Southampton 0-5 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

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1. Maddison

There are, of course, unwritten rules to be adhered to when it comes to the TV bods unveiling their Best Performing Actor from any given match, with ‘He Who Scored The Most Goals’ tending to get the nod, irrespective of any amount of honest toil delivered by others, in the less glamorous sectors. Last night’s on-camera gang weren’t about to break with tradition, so James Maddison duly had a yellow brick shoved into his lap.

And actually, although you may have detected a peevish tone that suggests that AANP has a grumble to uncork, on reflection it was a reasonable enough nomination.

Beginning with the headline stuff, Maddison took both his goals splendidly, the second in particular being the sort of work of art that deserves a spot of Lightning Seeds in the background, as one of the outstanding efforts of the season. The Cruyff-turn that outfoxed his opponent, to the extent that said opponent skidded off the perimeter and towards the hoardings, was of itself a triumph.

The finish that followed however, was deluxe stuff, tucked in from an angle that would have most of us shaking our heads and demanding a rethink of the whole scheme. For added garnish, he hit that impossible angle whilst himself being yanked off the pitch by the aforementioned stooge who had been dummied off in the direction of the hoardings. When he gets his bearings right, Maddison is capable of dishing up some mouth-watering produce.

As well as the goals he scored, Maddison was also embedded pretty deeply within the construction of a couple of others. If this realisation slightly creeps up on you, rather than being firmly embedded in the memory, it’s understandable enough, because frankly we scored so many and so quickly that one did have to keep the brain well-sharpened in order to monitor who was contributing to which goals.

For clarity, our second came about from a Maddison cross from the right, which skimmed off a Southampton head before Sonny popped up at the far post; and our third (Kulusevski’s tap-in) had its genesis in a Maddison spray from halfway inside our half to halfway inside theirs (for Son to run onto and square).

And having contributed so centrally to no fewer than four of our goals, Maddison could fairly reasonably have made the case that even if he had spent the rest of the game sitting cross-legged in a quiet spot near the edge of the pitch, neither interfering nor contributing any further, he’d still have merited recognition for his efforts.

Nevertheless, I’d venture that Maddison’s efforts around these four goal contributions were generally to be popped in the bucket marked ‘Kept Things Ticking Over’, rather than ‘Set The World Alight and Created An Endless Stream of Chances’. Maddison pootled about busily. His tail clearly up, he elbowed his way to the front of any queue going, and saw plenty of the ball, and against that clueless mob seemed to be enjoying himself pretty royally.

However, when I heard the telly bods trot out lines like, “When Maddison plays well, Tottenham play well”, I did cock the head, and wonder if they were just using a catchy tagline, rather than really getting to the heart of matters. To repeat, Maddison did not rustle up an endless stream of chances, nor pull did he pull every string going. He played perfectly well, but generally in more of a deep-lying, beaverish sort of way, helping to manage the game rather than constantly sparking attacks.

Still worthy enough of the Man of the Match gong I suppose, for those two finishes alone, so I’m not about to yank the yellow brick from his mitts and scream “Fraud!” at him; but the success of it all seemed to me to be down to the collective rather than Maddison and Maddison alone.

2. Djed Spence

In fact, when the conversation began about the game’s outstanding contributor, the first name that sprung to AANP’s mind was actually that of young Spence. Now, a second thought pretty swiftly followed, that to crown him thusly would probably be to over-egg things, but both the nature and the timing of his critical input was nevertheless of importance.

I refer to that collect-and-swivel routine he unveiled in the opening 20 seconds or so, receiving the ball just inside his own half, facing his own goal and with a Southampton cove crawling up his collar. Had he shoved the ball back whence it came and tooled off elsewhere for a bit of space and a quick, restorative gulp of O2, one would hardly have chided him.

Instead, however, and to his eternal credit, he used a spot of upper-body heft to hold off his opponent, and then, still using that u-b h., twirled the same opponent in a small circle, which resulted in Spence taking up new coordinates inside the Southampton half and facing their goal, with the opponent wondering quite how he had been elbowed to the back of the queue.

Nor did Spence stop to admire his work. Buoyed by his initial success, he kept right on marauding, before picking the perfect pass at the perfect moment, for Maddison to do the rest.

One might argue that, fine and noble work thought it was, such an inspired little burst hardly qualified Spence for consideration as player of the match. And it is true, this was one amongst many inspired moments of attacking nous rolled out by our heroes, in the first 45 in particular.

What arrested the AANP attention though, was the fact that a little earlier – about 20 seconds earlier, actually, at kick-off, but also for a good few days leading up to that – the mood amongst our lot was anything but joyful and triumphant. I suppose I speak only for the denizens of AANP Towers, but following the games against Galatasaray and Fulham and Bournemouth and Chelsea and Rangers, there were some furrowed brows and pretty angst-riddled deep-and-meaningfuls about the place.

Going into yesterday’s bash, I rather held my breath as proceedings got underway. Not quite sure where things were going, if you follow. And it’s in this context, that Spence’s little opening gambit made such an impression upon the AANP soul. Had he not spun his man and gone a-haring, but instead biffed the ball back to the centre-backs, to give back to Forster, to concede a throw inside our half, there’s no real knowing how things might have played out.

For Spence to give the shoulders and shrug and dive straight into the heart of the Southampton defence instead set a marvellous tone for the night. Of course it helped that they simply melted away in front of him, but nevertheless. Had he passed backwards, they might not have had the opportunity to start melting.

Spence turned up on the shores of N17 with rather a reputation for getting into the meat of things as an attacking full-back, so on seeing him finally selected I had certainly hoped to see a bit of that fabled swashbuckler – but by golly I didn’t expect it to be quite so immediate and effective.

3. Bergvall

I also doffed the cap towards young Bergvall for his efforts. Probably best to scatter a little context about the place for this one, actually.

Bergvall’s little cameos hither and thither have generally underwhelmed this particular observer. Jolly harsh, I suppose you might say, but the common thread I’d picked up from his occasional substitute appearances in the league, and some underwhelming bilge in Europe, has been of a young imp – of admittedly decent touch – who has nowhere near the requisite body mass to cope in a world of burly, grizzled professionals. Many an eyeroll has been delivered around these parts at the sight of Bergvall being tossed aside by opposing midfielders. “One for the future, I suppose,” has been the politest verdict.

Credit where due, he seemed vastly better equipped for his night’s work when brought on in midweek against Rangers, which was impressive stuff given the atmosphere and whatnot. He peddled a neat line in intelligent touches, and it seemed appropriate that our equaliser came within 15 minutes of his introduction.

One nevertheless emitted a bit of a gulp at seeing his name scrawled into the Starting XI yesterday, but as it turned out he simply picked up at Southampton where he had left off at Rangers, and trotted out a most accomplished performance. The moral of the story is evidently not to judge an 18 year-old on the basis of a dozen substitute appearances dotted around the place and a couple of dubious Europa League showings.

Nor, I suppose, should I hail him as the new incarnation of Modric on the basis of one neat-and-tidy against the league’s bottom side. Nevertheless, that combo of neat passing, excellent touch and sensible decision-making did make me think that we have a ready-made Bentancur reserve in situ.

4. Archie Gray, But With an Asterisk

And frankly, if I’m going to witter on about Spence and Bergvall, it hardly seems fair to scrawl “The End”, and beetle off for a splash or two of bourbon, without acknowledging that young Archie Gray has had his head dunked underwater for two successive games now, and has shrugged it all off with barely a flicker of concern. For any midfielder to fill in at centre-back is a bit thick; for an 18 year-old to do so without any prior experience, new to the club and in a team that, at any given point in any given match, is likely to be almightily outnumbered on the counter-attack, borders on child cruelty.

Gray, however, has twice now negotiated the task like a seasoned pro. Let’s face it, here at Spurs we have suffered through our fair share of calamitous centre-backs, capable of – and seemingly intent on – unleashing disaster with their every involvement. Gray is none of the above. Gray seems the sort of young bean whose idea of a good night at centre-back is one in which he fades into the background such that one barely realises he’s been playing. AANP approves.

He was a bit more circumspect in possession last night than against Rangers on Thursday, which was no bad thing, but also made one mightily impressive last-ditch tackle late in the game yesterday, to preserve the clean sheet. One doesn’t really know quite what the plan is with his development and position and so on, but frankly I feel more assured with him at the back than with several other of our more experienced sorts.

Having said all that, however, and amidst all the backslaps, our lot did allow Southampton two absolute dollies right in front of goal, in the first half. Both from crosses from the right, both of which found two strikers given the freedom of the penalty area. Not really being cut out for the defensive game I struggle to name the guilty party in our colours, but Dragusin seemed to be the man with the best view of proceedings, and one would expect him to have been doing the organising of the defensive line.

It’s probably a grumble for another day, though. I’ve lost track of the official, designated mood amongst the faithful, and quite who we’re meant to be grumbling about now, but last night was proof if ever it were needed (and that hilarious goal difference further hammers home the point) that when on song our lot can absolutely tear to pieces an opponent.