good, but for Conte to haul up Gil by the ear and kick him out of the country seemed a bit thick. I liked Gil. Gil made the pulse quicken. In a team that too often lapsed into endless sideways and backwards passing, Gil seemed forever gripped with the notion of simply tearing around the place and seeing what good works came of it.

Still, for all his fine efforts and endless energy, Gil did rather lack in the physique department. Conte, slippery eel that he is, had given the impression post-World Cup that he was actually coming round to the young pill – consecutive starts and whatnot – but it was all a spot of dastardly misdirection. All along Conte had him down as no more than skin, bone and hair, so off he bobs.

Mercifully it is but a temporary arrangement, and with a bit of luck the young specimen will return in the summer beefed as well as bronzed. But the element that really grates is that he is returning to his former digs, at Sevilla.

No concerns there, one might think – until recalling that in order to obtain the chap in the first place, we gave the very same Sevilla one serviceable Erik Lamela plus somewhere in the region of £25 million. And now, as a result of this latest spot of jiggery-pokery, Sevilla find themselves in possession of Lamela, approximately £25 million – and Bryan Gil, dash it! I mean really, what the hell sort of deal is that?

4. Matt Doherty

If the mechanics of the Bryan Gil deal seem to be slathered on a bit thick, it’s a mere bagatelle compared to the absurdities seeping from every orifice of the Matt Doherty fiasco.

On the face of it, the release of one of multiple right wing-backs, in order to facilitate the serene entry of a new, more advanced model, seems about as neat and tidy as they come. Firm handshakes all round would seem to be the order of the day.

Peel back the layers however – and one really doesn’t have to peel back too many, the top layer here will suffice – and a spot of mind-boggling incompetence takes shape. The rub of the thing is that the original plan was to slap a sign saying ‘Loan’ on Doherty’s forehead and bundle him onto a plane bound for Madrid, where he would stay until the summer, by which point a state of perfect equanimity and sense would have engulfed the running of THFC.

This being Spurs, however, such a straightforward course of action was never going to land. It turns out that, loosely speaking, these days clubs are not allowed to loan out more than 8 players at a time. A new one on me, I admit, but then I’m not a major European football club, for whom the loaning of players is part of the routine. For any such club, this ought not really to have been an issue as long as they were able to grasp the basics. Our lot, however, seemed to sally along blissfully unaware that such a rule existed; or perhaps fully aware, but not staffed by anyone capable of counting above 8.

Either way, the upshot was that with literally an hour or two until the deadline passed we found ourselves in possession of one excess Doherty, and at a bit of a loss as to how to shift him. At this stage I would have thought that, having only last season spent £15 million to bring the fellow in, simply cutting the cord and letting him drift off elsewhere would pretty much be the nuclear option. I mean to say, the chances of us recovering a full £15 million for him might have been thin, but the chances of us recovering something for him seemed middling-to-fair.

Incredibly however, the grands fromages of the club – presumably the same mob who are down in folklore for haggling into the wee small hours of deadline days gone by for a pittance here and a desultory payment there – just casually wiped off this £15 million asset in its entirety, tearing up Dhoerty’s contract, one imagines with a gay old smile and cheeky wink, and elbowing Doherty out of the club’s existence without much more than a muffled “Adio– ah, Pedro!”

My mind, which until then had been boggling away like nobody’s business at the combination of incompetence and absurdity, at this point gave up and simply melted away. It was simply too much to wrap the bean around. Irrespective of Doherty’s virtues or otherwise as a player and employee, I simply couldn’t fathom how a professional establishment could be that unaware of a key regulation; leave until literally the eleventh hour that for which they’d had a month to prepare; and then write off a multi-million pound asset with little more than a shrug.

As for the footballing side of all this, it certainly crept up from behind and shouted ‘Boo!’, but with the dust – and, more pertinently Pedro Porro – settling I’d qualify this as one I can stomach comfortably enough.

Poor old Doherty never really got to grips with things, for which he only takes a small portion of the blame in truth. There was a point, towards the end of last season, where he seemed to find his straps, and went on a run of half a dozen or so consecutive games at right wing-back, during which he did a decent impression of a chap who knew what he was about. Cutting in towards the area, popping up at the far post as an auxiliary attacker – that sort of good, honest muck.

Alas, that was all ended by the footballing equivalent of being attacked by a maniac with an axe, against Villa I think, and thereafter the chap never really managed more than an hour here or a ten-minute stretch-of-the-legs there, before being written out of the script in most peculiar fashion. Curious stuff, if no great loss.

5. Djed Spence

The other major outgoing was the no doubt pretty bewildered Djed Spence, a young flower to whom Our Glorious Leader seemed to take an instant dislike, and then made it his mission to ensure everyone knew it too.

A little green behind the ears he may presumably have been (I say ‘presumably’ because the lad never got to play long enough for anyone to find out), but given that Conte worshipped at the altar of attacking wing-backs it seemed pretty dashed rummy that he should have had quite such an aversion to the chap.

As far as anyone could make out, Spence was one of those coves who thinks that if he’s on a football pitch he might as well be attacking the opposition’s goal, and in each of his little cameo appearances he pretty clearly lived by that mantra. In the absence of anyone else doing much better at RWB, his repeated omission certainly made one remove the hat and give the hair a contemplative ruffle, but there we are. At least until the summer, young Master Spence is no longer of this establishment.

(As an aside, I admire his beans in opting for Rennes, rather than some more glamorous locale. The young bounder wants minutes; and, one imagines, at Rennes, minutes he shall have.)

6. Deals Not Done

While I suspect a few of us could debate long into the night the wisdom of ditching Doherty and Spence while retaining Emerson ruddy Royale, by and large this seemed a transfer window in which the stated aims were more or less met, and as such it’s one of those Satisfactory Enough type of gigs.

That said, however, AANP is the sort of chap who, on being gifted a dozen gleaming sports cars, would pause and question why it wasn’t a dozen and one. And as such, I’ll happily pop a hand on each hip and bleat about the wisdom of ending the transfer window without reinforcements in key areas. Viz, a goalkeeper, a centre-back, a creative midfield sort and another centre-back.

I know the official party line, of course. We all do. There was no way Monsieur Lloris was going to suffer some Doherty-esque ignominy and be cast aside mid-season with nary a mention on the club website. Severely in need of a goalkeeping upgrade we might be, but it is not happening any time before the clocks go forward.

Similarly at centre-back, Eric Dier will get to make as many more bizarrely off-kilter attempted clearances as he likes, because Conte seems taken by him, and that is sufficient. The Davies-Lenglet hokey-cokey will continue likewise. Come the summer, one would expect some serious signings in these areas to be discussed (before those targets head elsewhere and we settle for second-best); but for now, we’re stuck with what we’ve got.

Such is life. In truth I’m grateful that some new blood was brough in at all, particularly at right wing-back. And with Conte’s future still up in the air it may be just as well not to bring in too many of his acolytes. A dashed peculiar transfer window, then, but all told, one that was not too shabby. On we bobble.