1. Doing The Necessaries in Defence
After boiling our own heads in the final 15 against Wolves it was pretty imperative that reason returned to her throne pronto, so this was very much the morning-after tonic of choice, and well done all concerned.
That said, as anyone of sound mind and body who witnessed proceedings will attest, it was a dashed peculiar sequence of events. We managed to take the lead without trying; then sewed the game up barely a quarter of the way through – again, without really dedicating any tremendous effort to the cause – and were then able to serenely idle away the remaining hour without breaking sweat.
One received the distinct impression that had we wanted to push foot down on pedal and break into a chorus of coruscating one-touch fizz we could well have done, at will – but quite frankly nobody wanted to. 3-0 away was enough.
Credit therefore – and for want of anybody else claiming it – to the defence. Admittedly Cardiff’s opening kamikaze act, as effective as it was comical, sapped the life out of them, with the result that they spent the majority of the match very obviously waiting for it to end. But if the Wolves debacle had taught us anything it was that if minds wandered all hell could break loose, so our back-four needed to have their shoes polished throughout, just on the off-chance.
And while there was precious little for them to do, they did it with minimal fuss. The most creative zips and spurts that Cardiff could muster were high diagonal crosses to a lumbering giant at the back post, and a handful of long throw-ins. Not exactly brimming with subtlety, but certainly enough to discombobulate our defence, so I applaud Danny Rose for fixing his eye on the ball to head clear on a couple of occasions, and every man in lilywhite for repelling most crosses swung into our box.
2. The Many Sides to Kane’s Game
Kane’s goal was about as far away on the other side of the spectrum from that he scored against Wolves as was possible, but it’s still a notch in the relevant column, so well done him. He lashed a few other efforts in various directions without much reward, but of greater impact was his work when dropping deep.
With Son a designated striker alongside him he had pretty strong licence to stroll back into midfield at his leisure, and where sometimes he delights in mooching out wide and pinging a crossfield ball to the opposite wing, yesterday his move of choice was to receive the ball sideways on and flick it early into the path of an onrushing chum.
The approach was as effective as they come, not least in contributing pretty crucially to the build-up to a couple of goals. Despite appearances the chap really is one of the most complete forwards I’ve ever cast eyes upon.
3. Eriksen’s Nifty Flick
Another quirk of yesterday’s events was that amidst the frankly soporific keep-ball were a handful of moments of joyous quality, utterly out of keeping with the rest of it.
At one point in the second half Dele Alli collected a pass while galloping up the left flank, and collected it with a glorious first touch that seemed to the naked eye to slice his defender clean in half. A neat little triangle involving Eriksen and Kane shredded the Cardiff defence. Sissoko produced a booming crossfield pass from one flank to the other that seemed to open a whole universe of possibilities. And so on.
But chief amongst these little gems was the Eriksen drag-back that wrong-footed half the Cardiff defence, just before he shot for his goal. As befits Eriksen there was no ceremony, he simply threw in a game-changing piece of skill as casually as if shelling nuts. Should I ever sire a daughter, Eriksen would be more than welcome to her hand in marriage.
4. Game Management
Big ticks all round then, and with the added bonus that we were able to revert to Snooze Mode as early as the 26th minute, as the game thereafter descended into a fairly tedious and perfunctory exercise in killing time. For fans of eye-watering square passes between centre-backs it was terrific stuff; for the rest of us, less so.
But lest we forget, this was an absolute masterclass in that which we so spectacularly failed to do against Wolves, so for all the whinges emanating from this quarter about lack of entertainment and ambition, in the second half in particular, the alternative does not really bear contemplation.
Pre-game I’d have chewed off the nearest flailing limb for a comfortable 3-0 sashay away from home, so this ticks the boxes pretty meatily.
5. The Bizarre Media Narrative
Here at AANP Towers we were particularly piqued at the broad reaction to our capitulation against Wolves, which seemed to be along the lines of laughter in the aisles – reasonable enough in itself – but on the grounds that our supposed title challenge had lasted all of 3 days or so – which struck me as pretty wildly inaccurate on a number of counts.
For a start one defeat did not a crisis make, as I thought was neatly illustrated by yesterday’s canter at Cardiff. To have to play four games in ten days also struck me as a pretty mitigating factor for what might be reasonably termed “a blip”.
And perhaps most pertinently, I’m not sure anyone in any way connected with the club genuinely believes we’re going to win the title this season, which made the whole business of laughing at Spurs for blowing a title push akin to criticising Terminator 2 for lacking in the rom-com stakes.
Still, papers have columns inches to fill and if the whole point of the exercise were to poke and prod the nearest Spurs fan until they yowled in childish resentment then it can be considered a job well done. And now that that’s done I’d be quite content if we can continue the low-key accumulation of wins that had served us pretty well for most of December.