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Spurs news, rants

Eriksen and Vorm: Tottenham Weekly Talking Points

With dust settling upon the Champions League anti-climax, and the Nations League awakened from its slumbers to perform one more tired routine for us like some maltreated circus animal, there is an overwhelming sense that the 2018/19 football season – or at least its Y chromosome incarnation – really ought now to be laid to rest.

Thrillingly however, there are all manner of misrepresentations and rumour to chivvy us along until mid-August, as men in suits settle down for the serious business of trading players for the annual GDP of some third-world nations. After the tumblewood and cobwebs that were our activity in the last two transfer windows, we of lilywhite persuasion can at least prepare for this summer of non-activity with expectations suitably adjusted to somewhere in rattlesnake-belly territory.

Eriksen

Actually, even with expectations of incomings reduced to nil there remains scope for disappointment, as we might yet haemorrhage players of quality.

And as if to prove this point, and also to remind the world that he still exists after his mysterious disappearance during last weekend’s scheduled CL Final, Christian Eriksen has poked his head above ground and bared his fangs.

In a curious statement that seemed to benefit considerably from translation into English from his native Danish tongue, featuring a slightly scary declaration of his “wild respect” for Tottenham, Eriksen has made it known that he’d quite like to experience the fabled patience and understanding of Real Madrid fans next time he fails to make any notable impact upon a game.

After six years of pretty faithful service one cannot really begrudge the chap for wanting to peddle his wares on an even grander stage – and presumably for a weekly envelope that is a heck of a lot thicker – so there is no ill-will from AANP Towers.

However, the debate as to how useful an asset the chap has been for us has sparked some pretty fruity opinions.

The Case For The Defence

Those making the case that Eriksen has been one of the best players to appear in lilywhite, a fantastic player and one who will be missed have not had to look far for stacks of evidence to support their case.

The Eriksen highlights reel is positively bursting at the seams with moments of humdinging quality. Blessed with the vision to spot passes that slice open defences, and the technique to deliver them, Eriksen has at times brought world-class creativity to our attack, which was jolly upright of him. (Since you ask, the pass vs Chelsea in the FA Cup Semi-Final is the one taking pride of place in a frame on the AANP wall.)

As well as carving out a niche for himself as quite the font of creativity for others, Eriksen also possesses the pretty handy capacity to score from outside the area with either foot. Stats abound about the number of goals he scored with both left and right pedal, and from generous distance.

On top of which, he is hardly a slouch or pampered prima donna, in the mould of those luxury players of yore, who might mooch around the place when the going got tough. Eriksen’s pedometer regularly needed new batteries, such was the chap’s workrate, and it is also worth noting that he rarely misses a game.

The point is emphasised, and with some justification, that these contributions will be looked back upon pretty ruefully by the massed ranks once he has cleared out his locker and hot-footed it across the continent.

The Case For The Prosecution

Given the man’s talent, so vastly superior to almost all of those around him, one would think it would be lunacy of the highest order to greet his mooted departure from N17 with any degree of joy.

The sentiment however, stems primarily from an appreciation of precisely these talents. For a chap so gifted, it was a frustration worthy of tearing out great clumps of hair to see him fairly regularly drift into anonymity rather than pull strings and dominate proceedings.

On numerous occasions our heroes have come up against teams that certainly know their defensive eggs inside out, and understandably enough all around him have expectantly turned to Eriksen to provide the necessary inspiration. Not wanting to hammer the point home, but the Champions League Final was a particular case in point.

Those who know about such things quite rightly point to mitigating circumstances – such as the absence of fit-for-purpose midfield anchors behind him, forcing Eriksen to play deeper than is really ideal for a man blessed with such attacking juices.

However, here at AANP Towers, the frustration remains that for one blessed with such magic in his size nines – as well as a sight beyond sight to spot killer passes that occasionally defied physics – he rarely dictated games for us. As mentioned in previous dispatches, Eriksen often looks a genius of a man on Match of the Day, because his moments of magic elevate him to a different plane – but settle in for 90 minutes’ worth and such moments are often far too rare.

Where he might end up is a little unclear, particularly with Real having lured Eden Hazard into their dastardly web, but the news that PSG and Inter are also sniffing around Eriksen bodes well, as a bidding war featuring that lot ought really to generate pretty handsome sums.

Michel Vorm

The other confirmed news of note is that Michel Vorm has taken time out from immaculately coiffeuring his mop to pack his belongings and head out of the exit with a cheery wave.

Not exactly a departure that will have the crowds gathering to strew flowers and weep, but I suspect most lilywhites will offer Vorm an amicable salute. Back-up ‘keepers tend to live a pretty charmed life as a rule, and few can dispute that Vorm was frequently in faithful attendance on the bench in most games, before being usurped by Gazzaniga.

When called upon, most typically in cup matches, Vorm neither distinguished nor embarrassed himself to any great degree. If anything his escutcheon was blotted somewhat in his final couple of seasons, notably with underwhelming performances against Man Utd in the FA Cup Semi-Final and Liverpool in the Premier League.

However, he did get stuck into the post-match melee at Stamford Bridge a couple of years back, which was enough to merit him a spirit of his choice, on the house. Good luck to the chap.

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RIP Justin Edinburgh

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 0-2 Liverpool: Five Tottenham Talking Points

Well this was a most peculiar anti-climax. Full of effort and yet somehow devoid of urgency, and with excitement and quality levels similarly low on the barometer, the whole thing resembled seeing a balloon being immediately deflated and then simply left lying unattended for another 89 minutes.

Rather than lumber tragically through the seven stages of grief, or find some perceived injustice and rage at it, the sentiment at AANP Towers is therefore one of curious frustration. Given that Liverpool themselves were oddly underwhelming, this ought probably to be listed as a Missed Opportunity, alongside the Leicester season – and yet somehow, the mood is one of philosophical acceptance.

Probably best just to toddle over to the corpse and begin dissecting.

1. The Penalty Decision

Not all will agree – and judging by the high-pitched apoplexy emanating from his larynx, Glenn Hoddle most certainly did not – but I must confess I had little problem with the penalty decision itself.

To clarify, I did not perform any sort of jig of delight – in fact those around me needed to deliver a rigorous prod between the ribs to check that the blood was still flowing, such was the horror-stricken, frozen chill with which I reacted – but I did follow the logic of the sturdy fellow making the call. Although the ball bounced off chest first, it did then receive an inadvertent stroke from the incoming arm of Sissoko.

Worse crimes have undoubtedly been perpetuated within the vicinity of the 18-yard rectangle during the history of the game, but I understood why, in that situation, a jury might convict.

Just a dashed shame – if quintessentially, absurdly Tottenham – that it happened within thirty seconds of the start of the biggest game in our history.

2. Best Laid Plans vs First-Minute Penalty

More of a concern was the impact of that early farce upon the best-laid plans of Our Glorious Leader. According to the newswires, Pochettino’s three-week preparations had included inviting the players to plant their feet on hot coals (a strategy that, if you ask me, carries an inherent flaw, given that these chaps’ feet are the most important dashed parts of them), breaking arrows with their necks and all manner of other eyebrow-raising sorcery. Frankly it struck me that he might have had a little too much preparation time on his hands.

Alas, the one circumstance for which he presumably had not prepared was the concession of a penalty in the opening minute. One sympathises, for why would he?

And in fact, our lot reacted to this decidedly unseemly new set of circumstances with admirable stiffening of the upper lip and some neat and tidy interplay around halfway.

The problem with the early goal was not so much its effect upon our heroes as its effect upon Liverpool. It meant that for the remaining 89 minutes they did not need to take any sort of risk, or show any sort of forward intent that would allow even a whiff of an opening behind them. They were content to strangle the life out of us, and pretty much did just that.

3. The Kane Selection

Our Glorious Leader had made the reasonable point that hindsight would tell whether his team selection would go down as masterstroke or clanger, so naturally enough the knives are out in some quarters. All of which places me in a terrifically delicate spot, as Poch, having presumably pored over these very pages in recent days, rather scarily opted for the precise team and formation for which I had been marching around town campaigning in the past week or two.

Kane undoubtedly had fairly minimal effect upon proceedings, finally threatening around the peripheries in the final twenty or so, without ever eking out – or having eked for him – that half a yard that would have allowed him a decent pot at goal.

However, at the risk of incurring the wrath of the better half of North London, I do not think our general bluntness was much to do with him, for the chap was barely given a touch of the ball by his chums in the opening hour or so.

He might have been in the form of his life and it would not have mattered, because our build-up play, particularly in the first half, was thoroughly bogged down by the time we hit the final third (almost as if the players were sinking beneath the weight of tactical instruction, which rather makes one wonder).

Even in hindsight I am still not particularly convinced that starting Lucas instead would necessarily have been the solution, for sniper-quality though his finishing was against Ajax, his involvement in build-up play was nothing about which to ring the church bells, and when he was eventually introduced last night his impact was neither here nor there.

The problem struck me as not so much to do with Kane’s fitness or the absence of Lucas, as the dearth of creativity and service from the ranks behind them.

4. Eriksen, The Selected Scapegoat

At such times as these I feel legally obliged to identify a scapegoat.

With Liverpool content to allow us the ball and take their chances as a defensive unit, plenty of onus was placed upon the assorted size nines in our midfield. We found ourselves in desperate need of some wit and ingenuity, someone who could make use of ample possession in midfield, and boast both the vision to pick a defence-splitting pass and the technique also to deliver it.

In short we needed Christian Eriksen.

The opportunity could not have been better made for him if it had taken him aside beforehand and measured him for size. This was the precise scenario that Mother Nature had had in mind when she fashioned him all those years ago, and the stage was that for which one would expect the true greats of the game to don their capes and leap into action.

But cometh the hour, Eriksen had little to offer that dropped the jaw and made the heart skip a beat or two.

It’s a source of some pretty ripe debate in lilywhite circles. The chap’s ability is not in question – he produces some silky stuff of which most teammates simply aren’t capable. The issue here at AANP Towers is that he is something of a Match of the Day player: his best bits make the highlights reel, and come 10.30pm on a Saturday night he can look pretty spectacular. But roll up and watch the whole 90 minutes, and too often he does too little to effect things, much less boss an entire match. Last night was a case in point.

By contrast, Winks and Sissoko – neither of whom anyone of sound mind and teetotal disposition would ever suggest were better players than Eriksen – did more at least to attempt to inject a little vim and energy into our midfield play.

5: Clinical Finishing (And Lack Thereof)

Whatever the virtues or otherwise of Eriksen’s performance, it seemed that, like me, the players were labouring under the misapprehension that clear-cut chances would simply materialise automatically, because this was the Champions League 2019 and frankly that’s what has tended to happen. This time however, we were a little too patient and passive for our own good.

By around the 70-minute mark the memo to get heads down and dig out a goal had evidently reached all in lilywhite, and there was an urgency to our play in the final third. The Liverpool goalkeeper was even having to get his gloves dirty, as our heroes stumbled upon the novel idea of trying an occasional, polite shot at goal.

Alas and alack and woe upon woe, we did not actually create one decent chance throughout the whole desperate affair. Instead, we needed to be at our clinical best to take advantage of whatever scraps and glimmers of opportunities came our way.

In short, we needed to produce the sort of clinical finish from one of those half-chances that Divock Origi did at the other end, at the death, summoning the ghost of Lineker in the Italia ’90 Semi-Final to turn a sniff of a chance into a goal.

But where Origi caught his shot as sweetly as a front-foot cover drive at Lord’s, Sonny and Lucas did not quite make the clean connection that makes the heart skip a beat and young ladies swoon; and Dele’s chipped effort was rather cruelly made to look a heck of a lot closer to hitting the top corner than it actually did, by that most wretched and evil prankster, the Deceptive Camera Angle.

And that was that. The whole Champions League campaign has been, until this point absolutely riotous fun, so warm applause and stiff drinks are deserved all round. Just a shame that the finale was such an oddly damp squib, but such is life I suppose.

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