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Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-1 Brighton: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Maddison as Vicario’s Bodyguard

Easy to forget amidst all the joyous bedlam of full-time, but one of the burning questions going into this one was around the thorny issue of Vicario receiving more of the rough stuff at corners, and the ploy devised by Our Glorious Leader to negate such dastardly acts.

We didn’t have to wait too long to see the fruits of such planning, with Vicario being assigned his own personal bodyguard at corners, evidently tasked with inserting self in between goalkeeper and opposing, interfering forward. In a world in which meaty specimens such as Romero and Udogie and Richarlison lurk about the premises, I have to confess to raising a slightly alarmed eyebrow upon discovering that the identity of Vicario’s saviour was to be one J. Maddison Esq.

Now in a sense this added up. Heavyweights such as the aforementioned presumably already had their own important duties to carry out at corners; while Maddison comes across as the willing sort, always happy to take on an additional task that will help the collective, and even more so if it’s a high-profile little number.

On the other hand, however, there’s the delicate issue of what one might politely term ‘Suitability for the Role’. Putting it delicately, Maddison’s is not a physique of pure, unadulterated brawn and sinew. If I were to request, from an agency that handled such things, the services of a bit of muscle to protect me from harm of an evening, I’d be pretty cheesed off if they sent James Maddison my way, and would probably send him straight back and demand a refund. Of the entire squad, I imagine that only the wisp-like Bryan Gil would have any difficulty in shoving aside Maddison in any form of physical combat.

Nevertheless, it was better than the alternative, of simply allowing whichever forward (Welbeck yesterday, I think) an unhindered run at Vicario to flap in his face and barge him around as he pleased. And one might reasonably argue that the proof of the pudding was in the fact that Vicario being forced into errors at corners simply was not an issue yesterday, as it had been in previous games. (Although the caveat here is that Brighton’s delivery from corners was not so accurate as to put him under proper scrutiny.) Certainly, Maddison got into the spirit of the thing, all bravado and tugging and pulling each time the principals set themselves for a corner.

So a solution of sorts, but I do consider that a more rigorous test of this scheme, and Maddison’s abilities in the area of personal security, could be yet to come.

2. Not Quite At The Races

Is it just me or does every outing of the Good Ship Hotspur end in some dramatic stoppage-time goal, one way or the other? It certainly feels that way, to the extent that if one of our games finished 5-3 but with all scoring wrapped up by the 80th minute, I’d probably slope away in a bit of a mood, grumbling about not having received my money’s worth.

Anyway, whichever soul launched the gag about all being well that ends well certainly hit the bullseye yesterday, and I blush to admit that I rather lost my sense of propriety when Johnson popped up at the end, bounding about the place like one possessed, truth be told. All of which was well and good, and pretty much captures why we make the weekly pilgrimage in the first place; but it did also paper over the fact that this was a slightly squiffy sort of showing from our heroes.

The dubious tone was set within the first 30 second when young VDV, normally the sort of egg upon whom you’d bet your mortgage as well as the life of your least-favoured child, oddly floundered, losing his bearings, his sight of the ball and his understanding of gravity. Under minimal pressure he tripped over himself and into a little heap, allowing Welbeck to race off and send an early greeting Vicario’s way.

VDV was at it again for the penalty, dipping a foot into a spot he ought to have avoided; an episode that had its genesis in Bentancur miscalculating pretty significantly and being hustled off the ball on the edge of his own area. Bentancur was perhaps the poster-boy for the day’s travails, occasionally delivering his trademark wriggle from trouble, but too often caught dwelling in possession and failing to provide the steady hand to which we’ve become accustomed.

To be clear, however, this was not a case of VDV and Bentancur alone being at the heart of our troubles. Most in lilywhite seemed a little undercooked. Take Udogie, for example. Strangely muted, no? Vicario at one point ill-advisedly underarmed the ball to Bentancur in a most precarious spot; and so on.

Being a gracious sort, I can grudgingly admit that a lot of our under-performing was down to Brighton, whose high-press was pretty snappy, and whose short passing was at times terrific. In fact, the whole thing struck me as what would happen if our heroes played against themselves in one of those shiny computer games with fancy graphics.

Whatever the reason, for the first twenty or so, our lot were comfortably second best; and while we got back on top in the latter part of the first half, this owed as much to pressing high and turning over possession as to any particular guile in our build-up play. Following ingestion of the half-time victuals, our lot hit first gear for a good 25 minutes or so, which looked like it would bring a lot more that just the equaliser, and I confess that at that point I settled back into my seat with a rather smug sense of anticipation; only for our lot to lose their way again, and end up rather clinging on as the clock struck 90. A strange old knocking from our heroes, then.

3. Richarlison

Richarlison was another who didn’t quite hit the right notes, until he eventually did circa minute 96.

His first half miss when clean through (doff of the cap to Maddison for the pass, by the by) was pretty unforgiveable. One can bleat away all day about the goalkeeper spreading himself and whatever else, but that was about as straightforward as chances come, and a chap in his current form ought to have crossed t’s and dotted i’s with minimal fuss.

He delivered similar rot when given the opportunity to tee up Maddison for a straightforward finish, again before half-time. Admittedly that was a pass that required a tad more timing and weighting, but nevertheless it ought not to have been beyond a fellow  whose juices have been flowing like his in the last six weeks or so.

It was a curious performance from Richarlison, because it was not one of those in which he skulked about the place like a moody teen, or wobbled unconvincingly, beset by a critical absence of confidence. He seemed right as rain in matters of the head, full of confidence and positivity. He just failed to deliver at the critical moments – until the finale.

At that point, he did a cracking job, delivering his lines to perfection. His pass for Son looked simple enough, but had he played it with any greater or lesser force Sonny would probably have had to break his stride – or strayed offside – and we’d all be grumbling about another drawn game we should have won. Instead, Richarlison (having been involved in the earlier build-up too), picked his moment and weighted his pass, and AANP duly forgave his earlier transgressions.

4. The Winning Goal

While Richarlison’s minor but critical role receives a light ovation from these parts, I’m inclined to shove the Best Supporting Actor trophy towards Sonny. One can take it for granted, but there aren’t too many nibs around who can go flying off at that sort of pace. His timing had to be on the money too, to stay onside, but mercifully the chap was fully alert to the situation, and crammed the best of all worlds into one single package – staying onside whilst building up a sufficient head of steam to outpace his opposing defender pretty comfortably.

There then followed the most critical part of the operation, viz. delivery of the pass. We could all see it, of course – and being the helpful sort, AANP took the opportunity to scream at the blighter a pithy but accurate instruction as to what was needed at this juncture – but it’s one thing seeing, and a different kettle of fish actually doing.

Mercifully, Son delivered to the millimetre. There was no messing around with additional touches, or considerations of taking it on himself, or any such nonsense. Son pinged the pass first-time, with a spot of curl to evade the stretching Estupinan, leaving Johnson with a pretty straightforward mission from 5 yards.

Johnson, as is well known, has attracted a decent amount of opprobrium over the months, principally for his delivery of a final ball, but if he excels in one area it is in understanding the value of arriving at the back post when potential is bubbling away on the opposite flank. He does it better than most of the others in our ranks, and there is something particularly pleasing about seeing a goal created by one wide attacker to be executed the other. If Son deserves credit for his burst of pace on the left, Johnson ought also to be lauded for acting similarly on the right – for all his attributes I’m not sure Kulusevski would have eaten up those yards.

For one horrific moment I did actually think that Johnson had managed to blast the ball over the bar, but the lad had the good sense not to lash at the thing, and the happy ending was safely tucked away.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 0-1 Man City: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. Vicario and The Goal

The fires of righteous indignation were blazing away like nobody’s business amongst vast swathes of lilywhites after that City goal, with “Foul play!” the principal anthem howled. One understands the sentiment, given that the City chappie was dancing a pretty intimate number with Vicario, but the sentiment at AANP Towers was to give the shoulders a shrug. Seen them given of course, but tend to roll the eyes skywards when they are.

‘Football-playing folk will inevitably bump limbs’ was the official line around these parts, and as the chap’s arms and elbows maintained a relatively conservative existence during the episode, rather than being flailed abaft the head in overly reckless fashion, I was pretty sanguine about the challenge. Spitting feathers and blood boiling at the concession of a late winner of course, ranting and blaspheming into the night sky at that, but not particularly outraged about the decision of the judiciary.  

Rather than launch into a passionate diatribe about the indignity of having his path hindered, I would have much preferred Vicario to have taken the more rudimentary approach in the first place of Cleaning Out Everyone In Front Of Him and Punching The Ball To Kingdom Come. Less scope for perceived injustices that way.

To his credit Vicario did actually get a fist to the thing, despite that City rascal whispering sweet nothings in his ear. His contact was hardly of the Kingdom Come variety, but he might nevertheless feel that he had put in place the basics and could reasonably look to a nearby associate to firm the thing up. It was rather a shame, then, that this part of the procedure having been ticked off, the ball bounced off the back of young Van de Ven, who seemed rather astonished to find himself in the vicinity, and neatly into the airspace of that Ake fellow.

Thereafter there was not much to be done, but with the dust having settled I hope that young Vicario, in his quieter moments, decides to focus his thousand hours of practice on that aforementioned art of C.O.E.I.F.O.H.A.P.T.B.T.K.C. Because in most other areas the chap seems well in control of matters – playing the ball from feet when under pressure, shot-stopping, and so forth. Indeed, these very qualities were proudly advertised on Friday night – City’s press being of the intense variety, and their shots low and punchy. As such, one would not want opponents to sniff a weakness at set-pieces and accordingly crowd and jostle our gate-keeper to within an inch of his life each time. Remedy that chink in the armour, young man.

2. Van de Ven (and Udogie)

Alongside Vicario, young Van de Ven struck me as one of the more impressive of our number. A blessed relief to have him back, for his composure and comfort in possession in the first place, but also, as he rather pointedly emphasised on several occasions, for his red-face-sparing pace, that allows him to save the day time and again, with the well-judged skin-of-the-teeth timing that is the hallmark of so many of life’s finest action heroes.

We muddled through with varying degrees of success without him, but having him back at times feels like having a twelfth player in the ranks. (As it happens, I feel similarly when casting the beady eye upon former N17 parishoner Kyler Walker.) That is to say, the day-job entails performing all the duties of any self-respecting centre-back, but, blessed with jet-heeled pace, young VDV is also able to masquerade as something of a sweeper, racing in from wherever he may be when emergency arises, to act as last line of defence and give it that Kingdom Come treatment. This flexibility was displayed against both Foden in the first half and De Bruyne in the second, to name but two instances, and is a mightily useful bonus string to the bow.

And while on the subject of those who performed adequately enough I might as well direct an admiring whistle towards young Signor Udogie, whose offensive and defensive mechanics both appeared to be in fine working order. Admittedly City had a bit too much joy down their left/our right in the first half, but when Udogie was put to the test in one-on-one combat he tended to deploy either or both of his speed and upper-body strength, as appropriate and to good effect. All a bit futile in the final analysis, but one ought to record such things.

3. Absent Friends

Whichever bean it was who came up with the gag that absence makes the heart grow fonder was clearly quite the football aficionado. It’s a maxim that has heightened the standing of many a Spurs player, from Gil and Winks to Sammways and Nayim, and while some of the aforementioned may have underwhelmed a tad when eventually given their opportunity, on Friday night it was with some legitimacy that I bemoaned the ongoing absences of Sarr, Son and Maddison (and, to an extent, Bissouma).

That midfield in particular needed a bit of guile and mischief. Bentancur, as ever, was doing a fine job of availing himself for passes from the centre-backs, and, despite the rather impatient intrusions from City’s forwards, upon receipt calmly spraying the ball to safe zones; but further forward for approximately an hour we did rather scream out for Maddison.

As has been remarked fairly widely, on a few occasions, various of our heroes overlooked the opportunity to release Herr Werner into wide open spaces, and I suppose one never really knows quite how things would have played out in an alternate universe, but one does moodily mutter that Maddison might have picked him out a bit more cannily than those honoured with selection from the start.

Sarr similarly would have been an asset, with Hojbjerg demonstrating once again that being an adequate sub to see out the final fifteen against a side from the bottom half does not really equate to being the measure of the best team on the planet; and seeing our lot labour to create or finish a decent chance worthy of the name I did also lament the ongoing absence of Sonny.

I suppose it’s more important that we stay in touch with the popular kids in the Title race (or Top Four/Five race if you prefer), than that we turn over Man City of all teams in the Cup. Despite the fact that lamentations towards the absence of a trophy ring louder at AANP Towers than in most places, I’d still take a loss against City at home in an early round of the Cup if we can instead turn them over in a few weeks’ time in the League. And as Our Glorious Leader loosely put it, there’s no huge shame in losing to that lot when they’re a good few years ahead of us in their development (and bank balance – witness them flinging on De Bruyne and Doku, and not even bothering to fling on Grealish, while we had the luxury of Dane Scarlett as our In Case of Emergency call).

So the frustration at the continued absences of key players ought not to be over-egged much further, but as one by one they slip back into the fold, by golly I hope, and to an extent envisage, that we can recreate that early season run of wins.

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Spurs match reports

Man Utd 2-2 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. Defence

Of course the return of Romero and VDV meant that the beady eye was on the Back Four from the off, eagerly watching the pair of them to check that all parts were in working order and good as new. However, events of the first half in particular rather shifted the gaze away from the central two, specifically about ten yards to their right, where time and again – and not for the first time this season – Pedro Porro achieved the remarkable feat of somehow appearing outnumbered in one-on-one situations.

This business of our back four defending narrowly, and allowing the opposition left wingers as much space as they fancy, keeps AANP up into the wee small hours with a mightily concerned frown. One understands that Ange-ball generally requires Porro to be loitering well in advance of the centre-backs when we’re in possession – meaning that when we lose the thing and our counter-attacked, he is generally a few yards out of position. One understands that opponents have cottoned on, and will generally look to shove a forward into this vacant space with the instruction ‘Make hay’ scrawled across their notepad.

So I suppose we’ll just have to bite the bullet to an extent, and accept that unless we surreptitiously stick a twelfth player out in the right-back area, we’ll be a tad vulnerable over there. But still. Once Porro is being sized up by an opposing attacker, I’d have thought it would make some sense to shove a reinforcement or two towards him. To the credit of whomever it concerns, this was duly done in the second half, Romero evidently regarding as a matter of urgency the need to toddle over and a bit of background muscle to Porro’s exchanges with Rashford or whomever.

But by then the damage had been done. Twice, in fact. Any opposing attacker with a trick or two in his box seems to stand a 50-50 chance of besting Porro and doing a spot of damage, and the Rashford eyes lit up in that first half. An isolated Porro, while not exactly a lamb to the slaughter, was certainly a lamb giving a nervous gulp or two.

Mightily annoying it was too, because but for those counter-attacks honed in on their left/our right, I didn’t think United had much about them. And for avoidance of misunderstanding, Porro’s delivery at times has the innocent onlooker absolutely purring, so this is by no means a call for punitive action against the solid young bean.

Back to VDV and Romero, and their mere presence did much to soothe what has been a pretty jittery AANP over the last couple of months. Romero missed few opportunities to put an end to a fledgling United attack with a well-timed and hefty size nine; VDV showed few signs of having forgotten how to ease from Trot to Sprint in the blink of an eye – it was good to have the pair back.

That said, neither were necessarily faultless. If one were to quibble they might ask whether Romero could have done more to prevent the first goal; and he also, as one would expect, took his opportunity to crunch the life out of a United sort near halfway. As for VDV, at one point in the first half he seemed consumed by the desire to dribble past a United forward right outside our own area, disappearing into quite the hole and requiring a spot of dustpan-and-brushing from a passing Bentancur.

But by and large the pair were watchful in defence and at times outstanding in possession – not least in the fabulous pass straight through the middle from Romero to Skipp, that set in motion our second. Nice to see live evidence too that the lad Dragusin is not one whose drink you would want to spill. All muscle and brawn, that lad.

2. The Midfield

It rather slipped under the AANP radar quite how light we were in midfield, but when the cast-list was announced the colour did rather drain from the face on seeing the names ‘Hojbjerg’ and ‘Skipp’ etched in alongside ‘Bentancur’.

The sagging of spirits was briefly paused in the opening exchanges, however, to be replaced by a pretty surprised raise of the eyebrow, as I tried to digest the sight of young Skipp seemingly being the furthest forward of the trio. Someone had to do it I suppose, and Skipp is nothing if not willing.

His was a fairly standard Skipp performance, which I thought was neatly encapsulated by his role in our second goal – oozing with the energy to receive Romero’s pass and set off over halfway, before almost gumming up the operation by sending his own pass the wrong side of Werner.

Now in Skipp’s defence he did ping one of the most scrumptious passes of the season towards the end of the first half, absolutely lashing a first-time volley from right of centre out towards the left wing, for an approving chum to race onto without breaking stride. AANP raised a glass to that one. But such a moment of quality was better filed under ‘Exception’ rather than ‘Norm’.

Bentancur, of course, purred his way through the entirety, as one would expect. At one point I heard the fellow on the telly-box describe him as “Knitting things together”, which I thought put it rather well.

And he took his goal mightily impressively too. Fool that I am, I had already flung the hands heavenward in agony at what I thought was a missed opportunity when he opted to take a second forward touch in the United six yard box rather than shooting there and then. I should have known better. Bentancur was in supreme control, and emphasised the fact by using his third touch to pointedly lash the thing into the roof of the net.

The third of the midfield triumvirate was Hojbjerg, who tends usually to hover between ‘Good’ and ‘Needs Improvement’ on the scale of these things. I thought he started pretty well, and AANP accordingly settled down for one of his better days. Aided, as anyone would be, by the presence of Bentancur alongside him, he seemed to use the ball sensibly enough; but towards the latter stages I though he slightly forgot the point of the exercise and began littering the place with misplaced passes and whatnot.

Aside from the individual offerings, there was a rather gaping hole when it came to a spot of creative spark from midfield, but I suppose if you take a perfectly strong squad and rip from it the three prime suspects in the field of Making Things Happen From The Centre, then one has to expect a decent helping of sideways passing and head-scratching.

3. Werner

In general one got the impression that our heroes were the better team, as evidenced by some lovely fluid passing from the rear-guard mob to the attacking mob, but there persisted throughout the nagging feeling that in matters of final third quality, the well was a little dry.

Young Johnson has spent the last few months doing all the hard work before making a solid mess of the final output, and lest anyone had needed reminding of this tendency he took every opportunity to demonstrate it again today. Now it should not be forgotten that he has chipped in with various critical passes creating goals in recent weeks, as well as taking a few licks of paint from the woodwork, but it’s reasonable to assert that the heart fills with hope rather than expectation when he revs up and hurtles down the right.

Senor Gil similarly is not the sort of huevo from whom one expects too much in the way of end-product. Not for want of trying, of course, but the more one watches Gil and Johnson’s attempted crosses miss their mark, the more one checks the Asian Cup fixture list.

Into this curious mix emerged Werner. And actually, he did just about everything one had anticipated of him, in both the credit and debit columns. From the off he showed himself to be the sort who will quite happily race to close down an opponent if it means that the reward manifests a stage or two later, in a turnover of possession further down the line.

Occasionally, we got a glimpse of the pace that apparently elevates him to cover 100 metres in 11 seconds, a stat that made me goggle a fair amount. And of course, his shots zoomed around in every direction but the net, which was entirely as advertised.

But he ran the good race, neatly setting up Bentancur for his goal and in general giving the impression that he knows the drill. As appropriate he ran at his man, or went on the outside, or cut inside, or just let wiser counsels prevail and allocated to a nearby chum. All perfectly acceptable stuff, and as his fitness goes up the requisite number of notches, and the mysteries of Ange-ball are further unravelled to him, one would anticipate that his usefulness will similarly shoot up the scale.

Historically, a point at Old Trafford would be a prompt for some meaningful handshakes all round, but make no mistake, this one leaves AANP grumping like the dickens for the rest of the evening. Our lot were marginally better in the first half and comfortably so in the second, which by maths means we should have won the thing by approximately 1.5 goals. Two points have slipped away, and I won’t hear any arguments to the contrary.

That said, with players missing, players returning and players debuting, on top of which we twice fell behind (away from home), the troops ought to be commended rather than censured for this one. Deep inside the corridors of power I can imagine that the sentiment of choice is, “Muddle through and stay in touch with the top spots until everyone returns.” This is no catastrophe, just a slight shame.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 1-2 Villa: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Bentancur and the Midfield Three

Ordinarily if one were to be ambushed on a Sunday lunchtime with the news that 100% of your first-choice midfield were to be unavailable, one might be excused for choking on a roast potato and offering a few choice lamentations. The absence of Maddison alone, after all, would be sorely felt at any time of year; an additional suspension for Bissouma would pose an almighty conundrum; but throw into that a muscle strain or some such rot for Sarr, and if every last drop of hope drained from the soul it would be a pretty understandable reaction.

This, however, was not really ordinary circumstance. For even as the AANP mind registered that young Sarr was indeed being added to the list of those unfit for public consumption, any dregs of despair were being swept away with a goodish amount of excitement, as the penny dropped that the new-look midfield triumvirate would comprise one each of Bentancur, Lo Celso and Kulusevski.

For a start, there is a pretty reasonable train of thought that, nine-month ACL-induced absence or not, Bentancur should really be part of the first-choice midfield anyway. Lo Celso I suppose, in this context, is a slightly more controversial type of chestnut, having officially been part of the N17 furniture for a goodish number of years now, yet having blown up so few skirts that you can count them on the fingers of one hand. But nevertheless, on a good day – or, put another way, in an Argentina shirt – he’s a pretty talented sort of bimbo, and one for whom AANP harbours secret admiration. And as for Kulusevski, the chap has a pretty deep reservoir of goodwill into which he can dip, so if Our Glorious Leader saw fit to shunt him into a Number 10 sort of role, the pre-match thinking process went, then that was good enough for me.

But more than the individual choices, the intriguing aspect of this was the collective, if you get my drift. Selecting all three of the undersigned to constitute a midfield in its entirety was not the move of a manager concerned about extra-thick layers of security to protect the midfield. In fact it was about as far removed from E-TLs of S as one could get. ‘Hojbjerg be damned’, seemed to be the attitude of The Brains Trust ahead of this one. Big Ange was shoving his every last chip at the Dreamy Attacking Build-Up option – and as you might expect, AANP was all in favour of such wild and romantic recklessness.

And frankly, it very nearly worked too. As one would expect of a laddie who is half-mortal, half footballing deity, Bentancur purred about the place, pretty quickly finding his range and beginning to settle into a routine of through-balls of the ‘Simple-Yet-Devastating’ variety, most of which really deserved better than the forward collective tripping over their shoelaces when within sight of goal.

Cunningly stationed at the base of midfield, and as such disguised as a defensive sort who is pretty clueless when it comes to his attacking eggs, Bentancur was duly granted a goodish amount of space in possession, and looked to me to be settling into quite the groove as a deep-lying creative sort. Moreover, his presence a few yards south seemed to inspire the happier sides of Lo Celso’s personality to emerge, and he began picking neat diagonals into the area. Between the two of them, the absence of Maddison could more or less be shrugged off; while further north, young Kulusevski in the Number 10 role gave the look of a man for whom this was not his first time.

While not quite the perfect 26 or so minutes of football, our attacking verve was still pretty impressive, the gist of the conversation being far more one-way than AANP had dared to expect against a direct rival. Indeed, but for the knuckle-headed antics of those in front of goal we might have been two or three up in that period.

Alas, poor old Bentancur then hobbled off, courtesy of the latest crippling swipe from Matty Cash Boo (he, you may recall, having been responsible for ending Matt Doherty’s season a couple of years back, just as the chap was finding his feet in the RWB role for us).

Thereafter, Hojbjerg came on to give one of the most Hojbjerg performances imaginable – diligently winning the ball high up the pitch before pinging a cross under no pressure straight into the arms of the goalkeeper – and the attacking flair on show decreased a gentle notch.

I actually thought we continued to make a decent fist of things going forward, until Villa took the lead and the dynamic of the thing was rather turned on its head (they being happy to defend a lot deeper at that point). It would be tempting to take one look at the outcome and emphatically stamp the words ‘Never Again’ across a midfield of Bentancur-Lo Celso-Kulusevski, but such was the early dominance that going forward I’d happily type in their names and press ‘Enter’.

The problem, rather obviously, was that it offered fairly minimal protection for those at the rear, and Villa did not exactly have to devise the most intricate plans to bypass our security levels – but these days the plan simply seems to keep attacking and hope we’ve got enough goals in the locker come the final curtain.

2. Porro

Pedro Porro is a bean who generally goes under the AANP radar, right up until the moment that he pops up in the opposition area. I’m not really sure why that is to be honest, as one can’t lob a brick these days without it hitting someone desperate to lecture you on the virtues of the fellow. Still, I maintain that if you’re actively trying to avoid noticing Porro he’s a pretty easy chap to fail to notice.

Yesterday, however, was a pretty momentous day at Casa Porro, as I had decided to give him the beady eye throughout. ‘See what all the fuss is about,’ was about the sum of my thinking there.

And ‘Pleasantly surprised’, was about the sum of my findings. It will come as no surprise to seasoned PP-watchers, or indeed to most lilywhites who have kept even half an eye on us so far this season, but young Porro is pretty dashed effective in the inverted full-back spot. It’s his passing from deep that really arrests the attention. AANP is a particular fan of those weighted passes inside an opposing defender, and Porro, perhaps knowing his audience, delivered a slew of these. Our first half dominance owed about as much to his positioning and creative juices as to any of the designated midfield three.

Which is not to say that he was without blemish. Towards the end of the first half his attempt to sing the gospel of Ange-Ball got rather stuck in his throat, as he was caught dithering in possession right outside our own penalty area. When Emerson Royal is the man bailing you out, you know you’ve made a bit of a hash of things.

In the final half hour or so I actually forgot that pre-match remit to which I had wedded myself on pain of death – the one about watching PP’s every move like a hawk – so I couldn’t really tell you much about what he did or failed to do, other than one overhit free-kick, but I suppose by that point I’d seen enough. Porro is a pretty important cog in the machine, and not just when galloping off into the final third, and all the more credit to him for re-inventing himself for this role, having arrived on these shores as something quite different.

3. Gil

It was a big day for the lesser-spotted Bryan Gil, another alumnus of that Lo Celso school of chappies who can look pretty impressive as long as they’ve rolled out of the right side of the bed. Alas, it’s fair to say that this wasn’t his finest hour. To suggest that he stank the place out would be over-egging it, but my pre-teen niece, casting eyes upon him for the first time, did not hang about in passing her judgement that he was utterly without merit and undeserving of his place in the team. One understood her train of thought.

I actually thought that, when not suddenly stopping attacks in order to drag the ball back and pass behind him, Gil made himself a nuisance. Put another way, he kept his opposing defender on his toes. If the opposing defender (Konsa?) had wanted to bed in for a gentle snooze he was in the wrong neck of the woods, for Gil was not lacking in eagerness to collect the ball and have a dart.

The problem was that having done all his scurrying, he didn’t really have an exciting conclusion with which to round off his stories. He delivered one gorgeous-looking cross that was an inch or two too high for Sonny, but that aside seemed repeatedly to choose the wrong option when it came to The Big Moment.

Not that he was alone in this, for, as alluded to above, none of the forward line exactly covered themselves in glory, each tripping over themselves to demonstrate different ways in which to bungle the simplest of chances.

Being rather a fan of young Gil, I rather hope that this is not his only opportunity under Big Ange. One mal-coordinated swallow doth not necessarily a dreary summer make, and I seem to recall about this time last year he began to impress when given a run of games under Conte (before rather oddly being shoved out the door and off on loan). He is clearly well down the pecking order, and the returns of Sarr and Bissouma will presumably see a rejig, but seeing as much of that aforementioned pecking order has been obliterated by injuries, opportunity ought still to knock for a few weeks yet.

4. The Centre Backs

It feels rather harsh to criticise Davies and Emerson for not being outstanding centre-backs. A bit like criticising a couple of horses for not being great whales. Not really their fault, what? Not really the roles for which their maker made them.

Still, there they were, and there it was. Whenever Villa ran at them on the counter, Davies and Emerson offered token resistance only. This was rather emphatically demonstrated in the early disallowed goal (Watkins header, immediately after our opener, in case you’re struggling to categorise all the offsides and VAR). A fairly perfunctory cross was swung in from a wide area – perfectly fine, decent pace and trajectory – but the mind-boggling, and pretty alarming element of all this was the wide old acreage in which Watkins was allowed to potter around. Squint the eyes and one might have made out Emerson on the far side, a sizeable distance away from Davies on the near side. And wandering between them like an abandoned stray was Watkins.

It didn’t help, of course, that our midfield were of the all-action-no-plot school, and therefore gave precious few cares about such issues as defensive cover. As and when Villa wanted, they strolled straight through the centre and had a pretty free run at our centre-backs.

Nevertheless, when called into action, Davies and Emerson gave it their all but were pretty worryingly out of their depth. The second goal again illustrated all of the above. Hojbjerg and I think Lo Celso did a good job of statically watching as the ball was passed around them and towards goal, and when it reached the edge of the area Davies and Emerson gave the air of men desperately trying to recall what was printed in the training manual as Watkins sauntered between them and did his thing.

Not really their faults, to emphasise, and I understood the decision to use those two instead of Dier, given that much of the game was to be spent playing a high line and sprinting backwards; but the return of Romero cannot come soon enough, and the need for another top-notch centre-back to join the gang is pretty stark.

RIP Terry Venables, nothing but the fondest memories

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Spurs match reports Spurs news, rants

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

1. Conte’s Rant

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

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

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

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

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

2. Conte On The Players

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

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

3. Conte On The Board

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

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

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

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

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

4. Conte Himself

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

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

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

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

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

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

5: The Match Itself

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Spurs match reports

Milan 1-0 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Sarr

It’s not often I can claim to speak for the masses, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone in reacting to the news of poor old Bentancur’s twisted joints by feeling the stomach sink a few levels, and having a nameless dread creep up my spine and make itself at home slap bang in the middle of my very soul.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but R.B. has been the heartbeat of the operation. Kane may be the poster boy, but just about everything is run by Bentancur first, for him to stamp with his seal of approval. The prospect of heading off to the San Siro of all places, minus this fabulous chap, had me grasping pretty desperately for the whiskey and rocks, with emphasis on the former.

With Hojbjerg also otherwise engaged, and even Bissouma passing on this particular invitation, that nameless dread was having a whale of a time churning up my insides as I tried in the first place even to remember who the fourth and fifth choice centre midfielders would be.

Sarr and Skipp it was to be then, and as the whistle tooted at 20.00 GMT, AANP had much about him of Daniel entering the lions’ den with a few nervous looks east and west.

Incredibly, however, young Messrs Sarr and Skipp saw it that central midfield ought to be the last of my worries. The defence? Errors lurking not far from the surface. The attack? Nary an idea in the tray. But central midfield brimmed full of energy and natty decision-making throughout.

I loosely recall young Sarr being flung on for twenty minutes or so against Palace a few weeks back, and looking the full potato back then, but with an asterisk against his name in virtue of the fact that we were 4-0 up at the time, and I rather fancied that even I might have looked vaguely competent in such a circumstance. Last night, however, was no 4-0 twenty-minute cakewalk. Sarr was up against a competent mob, and in what sounded like a pretty punchy atmosphere.

And yet the young pup set about his work from first whistle until last in absolutely first-rate fashion. I can barely think of a duty that the modern midfielder ought to execute, which wasn’t executed with all manner of flying colours by young Master Sarr.

He gobbled up loose balls and generally ensured that his opinions were heard in midfield, making clear to any Milan sort who thought that the central areas would be ripe for a spot of casual R&R that no such luxury would be afforded. And this sort of energy in the hub of the team does all manner of good, setting the tone and giving the impression that whatever else, our lot will not go down without a spot of fight and a few swings of the blade.

On top of this general Seek-and-Destroy approach to midfield life, I was also rather taken by the occasional glimpse Sarr gave of a natty forward pass. The sort that is diagonally delivered so as to bisect an opposing two or three midfielders, if you can picture the scenario. Sarr used this weapon in moderation, which is reasonable enough; but he nevertheless made it clear that such a thing is a gift he possesses.

All told, the young cad vastly exceeded expectations, and moreover did enough to suggest that Central Midfield need not be a topic of furrowed broughs and panicked curses for the remainder of the season.

2. Skipp

Of the pair, Sarr probably edged things from the AANP perspective, but young Master Skipp was not far behind. In fact, Skipp was not far behind anyone in midfield the whole night long. If a Milan sort had ball at feet and a bit of greenery in front of him, you could bet a few quid that he would also have a spot of Skipp CO2 warming the back of his neck.

Skipp’s starting positions were not always in quite the ideal coordinates, but one of the advantages of being an indefatigable sort of bean is that such oversights can quickly be corrected. If Skipp didn’t necessarily always put out the nearest fire, he did at least keep a close eye on it and generally harry the dickens out of it.

Another minor note I would scribble in his margin is that he did tend to opt for a backwards pass as his default option; but in the context of everything else it seems a mite unfair to beat the poor lad with this particular stick. Skipp did a splendid job of things, both in the blood-and-thunder aspects and also when stretching every sinew to keep our hosts at bay.

Perhaps most striking from the AANP perspective was the relentless energy he and Sarr displayed throughout. Both Bentancur and Hojbjerg will put in the hours – neither could every really be accused of shirking their duties – but the two on show last night were relentless. Every time a Milan player took up possession in or around the centre circle, as sure as night follows day you could guarantee that one of Sarr or Skipp would be buzzing into view at a rate of knots to confront them and set about debating the thing.

Bentancur, as mentioned above, is the central cog in all this, but I do sometimes watch Hojbjerg and wonder what he is adding beyond a lot of increasingly irate pointing and shouting. He has some very good days (witness Man City the other week) but also some pretty anonymous ones. Moreover, he just doesn’t seem to have the energy and pace of the younglets of last night. The point I’m driving at is that if we were to kick off the next game or two with Messrs S & S in residence, and P-E H wrapped up in a duffel coat on the bench, then I’d greet the news with a pretty nonchalant shrug – and that’s high praise for the young pair.

(Alternatively, switching to a back four, starting S&S and having a third midfielder alongside them, to add some attacking flavour, would really make the eyes leap from their sockets.)

3. Romero

Alas, not everyone was as on top of their game as the midfield youths. Senor Romero has had plenty of sparkling days in lilywhite, but it would not be stretching the bounds of literary credibility to state that last night was not amongst them. Some way down the list, I’d fancy.

For a start, this business of his wild, bookable lunges has really gone too far. Now don’t get me wrong. AANP appreciates the singing thwack of one hefty limb against another as much as the next cove. A time and a place of course, but who amongst us does not occasionally think that matters of disagreement are best settled by a challenge of sufficient rigour and meat to win ball, upend man and excavate a small plot of land simultaneously?

All well and good, if done with observance of appropriate conditions. Correct and exact timing of the deed being one such condition. Making clear to the viewing public that winnings have been obtained from the transaction is another. Tick these and various related boxes, and such acts of robustness can earn pretty enthusiastic reviews.

Romero, however, seems to have started caring less and less about the small print, and begun obsessing about nothing else than sending his nominated target cartwheeling about five yards skywards, seemingly treating this as the principal objective of his each and every matchday. I’m not entirely sure what’s got into the chap. He’s just won a World Cup, dash it, what the devil is he trying to prove?

Anyway, it happens like clockwork – unnecessarily and often a little early on in proceedings. And not for any obvious higher purpose either. Should he take a great big chunk out of an opponent who is readying himself to deliver a fatal blow and leather the ball into our net, I would offer an accepting shrug and console myself that his intervention was made for the greater good. But Romero tends to launch his ambush when the opponent is involved in some pretty innocuous hobnobbing a few yards south of the halfway line, with no real danger appearing anywhere on the radar.

At best it leaves the blighter on a tightrope for the rest of the half. One understands the principle of pressing high and giving the opponent a timely nudge; and one similarly sympathises if once in a blue moon the fellow loses his head and aims an unsubtle kick; but to wildly swing the hatchet every ruddy game does make one scratch the loaf and ask politely if the young man is quite right in the head.

On top of that, Romero made a pretty serious clanger in the opening exchanges, which led to the only goal. Now it’s hardly for me to lecture anyone on the art of defending, but the consensus amongst the great and good seems to be that he got himself in a frightful positional muddle in trying to deal with the aerial ball lofted in his direction, resulting in some pretty frantic back-pedalling, an attempted header in which just about every limb was pointing in sub-optimal directions and an ungainly descent to earth. As the Milan charlie sped away towards goal, hindered only by the moving mannequin that is Eric Dier, Romero was still untangling his limbs on the San Siro turf.

One could, of course, excuse such errors as part and parcel of human fallibility, but on occasions such as these we really need players of the ilk of Romero to rattle off near-flawless routines. Goodness knows we have enough of his comrades queueing up to botch things without him also getting in on the act.

4. Sonny and His Would-Be Replacements

Oddly enough I actually thought that Sonny looked a bit rosier of cheek than he has done for much of the season. Particularly in the early knockings, he seemed taken by the urge to scurry with or without ball – albeit typically in his own half – but in general he seemed a bit more fluid than in recent weeks. The ball was not getting caught in his feet, nor was he running straight into the nearest opponent.

 Alas, “Not running straight into the nearest opponent” was probably the highlight of his performance. He could occasionally be spotted, pootling around with an air of a fellow who wants to make his mark, but offered precious little creative spark or availability to assist those around him.

Nothing new there, I suppose – but there’s the rub. This happens over and over, and while we were all thrilled for the young bean that he bagged a couple against Preston or whomever in the Cup, he remains distinctly off-colour. And whereas in years gone by one would be a mite wary of replacing him with someone of obviously lesser calibre – a Clinton Njie, if you will – we now have a shiny, functioning and rather expensive Richarlison primed and ready to replace him. Fresh from a pretty wholesome World Cup too, dash it!

So what the hell is the delay? Sonny’s little mournful period of introspection has dragged on for months now. While we all sympathise with the chap, I rather wish he could conduct his soul-searching somewhere less public, and let Richarlison stomp around from the start, and for a few consecutive games. Or give the lad Danjuma a swing, if that fits the positional narrative a little better.

Either way, this business of Sonny being undroppable only really makes sense if he is tearing up the town each week, leaving in his wake a trail of dazed opponents and all manner of goodies in his swag bag. He isn’t, and each week the harvest is weak. And yet, Our Glorious Leader will not be moved. To say the mind boggles understates the thing.

Nonetheless, despite all of the above, I still oozed back to the ranch last night fancying that we could fairly comfortably progress from this tie. Of course, it would require the half-decent version of our lot to turn up, and what the hell sorcery is required to produce that is anyone’s guess. But the point is that Milan were no particular great shakes, and our lot have enough about them, certainly in attack and, seemingly now, in midfield, to click into gear, once the stars align. So not all doom and gloom.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 1-0 Man City: Six Tottenham Talking Points

1. Conte-Ball: Defending

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

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

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

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

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

2. Conte-Ball: Attacking

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

3. Emerson Royal

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Hojbjerg

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

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

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

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

5. Sonny

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

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

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

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

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

6. Kane

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

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

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

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Spurs match reports

Preton N.E. 0-3 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. Son

“That’ll do,” would presumably be the anthem at Casa Son this weekend, after that rousing exhibition. Those in the broadcast studios seemed pretty eager to advertise this as something far greater. Itching to herald the return of Peak Sonny, it seemed to me. Which one understands I suppose, for nothing attracts the masses like some overbeefed headline, but the reality struck me as being a tad more mundane – to wit, this was good, wholesome stuff but still some way from the Sonny of recent years.

Not to denigrate the young lemon’s goals, for they were amongst the finest of their vintage. ‘Aplomb’ doesn’t really do either justice, as both were despatched with a whole glut of plombs.

The warning signs had been there. In the first half on a couple of occasions he had adopted that pose of old, squeezing the ball from his feet, giving himself a yard or two and whipping the thing for all he was worth. The Preston goalkeeper had made a bit of a drama of blocking them off, seeming to dance all around them even when they were being rammed straight down his gullet. His closest chums had no doubt feared for him in anticipation of a moment when such shots were directed to more eastern or western extremes.

And in the second half it came to pass. Sonny married dead-eyed, bottom-corner accuracy to that whippy technique, and at that point one would have forgiven the Preston GK bod for stuffing his possessions into a bag, slinging it over his shoulder and clocking off for the evening.

Son’s first was absolutely top-notch stuff by just about any metric you care to think of. The poor old Preston defender who trotted out to challenge him would probably have thought that from about 25 yards the chances of significant damage ranked somewhere between ‘Moderate’ and ‘Low’, but this did not take into account the fact that Son was about to unleash a shot for the ages.

It was one of those that starts its journey gaily swinging well outside the line of the post, and then injects one heck of a plot twist, veering back into focus and inside the framework. For added panache it even ended up in the bottom corner, the footballing equivalent of shooting someone a look of quiet superiority. I can’t quite remember whether the Preston goalkeeper bothered to throw in a dive, but if he did it would have been strictly for ornamental purposes only.

The second goal was less about artistic merit and more a tale of clinical goalscoring. A scribe who simply wants to communicate the essentials and get on with their evening might sum it up as “Left-foot, close range”, which I suppose would get full marks for veracity, but would rather short-change the public. It may have all happened in the blink of an eye, but there was actually a decent amount of spadework to be done from the moment Perisic flicked the ball into Son’s path. A touch to control, a pirouette to shift the old balance from hither to thither, another touch to set the thing just so – all this was crammed into a single frame, and before you knew it Sonny was leathering the thing. By this point one rather felt for that hapless Preston goalkeeper as he dabbed a mournful glove at the ball whizzing past him.

So in terms of goals scored and the manner in which the aforementioned was undertaken, this was pretty sparkling stuff. Focus only on the goals, and you could – as did the BBC mob – make quite the song and dance about how all of Son’s woes were now behind him and he was now once again the master of all he surveyed.

However, not to put too great a dampener on things but while his finishing boots clicked smoothly into gear in that second half, various of the other crucial elements seemed not quite to have landed. The fleet-footed dribbles through crowded areas did not quite strike oil. Those gallops of his from deep and into wide open spaces rather spluttered and came to a halt. In short, this seemed not so much the Son of old as a pretty impressive attempted clone, which on the surface had it nailed, but on closer inspection still required that a few glitches be ironed out.

Nevertheless, a couple of goals against lower-league fluff were the sort of thing any capable doctor might have ordered. Bash out something similar in a week against Man City and we really can give the hands a gleeful rub and start referring back to his output of seasons past.

2. Sessegnon

And perhaps the gentle nature of the opponents fed the thinking of Our Glorious Leader in opting for Sessegnon on the left, as an opportunity for the young fellow to cast aside his cares and make a goodish bit of hay.

Alas, with each passing game Sessegnon strikes me increasingly as one of those eggs for whom no amount of assistance will make much of a dent. One can only bang on about potential for so long, what? At some point the fellow will have to puff out his chest and start playing like a wing-back of near-enough Champions League standard. As with Sonny, one would have thought that lower-league fluff would provide a decent platform.

Instead, I noted fairly early on in proceedings a rather gloomy correlation between Sessegnon arriving Stage Left to deliver his lines, and our move, whatever it happened to be, immediately breaking down. If he tried to take on his man, he failed. If he tried to deliver a cross, he failed. I didn’t witness it, so cannot be sure, but have a feeling that if he had tried to write his own name or recite the alphabet, he would have pretty quickly come a cropper, and trudged off with that usual, melancholy expression that is becoming so familiar.

If this is to be his lot in life – I mean filling in on the left in the occasional low-stakes jaunt – then I suppose we can all muddle through. Make polite noises and avoid any awkward conversations about where the hell we would be should the Perisic engine ever splutter to a halt. But if Sessegnon is ever to develop and progress into a first-choice ripsnorter of Rose-esque quality then he really needs to get a wriggle on.

The occasional 8-out-of-10 would be a solid start, and really, by this stage he ought to be stringing together several of those consecutively. Instead, Sessegnon seems rarely to elevate himself above a 6, and more typically, as last night, he registers a performance so ordinary that it feels kinder not to rate him but to gloss over his presence altogether, and bang on a bit about Son and Danjuma and whatnot instead. With that Destiny fellow apparently crossing t’s and dotting i’s out on loan in Italy, it might be that the remaining few months of the season represent Sessegnon’s last stand in lilywhite.

3. Subs

With the game near enough won, Conte did what any right-thinking bean would do, and swapped around the pieces on the board. In fact, Conte had already licked his lips and exercised his creative juices, with the selection of Perisic as the central attacker, but the second goal brought a slew of changes that frankly had me struggling to keep up.

Of course, Danjuma was the most fascinating sight, the entirety of AANP’s knowledge of the chap prior to his arrival deriving from one of those computer games one ought to know better than to dip into.

He seemed to make a solid stab at things, what? Full of beans, and no qualms about waving a few angry limbs at whomever was in earshot and calling a spade a spade. His very first involvement was pretty breezy stuff – giving and going, that sort of jolly rot, and very nearly finding himself clean through.

He didn’t have to wait too long for his moment of glory either, and while even his closest family members would struggle to build an argument suggesting that his strike was an aesthetic masterpiece, his goal was nevertheless a triumph for such virtues as arriving in the designated spot at the designated time, and generally sharpening one’s elbows and showing a willingness to pop into the area and have a sniff.

Less glamorously, and a fair few yards further south, I thought this was the best little cameo from young O. Skipp Esq. to which we have been treated all season. Having looked quite the appropriate fit whenever he featured last season, this time around things have been more stop than start and more miss than hit. A lack of game-time has obviously not helped, but last night he popped up with all the usual willing, and then, impressively, proceeded to get just about everything right every time he touched the ball.

One doesn’t read too much into these things of course, as there can be few gentler introductions in life than coming on when two goals up against a lower-league side, but nevertheless, having witnessed Bentancur shimmy about the place for an hour looking comfortably better than all around him, it was heartening to see young Skipp similarly do all that one would hope of the competent, modern midfielder.

And finally, as ever, young Gil came on and tore around like an over-excited puppy. A few neat passes, some quick feet and a handy contribution to the third goal represented a decent ten minutes’ work from the likeable young sprout. Despite a few eye-catching recent performances it appears that Gil remains a few notches down the pecking order, with rumblings of a loan move echoing about the place. Such is life, I suppose, but I do rather enjoy seeing these glimpses, and would welcome more.

All things considered, this was a pretty satisfying evening’s work. A second successive clean sheet, a rest for Kane and goals for Sonny, a debut goal for Danjuma and some decent substitute contributions make for as serene a Cup away day as one can imagine. I don’t mind admitting that I put in a worried gulp or two when I saw we’d been drawn away to a Championship side, but even during the slightly stodgy first half there was never a point at which we looked in danger of fouling the thing up.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Man City 4-2 Spurs: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Bentancur

A slightly different hobnob from the norm, this one. Same old outcome, of course, but whereas these things – Spurs matches, I mean – tend to start a certain way (with us going two down), and then adopt a very specific trajectory (of waiting until approximately minute 60 before sparking into life and actually looking pretty impressive on the front-foot), this one, in the interests of variety, flipped all that on its head.

In this instance we didn’t start terribly, which was curious enough. And then for the rest of the first half, we occupied a space somewhere in between ‘Managing Okay’ and ‘Clinging On A Bit’, while crucially avoiding the concession of goals before half-time.

Most curiously of all, we found ourselves two up rather than two down, come the mid-innings break. Hardly merited, but one learns to take the smooth with the rough.

And fairly critical, if easily overlooked, in both goals, was the contribution of Master Bentancur, a bean I would have welcomed back with the most warm and vigorous of handshakes if circumstances had allowed.

As ever, it is easy for the eye to be drawn towards the goals, and other critical moments, when passing judgement on the contributions of the assembled, and as stated, Bentancur rather subtly wormed his way into affairs for both of ours.

But beyond this, and while matters pootled along at nil-nil, he occasionally hove into view like some friendly spectre, to remind us how much better he is than the rest of our midfielders. Shimmies and turns to escape a pack of baying City players, that sort of thing. An ability to receive the ball under a decent spadeful or two of pressure, and still keep his head and get wriggling.

There were a couple of ill-timed lunges too, which were a little less impressive admittedly, but given his ability in possession I was happy enough to churn out that guff about ‘Rough’ and ‘Smooth’ again, and pine for a world in which Bentancur has a bit more support around him.

As mentioned, he played a role in both goals. Firstly, in haring up to the City laddie who received the ball inside his own penalty area.

I must confess to a little shiver of fear, on second viewing, that VAR might stick in its nose and submit Bentancur’s challenge to forensic detail, being concerned that the proportions of man and ball he contacted were weighed towards the former. But apparently it was tickety-boo. So, smooth with rough once more. Bentancur’s eager press had done enough to force the City fellow to wash his hands of all responsibility, and rather oddly gift the ball straight to Kulusevski.   

A minute later, a clearance of some description dropped from the heavens, and Bentancur casually plucked it from the sky with his foot, much like a wicketkeeper might do with a pair of oversized gloves.

That in itself elicited an approving noise to emanate from the AANP voice-box – the sort of sound one would make if one said “Oh, I say!” but without actually using words. Ignoring the odd looks I received from those around me, I remained glued to the screen, to see Bentancur pop the ball off towards Kane. The pass, admittedly, was not quite as pristine as one had hoped, but Kane did enough, as did Kulusevski out on the right, and in a couple of shakes of a lamb’s tail the ball was in and Emerson Royal of all people was taking the acclaim.

The Brazilian’s might have been the name on the scoresheet, but the AANP heart swelled with admiration for the real hero, he of the earlier input, Rodrigo Bentancur.

2. Emerson Royal

While the selection of Bentancur was greeted with unfettered joy around these parts, I would be wilfully deceiving my public if I suggested Emerson’s appearance prompted a similar reaction. Still, there he was and there we were, so might as well hope for the best and get down to it, what? 

And he did a decent enough job, in truth. Should an uninitiated visitor ever pitch up and request the lowdown on the chap I fancy I would outline 3 key features, viz:

  1. He genuinely thinks he’s brilliant 
  2. He adopts good positions
  3. His outputs tends to be dreadful

And he more or less stuck to the script yesterday. The incredible self-belief remained in situ and undimmed (and good for him – I’m by no means a fan, but don’t subscribe to this business of booing the blighter).

Defensively he was adequate, which may sound like faint praise but frankly was a few notches up from Dier, Davies and one or two others. 

And in the other direction his eyes rather lit up whenever the attacking gong sounded. One of the few joys of Conte-ball is seeing one wing-back arrive on the end of a cross from the other, and if you don’t mind me butchering this definition a bit, his presence at the far post from a Ben Davies cross in the first half very nearly freed Kane for an unmarked pop.

At one point in the second half I had to rub my eyes and look down at the contents of my tumbler in some wonder because it seemed for all money that as we attacked Emerson was sprinting straight through the middle in the centre-forward role (referring us all neatly back to point number 1, above).

And then of course there was his moment of glory, the curious egg briefly morphing into Lineker to poach a dashed difficult header for our second.

No doubt about it, the goal was masterfully taken, but that aside Emerson’s outputs were as Emerson’s outputs generally are. As ever it was clear that any joy to be had on the right would not have as its genesis one of his crosses.

Still, no calamity befell, and his goal was a triumph both of endeavour and skill, so I’m happy to file this away as one of his better days.

3. Perisic

Any regular suckler of the AANP sauce will know the drill by now – plenty of pointless fluff, a finger jabbed with meaning into the ribs of one of the usual suspects and a spot of gooey fawning over the crosses that emanate from either sacred clog of Ivan Perisic. But really, if your team is as lacking in creativity as our lot, who wouldn’t stand and purr at the sight of I.P. hoisting the thing as if on a string, into the single most devastating spot in the opposition area game after game?

I fancy I’ve heard that he has 8 assists to his name in lilywhite this season, which a) sounds about right, and b) even if not right is believable enough. Either way it hammers home point – namely that the chap is a dashed useful sort to have patrolling the left, either to deliver his own customised outputs or to pop up for the provision of helpful input when crosses are delivered from the other side.

All of which renders even more startling the stat – for which I’ve admittedly used a healthy swig of dramatic licence and made an educated guess – that the blighter has yet to score for us. It feels like he has come pretty dashed close to so doing, at various points this season, having regularly arrived as the auxiliary forward for countless attacks, to deliver the coup de grâce, only to be foiled at the last, in cartoon style, by countless unforeseen interruptions. 

A perfect example materialised yesterday as a City bod who wasn’t even looking managed to deflect Perisic’s shot onto the post, a routine he would not have pulled off if he had been attempting it for weeks.

The flip-side to the rich attacking harvest offered by Perisic is that he treats defending as if a completely different sport, and one entirely foreign to him. Blame could be shared around pretty liberally for the various goals that rained down upon us from various angles last night, but Perisic was woefully at fault during at least three.

In one instance Mahrez waggled a foot or two and that was enough to prompt Perisic’s resignation from the task at hand, he pausing only to dangle an insincere leg as the chap sped past him.

For another, he tracked Mahrez as the ball was lofted aerially towards him, but seemed to consider this sufficient, the concept of challenging the chap, or shoving him off balance, or in any other way inconveniencing his attempt to head the ball seemingly well off the Perisic radar.

And then for another, Perisic almost comically over-committed himself to a 50-50 just outside our own area, seemingly motivated by the prospect a full-pitch counter-attack rather than focusing on the more pressing concern of stopping City from pummelling us once more.

So one of Mother Nature’s select defenders he is not. But not for the first time the whole sorry debacle takes my mind back to the Croatia team of the World Cup, a mob that set up in 4-3-3, with 3 preeminent passers absolutely controlling business in midfield (Modric, Brozovic and Kovacic); Perisic left of a front-three, with not too much defensive onus; and only lacking a decent centre-forward to make hay. Should I ever be gifted a 30-second audience with Our Glorious Leader, that is the tale I would tell him.

4. Lenglet

A substitution to which Signor Conte seems peculiarly wedded when we are, inevitably, chasing a game in the latter stages, is Lenglet for Davies, or vice versa. An odd one, if you ask me. Maybe something about fresh legs or whatnot.

Anyway, it happened yesterday, like clockwork, achieving nothing in an attacking sense, as always. What caught the eye, however, was that even though he barely had time to work up a sweat, Lenglet still managed to distinguish himself as amongst the very worst of our comfortably bad coterie of defenders.

At one point he tried a casual 5-yard pass inside his own area, pretty inaccurately, towards a chum whose coordinates had been identified for attack by a City sort. And then in the dying embers of the thing, he failed to deal with that most challenging of situations for any footballer – the football.

There it was, spherical as they come, lobbing towards him without anyone in the way of it, courtesy of an uncultured heft from Ederson. Now one would imagine that any human who had demonstrated basic motor skills while still being bounced on their mother’s knee would have the capacity get their body in the way of a ball, and kick, head or otherwise interact with it in order to send it off in the opposite direction.

So what the hell possessed Lenglet to let the thing apologetically skid off his frame and into the path of Mahrez right behind him is anyone’s guess.

I suppose if there was one redeeming feature of this absurdity it is that the game was already lost. But honestly, it’s just not cricket, what?

5. Lloris


Of course, while on the subject of ghastly errors that are scarcely credible amongst professional footballers, poor old Lloris popped up again.

Rather a shame, because his first half had some impressive qualities to it. He dealt – just about – with a few crosses of the high and swirly variety, whilst being jostled by various genetically-engineered City goal-beasts, and also made one particularly natty save, changing direction just so to avert a shot that caught a pretty angular deflection. Things appeared to be looking up for the fellow.

Alas, there then followed the second half, and his run of good form and fortune ended rather abruptly. For City’s first he came flying out horizontally to give the ball a reassuring pat, but inevitably miscalculated and landed within a heap of limbs – some his own – and facing his own net, which seemed an impressive feat. Anyway, he having missed the ball completely and by some distance, the upshot was that it pinged around a bit before someone or other poked it in – there no longer being a goalkeeper present to prevent this – and Lloris’ day had taken its usual turn for the worse.

And then to seal the deal, he was beaten on his near post for the third. A deflection was present, ‘tis true; but this does not alter the fact that he had left a significant gap through which any shot, deflected or otherwise, might squirm.

Lloris’ sorry fortunes might be deemed emblematic of our current woes. Or they might not. Either way, while it does at least keep Woolwich reined in a bit, it was another pretty shoddy collapse, and from a position of unexpected superiority too, dash it. Ah well. On we bobble!

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 0-2 Aston Villa: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Not The Worst Opening Hour

Family commitments being what they are, AANP spent yesterday afternoon watching Disney princesses until the eyes bubbled, and as attempts to shield the self from the final score for 24 hours inevitably came a cropper, I found myself in that curious situation of settling down today to watch in its entirety a game the outcome of which I already knew.

Admittedly I was already pretty used to challenging viewing, following the marathon of wicked stepmothers and whatnot, but I naturally braced myself. The gist of the communication received overnight had been that, while not necessarily our lowest ebb, this performance was making itself quite at home amongst the great heapfuls of decidedly low ebbs we’ve had to experience in recent times.

But oddly enough, as the game unfolded I though our lot did reasonably well, albeit without being particularly good.

I probably ought to take this opportunity to duck out of the way of any rotten fruit being hurled my way by whomever is reading, for I suspect this is not a popular opinion. The masses, one fears, will not approve. Nevertheless, having expected the usual business of settling in for minimal possession until two down, or forlornly shuttling the ball along the back-three from east to west, and then west to east, each of the principals dwelling on their opportunity as if trying to get through a chapter of War and Peace before playing a pass, I was taken aback to note a degree of urgency throughout.

While there was a definite blank in the column marked ‘Creativity’, there seemed to be a consensus amongst our lot that if we were going to explore dead-ends we might as well do it snappily. (As an aside, I attribute much of this to the absence of Eric Dier, a chappie who, when in possession, does not consider his day’s work worthwhile unless he has wasted about half an hour rolling the ball from one foot to the other while contemplating his next move.)

In the absence of Dier, and in a general spirit of hurriedness, our lot managed at least to roll the ball from A to B within two touches each time. This struck me as a few notches up from rock-bottom, so I welcomed it happily enough. Moreover, but for some pretty iffy refereeing calls in the opening ten minutes, we might have been through on goal a couple of times. Before half-time Perisic found himself clean through, leading to the Kane header that was cleared off the line, and we started the second half looking far likelier to score.

Obviously things fell apart pretty spectacularly thereafter, and in an odd reversal of recent history, on finding ourselves two down with 30 to go our lot gave the shoulders a collective slump and dialled their efforts right down – but here at AANP Towers we viewed the first hour or so, if not exactly with uncontained enthusiasm, then at least with a degree of optimism. The urgency of that first hour was a welcome sight.

2. Bissouma

The flip-side of this, apart from conceding two more goals that made eyes bleed and soul weaken, was that for all our urgency there was no attacking spark.

The absence of Bentancur from central midfield does not help matters in this regard, but I suggest that the problems run a little deeper. Talented soul though he is, Bentancur alone is not the solution to our lack of midfield spark.

We seem to lack a fellow of ingenuity and whizzy ideas, slap bang in the centre of the stage (or perhaps ten yards advanced of that spot). And this seems to come back to the formation, the use of three central defenders meaning that we are restricted to two in central midfield – and while Hojbjerg and Bentancur have been amongst our starrier sorts this campaign, neither really are the creative masterminds whose reputations have been built on creating and scoring goals through an array of shoulder-dips and defence-splitting passes.

There has been a fair amount of chatter in recent weeks about the similarities between England and Spurs – I found it instructive to note how the national team nailed its colours to the Back-Four mast, thereby adding a sprinkle of creativity to midfield, and as a result died fighting, as it were, rather than waving a white flag in meek surrender.

Back to our lot, and in the absence of Bentancur, young Master Bissouma had another crack at the big-time. Alas, as with most of his previous appearances, nothing quite seemed to work for the chap. Not being one of those creative mastermind types alluded to above, his raison d’être could reasonably be concluded to be more along the lines of a defensive sort – collecting scraps, making tackles and intercepting Villa moves at their genesis.

And while he occasionally did each of the above, he just as often seemed to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Villa attacks bypassed him; he picked up a booking essentially for being out of position and tripping a fellow from behind; and in possession he again seemed oddly uneasy with the physics of a sphere, seeming a little too easily confused by its propensity to roll, and bounce, and whatnot.

His nadir came with the second Villa goal, when for the second consecutive game the notion of tracking his man into the penalty area appeared a long way down his To-Do list, leaving the bounder in question with more space in our box than was reasonable to afford. One would understand – not accept, but understand – if a born-and-bred centre-forward made such an error, but here is a chap whose job title essentially reads “Defensive Midfielder”. To neglect the first rule of defensive midfielding, twice in consecutive games makes ones eyes bulge a bit, what? And it’s not as if he has a whole sackful of attacking party tricks into which he can dip to atone, at the opposite end of the pitch.

The fellow needs to get himself up to speed, and pronto. Frankly, if he is not going to carry out his defensive duties as if his life depends on them, I’d sooner he were politely shoved from his spot and someone more creative used in his stead (admittedly a practical problem or two emerges here, given that we have no-one matching that description in our ranks, but you see my point).

As it happened, I thought that the young lad Sarr looked a bit more familiar with things in the defensive midfield vicinity during his ten-minute cameo than Bissouma did during his eighty minutes, but the pecking order seems well established.

3. Lloris

If a few stern words can be bellowed in the direction of Bissouma, decency forbids elaborating upon the suitable punishments for Lloris after his latest hare-brained input.

Cast your minds back to the World Cup and the Lloris on display looked every inch the seasoned professional, carrying out his duties correctly and with minimal fuss, neat-and-tidying his way to the Final. Of the various clangers magicked out of thin air in our colours every few weeks there was no sign. It would be a stretch to describe him as ‘The Best on Duty’, but a reliable sort of egg he most certainly was.

What the hell happens to him once he pops up for our lot is therefore anyone’s guess, but this rot he springs from nowhere is simply too much. Fully paid-up members of the Lloris Fan Club may warble about the ball moving, or the ball bouncing, or the ball turning a somersault en route, but that guff won’t wash at AANP Towers. The chap’s job is first and foremost to catch the dashed thing, and if he can’t master that particular basic then I’m at a bit of a loss to understand what purpose he serves.

These mistakes are far too frequent. Moreover, while one of the johnnies of yesteryear once came up with a decent gag, that to err is human, the gist being that just about every player will make the occasional mistake, the goalkeeper is well aware of his lot in life. There’s little in the way of safety nets or bail-outs in that position. Either get it right or be off, is pretty much the AANP message to the goalkeeping fraternity, and Monsieur Lloris has now created quite the catalogue of foul-ups for our lot.

4. Gil (and Perisic)

If absence makes the heart grow fonder it pretty much bursts through the ribcage and howls for Dejan Kulusevski at present. Still, no use complaining, what? The absence of D.K., plus a couple of the other preferred options, meant that young Senor Conte had to dip his hand into the box marked ‘Last Resort’, and pulled out a Bryan Gil.

I suppose the one-line summary is that we found out nothing that we did not know before. He was full of willing, itching throughout to unleash a trick or six and, containing practically zero in the way of muscle about his frame, was always liable to come out second-best in any man-on-man combat.

I thought the young nib made a decent stab of things. If points were awarded for body language he’d have needed a decent-sized bag to carry off his prizes, because he seemed to burst with enthusiasm for the task at hand. There were a few good link-ups with Matt Doherty (who I thought also fared well enough, certainly incurring less rage in his decision-making than the other fellow) and a few moments when he dipped a shoulder or two to create space for a cross. Alas, Gil continues to look like a boy in a man’s world. A delightful and earnest boy, the sort who would take great pleasure in doing his mother’s bidding – but a boy nevertheless. Still, I was glad to see him get a game, combine with Doherty and buy into the general mentality of urgency.

And on the other flank, I thought this was one of Perisic’s better days, at least when on the front-foot. The ‘Back’ part of the wing-back role is, as touched upon before, not one to which Perisic attaches too much concern, but going forward he is a pretty nifty so-and-so. His ability to choose from right or left clog when it comes to swinging in crosses is a bit of a blessing, even if his only targets tend to be Kane and Doherty, and as often as not he was our most advanced forward.

However, for all the silver linings and first half urgency and whatnot, this was another dreadful defeat. A couple of opportunities await to right these wrongs, before a few rather alarming fixtures come flying at us later in the month.