Tag: Giovani Lo Celso

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Spurs news, rants

Spurs’ January Transfer Window: Six Tottenham Talking Points

1. Dele

AANP has traditionally been one to greet bad news with a stiffening of the upper lip and, if pushed, a solemn, unspoken nod at a nearby chum who feels similarly. And rarely has the upper lip been stiffer in recent times than upon learning of the departure of young Dele.

Utterly inevitable of course. The young bean had long ago fizzled out, and generally only popped up in lilywhite in recent years to drift along in his own little world before another month or two on the bench. If any other wag did what he’s been doing – slowing down the game, hogging the ball, moodily waving the arms and giving up the cause when dispossessed – the knives would have been out and pitchforks flung in his direction a long time ago.

By the time the bitter end swung around Dele offered purely decorative value. We’d spot him pre-match, forlornly nutmegging his fellow subs during the warm-up, but thereafter his biggest contribution tended to be in unwrapping a blanket for his legs as he watched on from the bench. If ever a former bright young thing needed a change of scenery, it is Dele. One does not disagree with the unceremonious binning.

Quite why it all went wrong is a rummy one. Dele’s problem seemed ultimately to be an existential one, in that his favoured No. 10 position simply ceased to exist. Disappeared into the ether. This must have been pretty tough for the chap to take, essentially turning up to work to find that his desk had been removed, but I suppose time – and systems involving one central striker and two inverted wingers – wait for no man.

Within Conte’s 3-4-3, there is no room for a midfielder who yearns deep inside to be a forward. Conte’s midfielders must midfield first, and ghost into the opposition area only on special occasions.

(Admittedly the 3-5-2 set-up, which brought something like the best out of Dele vs Liverpool a few weeks back, suggested that there might be life in the old dog yet, and I confess to being a mite surprised that this experiment was not repeated, but Conte presumably had seen enough.)

So off he has popped – and yet it does lower the mood about the place, what? Peak Dele was, if not necessarily the heartbeat, then certainly one of the essential organs of the whole glorious-without-actually-bringing-home-any-specific-glory Poch era.

This is not so much for what he did (although the list is plentiful and glorious: popping up as young scamps will do, with goals against Real, and Arse, and Chelsea; demonstrating some quite glorious touches to pluck falling footballs from the sky; grinning cheekily while kicking out slyly; contorting thumb and forefinger; and so on).

It’s as much for what the very presence of the chap said about our last fun adventure: Poch-era Tottenham. Here was a brash young bounder who oozed talent and positively revelled in flicking the ears of shinier opponents. Think of him in his bursting-from-midfield pomp, and it’s hard not to think of that all-singing, all-dancing team of nearly-men who had an absolute blast and took us to within a whisker of pots of various sizes.

And by a similar token, removing Dele in effect dismantles more of that Poch machinery, leaving behind just the top and tail of the thing.

“Here’s Dele Alli… here’s Lucas Moura… OH THEY’VE DONE IT!”

2. Ndombele and Lo Celso

Tottenham Hotspur is, of course, where talented foreign footballers go to die, so we probably should not be too surprised that having looked like the sort of beans around whom Title-challenging teams could be built in their YouTube compilations and international performances, Ndombele and Lo Celso are now being bundled out of the nearest exit.

Dashed shame though. One didn’t need to boast the keenest football eye to detect that each of the aforementioned were capable of some pretty ripping stuff with a ball at their feet – and I rather fancy that they’ll do more of the same in sunnier climes in the months and years to come, when bedecked in anything but lilywhite.

And yet, present them with the lush greenery of N17 and the pair of them struggled to remember what game they were playing.

Actually, I do Ndombele a disservice there. The chap’s great flaw was not his touch, or delivery, or any such thing. The main challenge Ndombele seemed to encounter any time he finished tying his laces was that after one quick trot around the pitch he seemed to need a full week to recover, gasping for air, his lungs aflame and legs as jelly.

If inclined one could probably write a long-ish essay on what went wrong and what might have been a bit right-er about Ndombele’s time at Spurs. There were moments when he would receive the ball in the narrowest of corners, boxed in by a variety of opposing limbs, and still mesmerically emerge from said dead-end with ball at feet and opponents dizzied. Sometimes he would even throw in end-product too, a delightfully-weighted pass or a shot from the edge of the area.

Ultimately, however, neither he nor Lo Celso seemed remotely cut out for a life in the heart of the Tottenham midfield. Lo Celso in particular seemed to make a habit, in recent months, of doing small things with great error, be it a simple pass to tick along the midfield or a corner to beat the first man.

Perhaps if any of the umpteen managers who oversaw them had seen fit to take either of these two souls, stick them slap-bang in the heart of things and construct a team around them, their talents might have blazed forth and all would have been right with the world.

But it is telling that none of those managers did. Sometimes no words need uttering, and these appears to be those times. A knowing nod, and tap of the nose speaks volumes. “Ndombele and Lo Celso”, one manager after another seems to have been saying, without actually saying, “not the sort of eggs upon whom one can rely.” And if an egg can’t be relied upon in midfield, there’s not much left for them other than the scraps of substitute appearances and an occasional Europa start.

3. Bryan Gil

There are loans and then there are loans, and while Ndombele and Lo Celso’s loans seem to carry with them a rather unsubtle message that if they want to stick around in their new homes then it’s fine by all back at HQ, the loan of Bryan Gil has more of the bona fide have-him-for-a-bit-but-then-return-him about it.

The view at AANP Towers is pretty unimpressed about this one, from start to finish. One probably should let bygones be bygones and whatnot, but I still chafe a bit at the thought that we traded in one perfectly serviceable Lamela – plus £20m, dash it – for this Gil character.

Not Gil’s fault of course, he can do little more than turn up where told, at the appointed hour and with hair combed just so. But the logic behind the whole trade-off to this day has me scratching the old loaf. I should probably revisit the whole script in a few years’ time, when Gil has discovered the joys of steak lunches and bench presses, but for now he is a boy in a man’s world if ever there were one.

The loan at least means he can get his size fives in contact with a ball again, so silver linings and all that. More terrifyingly, in conjunction with the paperwork on Dele, Ndombele and Lo Celso, it leaves the creative cupboard pretty bare – but this is presumably a contingency for which Our Glorious Leader has planned.

4. Bentancur and Kulusevski

As ever, if you want a detailed analysis of these fellows’ strengths, weaknesses, preferences and whatnot then you are in a laughably bad spot of the interweb, but do stick around anyway.

AANP can be pretty sharp at times, and having seen Conte get rid of three creative central midfield types, and summon Bentancur – yet another of those fellows whose idea of a good time is rolling up their sleeves, scrapping for the ball and then shoving it sideways – I get the impression that Our Glorious Leader has a type.

As such this means another seat will be needed around the Central Midfield campfire, next time Messrs Hojbjerg, Skipp and Winks gather to chew the fat. Whether Bentancur proves to be any improvement on current produce remains to be seen, but he is another pair of legs for that midfield slot, so this can be considered a good week for anyone who has ever taken a look at our squad and tearfully warbled about its depth.

As for Kulusevski, this is apparently a chap fitted out for life in the more advanced positions, either coming in from the right or, intriguingly, straight through the centre (albeit as a supporting act rather than line-leading sort).

It would be a bit of a stretch therefore to suggest that in him we have that much-needed back-up to Harry Kane, but I think the gist is that he can be shoved into any of the attacking spots and expected to know his way around the premises.

As ever, one wishes him the best, and patience will be the watch-word, and so on and so forth – but having witnessed Lamela, Lucas, Bergwijn and Gil all try their luck in these wide-ish attacking positions, my enthusiasm for another off the production line is a little muted.

5. Non-Purchases

The failed attempts to snaffle Traore and Luis Diaz, while rather embarrassing, seem hardly calamitous.

The Traore affair struck me as good for a chuckle rather than having any obvious, analytical merit. Here was a chap who in the first place was undoubtedly muscular, and seemed nigh on unstoppable whenever he played against us. So far so good, one might suggest.

Get down to the nitty-gritty however, and a few plot-holes seemed to emerge. For all his muscles and love of a direct approach to attacking life, his end-product seemed pretty wild – and having sat through half a season of Emerson Royal’s struggles to deliver just one adequate cross from the right, I’m not sure Traore and his blast-it-anywhere approach is quite the remedy we’re after.

Moreover, the fellow is not a defender, and while Conte has some history of alchemy in this respect (Exhibit A, Victor Moses), the whole thing leaves me pretty sanguine about missing out on him.

As for Diaz, my Porto-dwelling chum Hawth has for some time been raving about the fellow’s attributes, and it is not hard to see why, so this one does rankle a tad. Even here though, the blow is softened considerably by the fact that Diaz earns his weekly wage in exactly the same position as one Son Heung-Min Esquire. So while the ignominy of rejection is again hard to swallow, this particular plot-twist did not exactly leave us any worse off than a month prior.

More of a frustration at AANP Towers is the passing of yet another transfer window without a sniff of a worthy understudy to that rotter Harry Kane. Lovely though it is to see Kane returning to his finest fettle in recent weeks, we are yet again left hoping that he navigates the remainder of the season without injury. Sonny, Bergwijn or potentially the new chap Kulusevski could all theoretically deputise on the odd occasion, but lose Kane for, say, six weeks or so and the panic button will be slammed with some gusto.

The failure to bring in another right wing-back is similarly being declared a mis-step by some sages, but in truth I’m rather encouraged by the 45-minute cameo of Matt Doherty against Leicester a few weeks back, so would be all for the chap being given a further stab at the gig, if only to keep Emerson Royal off stage.

6. Lloris

Perhaps the greatest triumph of the window, however, was the retention for the foreseeable future of Monsieur Lloris. It seemed a little bizarre that we even reached the stage that he was free to bat eyelids at other suitors, but Grandmaster Levy and chums move in mysterious ways their wonders to perform, and the moral of the story is that the chap remains ours for a couple more years, so it’s back-slaps and cigars all round.

While Lloris’ standards have taken a few notable wobbles in recent years, this season he has come out swinging, and our lot have looked all the better for it. Nobody is perfect of course, and I still wonder for example whether he might have waved a paw at that Chelsea opener from Ziyech in our last game – but one only has to cast the mind back to Gollini’s bizarre flap against Chelsea a few weeks earlier to realise how grateful we should be that Lloris is prepared to ride off into the sunset with AIA tattooed across his gut.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 0-1 Chelsea: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. Gollini

Gollini looked as surprised as the rest of us to be thrust into action from the off last night, and he seemed still to be goggling at the fact when that Chelsea corner swung its way towards him and over him.

It was a pretty awkward moment for the young bean, who presumably had ringing in his ears the instruction just to do the basic stuff and let the outfield players take care of everything else.

And to his credit, Gollini actually dealt pretty well with some of the sterner tests that life threw at him in the first half. He put a couple of legs in the way of one shot, and extended his frame to its full majestic length in pawing away another. Hardly a showing to indicate that here was Jennings reincarnated, but for those of us who like their goalkeepers to fling themselves around a bit when protecting the realm, this stuff ticked a few boxes.

Alas, diving full-length is but one of many items on the modern goalkeeper’s To-Do list, and if Gollini scored highly here, he haemorrhaged points in a couple of other areas. For a start there was the issue of playing the ball with his feet.

Now some traditionalists get rather sniffy about the notion of goalkeepers joining in with their feet. There’s a reason, goes the argument, that certain chaps earn the big bucks out on the pitch, and others are sent to mooch around between the posts. “Stick to your mittens”, seems to be about the gist of it. However, there’s no real escaping the fact that in these enlightened days the chap at the base of things is entitled as everyone else to join in with his feet, and in fact is actively encouraged to do so. Tactics are re-written specifically to bring the goalkeeper into the fray as part of the build-up play.

And so it transpired that early on in yesterday’s proceedings, as one of our lot was hounded down near his own area, Gollini was whistled for and the ball gently rolled towards his person. So far, so inclusive, and a diversity box was being ticked.

At this point, however, the thing started to unravel a tad. Gollini recognised the identity and purpose of the object coming towards him, which was a solid start, but thereafter seemed unsure of its function, or his own duties. With a Chelsea sort galloping towards him, Gollini then hit upon the idea of attempting some sort of half-hearted body-swerve, but this fooling absolutely nobody in N17 the problem began to exacerbate.

What ought really to have been little more than muscle-memory – the casual rolling of the ball from one lilywhite to another until the Chelsea forwards gave up and let us get on with things – turned into an unnecessarily tense game of cat-and-mouse, in which the cat was edging a bit too close into the no-fly zone. The mini-episode culminated with Gollini unceremoniously bunting the ball into touch, and up in flames went the suggestion that none of the watching masses would even notice the absence of Lloris.

And of course, this was not the worst of it. There was also That Corner. Gollini did at least appear to have read the manual on that one, and seemed sufficiently aware that the situation demanded he come bounding of his line with arms aloft and fists clenched – but as is often the way with these things, the neatly drawn illustrations that accompany the instructions bore little resemblance to what was happening in real life.

Gollini emerged into the night, and adopted the appropriate pose, but unfortunately appeared not to have given more than a cursory glance to the coordinates. As a result he leapt into the atmosphere and delivered a hearty swipe at thin air, which reflected well on his willing, but did little to contribute to the cause. Meanwhile, the ball was adopting a neat parabola above him, and with poor old Tanganga still stuck in last week’s pickle it was the work of an instant for Rudiger to nod the thing in and kill off the tie.

2. Kane

And once that goal trickled in, everyone in the vicinity seemed to recognise the futility of carrying on. Of course, people continued to run around in their little circles, as decorum dictated, but any casual onlooker would have realised that the game was up.

Given this rather unpleasant circumstance, I suppose one would have understood if one by one, our heroes had let their shoulders slump and surreptitiously edged into auto-pilot. Within this context, I was pleasantly surprised to see that rotter Harry Kane in particular take the opportunity to reawaken memories within himself of former feats.

To recap, Kane’s season to date has been notably underboiled. He spent a good few months trudging wearily from A to B like a man unsure of the best order in which to move his feet, and only ever burst into life when presented with amateur-level opponents.

In recent weeks things have started to look up, not least in the little matter of pinging the ball into the bottom corners; but last night, despite the gloomy and error-strewn way of things all around him, he seemed to edge back towards the all-round centre forward who can work opposing defenders into a deuce of a sweat.

If one were the bingo-playing sort one might well have licked a pencil and scrawled a giant X over such entries as “Hold-up play”, “Slalom through challenges”, “Pick a natty pass” and “Finish with aplomb” (even if that aplomb was then subject to the displeasure of the VAR gods).

Of course, there was also the usual abject free-kick, but it seems now to have reached the stage that nobody dares tell Kane he’s not actually any good at free-kicks. Better just to let him keep trying, convinced that the next one will signal a change in his fortunes.

But to return to the point: Kane seemed to have bucked up, and looked approximately a million miles better than anyone else in lilywhite. Chelsea seemed to have done their homework, and dropped whatever they were doing to swarm around him and block off his shots, whenever he picked up possession within striking distance, but despite this I was quite heartened by his shift. While this is admittedly of limited value when everyone else is peddling utter garbage, with crunch games queueing up as far as the eye can if nothing else it is timely to have the chap nearing the peak of his powers again.

3. Lo Celso

If there were positive stuff coming from the Kane corner, reviews were a little more mixed on Senor Lo Celso.

No doubt his family, friends and other admirers will point and wave enthusiastically at the various occasions on which he could be seen flying into block challenges inside his own area, treating the cause as if it were a matter of life and death, as well he should.

But while this was all topping stuff, those who know him best would presumably admit that the real value Lo Celso adds to any given social gathering is scattering his creative juices about the place. And unfortunately, last night that stuff was in decidedly short supply.

Watching Lo Celso blunder from one failed attempt at creativity to another reminded me of that gag about the fellow King Midas. Feel free to let your eyes glaze over if you’ve already heard it, but the punchline was that he stumbled upon the happy knack of literally turning into gold everything he touched. Good luck to him, I say, but I bring this up because last night it occurred to me that our man seemed to cursed to produce the exact opposite. A kind of reverse-Midas, if you will. Those sliding blocks aside, precious little that Lo Celso attempted seemed to work.

It should be pointed out that this wayward approach to accuracy and care was very much a team effort – if one were pressed to name a fellow who bounced off the pitch with reputation enhanced one would be scratching the bean for quite a few hours. But nevertheless, with Sonny absent, Ndombele banished to the naughty step and goals desperately needed, this seemed an occasion for Lo Celso to prove to the watching masses that he is the sort of bean around whom great things can be constructed. He didn’t however, and the case strengthens for a winter shopping spree.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-0 Brentford: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Skipp

As esteemed a judge as Glenn Hoddle piped up to say that he thought young Master Skipp was pick of the bunch last night.

(As an aside, and before getting into the meat of things on the pitch, given Hoddle’s tactical knowledge, and the fact he bleeds lilywhite, the AANP heart does yearn for him to be involved in the club in some way on the inside, rather than from the outside in the commentary box. Just a thought, albeit an oft-recurring one.)

Back to young Skipp. Hoddle had judged well, for Skipp ferreted about the place from first whistle to last like a man born to mop up loose ends, breaking down Brentford attacks before they started with the sort of challenges that put hair on the chest.

Alongside him, Hojbjerg put in a pretty convincing impression of a metronome, ticking along steadily and repeatedly in fairly controlled manner. One might say this was moderately pleasing, eliciting perhaps a polite ripple of applause. Skipp however, the enthusiasm of youth seeping from his every pore, was the more energetic of the midfield pair, displaying the sort of blood and thunder that had the natives bellowing approval. Oh that all in lilywhite would set about their business with his attitude and energy.

Moreover, as an unexpected bonus, Skipp’s rarely-sighted attacking juices were on display yesterday. He played a gorgeous pass to set Kane through for a one-on-one in the second half, and was also buzzing forward to good effect in the build-up to Kane squaring for Hojbjerg’s miss.

2. Sanchez

If Skipp was impressing in most things he did, poor old Davinson Sanchez was somewhere nearer the other end of the spectrum.

The spirit is obviously pretty willing – after all no defender of sound mind would ever take to the field intending to be bullied by his opposite number, or to wobble around the pitch when the night calls for strength of mind and body.

But somehow, Sanchez wandered the place last night with the air of a chap not really convinced of his own ability, a perspective that seemed to be shared by a decent proportion of the 60,000 onlookers.

I am occasionally inclined to tilt the head sympathetically and point out, on his more testing days, that he had the misfortune to come up against a tough opponent. However, this being the Premier League, that eventuality is likely to occur in just about every fixture. Every opponent has a tough old centre-forward leading their line, and Sanchez has rarely looked at ease against any of them.

So it was last night. Some duels he won; but in too many for my liking he was rather too easily shoved aside. Both in the air and on the ground, the fellow seems only just about to have a handle on things, and a nameless dread lingered throughout that the next attack directed towards him might be the one in which his legs collapsed beneath him and Brentford sauntered through unhindered.

On top of which, the poor old lamb looks utterly terrified in possession, dancing around the ball as if he has never in his life seen such a contraption, whenever it is gently rolled to him, before awkwardly pivoting back towards goal and shovelling it to Lloris. All while Joe Rodon watches on from afar.

Still, with Romero out for the foreseeable, the sight of Sanchez riding his luck for 90 minutes is one we can expect to see a lot more of.

3. Kane

That rotter Harry Kane had another game in which the good and bad mingled pretty freely.

There is in general still a stodginess about his play, as if the turf turns to treacle beneath his feet, giving him heck of a challenge simply to lumber from Point A to Point B when in possession. In his defence, his cause was not helped by the swarm of opposing bodies that closed ranks on him whenever he neared the area. Nevertheless, the air exuded was not one of slickness and confidence (one might refer to the pass he played to Lucas early on in the piece, when he might have shot but didn’t, and then overhit the pass for Lucas).

In this context his second half miss was dashed frustrating, but in truth I doubt that anyone is too concerned on that front – if he is getting himself into positions for one-on-ones then the goals will flow soon enough. The greater worry tends to be when he boycotts the area and lingers in midfield.

To his credit however, his contribution in link-up play to our second goal yesterday was an absolute delight. Nothing melts the AANP heart like a well-weighted ball inside the full-back – and there were a few of them on offer yesterday, with Skipp, as mentioned above, and Winks each producing one that made me go a little weak at the knees. Kane’s into the path of Reguilon was weighted to perfection, and deserved nothing less than the goal that followed for Sonny.

4. Set-Pieces

Our lot started things in pretty ripe fashion last night, pressing high, winning the ball and generally charging about the place like a bunch who’d been told in no uncertain terms to buck up following the Mura debacle.

This early pressure brought as its princely reward a slew of corners – at which point AANP’s enthusiasm waned considerably. Because for some reason, our effectiveness from corners is near enough on a par with repeatedly banging one’s head against a brick wall. It’s an oddity, frankly, because there are enough strapping sorts in our line-up to cause aerial problems, and even those who are less hefty – Moura, Davies – can be pretty effective in such situations. And yet we never score from the dashed things.

Mercifully, the trend was bucked last night, albeit in a manner that was equal parts luck and good, honest comedy.

However, own-goal though it might have been, I heap praise on the slender frame of Sonny, who has managed to take the thankless and quite possibly cursed role of Spurs’ Corner Taker and turn it into a surprisingly effective weapon.

I’m not quite sure why the likes of Eriksen and Lo Celso – chaps you’d bet could literally land the ball on a postage stamp from twenty yards – completely malfunction when faced with a stationery ball next to a corner flag, but Son is proving himself pleasingly adept in this particular field. Not only does his delivery consist of the requisite proportions of whip and height, but the little variations he threw in yesterday, in engineering short-corners, were effective enough to bring us a goal.

This bodes well. In the same way that I loudly denounce each conceded set-piece goal as something of a nonsense, being so cheaply conceded, so I delight in what is essentially something of a freebie when we score from one.

(As an aside, I’m minded to pop down to Hotspur Way myself and pointedly show all and sundry a few videos of the old Sheringham-Anderton corner routine, which despite being devilishly effective has lain neglected for two and a half decades.)

And while on the subject of set-pieces, I was particularly pleased with how our lot coped with the barrage of long throws from Brentford. Not a fan of such things myself, but one has to stiffen the upper lip and deal with this type of nonsense, and ultimately our heroes did so effectively enough – a precis that might well be applied to the game as a whole.

Tweets here; AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes, here, lest ye be thinking of Christmas gifts

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 3-2 Vitesse: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. An All-Action-No-Plot Welcome for Conte

I recall a few years ago visiting the pictures in order to watch a talkie, which started off sensibly enough following a couple of bank robbers, but then took a sudden swerve into a completely different genre, in which everybody turned into vampires, of all things. I distinctly recall stumbling out of the place as amused as I was bewildered by what I had witnessed. Last night’s outlay had about it much in common with that motion picture, starting as it did one way, turning into a bit of a struggle – and then swerving violently into a different sort of thing altogether by the close. Sort of segueing abruptly from the Thriller genre to Slapstick Comedy, if you get my drift.

Given the frankly hilarious nature of the finale, it was easy to forget that for an hour or so we had a tight – if pretty amateurish – football match on our hands. Yet towards the latter stages this descended into the sort of farce that was reminiscent of two groups of drunks challenging each other to a kickabout on an oversized field, encapsulated by Emerson Royal attempting multiple step-overs (and doing so for the first time in his life, judging by their cumbersome execution), Sergio Reguilon doing keepie-uppies during the game and wide open spaces everywhere you looked, as befitted a match of 10 vs 9.

If Signor Conte were in any doubt about the madcap, all-action-no-plot way of things at N17 beforehand, he would have seen just about everything he needed to know last night.

2. Shiny New Formation

I cannot quite remember the last time I watched a game staring so intently at the formation of the collective, rather than the what was actually happening with the ball – but after all the chatter and videos about Conte’s supposed strategy, this was definitely one such occasion.

Much of the pre-match wisdom had been that we could expect to feast our eyes upon some form of 3-5-2, so I don’t mind admitting that I raised an eyebrow or two when our heroes trotted out adhering to a strict 3-4-3, with Sonny and Lucas either side of that rotter Kane.

And within that 3-4-3 there was not a hint of Kane dropping deep, Conte seemingly true to his word about viewing the fellow as one best employed in and around the penalty area.

Admittedly it might not be everyone’s idea of a wild day out, but I shall watch with considerable interest to see whether we stick with 3 in attack, or revert to a front 2 and an extra creative soul in midfield.

Yesterday, at least, it seemed a case of Conte moulding the formation to the personnel, rather than vice versa, and therefore accommodating Lucas within the front 3; but in time I wonder whether he might find himself shoved into a Number 10 role, demoted to the bench in favour of A.N. Other at Number 10 – or even reinvented as a wing-back. There seems a rather unfortunate irony in the fact that he and young Skipp – arguably our two standout players of the season so far (slim pickings, admittedly) – appear the least likely fits into Conte’s supposedly favoured 3-5-2 system, so it was awfully square of our newest Glorious Leader to accommodate both last night.

Further south, Conte pretty emphatically nailed his colours to the Back-3-And-Wing-Backs mast, to the extent that even when reduced to 10 men, and therefore presented with every excuse to revert to a back-four, he instead hooked a sweaty midfielder and brought on another centre-back, to ensure that B-3-A-W-Bs remained the order of the day.

It’s certainly an exciting idea in theory, but perhaps slightly flawed in practice, at present, by the fact that the various centre-backs at our disposal seem to demonstrate between them a few different shades of dubiousness.

The other captivating point of note around our formation was quite how wide the wing-backs stayed when we were in possession. If this were park football, with jumpers for goalposts and no set boundaries, both Reguilon and Emerson would have disappeared over the horizon and only reappeared at tea-time; but as it happened they each stuck pretty obediently to their respective touchlines, no matter which of our mob had possession, or where. And one understands the principle. We have a huge pitch, so why not utilise every blade, and give the opposition full-backs something to ponder?

(Of course, all the formation-tweaking in the world is of little use if Dier is going to be beaten to a straightforward header from a corner; and various of them contrive to make a pig’s ear of passing out of defence to gift Vitesse their second; but these are the joys on which Conte can reflect as his head hits his pillow each night.)

3. Romero

A word on the dismissal of young Romero, who by and large seems to have had the right idea about things since joining the madhouse.

Now footballers are not renowned for being the most cerebrally blessed, but even the thickest among them ought to be able to compute that once cautioned they should avoid like the plague any interaction that might land them a second yellow, unless absolutely necessary. (And for avoidance of doubt, ‘absolutely necessary’ here covers pretty much only saving a life or preventing a goal.)

So for Romero to go carting through the back of an opponent – on halfway – having already been booked, was pretty unforgiveable stuff. There was hardly any imminent danger, and the mind simply boggles at what the hell his thought process might have been. We dodged that particular bullet last night, thanks to Vitesse’s handy implosion, but on a bigger stage that would be one heck of a blunder.

As mentioned, the fellow has generally done more right than wrong so far, and indeed one ought to tip the cap in recognition of his neat pass through the lines that set up the lovely goal for Lucas. But Romero’s bread and butter is at the opposite end, and no professional with an ounce of common sense ought to pick up a second yellow for a challenge on the blasted halfway line.

4. Davies

Regular drinkers at the AANP well will be fully aware that Ben Davies is not regarded with any particular fondness by yours truly. A decent enough egg, for sure; a footballer worthy of the lilywhite shirt, I’m not so sure.

It’s been a bone of some contention, mind, mine being an opinion that is not universally shared, which seems fair enough, as one is always happy to chivvy democracy along with a friendly wave.

But rather than enter into that debate again, I highlight him here more to marvel at the fact that, like some sort of cat that’s already died eight times and is now being dropped from a considerable height, the chap seems to have landed plum on his feet with the arrival of Antonio Conte.

The evidence of a few hundred appearances suggests to me that Davies is not much of a left-back, primarily because his crosses too often go anywhere but the waiting limbs of a comrade. On top of which, he’s racked up his fair share of pretty avoidable and careless defensive lapses (and he was dashed lucky to get away with another one yesterday, waggling an errant foot at an opponent in the area when the game was still 0-0, and thanking the watching gods that the Europa Conference is too cool for VAR).

It is possibly because of those lapses that one would head a long way down the pecking order before selecting him as a centre-back in a back-four.

But introduce a back-three, and suddenly Davies becomes a pretty credible option. Being left-footed is the principle advantage here; but not far behind that is the fact that he’s not a particularly – or indeed remotely – devastating wing-back. Whereas Reguilon was fashioned from clay specifically in order to make merry on the wing, and should therefore on no account be regarded as a centre-back, Davies is sufficiently circumspect to be useful in a back-three.

Having two others alongside him is a useful insurance policy, to guard against those accidents to which he is prone; and being left-footed serves him well both in facing up opponents and in distributing the ball.

He still strikes me as the luckiest man in N17 to have found himself in Conte’s first line-up, but that position, on the left of a back three, strikes me as the one for which Mother Nature has best equipped him, and until January reinforcements arrive he might well become a regular feature of Conte-ball.

(Still not sure quite how he ended up furthest forward, and inside the opposition area, to create our third goal; and I’ll skimp on the praise because he actually made a pickle of an intended shot, rather than deliberately picking out a pass – but the assist goes down to Davies, B. so well done him.)

One could go one – there is much to be said about the pros and cons of Emerson Royal; the potential re-introduction of Winks; the Ndombele body-swerve and Lo Celso’s latest clanger – but this was a presentation to Conte, rather than a representation of him. What the hell he truly made of it all is anyone’s guess, but it was good of our lot to make crystal clear to him the size of the task that awaits. And frankly, if the entertainment continues to be as good as it was last night, then the remainder of this season will be an absolute blast.

Tweets here; AANP’s own book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes, here, lest ye be thinking of Christmas gifts

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Spurs 0-3 Man Utd: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Ben Davies

I suppose some liberal sorts might argue that it’s a little harsh to single out individuals for castigation after a collective performance as insipid as that. They would have a point of course, as pretty much all eleven selected delivered incompetence by the bucketload, but Ben Davies stood out for punctuating his usual mind-numbing mediocrity with a couple of errors that were notably costly.

That business of him losing both his man and his bearings in the moments immediately preceding the opening goal had a ghastly quality to them, the whole episode seeming to unfold in slow-motion and with a gloomy sense of inevitability about it. Even as the ball looped towards those concerned, it seemed as likely that Davies would take this manageable situation and mangle the dickens out of it, as that Ronaldo would take what was at that stage still a pretty challenging situation and turn it into a goal of serene beauty.

And both principals played their respective roles to perfection. Given the circumstances (which, lest we overblow this, should not be forgotten were pretty straightforward – a cross was delivered into his sphere of operation, The End) there were only a limited number of ways in which Davies could have made a pig’s ear of the job, so it was pretty impressive that he somehow managed to implement them all, simultaneously.

He completely lost track of the man he was marking (and not just any man, but Cristian Ronaldo for heaven’s sake), which struck me as a cardinal sin, but opportunity for repentance remained; however, he then failed to gauge that the cross was too high for him; and instead of abandoning his attempts to cut out the cross at this point, and focusing all energies on blocking the shot, he then leapt to head the ball, seemingly under the impression that he was actually eight foot nine.

If I saw my nephew pull off a stunt like that on the school field I’d yank him aside for a sharp word or two. To see an experienced, international defender make such a comically bad sequence of decisions had me yearning for something pretty strong to unscrew and swig.

By the time the third goal wafted in most onlookers were more concerned with brandishing pitchforks and baying for blood, but this should not distract from the fact that Davies was once again crucially culpable, he being the buffoon standing a few yards south of the defensive line, thereby keeping Rashford onside. Admittedly the entire back-four was in a state of disrepair by this point (Emerson having appeared at centre-back and Romero at right-back, for some reason), but Davies’ lack of basic common sense cost us.

These were the sort of lapses for which I would howl long and hard at Serge Aurier in the not too distant past, and they are hardly isolated incidents in the Davies tome of infamy. There was a bit of scrutiny on the chap simply for his selection in the first place, and I struggle to recall anything of value he offered in the attacking third. On the tried and tested AANP gauge of ‘Who Would Buy Them?’ if put up for sale today, I honestly doubt whether any Premier League team would take him. He seems a likeable sort of chap, and God apparently loves a trier, but I cannot stomach much more of him in our colours.

2. Lo Celso

In the debit column, one can point to the fact that Lo Celso did not make any mistakes that led directly to goals, which puts him on a more exalted pedestal than Ben Davies and various other associates yesterday, but this hardly prevented the sharpening of knives from all sides.

In recent weeks Monsieur Ndombele has been Number Tenning away for us, and while hardly cutting opposing defences to ribbons he has nevertheless shown in fits and spurts a little ingenuity and fleetness of foot. He pottered around a little deeper than was ideal against West Ham perhaps (albeit presumably under instruction), but by and large appeared to be starting to settle into the role.

The move to replace him yesterday with GLC was therefore a slightly rummy one. By all accounts, Lo Celso produced fairly middling fare when given a similar opportunity vs Burnley in midweek, so it seems hardly the case that he banged down the door and made an irresistible case for inclusion.

And while he was not exactly alone in this category, yesterday Lo Celso essentially offered little of note. Others, peddling their wares elsewhere on the pitch, could probably argue that while they similarly offered little of note, they had nevertheless made a decent fist of things without necessarily grabbing headlines and swanning around the place yelling “Me! Me! Me!”. But Lo Celso, in that central, creative spot is pretty much required by his job description to do precisely that.

And frankly, it’s a dream gig. Young Dele, one imagines, would bite of his own arm and quite possibly a couple of other limbs for the opportunity to fill that role. With fairly limited defensive responsibility, and such luminaries as Sonny, Kane and Lucas flitting in various directions around him, the stage was well set for the chap pretty much to dictate affairs. Somehow, alas, the fellow just never got going.

Previously I have noted, with some bewilderment it must be said, that Lo Celso does not seem to perform unless surrounded by pretty talented sorts, and as such he flatters to deceive when included in our second-string elevens. There was no such get-out for the chap yesterday however – he just failed to deliver any sort of goods.

In fact, the most notable contribution he made during the whole evening was to act as what I believe is known as a lightning rod – the raison d’etre of which was to channel the unfiltered rage and bile of 60,000 irate Spurs fans in a cacophony of abuse – for the assembled masses when he was not substituted, with Lucas instead rather inexplicably getting the hook. Fittingly, Lo Celso’s contribution to that episode was entirely passive, he simply stood and watched as someone else was taken off; yet it might well prove the straw that breaks the back of Nuno’s tenure.

3. Kane

Another day since trying to leave the place, and another performance offering nothing from that rotter Harry Kane.

In his defence, one could hardly suggest he was treated to an all-you-can-eat buffet by his chums in lilywhite. However, his current state of decline was neatly crystallised by that one opportunity for him to sprinkle a little sunshine into our lives in the second half, when he broke on the right but then seemed to trudge through quicksand when all around implored him to break into a sprint, before chipping the ball straight to a United body.

As mentioned, he can hardly be faulted for not being provided much service, but in general since that nonsense over the summer, he has looked like someone feeling who would still rather be elsewhere. One can forgive the chap for not scoring, or even for missing presentable chances when they do come his way (after all, not many angry fists were waved at him when his header against West Ham was saved), but the energy levels and body-language were, again, average at best yesterday.

It’s pretty disappointing stuff from a chappie that people trip over themselves to laud as a ‘model professional’. I hold up my hands and admit to having been happy to join the chorus of those who this summer were calling on the club to dig in their heels and resist selling him. I now rather wish that he and his sullen ways were someone else’s problem, and that we had wasted a large chunk of £120m on at least one over-priced forward to replace him.

4. No Shots on Target

To register no shots on goal across the entire 90 minutes, at home is pretty thick. All the more so coming only a week after hogging the ball, scratching the heads but not laying a punch on the opposition. It does make one hum and tick a bit, and make no mistake, the hills were alive with the sound of humming and ticking yesterday, with the natives registering displeasure at just about every opportunity

I can hardly pretend to be any sort of tactical expert, so it’s naturally a bit rich to lean across from AANP Towers and start hollering advice at those who live and breathe the game, yet at the same time I do sometimes fancy I’d saw off my own right leg just to see our lot shove the ball around a tad quicker. Just a spot of one-touch passing this way and that would make the opposition work up a bit of a sweat and give each other a worried glance or two.

Similarly, making use of a bit of a width going forward would, one hypothesizes, give us a few more teeth in attack – not necessarily to ping in Beckham-esque crosses (although they too would make a pleasant change) but simply to add weight and stretch the opposition, creating some space between them.

One does not have to look far to spot other teams – of lesser players, mind you – creating attacking opportunities simply by virtue of moving the ball in punchier fashion, using one or two touches per player, rather than four or five. Match of the Day was full of it. Brighton were making hay against the much vaunted defence of Liverpool, by virtue of one-touch football – meanwhile our lot gather together for long, ponderous conferences around the centre circle, each player pivoting twice or thrice, and dwelling on the ball for an absolute age.

Some of the various pundits queueing up to give the knife a bit of a twist have muttered about on-field combinations and understanding between players, and harking back one knows the sort of thing they mean – it’s a long time ago but I recall the understanding that gradually developed between Corluka and Lennon on the right, once upon a time, who while pretty odd bedfellows seemed to learn pretty swiftly when the other would stick or twist, to some benefit.

Comparing that to the current lot, it seems that the eleven on the pitch are perfect strangers, with nobody having the faintest clue what anyone else is going to do at any given point. The understanding that once existed between Sonny and Kane seems to have gone the way of all flesh. It would be nice to think that on the training pitch between matches our heroes practise a range of nifty interplays and combos, ready to display to the world each weekend – but on the evidence of yesterday it seems more likely that they all practise in isolation, possibly drilled in the fine art of loitering in possession for an eternity, and not much else.

This is not to suggest that simply popping the ball around faster and shoving the full-backs ten yards up the pitch would solve Tottenham Hotspur, cure Covid and put COP26 to rights – but I imagine it would improve the atmosphere about the place to see either some urgency, some semblance of a plan or both.

By all accounts the guillotine is being given a final spit and polish, and poor old Nuno is pretty soon to be the latest casualty of the Daniel Levy Massacre. He certainly conducts himself with decency by the sackful (which was an absolute gust of fresh air after the poisonous atmosphere of Jose), but he was pretty clearly a bad appointment – unwanted, with no history of attractive or successful football and without an obvious plan. As such, a 3-0 home defeat would make a pretty fitting epitaph.

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Vitesse 1-0 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Eleven Strangers

It might come as some surprise to those who have witnessed AANP rise in incandescence to yell a thousand foul-mouthed curses at our lot over the years, but I actually give the players a lot of slack when, as tonight, they are tossed in as an eleven for the first time, each having never played with the other ten previously (and, on the evidence of tonight, possibly not having met before).

In fact, several Spurs-supporting chums of mine received a message immediately prior to kick-off to precisely this effect. The gist of my thinking at around 17.30 BST was that while these were eleven relatively talented individuals, it rarely works to throw any eleven together for the first time (and that’s the crucial bit – it was their first time). Were this lot to play as a collective for five or six consecutive weeks they might develop into a heck of a unit, because goodness knows there are enough amongst them skilled at keepy-uppies and whatnot. But assemble them like the sort of ragtag group of mercenaries one sees thrown together by fate in mindless Hollywood action fare, and the bar for their first outing will be set low.

So, when Lo Celso, Gil and Scarlett tried a zippy little exchange of passes towards the end of the first half that ended with the ball rather apologetically rolling into an empty space in the Vitesse area, the reaction at AANP Towers was forgiving. The conciliatory hand gesture could be interpreted by those who know me best as meaning “Fret ye not, oh lilywhite heroes, you are forgiven, for AANP understands that razor-sharp interplay takes time to develop.”

One might therefore assume that vengeance points towards Our Glorious Leader, for having cobbled together the aforementioned group of mercenaries. But even here, the mood at AANP Towers is one of understanding and magnanimity. Now AANP is the last person to advocate such dastardly fare as match-fixing, but the arithmetic suggests that if ever there were a good time to rest an entire eleven ahead of a visit to the least bad West Ham team in decades, this was probably that time. For even with the defeat tonight, we are three points behind Rennes, with three games left to play – including Rennes themselves at home. Do the necessaries back at base, and this Europa gubbins ought to take care of itself.

In short, some sympathy for the players for being handed a tough gig; and at the same time few complaints about the team selection.

2. Lazy Attitudes

However, if anyone in lilywhite – or wild elderberry or whatever the heck that that oddity is – thinks that the unfamiliar starting XI grants them immunity from criticism they can unpack another think and sharpish.

No matter what the circumstances, the players on stage ought as a minimum to have run themselves into the ground and have needed to have been carried off by the time the credits rolled.

Instead, we were treated to such sights as Lo Celso losing possession and slowing to a walk, exerting only the energy necessary to fling his arms up skyward. Possession will be lost, alas, such things are inevitable and I’m not about to chide an attacker for attempting a spot of creativity that does not materialise; but for heaven’s sake, then to react by simply giving up and expecting others to retrieve the situation is dastardly conduct, and if I had my way I’d subject the chap to a couple of lashes across the back, without right of appeal.

I single out Lo Celso merely because that particular incident sticks in the mind’s eye, but he was hardly alone. As Glenn put it on the tellybox afterwards, none of that rabble treated this bash like a Cup Final (I paraphrase), when as professionals representing our club, they ought.

Picking on another of the guilty parties, young Gil is one whose effort generally is pretty admirable, but he was chiefly to blame for allowing the chappie who scored the freedom of the D in which to arrange his volley.

And so on. One after another of our number seemed oddly lackadaisical, until, inevitably, we fell behind, at which juncture it was, of course, fresh injections of urgency all round.

Again, at the risk of labouring the point – attacking interplay that doesn’t quite strike oil is forgivable, given that these fellows are not necessarily used to each other’s games; but failure to strain every sinew is not.

3. Back-Up Players

Nor, to my eyes, was this only a failing of attitude. It also struck me that a number of supposedly talented players – seasoned internationals and whatnot – were putting in some pretty solid impressions of a bunch of bang-average performers.

If any of the midfield three were under orders to march in and dictate the game from start to finish, they did a pretty good job of disguising the fact from human observation. Lo Celso did show some bright ideas going forward (more on him below) but Dele and Winks were too peripheral in possession, and none of these three really provided the necessary protection for the back-four whenever the time came to lower the shields.

All of which was bad enough on the day, but given that this was a chance (and, indeed, the latest chance) for all eleven to prove to the Brains Trust that they are worthy of the First Choice XI, it was pretty alarming fodder from all concerned. Heaven forbid, but after seeing Winks, Dele and Lo Celso gradually lose the plot against the might of Vitesse, the old bean does perspire a tad at the thought of either Hojbjerg or, heaven forbid, young Skipp (currently on 4 yellow cards, lest we forget) being rendered unfit for public service in the coming games vs West Ham and Man Utd.

Similarly, upfront, while young Scarlett did not want for effort, he looked every inch a 17 year-old playing against seasoned pros. To chide him for this would be a bit like moaning at the sun for setting each evening. In short, it’s hardly his fault. But should a piano fall from the sky and onto the head of Kane it will put us in one heck of a pickle; and should any errant keys from the rapidly disintegrating piano fly off into the surroundings and poke young Sonny in the eye, I dread to speculate as to the players from whom our next goals might emanate.

It’s a big old squad, but judging by tonight’s fare, those first reserves do not fill to the gills with confidence.

4. Lo Celso

As alluded to, Lo Celso occasionally threatened to break into something resembling a pretty handy performance, which makes his eventual output all the more frustrating.

It can probably at least be said in his defence that what little quality we did produce going forward seemed at some point to pass through his size nines en route. In particular, the Gil shot that hit the bar was teed up by Senor GLC, and I’m pretty sure that when Bergwijn fluffed his lines halfway through the second half, Lo Celso’s were one of those pair of hooves that passed the parcel over halfway.

However, on the whole, without wanting to put too fine a point on it, not much that he tried actually worked. Passes seemed not quite to find their man; attempted dribbles seemed to result in him being tackled; and the whole thing was neatly seemed up right at the death when we packed their area with bodies only for his delivery to sale harmlessly into the stands. In a curious way, his performance reminded me of the early years of Lucas Moura in lilywhite, when he would flatter to deceive before running into a dead end and losing both his bearings and the ball.

Now when Lo Celso played against Mura a few weeks back, he again seemed a shadow of his potential self, when really the stage was set for him to run the show. Things only really changed when the big guns entered the fray – with Lucas, Sonny and Kane around him, Lo Celso played the Number 10 role like a man born to do so.

The nagging frustration is that he seems to need, as a matter of absolute necessity, great players around him to play at his best. Must this be the case, particularly against fairly middling opponents? No doubt having better players to each of the north, east and west will make the day-job a lot easier for anyone; but Lo Celso ought to be good enough still to run shows like tonight’s without needing the assistance of some of the best in the world around him.

On the bright side, as mentioned above, tonight’s result ought not to harm our chances of ultimately winning this dashed trophy; and ought also to enhance our chances vs West Ham on Sunday. It’s rather soured the evening here at AANP Towers though, make no mistake.

Hither for tweets.

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Spurs 2-1 Aston Villa: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Formation

Even before kick-off the teamsheet was a pretty welcome sight for the sore AANP eyes. One does not wish ill upon one’s fellow man of course, but nevertheless it was with some relief that I noted that Dele had been quietly escorted from the starting line-up, and the apparatus instead arranged for a 4-2-3-1.

The use of 4-2-3-1 in midweek had, as remarked on these very pages at the time, given our lot far better shape and organisation – but, as also noted at the time, only so much could be read into its deployment against a team of bobbish but pretty limited part-timers. Seeing the system put to use today against a Villa team that has steadily improved in recent years felt like a far greater test of its efficacy, so it was pretty pleasing to report that while hardly the perfect performance this was nevertheless a massive improvement on recent weeks. A low bar admittedly, and they’d have been hard pressed to be any worse, but still – the set-up was better.

Put bluntly, within the 4-2-3-1 everyone seemed at least to know what their roles were. This was in pretty crucial contrast to the 4-3-3 trotted out in recent weeks, when the midfield 3 in particular had seemed oddly lost, just wandering about the pitch with the air of chappies new to the place and without a compass between them.

Today, at least, one got the impression that all in attendance had been briefed on the general strategy – again, a vast improvement on last weekend, when one rather suspected that that all concerned had been granted licence to do whatever they pleased, wherever they pleased. Today, the agenda seemed a bit clearer. Two lads sitting in front of the back-four; further north, Ndombele given the freedom of N17 (and permission to ignore some of the game’s more onerous, defensive duties); the full-backs encouraged to amble up the pitch and sniff around when the urge took them; and Kane under instruction to temper his urges to drop deep.

2. The Midfield Three

That said, one can unwrap the greatest formation in history and it would count for nothing if those individuals tasked with effecting it simply shrug their shoulders and fade into obscurity. Mercifully, today all eleven (plus subs) had the dignity to engage the grey matter and apply themselves to the task at hand.

In midfield, Skipp was restored and wasted little time demonstrating his many virtues. In his love for a full-blooded midfield challenge this young specimen shares much in common with an AANP hero of yesteryear, Paul Ince, and it was rather frustrating to note that, also in common with Ince, he seems to be developing the knack of picking up yellow cards simply for being a player of tough-tackling ilk, rather than for actually committing any particular heinous crimes. While we may just have to purse the lips and accept that Skippy will pick up yellows more often than not, this week’s was particularly harsh, given that a) he won the ball cleanly enough, and b) even if he hadn’t won the ball, there was little about the challenge or its position on the pitch to merit a caution.

It was to his credit that despite being under such observation for over half the match his energy in that role of sentry-keeper was undiminished. Indeed, when things did begin to creak a tad in the second half, Skippy’s were the limbs, on more than one occasion, that extended to goal-saving effect inside our own area.

Alongside him, Hojbjerg seemed to have a little more direction than in recent weeks. While his starting berth tended to be deep, alongside Skipp, he seemed happy enough to trot forward if circumstances warranted, most notably of course, for his goal.

And the main beneficiary of all this elbow grease was Monsieur Ndombele, who treated us to a pretty Ndombele sort of performance – occasional flashes of pretty dizzying genius; several attempted passes not more than a whisker or three from scything open the Villa defence; and a lot of his time on the pitch seemingly spent in gulping in oxygen and trying to keep up with play. And this was fine by me to be honest, as the system is pretty much created specifically for him to treat us to flashes of p.d.g. and passes that scythe. With Skipp and Hojbjerg in attendance Ndombele can essentially get away with being something of a luxury, with little in the way of defensive duties.

What matters is that he produces enough flashes of creative goodness to trouble the opposition, and this he just about did. In the first half in particular he barged his way onto the front of the stage fairly often, linking merrily enough with Lucas and Sonny. No game-changing moments today, and he faded a little in the second half, but it seems reasonable to say he played his part, and I imagine the Number 10 role is his for the foreseeable.

And there is some competition in that respect. Lo Celso was given fifteen minutes in the role at the end of proceedings, and produced a couple of near misses, albeit without exactly pulling strings; and one suspects that Lucas, Dele and even the fifth Beatle might equally be deployed in the role, within this particular formation.

3. Emerson Royal

Ndombele was not the only soul to benefit from the presence of the Skipp-Hojbjerg axis in front of the back-four, as E. Royal Esq. was another who needed little encouragement to toddle forward and see what delights awaited.

It would be stretching things to say he’s Beckham-esque in his crossing, but Royal certainly made himself useful in supplementing our attacks and offering a wide option, showing all the willing of young Tanganga in previous weeks but with perhaps a little more polish and nous in his doings.

None of which is to suggest that he neglected his defensive duties, far from it. Indeed, I rather enjoy the commitment he shows in racing into battle with his opposing left-sided attacker, seemingly determined that if there is a fifty-fifty on his particular patch of turf he will lick his lips and charge straight in. One admires the attitude.

4. Romero

In recent weeks we have been treated to increased sightings of our newest centre-back, and I suspect AANP is not alone in upturning the thumb in approval at the young bean’s execution of duties.

Romero is, by and large, a calming sort of presence at the back. There is a caveat to this – which was in full view today – to which I shall return anon, but in carrying out the business of winning aerial battles and positioning himself just so, he seems to do most of those things one would hope for from a competent centre-back. Not the worst in possession of the thing either, which is always a bonus.

Moreover, given that Villa could not go thirty seconds without hurling a long throw into our box, and also had a whole sackful of corners to lob in similarly, I was pretty impressed at how Romero – and indeed all in lilywhite – coped with the barrage, this sort of thing having been something of a weakness in the THFC constitution to date this season.

The elephant in the room is of course his rather reckless and ill-timed lunge, immediately preceded by a decision to come haring out of position, and swiftly followed by both concession of a goal and a yellow card for his troubles. I feel that in our recent history we have had rather enough centre-backs who can produce that ‘Serene For Most Of The Game But Liable to Magic A Calamity From Nowhere’ routine, so while it would be fun for Messrs Dier and Sanchez to have another with whom to share stories and slap backs, I do hope that today’s moment of madness was an exception rather than a norm.

5. Sonny

A job well done from just about everyone in lilywhite then, but it seems reasonable to suggest that Sonny should take home whatever gongs are on offer for doing the most important bits and bobs.

In the second half in particular, with Villa obligingly pushing up to halfway, and Reguilon being sufficiently quick of thought to pop the ball into the resultant wide open spaces, Sonny’s pace was a threat and bore suitable rewards. The winning goal emanated from his size nines, and we really ought to have had one or two more from this route.

Sonny can also take his fair share of applause for one of the more entertaining three-minute segments seen in N17 in recent history, when he, Lo Celso and Hojbjerg between them drove the surrounding Villa players to the brink of breakdown by successfully keeping the ball in the corner. This is a tactic of which AANP has never been a particular fan, primarily because it rarely seems to work, the ball typically being surrendered within about five seconds and a race ensuing as the opposition counters.

Today, however, our lot played the situation to perfection, and to pretty hilarious effect. The highlight of the routine was arguably delivered by Sonny himself, in wriggling free from all manner of flailing limbs near the corner flag, buzzing into the area, creating room for a shot – and then u-turning and buzzing back out towards the corner flag again, irate Villa players flailing in his wake. A comical appendix to what was a much-improved display, and Our Glorious Leader can breathe a little easier for a couple of weeks.

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Spurs 5-1 Mura: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Dele

Having been hooked at half time against Woolwich, Dele might have tried to convince himself that it was no big deal. Right person, wrong place. Conservation of his energies. In essence, the general sentiment that such things happen and everything was alright.

However, one imagines him raising an eyebrow or two on being told that he would be part of what was essentially the second-string for last night’s bash; and then, even at his most optimistic, his internal spin doctor would have had a heck of a task in making the case that his removal last night, as part of the operation to up the ante and inject life into a fairly moribund all-round day out, was anything other than a damning indictment of his contributions.

Make no mistake, all is not well at Casa Dele. Now those in the Pro-Dele camp would no doubt spring into life at this point, to hammer home the point that not only did he convert the early penalty, but he also won it, with some very welcome sprightliness in the opposition area. (And goodness knows, that early goal was to be welcomed, because if he we had made it even to the half-hour mark at nil-nil the natives’ restlessness would have been a thing to behold.)

It is true that Dele applied himself with at least the minimal level of diligence, generally looking to adopt suitable positions around Reguilon and Gil that would create useful triangles. This in itself was vastly preferable to the attitudes gaily advertised by one and all in recent weeks, of slumped shoulders and little concern for such things as breaking into a meaningful jog.

Nevertheless, Dele’s on-ball contributions were a thing of concern. Primarily troubling was his now long-standing tendency to dwell on the ball for far too long before shuttling it onwards.

Compare and contrast with young Skipp. Some might say Skipp is a soul of more limited technique and passing abilities, others would disagree; but what is crucial about Skipp in this story is that when he receives the ball his first instinct always seems to be immediately give it to someone else. And in a sense, this is every bit as valuable as beating a man, as it still forces the opponent at least to change his body position if not pick up his bags and toddle off to a whole new spot of land. All because he plays the ball quickly.

Dele, on the other hand, insists on treating the ball as if his own personal plaything, to be dwelt upon for at least four or five touches before any further action is even considered (and as often as not that further action tends to be an attempted nutmeg, with mixed results). The opposition have time to saunter back into position, and whatever momentum there once was is allowed gently to drift into the ether. And moreover, at the end of these ball-based soliloquys of his, Dele’s eventual pass tend to be as often awry as on the nose.

Little wonder then that his recent appearances have ended prematurely and in ignominy, and this particular brand of rot does not bode so well for his short-term prospects either.

If it’s a Number 10 we’re after, then any of Ndombele, Lo Celso or Lucas seem better equipped at present. And if the idea is to play him in this new-fangled central midfield role then he might need to head back to the library and double-down on his homework, because it’s not a subject he has yet come close to mastering.

2. The Change in Formation (4-2-3-1)

Our Glorious Leader appeared yet again to give the formation a pretty forceful yank, dispensing with either the ultra-defensive 4-3-3 so negatively deployed against Palace or the little too front-footed 4-3-3 so bizarrely deployed against Woolwich; and opting instead for 4-2-3-1, with Skipp and Winks sitting relatively deeply.

Now it’s not so much a caveat as an enormous, neon-lit sign in the largest font imaginable, but the opposition were fairly clueless throughout, making it pretty pointless to draw too many conclusions on the value or otherwise of the 4-2-3-1. (Some might claim that the opposition came back into it after half-time, I disagree – their goal was a speculative hit, they didn’t manage another shot on target, and could hardly be said to have laid siege to our goal or overrun us at any point.)

So while the jury is out on the efficacy or otherwise of the 4-2-3-1, what nevertheless did provide a warming sense of reassurance was the notion that there was at least in place a dedicated formation. This might not sound like much, but one week on and I am still trying to compute precisely what formation and strategy was being adopted against Woolwich; so to see in place a nice, clear formation, with little room for confusion, was oddly comforting.

3. The Cavalry

As mentioned above, the withdrawal of Dele simply in order to inject life into proceedings was rather embarrassing for all concerned. While, as also mentioned above, it was hardly the case that we were being overrun, we were certainly rather flat in all we did, and the immediate, positive change in energy levels could not have been more obvious if it had been introduced with fanfare and that American chap who screeches into a mic before boxing matches.

Sonny and Kane were immediately on the money, Sonny buzzing and Kane picking good positions; and bless his cotton socks young Lucas this season looks very much like someone enjoying life, confidence oozing and adventurous gambits pouring forth.

Kane remains a rotter in the eyes of AANP, but stick him in and around the area and he certainly finishes well, and as much as the increased zest and enhanced scoreline, it was pretty satisfying to see three such excellently-crafted goals.

Something of a shame that we had to resort to such things, and dashed frustrating for young Scarlett again to be reduced to fighting for the occasional scrap, but after the dreadful mess being peddled in recent weeks it was simply fun to sit back and watch us play thirty minutes of incisive, attacking football.

4. Lo Celso

Like several of his chums, a couple of years on from his arrival Lo Celso remains a pretty impenetrable sort of fish, one never really being sure where he should be or what he should do.

And for an hour yesterday, he was as bafflingly enigmatic as ever. On the one hand his goal was well taken and he busied himself reasonably well; on t’other he, in common with a few others, failed to dictate the game as one would have hoped against fairly limited opponents.

However, once the aforementioned cavalry rolled into town, things changed. From my vantage point, and in my advanced years, I confess to have been unable to register the exact contortions on the GLC face, but one can only imagine that it lit up with childlike joy once Kane, Son and Lucas bounced on and he himself was invited onto the Number 10 roster. From that hallowed pedestal he suddenly clicked into gear like nobody’s business, appearing to have an absolute whale of a time, in a manner that one imagines would have had Dele spraying curses around the place.

While a couple of young Gil’s touches were gorgeous to behold, the much-vaunted AANP Touch of the Match award is winging its way to Lo Celso Towers for the glorious first-time flick into the path of Sonny, in assisting one of Kane’s goals. You know the one.

Lo Celso’s pass for the fifth was arguably as good and probably more difficult, a nutmegged, reverse pass onto a plate for Kane. I feel legally obliged to wave around once more that neon-lit caveat about the opposition, but nevertheless it was an impressive demonstration from the fellow of what he can do in that position. Which, bizarrely enough after three successive league hammerings, gives Nuno a pretty welcome selection dilemma ahead of Sunday – Lucas, Lo Celso or Ndombele (or, please no, Dele) in the Number 10 role?

Tweets and whatnot

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 0-3 Chelsea: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. RIP Jimmy Greaves

Although too young to have seen him myself, the recollections of my old man, AANP Senior – a man so hard to impress that even the win over Real Madrid a few years back left him commenting gruffly that we should have scored more – are telling. Mention Greaves, and his eyes light up with a rarely-seen, almost childlike excitement, as he describes countless goals scored almost casually, assuring me that there simply was never a goalscorer as good as him.

It’s a claim supported by the numbers, which are so easy to take for granted, but on inspection almost defy belief.

While Dad had the privilege of seeing him week in, week out in the flesh (and meeting him outside the ground on one occasion), and I suspect is not alone in citing him as his all-time favourite player, for a generation of us we knew him through Saturday lunchtime television. Hard then to picture him as a goalscorer extraordinaire, but easy to love him as a personality.

A true Tottenham legend, our greatest goalscorer, arguably the greatest goalscorer of them all. Rest in peace, Jimmy Greaves.

2. First Half Positives

And so to the match itself. By the time the curtain came down we onlookers were slumped in our seats, the players were slumped in their spots and our lot as a collective had slumped a little further down the table – it was a pretty strong evening for slumping all round.

And what makes the whole thing taste that much more bitter is that in the early knockings we had gone about things with such bright-eyed and bushy-tailed vigour and purpose.

Given the way things have panned out in recent games I had approached yesterday’s fixture with all the optimism of one of those early Christians being tossed into a den of lions in front of a baying mob. What with our lot unable to muster more than about one shot per game for love nor money, and Chelsea teeming with Tuchels and Kantes and now even Lukakus, it was with a pretty heavy heart that I took my seat and peeled back my hands from over my eyes.

Yet, as mentioned, we came absolutely haring out of the traps.

Nuno sprang a bit of a surprise, both with his team selection and tactics. The return of Sonny obviously helped us look a tad more threatening at the north end of the pitch, while the deployment of Ndombele for Skipp seemed oddly adventurous for a head honcho who had only last weekend reacted to being top of the league by picking three holding midfielders. However, there we were, Ndobmele’s midweek escapades rewarded with a starting berth, and while I suppose some of the more cautious amongst us might have raised a tentative hand and wondered about defensive cover, it appeared that our heroes were being sent to battle with exhortations to attack ringing in their ears.

It so nearly worked, too, dash it all. Kane, Lo Celso and Sonny duly attached themselves each to a Chelsea centre-back, the press was high and the passing often zippy. Indeed, this zippiness of pass owed much to the fact that those not in possession were humming around busily and stationing themselves usefully to become available for a pass. The intensity matched that which we showed against Man City, with Chelsea’s attempts to pass out from the back proving particularly fertile ground for our press, and in short all was right with the world – except that we couldn’t stick the dashed ball into the dashed net.

And while it sounds obvious, that having been well established as the point of the exercise since the game was invented, it created one heck of a problem. No need to delve into too much gory detail as I suppose, as everyone saw what happened next – half-time, Kante, and so on and so forth – but the game-plan, well though it worked, really needed us to take an early lead in order that we might progress to Stage 2, as it were, and cling on to the lead while offering a countering threat.

Instead, in the blink of a second half eye we were two behind, with every last ounce of puff exerted and little clue how to break down a Chelsea defence that were smoking cigars in between the occasional victory in their own personal duals.

While there is much to chide about the second half, both in terms of individuals and the collective, AANP is prepared to break with tradition and just this once look on the bright side of a 3-0 hammering at home. For while the energy levels dropped to zero and the team simply ran out of ideas, the first half – or at least first half hour – gave a hint of the tactical nous and game-plan that might serve us a little better against weaker opponents. While one would not expect the exact tactic (of our front three essentially marking the opposition’s back three) every game, the high press and speed of passing was encouraging.

The chronology of things may have left a bad taste in the mouth, but the positives of the first half hour ought not to be dismissed out of hand.

3. Dele, Lo Celso and Ndombele

That said, nor should what followed be ignored. I don’t attach too much blame for either goal conceded (which I suppose is a tad generous on the opener, as headed goals from corners are eminently preventable), but tactically our lot appeared to consider that the best way to deal with Chelsea was to scratch heads and chase the occasional shadow; and moreover the attitude, from those paid handsomely to stretch every sinew for 90-odd minutes, was pretty half-baked.

Now the above stinging tribute is aimed at most of those on show (Monsieur Lloris perhaps exonerated, Hojbjerg similarly and young Skipp also at least having the dignity to upend a few blue-clad bodies when he was introduced). So when I zoom in on Dele, Lo Celso and Ndombele I want to make clear to my public that this is not to say, by extension, that those others in attendance could walk off with heads held high and breasts swelling with pride.

But Dele, Le Celso and Ndombele seem to attract the spotlight as much because it is hard to fathom what the devil they are supposed to be doing.

Ndombele at least appeared to start proceedings where he had left off in midweek, with the ball attached to his foot as if with string, and the capacity to mesmerise still burning bright within him.

So far, so good, and in fact all three of the above contributed to the first half promise, in their own specific ways. Dele popped up to assist both in defence and moving forward; Lo Celso stuck to his pressing role; Ndombele popped the ball about as required.

But when the leaks started to spring in the second half, none of this lot seemed to do much about it. In fact, they all rather disappeared from view, until reality caught up with perception and Ndombele and Lo Celso were officially removed from proceedings.

And while I suppose there are mitigating circumstances, not least in the fact that Our Glorious Leader has yet to imprint upon the collective an obvious signature style, this will have to go down as yet another game in which I ask of both Lo Celso and Ndombele, “What the devil are they supposed to do?”

Both seem shiny and expensive, and obviously come complete with a whole range of bells and whistles – but what are their optimal positions? Where and how do they best contribute? And, without wanting to revisit the heady days of my philosophy degree – what is their purpose? Both have been wandering the corridors of White Hart Lane for a few years now, and yet I’m not sure any amongst us are any the wiser as to how to use them. It’s pretty frustrating stuff, as both are clearly possessed of decent wedges of talent, but at present they just seem to roll around on the pitch, not quite contributing anything like as much as they ought.

On a vaguely similar note, I’m not hugely convinced about Dele’s supposed reimagining as a central midfielder. He trots around dutifully crossing t’s and dotting the occasional i, but there is still a lot about him of the square peg trying to adapt to a round hole. He is and always was best gliding surreptitiously into the box to nosey around and pick up goals. Putting the onus on him to track back and defend only seems to encourage him to concede free-kicks in dangerous areas; similarly, watching him take all day to pick a pass in midfield does make me occasionally yank at a clump of hair from my scalp.

4. Gil

And briefly, it drifted a little under the radar, but this gave us a first proper eyeing of young Gil at Premier League level, as he was given half an hour or so to work up a sweat.

While one does not pass judgement on half an hour against the current European Champions and quite possibly future Title-winners, there was precious little about the young tick to cause even a slither of excitement. I cannot quite remember how much on top of Lamela we paid for his services, and no doubt the deal was made with an eye on the future – but in the here and now I must confess to watching him and a little wistfully wishing that we could have brought on Lamela instead.

At one point Gil was simply shrugged out of the way by Rudiger like a cat swatting aside a passing rodent, and while in time he will presumably sink a steak or two, it was hardly the game-changing impact for which we were looking.

Nor did Gil do anything at all with the ball at his feet that suggested he might prompt a wrinkle or two to appear across a Chelsea forward.

Brighter days will undoubtedly come, but to finish a game like this wishing we hadn’t sold Lamela seemed a suitably damning conclusion.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Palace 3-0 Spurs: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Lack of Effort

When one casts the mind back to the opening game of the season, in which we put in effort by the bucketload against Man City of all people, chasing down every loose ball like the fate of the free world depended on it and then haring off on breakneck counter-attacks, one does rather scratch the bean at the limp fare on offer yesterday.

One accepts defeat – even a 3-0 defeat – if the troops have fought tooth and nail, and simply come up against a mob that have fought toothier and nailier; or indeed, one takes it on the chin when a good fight has been fought and matters have been settled by a spot of magic, or even a dodgy refereeing decision.

But it really wasn’t cricket to watch our lot give it ten minutes and then take to ambling hither and thither, each with that distracted air, as if they one-by-one-realised that a more pressing engagement awaited elsewhere, and this pesky football lark was little more than an inconvenience.

I’m not sure that too many of lilywhite persuasion were getting particularly carried away by the fact that we began the day as league leaders, but even with the Expectations dial sensibly turned to a level somewhere between ‘Middling’ and ‘Low’ I think it was reasonable enough to have expected our chosen few to have least feigned interest in proceedings.

If the rallying pre-match battle cry against City had been about lung-busting determination to thunder into the faces of opponents, one can only assume that the final instructions ahead of kick-off yesterday was more along the lines of an anaemic shrug, because the notion of pressing the opposition seemed a long way down the various To-Do lists. Early on in proceedings, Hojbjerg offered a glimpse of what might be, when his high press helped pickpocket possession and created a chance that he then duly bungled – but nobody else took the hint, and Palace were left to knock the ball around between themselves in undisturbed fashion.

In possession things were just as miserable. Those in lilywhite appeared to consider it beneath them to motor around finding space and offering options for the man in possession. When opportunities for vaguely progressive passing did present themselves, they were firmly rejected, which seemed a pretty bizarre strategy.

Winks and Skipp were amongst the most prominent offenders here, seeming already to have decided to ostracise the new chap, Emerson Royal, by pointedly avoiding passes in his orbit, no matter how much space he tiptoed into. Whatever the question, the Winks-Skipp answer seemed to be ‘Sideways or Backwards’, which certainly tested the patience.

There seemed to be a plan of sorts to look for Reguilon on the left, but it was effected with such little enthusiasm that instead of passing directly to the poor soul the ball was generally just wafted into his postcode, leaving him to battle against the odds.

Even when eleven vs eleven I counted just the one burst of one-touch activity in the whole dashed match, the sort of move that had the ball whizzed around nice and promptly, shifting us the pitch faster than the Palace lot could scurry back. And frankly, one rather thought that if our heroes could only raise themselves for that single, thirty-second exhibition of passable football, then they rather deserved a three-nil hiding.

2. Absences

The absence of half a dozen regular cast members was trumpeted beforehand, and made a handy narrative, but here at AANP Towers we have a keen eye for detail, and it can’t have been much more than twenty-four hours before a few flaws in this story were detected. Admittedly, and in his defence, Nuno did not turn on the waterworks over this, and instead simply got on with life, but nevertheless it’s worth addressing this issue.

From the initial heady list of Sanchez, Romero, Sessegnon, Lo Celso, Bergwijn and Sonny, one could flick through and start discounting suspects, as it were.

Sessegnon, for starters, is rarely spotted anywhere near the first eleven, so dragging his name into things is pretty disingenuous stuff.

Until approximately three weeks ago, the absence of Sanchez, while not necessarily eliciting cheers would hardly have been lamented; while Romero is yet to feature in the league. Now admittedly, the absence of either of these fine specimens would ordinarily have been manageable, being countered by the presence of the other, as it were. The absence of both, therefore, admittedly created a mild quandary; but truth be told, if this were a world utterly bereft of Davinson Sanchezes I’d have no problem with that void being filled by Joe Rodon.

Further up the pitch, the absence of Lo Celso, as with Sessegnon, was hardly critical, meaning that the only real issue was up in attack, where both Sonny and Bergwijn had doctors’ notes to hand. As with Sanchez and Romero, the absence of one of this pair might have been covered by the presence of the other, but missing both did rather change the dynamic of the attack.

And here one might waggle a stern eyebrow in the direction of Our Glorious Leader, for when one has a perfectly serviceably Bryan Gil waiting in the wings, the decision to shove Dele into the ill-fitting role of pacy forward chappie seemed a tad misguided. (Not to mention that Dele’s removal from the midfield three also left us with a pretty functional and bland combo in the mid-section, of Hojbjerg, Skipp and Winks.)

So in truth, from the list of six, the only real challenge came around the two in attack – and could in itself have been countered through the deployment of young Gil. Hardly a justification for the dirge on show yesterday.

Where we were a tad unlucky was in the early exit of Dier. As mentioned, being a fan of Rodon I had no problem with his introduction yesterday, and actually lauded the move; but the fact that Tanganga had also to be shifted into central defence was a shame, for while Emerson Royal made a decent fist of things against Zaha, his was hardly a comfortable afternoon. It was a duel I’d have preferred had featured Tanganga.

3. Kane: Help or Hindrance?

As an aside, while touching on the subject of the front three, and the absences of Sonny and Bergwijn, this might be the moment for a rather awkward conversation about Harry Kane.

Carefully and deliberately leaving aside personal opinions about whether the absolute rotter should be welcomed back into the fold with open arms after having had the gall to try worming his way out of a contract without making a transfer request, several of my acquaintance have started to question whether the chap’s very presence is hindering operations; and they may have a point.

Referring again to the win against City, and indeed to various brighter moments the following week against Wolves, much of what was good about us in an attacking sense derived from the ability of Son, Bergwijn and Lucas to motor up the pitch as soon as possession was swiped, creating three-on-three situations that played out not just in real time but seemingly in fast-forward, the whole thing a blur of whizzing legs and interchanging positions.

However, remove one of the aforementioned three, plop in Kane, and the machinery doesn’t operate with half as much pace. In short, Kane slows down those counters, either by virtue of not whirring the little legs as quickly, or simply by deciding to take up residence about thirty yards further south. (Yesterday he seemed to offer neither, which was all the more odd.)

The AANP opinion has not yet been cast on this matter, and there seems more to it than just Kane (as mentioned, poor passing of the parcel from midfield to attacking full-backs didn’t help) – but with sterner tests awaiting, the optimal utilisation of that rotter Kane and his myriad talents cannot happen fast enough.

4. Lucas

Unusually in a performance of such ineptitude, there were actually a couple of presentable individual turns in amongst the dross.

Lucas, who can consider himself particularly unlucky to have been hooked for that rotter Kane last time out, was, not for the first time this season, particularly full of beans.

The young bean has never been averse to grabbing possession, putting his head down and wriggling like the dickens away from all-comers, but to this thoroughly agreeable trait he also appears to have now added a half-decent end-product, typically sensible distribution of the thing. In fact, one can imagine that in other teams (Exhibit A, Palace with Zaha) a chap of his ilk and predilections might be the sort around whom the team is built; but we being Tottenham he’ll presumably be back on the bench next week.

It was a joy to behold though, and, one imagines, a nightmare against which to defend.

5. Rodon

And in closing, an earnest salute in the direction of young Master Rodon. Quite why he is fourth cab on the centre-back rank is a mite baffling, given that those in front are hardly of the lineage of Moore, Beckenbauer and King; but fourth cab he is, and seemingly for use strictly in emergencies only.

However, he demonstrated a decent enough grasp of the basics when called upon last season; he seemed to do the necessaries for Wales during the Euros; and yesterday, if he put a foot wrong at all, I’m not sure I noticed it.

Actually, he and Tanganga both impressed, and it was just a dashed shame that the latter rather got carried away by things (although by the letter of the law Zaha should have been off himself, having tickled Tanganga’s face with a front paw at least thrice by my reckoning). While we were pretty woeful going forward, and the midfield was doing little to stem the flow of things in the second half, the centre backs were at least standing up to the challenge until the red card. Further outings for Rodon – and given the state of the various scattered centre-backs at the club, these seem inevitable – would be no bad thing.