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Spurs match reports

Norwich 2-2 Spurs: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Outfought in the First Half

Life being what it is, we rumbled into this game bereft of various midfield luminaries, so with one thing and another Jose settled on a line-up so forward-thinking I greeted it with all the excitement of a bulldog being presented with a slab of meat.

With Eriksen and Lo Celso adopting the posts normally occupied by more dour and workmanlike sorts, and the usual glitzy array of swingers and shakers in attack, one could not swing a cat without hitting some sort of attack-minded chump, and hands were gleefully rubbed in anticipation.

And although typically porous at the rear, proceedings began promisingly enough. Through a combination of our glut of forward-thinkers and Norwich’s own unique brand of defensive hospitality, we had ourselves enough presentable chances in the opening thrusts to suggest that we would rack up a handful.

Oh that life around these parts were so simple, what?

Naturally, our heroes took it upon themselves to steer well clear of any such method that would have carved out a fairly straightforward route to victory, and instead imploded with impressive promptness, gifting Norwich their opening goal.

This was frustrating enough – albeit far from surprising – but what really irked was the communal decision taken thereafter to wilt away from combat and allow Norwich to outfight us for the next forty-odd minutes. Our line-up boasted as much talent as one could waggle a stick at, yet none of them seemed interested in fighting for superiority. But for the most VAR-esque of VAR decisions we might well have been two down, and few words of complaint about such a situation would have passed muster.

2. Ndombele in Possession

Jose tweaked and tinkered at half-time, as much, one suspects, to shake our heroes out of their collective torpor as to facilitate any critical tactical alteration, and it worked to a degree, at least in so far as it arrested the slide.

An odd second half followed, in which we sporadically dominated Norwich without really hitting top gear. However, from start to finish, one man who, in possession at least, was faultless to an absolutely mesmerising level, was Ndombele.

It was the occasion of his 23rd birthday, so my spies inform me, and on this showing the chap has evidently been putting those two and a bit decades to excellent use, because he seemed to wander around the place with the ball positively glued to his person. The Ghost of Mousa Dembele Past was flouncing about the place like nobody’s business, as Ndombele made the very most of his meaty frame to ensure that all-comers simply bounced off him and possession remained unsullied.

As well as upper body strength in spades, Ndombele also rolled out what one suspects will quickly become a signature shoulder-drop-and-body-swerve routine, straight from the Mousa Dembele box of tricks, and having realised he had stumbled upon a good thing the first time, he did not stop flashing it at every opportunity thereafter.

The whole thing had the light of love in AANP’s eyes, make no mistake, and I honestly cannot recall a single occasion on which Ndombele actually lost possession. He simply wriggle and shimmied his way clear of opponents every time he touched the ball.

Alas, this sterling work was all conducted in a strip of earth around the centre circle, rarely more than about ten yards inside the Norwich half. So for all the aesthetic quality – and he had it by the bucketload – ultimately Ndombele’s labours amounted to precious little in terms of runs scored, if you get my drift.

He was not helped by teammates who seemed to have little appetite for using the ball to any productive ends once he had given it to them, but in general it seemed a dashed shame that having fairly effortlessly glided his way into space, Ndombele did not keep gliding until he found himself in or approaching the final third.

3. Eriksen – Man of the Match, According to the TV Bods

I had the pleasure of observing yesterday’s events through the medium of telly-box, and hearing it narrated by a couple of rather odd fish, who got it into their pickled little brains at around the mid-point that the star performer amidst the mediocrity and mistakes was one C. Eriksen Esquire.

And once they had landed upon this narrative, these commentators were not about to relinquish it. The fact that Ndombele was untouchable in his little central campsite was completely ignored. Eriksen – who, in the interests of fairness, did weight one glorious pass into the inside right channel – was identified as the star performer, and this was sufficient, irrespective of what he actually did.

The eagle-eyed amongst you might pause at this point, re-read the above paragraphs, and wonder to yourself if this particular scribe were not overly impressed by Eriksen’s contribution – and you would not be far wrong. The chap was not awful, but neither was he particularly outstanding. As with Lo Celso and various others who drifted through the midfield lanes, he hovered over the ball, hummed and hawed, and then tended to shove it elsewhere in fairly inoffensive fashion.

There were spells in the second half when collectively we produced some slick stuff, but it would be a stretch to say that Eriksen was front and centre of such purple patches. And while his free-kick hit the top corner, it did so via a deflection, and punctuated a string of corners that as often as not rolled apologetically to the first defender to clear.

Still, he – and presumably his agent – would have been as thrilled as the rest of us that his free-kick did ultimately find its way to goal. Something by which to remember the chap. Shame it did not quite change the momentum of the game as originally threatened.

4. Foyth Does What Foyth Does

However, any discussion of the merits of otherwise of Eriksen, Ndombele and whomever else rather flies into the background at a rate of knots when the catastrophic defensive mistakes are hauled into view and subjected to inspection.

As is traditional, Foyth was a central figure in the calamity. We enlightened types are all for the next generation coming through, and learning from mistakes and so and so forth – but the narrative comes crashing down when the young beans in question keep making the same dashed mistake every time.

It seems that having done the basics (which itself is not necessarily guaranteed, but I’ll buzz over that for now) Foyth takes the reasonable step of advancing with the ball, at which point the voices in his head take over and trouble kicks in. These voices seem to whisper that he is on a good thing, that bringing out the ball will put hair on his chest, that he is possessed of the technique and vision that can alter a game – and while these voices are in full swing and have his complete attention, some bounder from the shadows steals in to dispossess the chap, and all hell breaks loose.

If we’ve seen it happen once we’ve seen it happen every time Foyth takes to the pitch. The collective decision by those around him to back off the Norwich chap hardly remedied the situation, nor did Gazzaniga cover himself in glory by flapping a limp hand at the ball – but the problem had its genesis at Foyth, as happens so frequently.

5. Aurier Chips In His Contribution to the Calamitous

And while on the subject of eye-wateringly catastrophic defensives lapses, it would be remiss not to parade Serge Aurier, a chap whose name may well translate into English as “Defensive Calamity”.

Oddly enough, in this specific instance I have a degree of sympathy for the young fool, as I often do in matters of The Own Goal. My take on these is generally that, unless lamped into one’s own net flush on the volley, these things tend to be pretty unavoidable acts of physics, in which the ball whizzes towards a defender at such a rate of knots that he barely has time to register the turn of events, let alone recalibrate the mechanics and remove himself from the situation.

Moreover, the chap whose misfortune it is to deflect the ball in is quite often the only poor sap who has bothered to haul his frame back into a relevant defensive position. As such, I give him credit for being in the right place, and sympathy for being there at the wrong time. (And yes, there is a reason why my sympathy for purveyors of own goals is quite so strong.)

However, while potentially exonerating the chap in this specific instance, the well of sympathy is not endless, and the sooner we can elbow him off the scene the better.

The Jose Tactics Board seems to dictate that in any given situation, Aurier is our spare attacking outlet, and while this generally minimises the damage he can do towards his own goal, it creates a rather charmed life for a man whose wing-back play is good but hardly magnificent.

But more to the point he is a defensive liability and every soul around, be they friend or foe, knows it. Opponents target him; we lilywhites hold our breath whenever his defensive services are required; and one suspects his own teammates rather hope he will not be called into action.

The sale of Kieran Trippier looks more absurd with each passing game – as absence will make the heart grow fonder – and given the travails of Juan Foyth, and the fact that he is resident right-back for his national team, one wonders whether he might be given a stab at the gig. The notion of Serge Aurier being a fixture on the teamsheet is, after all, a pretty damning indictment on the calamitous state of our defence.

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Spurs match reports

Leicester 2-1 Spurs: Six Tottenham Talking Points

1. Decent Showing From Lamela

I would be deceiving my public were I to describe the first hour or so as a barrel of laughs, but while we led there was at least a certain gaiety in the N17 air, suggestive of good times that, if not exactly rolling, were limbering up for a prime-time slot.

Where in midweek we began sluggishly and showed little inclination to pep up at any point, here we began with fire in belly, snap in challenge and sharpness in passing. And much of this came from the frame of one E. Lamela Esq.

In common with just about every other attacking sort we have gathered over the years, Lamela only really looks the part when given a run of at least half a dozen consecutive starts, and at times today he began to tick, in that attacking midfield role.

He picked up threatening positions, weighted some delicious threaded passes and corrected a particularly grating flaw that he seems to have demonstrated ever since emerging from the womb, namely that of hanging on to the ball far too long. Not a bit of here – if a pass were on he dashed well effected it, and the whole machinery whirred away more smoothly as a result.

It was fitting that his pass (weighted, again, to perfection) helped set in motion our goal, albeit in these days of assists and stats his contribution will likely be overlooked.

In general, for the first half certainly, he did most of the things one would hope a talented attacking midfield string-puller would do – and I don’t mind admitting that I wondered if Messrs Eriksen and Alli were taking notes at just how central to things Lamela was making himself.

2. Another Busy One From Winks

If Lamela were busy rattling off most of the creative lines, as ever the harder graft was being done by Winks just a little further south.

Regular drinkers at the AANP well will be aware that I consider him a slightly wasted figure against teams who settle in for 90 minutes of defending; but a Leicester side with attacking intent were the perfect platform for him to peddle his wares both as indefatigable Scurrier-in-Chief, nipping hither and yon in search of ankles at which to snap, as well as an intelligent distributor of possession, finding space and occasionally spraying the ball wide if the planets seemed to align suitably.

His attitude, in common with Lamela’s, helped ensure that while it was hardly one-way traffic, our lot did at least approach the whole affair with an aggression that has often been absent from out play.

3. Sissoko (Including That Tackle)

Monsieur Sissoko has not yet been quite the revelation this season that he was last, and he seemed to attract some mixed reviews from the galleries on Saturday, but I generally thought that he caught the gist of things from Winks and Lamela, and seemed to enjoy the rough-and-tumble nature of events.

This was not flawless stuff, mind – at 0-1 Sissoko’s sloppy concession of possession allowed Vardy in for a near miss (the one that Gazza saved and Rose cleared), and although it came to naught it was precisely the sort of sloppy nonsense of which we have been far too guilty in recent weeks, in allowing leads to slip.

All told, however, I was pretty happy to keep my subscription to the Sissoko Fan Club rolling in while he was on the pitch.

In particular, the full-blooded challenge that earned him a yellow card in the first half was met with a roar of hearty approval from AANP Towers. That he ended up sliding in with both feet was a cause for concern, until I realised that he did so because he lost his footing. The challenge itself was fabulous, and fairly obviously won the ball. Sending an opponent flying into the air as part of the follow-through seemed a pretty pleasant offshoot of the whole thing. (One imagines Danny Rose looked on with approval.)

Naturally the authorities took a dim view of this, seemingly because the crowd instructed as much (they strangely refrained from baying for red when Jonny Evans did the same to Kane twenty minutes later), but I would much rather see our lot go flying in full-blooded than ducking out of the way of such things.

4. Aurier and The Ongoing Right-Back Problem

Whichever egg it was who first piped up with the notion that absence makes the heart grow fonder was a smart old sort, no doubt about it, because there ought really to be a petition to have it become an interim motto for the club.

Despite his repeated howlers over the course of 2018/19, the sale of Kieran Trippier has turned him into something of a yearned-for ex-girlfriend amongst right-backs, being a chap who can – gasp – deliver a cross amongst other things. Then in midweek, as Sanchez laboured to fairly impotent effect in Greece, the AANP heart yowled longingly for Aurier.

And now after this latest performance, I’m rather inclined to shove Aurier aside and enquire as to the health of Juan Foyth (I’m not at the KWP stage just yet).

Aurier, as a chum pointed out, did a good job positionally, and was full of willing. By at least carting himself up the pitch and into crossing positions level with the Leicester area, he made the formation work, in an attacking sense, and Davinson Sanchez was no doubt taking copious notes.

Alas, his crossing missed many more times than it hit. Dashed unlikely to have his goal ruled out, mind, but by and large the end-product did not really match the expectation.

Moreover, he seemed to wander off into the wrong postcode for the Leicester winner, which was pretty inexcusable stuff for a right-back. If he is a work in progress it will need one heck of a project management team.

5. The VAR Disallowed Goal (Ours, Not Theirs)

A minor note on this, primarily because it is so galling, dash it all.

No complaints with the decision itself, if you get my drift – offside by a hair’s breadth is still offside – but to be honest I struggle to understand how it was decided that he was indeed a hair’s breadth the wrong side of the law.

Skynet appears to have selected part of Son’s armpit and Evan’s right knee as their body parts of choice, which I suppose in one sense is fair enough – after all, why not? – but in another sense does make one scratch the chin and murmur “Rummy stuff, what?”

(The “clear and obvious error” part of VAR appears to have been made pretty unwelcome in this particular saloon – but that I can understand, for as mentioned, offside is offside, whether by millimetres or miles.)

So to be clear – while confused about which body parts are selected and why, this is more of a rant of self-pity about being denied a goal by a sliver, rather than a complaint against VAR or the decision reached.

6. Another Lead Squandered

Of far more concern is the fact that our heroes have done it again.

For all our attacking threat – and this was an improvement of sorts on recent weeks, for we did create decent chances in different ways – we always looked vulnerable defensively. One can analyse the individual errors from this or previous games that have led to goals, but the general patterns of play in these games in which we’ve led and conceded twice will not necessarily highlight any single, recurring tactical error.

I noted an article earlier this week (about Christian Eriksen specifically, but the point seems applicable to our mob more widely) which noted a lack of a “slightly sociopathic” desire not to lose, not to make the same mistakes and so on and so forth. While it is perhaps not the sort of comment I would drop in certain company around the dining table, this certainly resonated as a general team trait.

Which is not to doubt that our heroes want to win, but the penny does not ever seem to drop that in order to do so that they have to bust every inch of gut, and be ruthlessly critical of their own standards. Misplaced passes, poor control and wandering out of position are all mistakes that seem to be made too readily, and with an accompanying air that it’s disappointing but life will go on.

There is enough talent floating around the squad, but for as long as I can recall we’ve lacked that “slightly sociopathic” ruthlessness – and it is little surprise that we keep squandering leads.

AANP’s book is available online – with another in the offing – and you can follow an occasional toot on Twitter

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 3-1 Villa: Six Tottenham Talking Points

1. Old Habits

As the minutes worryingly ticked by yesterday, the phrase that sprung to mind was the old French gag, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”, which as I understand essentially translates as “It may be a new season, new stadium and we even have new signings dash it, but this nonsense on the pitch is the same as before, what?”

For this was a script that had been rolled out seven or eight times last season, no doubt about it. Oodles of possession, lack of final-third spark, a well-drilled defensive unit from the opposition and concession of a goal faintly ridiculous in its simplicity – all returned like old friends, picking up where they’d left off.

Mercifully, another trait that can be added to the list is the fact that our heroes have developed quite the knack for turning around a deficit pretty late in the day. Whereas once to be trailing as the clock ticked to 80 or so meant a pretty prolonged agony followed by a grumpy mooch home, now players and fans alike exchange knowing nods as if to say “This is comeback territory.”

So not quite the serene start one might have envisaged, but glass-half-full sorts might point out that we’ll be all the better for having navigated the odd bump in the road, and the important thing was probably not to have fallen 3 points behind the usual suspects before the first weekend of the season is out.

2. My Best Mate Jan

Starting at the start, I don’t mind admitting there was a pretty dubious eyebrow raised when Our Glorious Leader’s latest crazy notion was revealed to be the omission from the squad altogether of AANP’s best mate, Jan Vertonghen.

The official party line, that it’s impossible to pick everyone at once, might, I suppose, have an inkling of truth to it – but the whole turn of events leaves one with a rather hollow feeling in the stomach. Given the way of things in recent years, the mind inevitably wanders back to those fallings-out of senior players with Poch, the likes of Toby and Danny Rose, who having had the temerity to blab disapprovingly of life at the Lane were shoved off to the naughty step for the best part of six months and left to think about what they’d done.

With the European transfer window still alive and kicking, and only one year left on Vertonghen’s contract, I don’t mind admitting that I fear the worst.

It’s all quite the surprise, mind. The chap’s own interviews had generally suggested he was as happy as a pig in its own muck, and the rumours emanating from the camp had indicated that he and Kane, along with Lloris, were members of a well-trusted core of senior bods. Who knows where this is going?

3. First Half Struggles – Winks, Lamela etc

As for the game itself, I was actually pretty pleased with the initial joustings. Lucas Moura set a good tone straight from kick-off by dispossessing some poor sap and blasting one goalwards, albeit immediately afterwards undoing the good work by missing a pretty straightforward header, but in general the early omens were promising enough. Passes were fairly slick and there was a good energy amongst the players.

Alas it quickly went squiffy. Traffic through the centre became pretty congested.
While Winks was neat and energetic and efficient, his passing tends to keep possession rather than rip the spine out of the opposition à la Modric or an on-song Eriksen. Winks scavenged, and darted, and did nothing wrong, but ultimately tended to feed the man six yards away, or at best feed the full-backs out wide.

Lamela did what Lamela does, and dwelt on the ball far too long before releasing it, generally giving the air of a man making a bit of a mess of a his big opportunity (albeit he redeemed himself at the death by winning back possession for our crucial second).

Danny Rose had a fair amount of joy on the left, causing some gratifying moments of alarm in the Villa box every time he curled in a cross, and although his attacking play was as effective as his defending was careless, he looked arguably our most threatening option. Not that there was much competition on that front.

4. Kyle Walker-Peter’s: Not One of Nature’s Crossers

Given the threat posed by Rose’s crossing from the left, I found quickly found myself yearning for a Trippier, or Aurier on the right, which I suppose is an indication of just how frustrating things were becoming.

For young Kyle Walker-Peters had plenty of possession out on the right in the first half, and did nothing particularly wrong – but given the number of times he received the thing, I could not help lamenting that it would not have killed the chap to swing in a cross or two.

Instead he dithered, and fretted, and scurried, and generally ended up trying to take on his man –to his credit, usually winning a corner – or laid the ball back to a handily-placed chum. Nothing wrong with that, as it retained possession, but countless opportunities were missed to swing in an early cross and let bedlam ensue. You can lay a sizeable wager on any of Walker, Trippier or Aurier having tried as much.

Various Spurs-supporting chums opined at half-time that KWP was arguably the pick of our mob; I firmly marked him down in the Debit rather than Credit column. Considering how much of our play went through him in the first 45, and the threat posed by Rose’s crossing on the other flank, I thought he was repeatedly missing a fairly obvious trick. In fact, by half-time I was dishing a strong selection of curses in his direction.

Whether by accident or design, the plug was pulled on KWP as an attacking force (I use the term loosely) in the second half. He sat deeper and focused on mopping up defensively – a job he did quite adequately, to his credit – and more senior sorts like Lucas and Sissoko took on the mantle of patrolling the right flank. I suppose this is what life after Trippier wil look like, so we had all better get used to it, but it seems a limitation to KWP’s game.

5. Early Ndombele Observations

An odd sort of start from our much-heralded newbie. In the first half one rather felt for the young bean, for there was a general frustration amongst those around him, as well as a solid couple of blocks of Villa players in front of him, and I got the impression that he was wondering if this were really such a smart career move.

He certainly tried his heart out – perhaps a little too hard at times – and at other times appeared a little off-pace and puffed of cheek. The second coming of Dembele he did not appear to be, for there were few signs of him picking up the ball and breezing past opponents.

Mercifully, his goal provided a pretty handy adrenaline shot. (Am I right in thinking that Dembele also scored on his home debut?) A well-taken strike it was too, for I can speak with some authority when I suggest that it is pretty easy when lining up those shots, with the ball rolling back towards you, to lean back and bloot them into orbit.

Thereafter, confidence coursed through his veins like nobody’s business, and a whole tranche of pretty unnecessary tricks and flicks were unleashed. The chap started to do his best Moussa Sissoko impression, surging forward with the ball, and the wonderful prospect of an unstoppable Ndombele-Sissoko double-act hove briefly into view.

6. Eriksen On Song

The Great Eriksen Debate has proved pretty divisive stuff, and there was no letting up yesterday.

No real doubt about it, the chap’s introduction made a difference yesterday. Where previously there had been a heck of a lot of scratching of heads and shrugging of shoulders and passing of buck, once Eriksen had toddled on everyone basically just gave him the ball and left him to it.

And his outputs were pretty impressive. He picked a handful of clever passes, cunningly threading them in between defenders and into space for chums to run onto, rather than simply to feet, which had proved largely beyond his teammates for the preceding hour.

It was in general a pretty good advert for the young fish’s wares, and goodness knows his agent must have rubbed his hands in glee.

As one of those who has often chided the man, I’m happy to hold up my hands and applaud him for his efforts yesterday. And if he shows that same eagerness to demand the ball and look to create opportunities on a weekly basis I’ll probably plant myself far more firmly in the Pro Eriksen camp.

However, if you pardon my tuppence worth, I remain a tad wary, as I feel like I have seen plenty of games like yesterday’s in which we have needed inspiration but Eriksen has sat back and let proceedings pass him by. Yesterday, for the 15 or minutes in which he played, everything went through him, and this should be the case more regularly, rather than having 89 quiet minutes and one moment of magic. I would prefer we keep him than sell him, but would like to see yesterday’s performance become his norm. Admittedly I would also like us to win the league and revert back to blue socks, but such things occasionally need to be said.

AANP’s book Spurs’ Cult Heroes is available on Amazon. There’s a follow-up in the offing too, as it happens.

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Randomonium Spurs news, rants

5 Thoughts on the Trippier Transfer

The headline news from the last week or two is that Kieran Trippier has biffed off, to Madrid of all places.

1. A Tad Leftfield, What?

If you were casually to have remarked over the early-morning exchanges that this move was by-the-numbers, utterly normal and thoroughly in keeping with the general way of things, I suspect I would have waggled a particularly suspicious eyebrow and suggest you lay off the sauce for a while.

Trippier to Atletico Madrid was about as fantastical a plot-swerve as they come. It reminds me of those card games played by my nieces, in which cards are picked at random with the result that a clown’s body is matched with a lion’s head and a ballerina’s feet.

2. The Rationale

That said, it makes a lot of sense for the young bean himself. Twelve months ago his stock could not have soared any higher if it had been packaged up in a rocket and sent to the stars, for he was one of the stand-out performers in the World Cup, topping it all off with that fabulous semi-final free-kick.

However, Trippier as a wing-back with the safety net of three central defensive chums bringing up the rear is one thing; Trippier as a right-back within a back-four, as we rather painfully discovered, is a slightly different kettle of fish, and to say that there were grumblings of discontent amongst the masses at his performances in season 18/19 is rather to understate matters.

Put frankly, the chap’s defensive work left a heck of a lot to be desired, with all manner of high-profile and costly defensive aberrations littering the highlights reel.

So from his point of view, the opportunity to pack his wash-bag and apply some fresh sheen to his reputation elsewhere made some sense, particularly abroad, where they presumably still hang more to the free-kick against Croatia than the attempted nutmeg in his own area against Wolves.

3. Trippier’s Comments

On hearing that Trippier had dropped a few racy comments about his former paymasters, in one of his very first interviews in Spanish colours, I positively raced to the newswires to experience for myself what I presumed was some violent attack emanating from his mouth.

However, anyone expecting him to denounce Pochettino as a fraud, claim that squad morale was at an all-time low and disturb Toby’s immaculate hair for good measure was left pretty disappointed. The chap said that there were a few problems behind the scenes, which is the sort of mildly disgruntled fare one would expect of anyone has ever asked or been asked to leave a job.

Some lilywhite fans appear to be frothing at the mouth and perfecting their Trippier effigies at this, but at AANP Towers the news, in common with most of Trippier’s contributions over the last 12 months, has been granted with a shrug.

Still, one wishes him well and so on and so forth.

4. Not Levy’s Finest Moment

The transfer fee does strike something of a nerve though. In these ludicrous times, in which the lad on the Powerleague pitch next to me is probably worth £2m, and Harry Maguire is supposedly fetching north of £80m, a fee of around £20-25m for Trippier strikes me as one of Daniel Levy’s more slipshod pieces of financial brinksmanship.

5. Next Cabs On The Right-Back Rank

Moreover, our right-back is dead so long live our right-back, and in this spirit I give the chin a pensive stroke as I weigh up the ins and outs of our policy in this area for next season.

While Aurier showed some signs of improvement, he has put some solid legwork into establishing his status as one heck of a liability since joining, and juries across the land will require some mightily conclusive evidence to be convinced of the lad’s reliability.

The back-up option of Kyle Walker-Peters bounds around with all of the joys of spring, but his effervescence has done little to paper over the cracks in his defending. The post-it note slapped across his sturdy frame is once again scrawled with the words “One for the future”, but opportunity will presumably present itself more regularly this season.

Another alternative is Juan Foyth, whose love for a forward gambol works in his favour, and who has featured there for Argentina in the Copa America no less, but who nevertheless is something of a square-peg for the role, and is hardly the most accomplished at centre-back himself.

Our Glorious Leader appears to think that there are enough options within the squad (and one or two rather mischievous chums have even suggested that Sissoko might emerge as the front-runner), so I await further developments with interest.

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Spurs preview

CL Final Preview: 5 Things Tottenham Must Do To Win

1. Kane at His Sharpest

Not to point too fine a point on it, but Kane’s contribution to proceedings will be constitute pretty critical stuff.

Casting minds all the way back to the start of the season, and in that post-World Cup fug much of the chatter revolved around the fact that the chap looked every inch a man in desperate need of a good lie-down. His touch was heavy, his movement was laboured. He protested otherwise, and the goals generally continued to flow, but for whatever reason we certainly were not witnessing Peak Kane.

In the here and now, Kane is once again insisting that he is in fine fettle, and I’m inclined to believe that the ankle is now fully healed. The concern remains however, that his match sharpness – by which I mean that aforementioned touch and movement – is several marks off the ideal.

While we have stumbled our way through previous rounds using patched-together teams, and often sans Kane, this match of matches really requires our star player to be at the peak of his powers.

The question of whether he should start or come off the bench continues to linger (the AANP tuppence-worth is to start with him), but starting also presents a problem, because sharp or not, he presumably will struggle to last 90 minutes, and were he to start and the game to drag into extra-time, one suspects he will toddle off for a warm coat and isotonic snifter at some point.

Kane at his best, however, would be a massive asset to our heroes, and cause Liverpool all sorts of problems, from all sorts of angles. Fingers firmly crossed.

2. Sense Over Sentiment in Team Selection

Following his Amsterdam heroics, young Lucas is quite rightly being lauded everywhere he goes, and one would hope the chap will never have to buy his own drink ever again.

However, many are calling for his inclusion in the starting line-up for the Final, on the basis of an argument that can essentially be distilled down to “It would be harsh not to”. Such discourse is greeted with a narrowing of the eyes at AANP Towers, and a sniff that could be considered haughty. This is a Champions League Final, not a mid-summer testimonial or a Sunday afternoon 1950s romance on Channel 4.

There should be no room for sentiment in this one, we absolutely need to pick the team that will win on the day – and if that means shunting Lucas into the attack then so be it, but I fall pretty firmly into the camp that thinks that Kane and Son ought to be the front pairing.

The alternative suggestion is cramming all three of Kane, Son and Lucas into attack – which would presumably mean a midfield of Dele, Sissoko and Eriksen. This, I fancy, would be madness of the highest degree. Away to Man City, and at home to Ajax, Eriksen and Dele confirmed what was already universally known, that they pretty much offer cosmetic value only when doing off-the-ball defensive work. Not their faults of course, as nature created them to attack. Set up with that 4-3-3 and I fear Liverpool will be over the hills and out of sight before we know what has hit us.

Sense, rather than sentiment, would appear to dictate that we use a midfield 4, with one of Winks, Dier or Wanyama in amongst the rest, tasked with rolling up sleeves and mucking in.

3. A Plan to Nullify Their Full-Backs

We have played Liverpool twice this season, receiving something of a spanking at home, albeit by only one goal, which rather flattered us, and losing by one own goal away from home, which rather flattered them.

Prominent in both encounters, particularly during those chunks during which Liverpool were in the ascendancy, were the red full-backs. When we played at Wembley, our own full-backs were in full kamikaze mode, and charged up the pitch, leaving Robertson and TAA plenty of room to set up camp and make merry. At Anfield, our lot went to the other extreme, and began in an ultra-conservative back five.

The solution, one imagines, lies somewhere in between. A back-four, perhaps, with both Rose and Trippier afforded a degree of protection from those in front? The second half at Anfield might prove a useful template, as we edged on top on that occasion, and were dashed unlucky to lose.

Whatever the solution, this is one of the notable problems over which Our Glorious Leader and his Brains Trust will need to chew and ruminate, preferably long into the night and within clouds of cigar smoke.

4. No Ludicrous Mistakes

Conceding a goal is always galling, but when it comes about because the other lot whir into hyperspace and slice us open with a thousand cuts – as in the style of Ajax in the first leg, for example – at least there are few regrets or recriminations. One might point a half-hearted finger at the left-back who may have moved a step to the side in the build-up, but essentially it is blameless stuff, and all involved are best off simply stiffening the upper lip and contemplating the riposte.

What is utterly infuriating is conceding a goal out of nowhere and under no pressure, as a complete gift to the opposition. Disturbingly, our heroes have made something of a habit of this over the course of the season, and it goes without saying that such nonsense makes the job in hand massively more taxing.

Trippier’s own goal; Lloris’ palm against Liverpool; Foyth’s own-area dallying; Trippier’s own-area attempted nutmegs; Lloris’ rushes of blood to the head and rushes of feet from his goal – the list is worryingly long. To say nothing of free headers at set-pieces.

Playing Liverpool will be hard enough, and the drill ought to be to force them to work dashed hard for every chance. On this of all occasions we need to cut out the utterly absurd, unforced errors.

5. No More Comebacks

No doubt about it, our heroes have turned the sensational comeback into something of an art-form during this Champions League campaign.

After the three-games-one-point ‘Arry Redknapp tribute at the start of the group phase, we went into the final 10 minutes of each of our fourth, fifth and sixth games needing at least one goal to avoid elimination – and duly delivered each time. Against City we again needed a late-ish goal (and an even later VAR call), and then there was the madness of Amsterdam. On top of which, we seem to have imprinted into the gameplan the slightly curious tactic of conceding within the opening 5 minutes.

All thrilling stuff and so on and so forth, but this insanity really must end, for the good of all concerned. The constitution simply cannot take it, for a start – and heaven knows what the nerves will be like during a Champions League Final – but more pertinently we just cannot repeatedly rely upon comebacks. A two-goal half-time deficit will not always be overturned, and I certainly wouldn’t fancy our chances of doing so against this lot.

Wouldn’t it be nice, just for once, to canter into a lead, and then hold onto it?

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Ajax 2-3 Spurs: Six Tottenham Talking Points

Real life rather rudely interrupted the celebrations at AANP Towers last week, but since we’re all still floating around atop a cumulonimbus there seems no harm in peddling a few belated observations from our gloriest of glory glory nights…

1. The Complete Absence of Hope

Had we cantered to victory in serene and most un-Tottenham fashion it would undoubtedly have been a thrill, but presumably not one that will live in the memory quite like this magnificent absurdity.

After about 5 minutes of the first leg I was already groaning the groan of a man on death row who hears fresh coins being popped into the electricity meter; by half-time in the second leg I had already whizzed through all seven stages of grief and was starting to wonder about England’s batting line-up for the Ashes.

Even after Moura’s first two goals I simply refused to countenance the possibility of anything other than glorious failure, which in hindsight says quite a lot about how damaging the last three decades of lilywhite faith have been.

But to score the goal that sends us into the Champions League Final, just as the clock in the top left corner ticked over literally to the final second of the allocated extra 5 minutes – well it’s little wonder that we’ve all rewound and watched that moment about a hundred times each. Frankly just writing about it makes me need another lie-down, and etches that massive grin across the chops once more.

2: Llorente: Flawed But Wonderful Hero

As if to encapsulate the glorious lunacy of the night, the man who made the difference was Fernando Llorente.

With reserves so depleted that we genuinely checked beforehand whether Vincent Janssen was eligible, Our Glorious Leader made the call of a man who realises that his entire life’s possessions have gone down the drain so he might as well go all in on his last hand because to hell with it. If Janssen were eligible I suspect he might have been flung on too, but as it happened the only resource left was Llorente, the striker with a penchant for missing from 2 yards. On he duly shuffled.

And it changed the entire pattern of the game. By simply attaching himself to Daly Blind and swaying gently in the Amsterdam air every time the ball was lofted into orbit, he did more to discombobulate Ajax than any amount of fancy footwork and attempted sorcery from the more illustrious colleagues around him.

With the sort of cruel irony that just about proves that the gods like nothing more than toying with the mortals below, this Ajax team who were so masterful and fizz-popping in possession that they made one dizzy just by watching, were utterly flummoxed by the most basic tactic in football. Time and again our heroes launched the ball to the big man, time and again he angled himself in suitably ungainly fashion to ensure that the ball apologetically bounced off him and into the general vicinity of Dele, Lucas and chums.

Naturally, being Fernando Llorente, he contrived to miss from two yards when the laws of physics seemed to dictate that it was impossible to do so; and naturally, being Fernando Llorente he spurned what appeared to be our final chance of the tie by heading over from a corner when unmarked in the dying embers. But nobody cares a jot, because Llorente’s value that night was priceless.

Seemingly created as a striker in concept alone, who adds value in theory, but abandoned by nature before any of the practical specifics of being a striker could be added, Llorente swung the game back our way before Lucas had even begun adjusting his sighter. All credit to him and Poch.

3: Dele’s Touch

Amidst the general bedlam, it was pretty easy to overlook the cutting-edge, shiny, 24-carat quality of Dele Alli’s soft dab of the ball into Lucas Moura’s path for the third.

The general mood around the campfire has been that Dele has owed a decent contribution for a while now. Not his fault, of course, that his season has been staccatoed by injuries, and there have been times when an outbreak of class has threatened. By and large, however, this has been another of those seasons in which one winces, and scratches the head, and generally starts digging for suitable excuses for the chap.

Last Wednesday however, the memo finally wound its way to the Alli grey matter, and he obligingly picked one heck of an occasion to make a handful of those flicks and flourishes finally count.

Observers first stirred at the sight of him making a Platt/Scholes-esque dash to the far post, early in the second half, only for his volleyed close-range mid-air shot to be patted away by the Ajax ‘keeper. The juices were however flowing, as, funnily enough, he seemed rather to enjoy life at the top of a diamond behind the front two.

I suspect that in setting up the first goal for Lucas he was trying to do it all himself, and might have thrown something of an arm-waving tizzy at his colleague for steaming onto the ball, had it not wound up in the net.

But it was the flick that set up the third goal that really had me purring. Well, I tell a gross untruth, because “purring” is not really the adjective to describe what madness ensued as the third rolled in – but the point is that it was an absolutely exquisite touch.

Simply to have the nerve to attempt a pass like that, at a time like that, with stakes like that, borders on the unfathomable. Watch the goal back for the 101st time and treat yourself to a goggle at the fact that he plays it the wrong side of the defender, and without even looking. How the dickens he knew that Lucas was curving his run into that area is beyond me, given that he was looking in the other direction completely, but that I suppose is why he earns the hefty envelope.

4: Danny Rose Starting The Comeback

A loving pat on the head also for Danny Rose – who no doubt would enjoy that sort of thing – for getting the ball rolling, in a matter of speaking. Three down on aggregate, his nutmeg on the Ajax chap, followed by cross-field pass to Lucas, set the whole comeback in motion.

Of course if one wants to trace the origins of the thing back even further one could start heaping credit upon Sonny for feeding Rose in the preceding moments, or Paul Stalteri for haring into the West Ham penalty area, because these things are all part of the sequence of contributory events don’t you know? It was, however, a slick little piece of skill.

5: Hugo’s Saves

Since I’m here and dishing out gold stars in slightly scattergun fashion, I might as well gobble down a frog’s leg and raise une verre to Monsieur Lloris, for a couple of critical saves that kept the thing simmering along nicely.

Stick the ball at his feet and one is inclined to dive behind the nearest sofa and cover the eyes, for fear of what fresh hell might unfold.

However, tell the chap to stick to the business of leaping hither and yon with arms outstretched, and he gets the gist in double-quick time. At 2-2 on the night, and with the clock ticking down in that ominous fashion so typical of the things, Lloris was called upon to do produce the cat-like stuff, and he did not fluff his lines.

6: Everyone’s Positioning At The Final Goal

I have to admit to raising a particularly quizzical eyebrow at the manner of Christian Eriksen’s immediate post-match interview, in which he gave the impression of struggling to stay awake for sheer boredom, even as the walls of AANP Towers were resounding to the clatter of yells and leaps and a general orgy uncontainable excitement. However, if Eriksen spoke one truth it was that tactics rather packed their bags and exited the premises sharpish in that second half.

The introductions of Llorente for Wanyama, and Lamela for Trippier, gave pretty broad hints that as attempts at conventional 4-5-1s and 4-4-2s were bringing little joy, the approach would swiftly alter to more of an Everyone-Pelt-Forward-At-Every-Opportunity-And-Let’s-See-How-It-Lands.

And so we ended up in that last minute with Sissoko starting the attack from a sweeper position (which made some sense because, as we now all recognise, the chap is actually a football genius); Eriksen and Ben Davies alongside him; Toby and Jan desperately edging into wing-back positions; Sonny as a deep-lying midfielder; and everybody else haring straight up the middle in attack. And all this about thirty seconds after Hugo had raced into the opposition penalty area.

It was glorious stuff, utterly in keeping with the all-action-no-plot madness of the game, and fully justifies the constant re-watches, because one never really tires of watching the careering reactions of absolutely everyone involved.

To say nothing of Lucas himself, who seemed only to touch the ball on the three occasions in which he planted it into the net with the dead-eyed precision of a sniper (plus, I suppose, the extraordinary dribble of an uncle toying with his nephews that set up his own second).

Quite why there is a three-week wait for the Final is anyone’s guess, but if it allows more time to revel in the absolute glory of Amsterdam, then it gets the AANP vote.

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Spurs match reports

Man City 4-3 Spurs: Five Tottenham Observations

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So for those who had the slightest doubt, that is why it’s called All Action, No Plot.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this was one of those madcap jamborees in which words just rather flit into the ether, and one is left gawping, a mere spectator, as utter madness unfolds. Five goals in the opening twenty – and even that did not compare with the quite gut-wrenching finale of unadulterated ridiculousness.

1. Nerves Shredded To Dust

It is not the first time this thought has occurred, but rarely have I been more struck by the notion that watching Spurs will be the death of me. I will simply keel over and be no longer for this mortal coil, the trusty blood-pumper simply not up to the rigours of watching our eleven heroes in lilywhite toying with the nerves.

To order things chronologically, there was simply no time to get one’s head around the unfolding madness in those opening ten minutes or so. They scored, and we scored, and we scored, and they scored, and – well, one gets the gist. Every time we tried to take a deep breath and get our heads around the permutations, another goal flew in and all that had gone before was as naught. It really was most discombobulating.

In the midst of those opening thrusts, Sissoko injured himself in a manner that was so innocuous it could only possibly have been pretty dashed serious, and in one of those decisions that was entirely in keeping with the utterly sanity-free nature of proceedings, Our Glorious Leader replaced him with Senor Llorente. And Sissoko was booked for being substituted. Really.

2. Llorente: Zero, Hero and All Things In Between

Might as well dwell further on Llorente and his impact on things. Both match-winner and cause of our near-downfall, the honest fellow’s introduction pretty much sucked the life out of all we had as an attacking force, at around the 40-minute mark.

Admittedly we were hardly bossing proceedings until then, but for all City’s razor-sharp potency in the first half we did at least possess a heck of a threat until that point. With Lucas and Sonny looking shifty, and bringing about two early goals, there was plenty about which the City back-line might ponder.

Llorente did his best, as ever, but rather than the desired effect of holding up the ball and allowing others to zip up in support, he lumbered this way and that, a good few yards behind the City back-line. His introduction inadvertently castrated our counter-attacking prowess.

And yet.

Cometh what seemed like our only foray into the City third, in that relentless second half, cometh the hip – and quite possibly the elbow, or wrist, or some other stray upper limb – of Llorente. For a chap whose forte is supposedly his heading, it was a pretty atrocious effort, his head nowhere near the ball – and it was also the most gorgeous finish I think I’ve ever witnessed. The AANP tuppence worth on the VAR call: not a clear and obvious error. So there.

3. Full-Back Struggles

Easy to criticise, and I’m not sure the fires of hell itself are as unforgiving as the rampaging forward thrusts of the quite majestic Sterling and De Bruyne – but Rose and, in particular, Trippier, were so adrift in those opening twenty minutes that the whole thing seemed to be in contravention to the rules.

Trippier is a mighty fine attacking threat against just about any team in the world, but he supposedly is a defender by trade, and his approach to containing Sterling was so weak as to be laughable, comprising, as it did, the grand plan of showing the chap onto his stronger foot. For goodness’ sake.

Rather harsh to zoom in on the full-backs when our entire team was being cut to ribbons fairly incessantly in the second half, but I did not think either full-back covered themselves in glory in their individual battles out wide. Oddly enough, when matters became a mite more last-ditch and backs-to-the-wall, and all a matter of blocking and hacking clear, they both looked a bit more dependable.

Worth emphasising also that Messrs Lloris, Alderweireld and my mate Vertonghen used every inch of their nous and defensive skill during that second half battering. Bravo, chaps. Lloris in particular, so often lambasted in these parts for his moments of startling wobbliness, delivered some top-notch palm extensions.

4. The Famous Soft Tottenham Underbelly

Easy also to overlook quite what a remarkable effort this was. In the context of not spending a penny on players for two transfer windows – against a team that flings around monopoly money – and to take the field without our main striker, one had only to look at our substitute options to get the sense that we would need something verging on the other-worldly to pull this off.

The departure of Sissoko in the first half simply made the dashed difficult unfeasibly testing. A glance towards the respective benches highlighted the fact that we are woefully undercooked for such top-level squad jousting.

No faulting the effort of those involved, but Wanyama looked every inch a player who has barely played in the last two seasons; Llorente looked every inch a man in his mid-thirties looking rather bewildered at the vastly trendier youths whizzing about him; and the options on the bench, of Walker-Peters, Davies, Skipp et al did not inspire lashings of confidence.

They deserve every ounce of praise therefore, for staying within touching distance throughout, forcing their noses ahead seemingly through sheer force of will, and then clinging on for dear life.

5. That Finale

I don’t mind admitting to my public that I felt physically sick throughout, and reached what one might term a lowest ebb when Sterling bundled in what appeared to be the winner in the dying moments of added time.

I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced the lowest conceivable low being instantly interrupted by the highest possible high, but it really ought to come with a health warning. For a game that I’d cheerily dismissed beforehand as a free hit, one that did not really matter in the grand scheme of things, and of vastly lesser importance than the domestic stuff on Saturday, this certainly drained the engine.

Utterly incredibly, we are through to the semi-finals of the Champions League – this after being within a few minutes of elimination seemingly throughout the group stages. And without any signings. And without our star striker. And so on and so forth.

Utterly bonkers, and utterly compelling all action, no plot stuff. Time for a stiff drink.

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Liverpool 2-1 Spurs: Five Tottenham Observations

For goodness’ sake, dash it all. Is there a more galling way to lose than through a last-minute own-goal, when you’ve actually done enough to win the thing?

Despite every element of it being perfectly above board and within the rules, this somehow feels like a gross injustice – not least because we should have been a couple of goals ahead by the time the clock rumbled over to 90.

1. Much Improved Performance. So That’s Nice.

It’s now one point from fifteen, which officially qualifies as Dreadful Form, but at contrast to the four preceding games, this one at least came with a performance that, for the second half at least, was pretty impressive fare.

Once the necessary tweaks had been made to the tactical levers and pulleys, our heroes rattled along with something approaching rhythm, pinging neat first-time passes and shimmying around in sprightly manner off the ball, which always makes for a winning combo. At one-nil down we took the game to Liverpool and gave them a thing or two over which to chew; and at one-one we looked particularly nifty on the counter, and really ought to have sewn the thing up with a few deliveries to spare.

2. Tactics, Tactics

Pre-game, much of the nattering at AANP Towers had been doleful recollections of how in previous games against the Top Six this season – including Liverpool at home – our wing-backs have flown off as far up the pitch as physics allows, leaving enough greenery behind them to set up a small farm and live off the land, and opponents have duly taken advantage like nobody’s business.

Consequently I barely dared to look at the set-up from the opening toot yesterday, for fear of what fresh hell might unfold. As it happened however, our lot went to the other extreme, with Rose and Trippier erring so far on the side of caution that at times the defence resembled a string of five centre-backs. With Sissoko’s ball-carrying neutered by the instruction to sit in front of the back-three and protect, matters were pretty decidedly awry, and Liverpool’s attacking full-backs had a whale of a time.

Credit to Our Glorious Leader then, from his lofty perch, for adjusting first to a 5-4-1 out of possession, and then to a 4-4-2. The Liverpool wide threat was largely neutered, and our lot began to impose themselves.

Our equaliser was thoroughly merited, and had any one of Eriksen, Dele or the wild shooting boots of dear old Sissoko converted the second half chances that came their way, I suspect most right-minded observers would have deemed matters perfectly reasonable, and given the green light. Which makes the wretched finale all the more galling, but such are the vicissitudes of life, dash it all.

3. Lucas: A Handy Contribution

By and large, Lucas Moura has underwhelmed a tad when introduced from the bench this season. Way back in August he was awarded one of those awfully modern Player of the Month awards, on the back of a match-winning dazzle at Old Trafford and a fistful of other handy contributions while those around him shook off the jet-lag from their World Cup adventures.

Since then, the starting nod alongside Kane has tended to be for Sonny, or occasionally Lamela, and Lucas has been shoved on as something as an afterthought for the dying embers.

At Anfield however, with Sonny having racked up enough midweek air-miles to travel to the moon, Lucas was in from the start, and immediately looked like he had a thing or two to tell the locals, and didn’t care how it would be received. It would be stretching things to say he ran the Liverpool back-line ragged, but he certainly carried bundles of whizz and pop every time he touched the ball, and he merited his goal.

4. Errors At The Back

Here in this corner of the interweb we have never been averse to a spot of pedantry, so while it might seem churlish to shine a great glaring light upon the marginal defensive errors that cost us the game, someone has to kick up a stink about these things.

Exhibit A was Kieran Trippier’s delicately-executed hokey-cokey in the first half, as he went in, and out, and in, and out again, when faced with Robertson and ball. The net effect was that the opponent was thoroughly untroubled, and obliged by swinging in a peach of a cross that was nodded in for Liverpool’s opener.

Worth noting that Exhibit A during the game happened to be something like Exhibit J or K or so, in Trippier’s own personal Case For The Prosecution This Season, because his performances since the World Cup have been littered with defensive errors. (He does deliver a wicked cross when up the other end of the pitch though.)

A pedant might point to Danny Rose’s half-moment of ball-watching at the death as Exhibit B, as this allowed Mo Salah to deliver his fateful header.

Exhibit C, however, was Monsieur Lloris’ nonsense of a non-save. It seems to be quite the fashion amongst the young folk who bear the mitts and stand between the posts these days to push and punch and do everything but catch the blasted ball. It’s an absolute blight upon society, and Lloris deserves a good thrashing for such wispy nonsense.

On top of which, his errant clearance actually sat neatly at the root cause of the opening goal we conceded. The time to look at other goalkeeping options has arrived.

5. Danny Rose Popping Up Everywhere

Danny Rose, once he had been sucked out of the ultra-defensive mode that saw him glued to the back-three in the early stages, did what Danny Rose does, and took it upon himself to forage forward with that familiar, angry air of one who is being continually wronged. It makes for splendid viewing.

Rose was then indulged in his preference for a full-time placement further up the field, as we emerged in the second half in a shiny 4-4-2, of which he played left midfield. This naturally played to his strengths, and reminds us also that we should be grateful for the flexibility of my personal chum Jan Vertonghen.

Not that Rose’s dalliance in midfield lasted too long, as he ended up back at left-back once Sonny arrived, but I do quite enjoy seeing him being unleashed in midfield, even if he does start to think he’s Pele and take on all-comers.

And as a valedictory point, the highlight of AANP’s day was arguably the gorgeous cross-field ball from Kane to pick out Trippier in the build-up to the equaliser. Quibblers have duly insisted that the ball was rolling – whether it should have stood or not, it was a ping of the highest quality. Allied to his hold-up play when dropping deep, and his robotic scoring ability, the man’s talents are mind-boggling.

One would hope our heroes take the spirit of the second half here, as well as any perceived injustice about the ultimate nature of the demise, and unleash it in the spanking new bowl on Wednesday.

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Chelsea 2-0 Spurs: Four Tottenham Observations

If not quite a full-blown disaster, this ongoing implosion has all the core ingredients, in pretty much the right measures and with all requisite utensils.

The casual scattering of six points in half a week has left brows furrowing like nobody’s business, and should we lose to that ‘orrible lot on Saturday – which on present form, is a pretty conceivable scenario – the gap will have narrowed from the chasmic 10 points of what seemed like yesterday, to a thoroughly slippable 1 point.

1. Too Dashed Slow

Rather disappointingly, our heroes simply picked up where they had left off against Burnley. There was a general air of men treading through quicksand throughout, on top of which several feted luminaries seemed to have the dickens of an issue bringing the ball under control. Numerous seemingly perky counter-attacking opportunities were beheaded in their infancy when one of Sonny, Lamela or whomever stumbled upon the ball and let it slip away.

Having weathered any early storm, matters were pretty even at half-time, but the pattern changed after Chelsea’s opener. Thereafter they seemed fairly content to sit back, squeeze everyone into neat defensive formation and, truth be told, light cigars.

For rather than cause them any discernible difficulties, our lot – earnestly but thoroughly ineffectively – took to dwelling on the ball. Every man in possession swivelled this way, and then that, and then hit upon the brain wave of going back the first way again on the off-chance that it might miraculously have opened up invitingly in the preceding 1.5 seconds; meanwhile Chelsea simply cleared the cigar smoke and waited.

The game was crying out for some lilywhite urgency, some swift, one-touch hopping around this way and that. A few neat first-time passes, a triangle here and one-two there might have been sufficient to prise Chelsea from their fort. But alas, it was four-touch stuff as a minimum, all the way.

As a principal but by no means sole culprit, I noted, with pretty aghast eyes, that young Winks made the highest number of passes, with a 97% accuracy rate – but how many of those did the slightest dashed jot of good? Wouldn’t it have been preferable for him to try something a tad more incisive, say attempting 6 or 7 killer balls, on the off-chance that 1 or 2 would strike oil? Heaven forbid, it might have disturbed his pass accuracy stats…

2. Eriksen Decidedly Off The Boil

The game was screaming out for Christian Eriksen to have the whiff of battle in his nostrils, and start pulling strings from midfield like there were no tomorrow.

But alack, the chap simply mooched around with the air of one who would rather be sitting on a small fishing boat in the middle of a calm lake, straw hat on head and toothpick in mouth. He looked, in short, like a man who had taken a look around and thought, “Stuff this, I’m off to Madrid.”

Where we needed some sort of conduit between the southern axis of Sissoko and Winks and the more northerly mechanics of Eriksen-Son-Lamela, the Dane kept his head down and did his best to blend into the background.

3. Lamela Not Fit For Purpose

Earlier this season Lamela hit something of a purple pitch, running at defenders with something that could officially be registered as “menace” and popping up to nab goals with pleasing frequency.

Quite what his injuries have been nobody seems quite sure – the official party line is the rather generic suggestion of “Hip Problem”, although the rumours that have reached AANP Towers make the mind boggle – but since his latest return, for all his purposeful scuttling, he has achieved precious little whenever in possession.

In common with every one of his chums he was wont to dwell on the ball, and with Chelsea intent on pressurising through the medium of The Swarm, he lacked the requisite nimbleness of foot to produce anything remotely productive.

On the bright side, with the referee calling an amnesty on all fouls for 90 minutes he did at least avoid his customary Yellow Card For Mistimed Lunge, but when that is the extent of one’s victory, one jolly well has to slink back and re-read the job description, what?

4. Oh, Trippier!

As one pretty well versed in the art of the Own Goal, on the back of around a thousand of the dashed things in my well-meaning but uncommunicative 5-a-side moonlighting, I am reluctant to do little more than dismiss last night’s circus act with a well-chosen curse and some choice gesticulations.

One might quibble that as schoolchildren, as well as being taught to play the recorder and recite that verbs are doing words, a pretty core element of education is that if you pass back to the goalkeeper, do so wide of the posts, just on the off-chance that should he go haring off in the wrong direction no more lasting damage will be done.

Oh that the infant Trippier had paid more attention in class. Instead, faced with the onrushing Lloris, a man who at any given point in his life looks thoroughly clueless as to what course of action he ought to take, Trippier forgot his ABC, and the consequent toe-poke killed off our chances. Such moments are all part of life’s rich tapestry, I suppose.

Not that the blame lies entirely at his door – I apportion blame in fairly equal ratios between the two protagonists – but it all makes for the most bizarre year in the life of young Master Trippier, whose football career not only seemed to peak with that free-kick in the World Cup Semi-Final, but has now seemed to plumb to its lowest depth and, finding it quite fun, set up camp and stay there. Generally loose play in the right-back area all season has been topped off first by a woeful penalty miss, and now by the most comical of own goals. One fears that in order to complete the set, a red card will be his before the season is out.

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Spurs 2-1 Watford:

1. The Many Twists and Turns of the Llorente Soap Opera

If Fernando Llorente had been hoping for one of those quiet, drama-free nights that flits swiftly from the memory, he was in for quite the shock.

When the incorrigible old bean contrived to knee the ball over the bar from practically underneath it, the hills were alive with the sound of groans, curses and around thirty thousand palms simultaneously slapping foreheads.

For his own part Llorente did the honourable thing and duly adopted the pose of a man doing his level best to be swallowed up by the earth. More broadly, the omens were not particularly cheery, our heroes still being one goal in debit. The thought began to crystallise that if we were going to escape from this particular hole the odds appeared heavily stacked in favour of us doing so despite rather than because of the gangly fellow.

And yet, fast forward fifteen minutes or so and the chap was galloping off to the touchline in celebration, face contorted and fist clenched. He may have cut a pretty calamitous figure for much of his Tottenham career, but loft the ball towards his upper regions and Llorente will tend to find a way to plant a header into the net.

The curiosity in amongst all of this is that the ten lilywhites around him, while presumably having met him at some point, nevertheless seem utterly oblivious to the fact that Lorente is not, never has been and never will be Harry Kane, and just continue to play as if he is. They ignore his limitations – namely his stunning lack of mobility – and indeed his strengths – all that aerial muck – and instead whizz around the pitch as normal, and tell him to keep up if he can. Which he can’t.

The net sum of all this is that for much of the binge we play almost as if a man short. When a cross finally was lobbed onto his head, the blighter scored. Makes one think a bit, what?

2. Poch’s Changes

Going back to the beginning, it was another one of those dirge-like first half knocks, which suggests that some of the wiring is not quite right at HQ. Bar young Sonny, whose effervescence from the off was rather eye-catching, there was a distinct lack of movement and general urgency in that first half.

Not for the first time in recent weeks, Our Glorious Leader therefore took a sip or two from the chalice of half-time tinkerings, and with Lucas Moura introduced, and Sissoko drawing the short straw of right wing-back, things pretty immediately assumed a much rosier hue.

In truth, Sissoko hardly looks at ease in any position on the pitch, so right wing-back was as reasonable a shout as any other, and the chap did all that was necessary, including delivering the perfectly serviceable cross that resulted in Llorente’s one-yard moment of horror.

Further credit to Poch for recognising that there was more to be gained from introducing a more bona fide crosser onto the right, and accordingly shoving Trippier into action; and even his gambit of Lamela-for-Vertonghen was surprisingly – and pleasingly – proactive, for a man who has spent several years carefully cultivating his image as one firmly welded to the laissez-faire principle of letting matters take their own course during play without dreaming of injecting any tactical interference.

The changes ultimately worked, but if one were to quibble – and let’s face it, the interweb exists for precious little other reason – one might politely opine that we would have been better off by beginning in such manner rather than falling behind and adjusting like the dickens.

3. Moura

For all the nuanced alterations, it was Moura’s introduction that really turned the thing on its head and blew all our skirts up.

Where Son had previously ploughed an effervescent but pretty lonely furrow, Moura’s direct running noticeably achieved the double-whammy of shoving fresh handfuls of problems at a Watford defence used to the markedly less mobile threat of Llorente, whilst simultaneously giving our lot a wealth of fresh options, either in the penalty area or attacking from rather deeper districts.

He might not have scored or directly created a goal, but there were certainly hints of the early-season Moura who merrily ran riot at Old Trafford, and with Messrs Kane and Alli still some distance away from being fully paid-up members of the parish, his was a welcome return.

4. Rose, The Useful Alternative Attacking Option

The ever-feisty Danny Rose also caught the eye, as he often does. In the second half in particular he seemed rather to enjoy the self-assigned task of trying to dribble past as many yellow shirts as he could spot, at one point beating a man and then re-tracing his steps purely for the purpose of finding the same man and beating him again.

All of which would have served little purpose, but he did at least have the courtesy to sail in a few crosses at the end of it all, or at least attempt to do so. More often than not they brought corners, but in the final throes it brought Llorente’s goal, and as such he did precisely that for which he was put on God’s green earth.

Aside from such direct involvement, it was also notable how often we resort to the diagonal switch of play, from the right or centre to the feet of Rose stationed wide left, when the well of creative ideas runs dry and all in lilywhite simply mooch around with gormless faces and shrugging shoulders. Where Walker-Peters is forced to cut back onto his right, and Davies’ attacking talents are somewhat limited, Rose time and again offers a viable alternative against the deep-lying defensive units.

5. Late Comebacks: Becoming A Habit, Would You Believe?

Mercifully our persistence paid off, and not for the first time. Time and again our heroes are finding ways to drag themselves back into games and produce late wins when the outlook has been decidedly gloomy but five or ten minutes earlier. It will not win us a trophy any time soon, nor can we be considered credible title challengers, but one does get the impression that another box is being ticked this season.

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