Check out the AANP YouTube and Twitter accounts for more ramblings
1. A Rummy Tactical Set-Up
So evidently inspired by the hilarity of leaving emotions strewn around the place in tatters at the end of the Champions League quarter-final, our heroes decided once again to leave matters late last night, to similarly side-slitting effect. Oh the japes!
I don’t mind baring my soul and admitting that by the time Eriksen did the honourable thing I was uncorking a bourbon and preparing the palate for a particularly stiff dram. Could not really fault the endeavour of our heroes, you understand, but some of the chosen routes to goal did slightly boggle the mind.
Right from kick-off, I looked to the left touchline, where Sonny lurked, and the right touchline, where Lucas hove similarly, and gave the chin one of the season’s more pensive strokes. Worth a whirl of course – and in defence of Our Glorious Leader, he was not exactly inundated with options.
However, the proof of the pudding appeared to be the countless dead ends into which Messrs Son and Lucas wandered, barely able to deep their toes into the Brighton area, let alone conjure the requisite magic to slice upon the visiting defence. All the while Senor Llorente rather forlornly slunk around in the penalty area, throwing occasional pleading glances towards team-mates in the hope of being allowed to join in.
It was not to be, which was fair enough; but the fact that this was evident so early on is what really got my goat, if you pardon the fruity language. It irked. The system did not really work, so why not change it? Perhaps switching to two upfront, with a midfield diamond and the full-backs pushing further up? Or tucking Sonny and Lucas in more narrowly, outnumbering the Brighton centre-backs?
Piffle, you might well opine, and with some justification; but the nub of the thing is that the selected approach generated precious little reward, so persisting with it throughout was most peculiar.
2. Pochettino’s In-Game Changes
On a related note, the reluctance of Pochettino to twiddle knobs during proceedings will likely be recorded by the record-keepers as one of the few blots on his escutcheon.
I perhaps do him a disservice, because at various points this season, more so than in previous years, he has indeed made an occasional half-time tweak to good effect. Last night, however, was an unwelcome return to his predilection for seemingly forgetting that it is within his gift to alter personnel or system on a whim.
Admittedly, as remarked, he was short of alternatives from which to choose, and one understood the reluctance to opt for the Vincent Janssen option, but changes such those he did finally make arrived only at or beyond the 80-minute mark – and as such bordered on the redundant. Brighton were making a darned good fist of repelling everything he hoicked their way from early on in proceedings, so there would have been some value in trying a different approach at an earlier juncture.
3. The Need For One-Touch Stuff
A further curiosity, from afar, was the inability of our heroes to play any one-touch stuff. One understands that they were generally afforded plenty of space when twenty or twenty-five yards from goal (or further), but they did themselves few favours by their constant tendency to dally on the ball.
It was all control, look around in every direction, take another touch and have a long think before passing. The concept of simply zipping one-twos between themselves seemed utterly alien. And I don’t mean the sort of incisive, dreamy one-twos just inside the area that see Man City and pomp Barcelona cut teams to ribbons; I mean simply a one-two between a couple of chums in nearish proximity anywhere on the pitch. Just whizzing the ball swiftly back and forth can give the opposition a bit of a jolt, and tempt them to follow ball rather than man.
4. Eriksen: Worming His Way Back Into AANP’s Affections
Mercifully, all can be forgiven and forgotten. As mentioned, there was perspiration by the bucketload, and neither Dele nor Toby could have got much closer with their respective efforts.
Ultimately it came down to Eriksen, whose radar had been gradually inching towards the sweet spot throughout the game.
Regular drinkers at the AANP watering hole will be aware that the chap has not been my firmest favourite in recent weeks. It would be a mite strong to say that we had fallen out, but a certain cooling in affections had certainly come to be. I, for my part, have begun to lose patience at his sloppy passing; he, for his part, has passed sloppily.
However, to his credit he has retained throughout proceedings the capacity to rustle up something magical from thin air, and he was at it again tonight, for the goal when it finally arrived was struck as sweetly as a cover drive on the opening morning of a first day at Lord’s.
In truth, as the game wore on and Brighton defended so stoutly that they seemed to become one with their penalty area, our lot increasingly turned to Eriksen to unpick the cuffs and get them out of the frightful mess. And he generally did his best to oblige, constantly probing for the killer pass, and indulging in a handful of reasonable long-distance efforts. In short, he shirked not his responsibilities. Perhaps a truce between he and I might be in order.
5. Angry Danny Rose Excels Again
Not that I want to lavish too much praise upon Eriksen, mind, for the star performer from my vantage point was Danny Rose.
Taking the field in a his usual angry mood, he kicked off proceedings by sending a Brighton player flying skyward with a slide tackle by the corner flag that served no purpose other than to show the world quite how angry he was; and he simply became angrier thereafter.
On top of which, he established himself, during the first half at least, as possibly our most creative outlet. Formally assigned the left-back role though he might have been, these days Danny Rose is pretty convinced that he is Paul Gascoigne, and he duly gambolled into central midfield whenever he could, because you could be dashed sure nobody else was going to dribble past an opponent.
The second half saw him stick a little more rigidly to the left flank (although he simply would not be caged, and at one point almost thumped one in from range with his right foot, which seemed to juggle the laws of physics a tad). As the game wore on, his star faded a mite – and Eriksen’s burned brighter – but nevertheless, he injects an energy and aggression into his every performance that sets a pleasing tone for those around him.
All things considered, this was another one of those peculiar episodes, with our lot beavering away relentlessly yet seeming to do so in quite a counter-productive way for much of it. However, the Top Four is pretty dashed close now, the new stadium remains a fortress and it is the credit of all concerned that they stagger on with resources so depleted.
AANP is now on YouTube and Twitter; and AANP’s book, Spurs’ Cult Heroes, is available on Amazon