Tag: Cristian Romero

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 4-1 Newcastle: Six Tottenham Talking Points

1. Kulusevski Central

It would be over-stretching things to suggest that AANP is like a broken clock in stumbling upon a notion of some virtue twice a day, but, like a broken calendar, bang on the money once a year sounds about right – and having bleated away about the virtues of Kulusevski through the centre rather than on the wing, in the aftermath of the West Ham defeat, I was pretty pleased to see the pieces duly rearranged today.

Not that Kulusevski was necessarily the standout performer today. In fact, I’d shove him at least halfway done the list. Which is not to say he did much wrong, far from it, but various colleagues around him seemed to tick the ‘Above and Beyond’ box more obviously, and things ought to be done in right and proper way.

But having Kulusevski through the midfield seemed both to reduce the more vexing elements of his game (viz. the propensity, come hell or high water, to drag the ball back onto his left foot as if under contractual obligation) and also to lend a useful platform to some of his more amenable personality traits. These might be said to include but not be limited to: the thoughtful burst into the penalty area as delivery arrives from wider spots; the licence occasionally to bob up on the left; the application of what strikes me as pretty considerable body-weight forcefully into any of the opposing back-four dallying on the ball; and the generally wholesome practice of racing towards goal from a central berth whilst simultaneously weighing up options right and left.

In short, the shackles seem removed when he plays as a Number 10. Quite what reconfiguration occurs when Maddison returns is anyone’s guess, but if there’s a society for the Repositioning of Kulusevski From The Right To The Centre then they can count on my signature and enthusiastic attendance at fundraisers and whatnot. Keep him there, I say, or at least resist the urge to move him right again when Maddison returns.

2. Sonny on the Left

Of course, much like a butterfly flapping its wings out in the Amazon, one cannot yank Kulusevski from the right and re-position him centrally without all manner of implications rippling away across N17, so there would no doubt have been a few arrows scrawled across the pre-match whiteboard .

The fallout involved the remarkable sight of a right-footed player on the right wing, as Brennan Johnson won that particular raffle; which in turn necessitated a change in personnel on the left. One can well imagine Our Glorious Leader scanning the changing room, spying young Bryan Gil, and without even pausing to think just getting right on again with his scanning.

Sonny got the nod, and wasted precious little time in slotting back into the old uniform. Whether it was a first-time flick into the path of a chum while dropping deep, or a stepover-laced dribble into the penalty area topped off with some pretty inviting end-product, Son brought a healthy dose of A-game to just about everything he did out on the left.

And it was worth remembering, as he set about creating both first half goals in near-identical fashion, that the opposing right-back with whom he toyed was none other than the fondly-remembered Master Trippier, a chap who doesn’t surrender his territory too lightly.

Whilst the risk of deploying Sonny on the left was that it left things uncertain in the central striking role, the decision seemed a pretty smart one if only for the nuisance he made of himself throughout. For all their willing, it is difficult to imagine that Gil or Johnson might have brought home quite such riches; while Richarlison is more of a striker itching to move infield than any sort of left winger. This was pretty electric stuff from Son, who fully merited his late goal.

3. Richarlison

That Amazonian butterfly clearly put in quite the shift, for the after-effects did not end with Sonny’s move to the left. That, of course, left an awkward conversation to be had behind closed doors, given that Richarlison has spent the last couple of years since his arrival diligently pinging his shots everywhere but the nearest net, pausing only to occasionally trip over his own shoelaces.

And when a couple of missed half-chances in the opening 5 minutes brought that all-too-familiar Brazilian scowl, I did scuttle over to the nearest wall against which I might bang the old head a few times. The early signs were that this was a production I’d seen once or twice before.

Mercifully, however, after a conflab of twenty minutes or so, the gods evidently gave it a shrug and granted Richarlison a spot of respite. His first goal might not have been the purest strike of the weekend, but I doubt there’s a lilywhite in the land who gave too many hoots about that. If Richarlison has any sense of decency he’ll spot Sonny a slap-up meal at an over-priced restaurant in the coming days, for his captain did a spiffing job in moulding the opportunity that, if not quite unmissable, was certainly in not-too-much-work-required territory.

And in this day of the tedious knee-slide celebration I always consider that I can spot a man who really enjoys his goal, if he leaps into the thinner part of the atmosphere and swipes a clasped fist. Richarlison certainly enjoyed the moment.

Evidently, it takes more than one poacher’s goal to shed the alter ego and adopt a new persona completely, and the Richarlison of old swiftly returned when a presentable airborne opportunity ricocheted his way shortly afterwards, the man flinging himself at the thing a moment too late, as has been his wont for about two years now.

I also fancy he enjoyed another splash of luck with his second (footing another bill at one of London’s premier eating spots by the by, in gratitude to Pedro Porro), as his first touch when in on goal was not necessarily ideal. But to his credit, having taken a presentable chance and complicated it, he then redeemed himself in the blink of an eye, taking what had therefore become a complicated chance and despatching it, with minimal further fuss. One scratched the head a bit, but a joyous outcome is not to be sniffed at; and importantly R9 is a fellow the quality of whose next deed seems to depend significantly upon the quality of his previous deed – so this all bodes pretty well.

And as a sidenote, even before he was gaily tucking away his goals, I noted with great satisfaction that Richarlison could frequently be observed to commit his full body and I suspect a decent part of his soul to the act of tracking back and winning possession from the Newcastle mob. A well-executed slide tackle is always appreciated, and Richarlison delivered at least three of them. The young bean’s commitment to the cause has never faltered; that his radar began working again today was all the more pleasing.

4. Udogie and Porro

I mentioned above that there were a good few names above Kulusevski when it came to the matter of Star Performer, and both of Udogie and Porro would feature in such a list.

Udogie, I consider, rather owed us a stand-out performance, given that his entirely unnecessary two-footed lunge against Chelsea seemed to spark off the calamitous sequence that we have only just arrested. Admittedly he cannot be blamed for the injuries, and he actually got away with the lunge, but not being one to let the truth get in the way of a decent narrative I continued to murmur, “And well he should,” during the early minutes, in which he seemed to have assumed the role of String-Puller-In-Chief.

And by golly he was in fine old fettle. Even though it happens every week that he simply ambles up the field and presents himself as some sort of free-spirited attacking egg, I did nevertheless gawk a bit at the positions he adopted and the array of neat, sly passes he dished out.

Good of him to chip in with a goal too, and it says much about his role in the team that the sight of him tapping in from six yards did not raise too many positional eyebrows. This, it appears, is just what he does.

I hesitate to scribble, “And opposite Udogie,” when describing young Porro, because it is similarly difficult to pin down the latter, but he was also in attendance, and also having quite the night. The diagonal into the path of Richarlison for our third probably takes the spot on the mantlepiece for his most eye-catching contribution (and with perfect timing too, Newcastle at that stage having given it 15 minutes of honest toil, and threatening to make a game of things).

But in general, and as against West Ham, Porro combined intelligent positions with effective contributions, whether popping up in midfield to chivvy things along, or getting his head down in the final third to try to help finish things off.

5. Sarr: Outstanding

But from the AANP vantage point young Sarr took the gong today. For much of the game our heroes gave the impression of having a numerical advantage over the other lot, swarming them and not giving them the time to collect their thoughts and admire the sights when they were in possession;, and triangling the dickens out of them when we were in possession, regularly appearing to have an extra man at whichever point on the pitch the action was unfolding. And as often as not that extra man appeared to be Sarr.

I don’t know what sort of diet he goes in for but I wouldn’t mind finding out and dabbling, because the chap seemed not to stop running throughout. Which, logically enough I suppose, had the consequence that he seemed always to be involved. He was strongly in the market for tackles, interceptions, passes and then, in common with most of our heroes in those rather fun-filled final 20 minutes or so, shoulder-dips and dribbles out of tight spots. It was one of the more complete central midfield performances amongst our lot in recent times.

It also had the pleasing side-effect of making Bissouma look a bit more like his former self, and making me reflect, in idler moments, at quite what a difference there was between a team built upon Sarr and one built upon Hojbjerg.

6. Davies, Romero and the Defence

The individual performances helped no end, but it also made a world of difference that the now standard Dominant First Half was augmented by not one but two goals. To the list of teams comprehensively outplayed we can add Newcastle, but whereas in 4 of the previous 5 games we have had but a one-goal lead to show for some lovely build-up play and almost playground-esque possession, this time the world felt a much happier place when the cast trooped off at half-time two goals to the good.

There was still ample time to stuff up various further opportunities, and one does drop to the knees and implore the forward mob to take a tad more care in the final third and make sure of things, but it was a definite improvement.

And yet it might well have been to no avail, because at nil-nil we continued to look pretty open and inviting at the rear. It might be a consequence of full-backs being allowed to go wandering off, or it might be something else entirely, but whereas when our defence is arranged in a low block I feel that matters are relatively well contained, when we are caught in possession on halfway and the opposition counter, the whole thing does tend to unfold with a pretty alarming inevitability. Put another way, teams do not really have to work too hard to fashion clear-cut chances against our lot. Nab the ball on halfway and they’re as good as in.

And with that in mind I might take a few suggestions from Richarlison and splash out myself on one of those expensive meals, this time for Ben Davies, in commemoration of what was actually a scarcely believable intervention in the first half to keep Newcastle at bay. Pretty easy to let the mists of time do their thing and forget it ever happened, but when a Newcastle type on their left scuttled unopposed from halfway to our area, his square pass seemed to have doom scrawled all over it.

Davies flung himself at it full length, in what appeared to be an admirable but futile gesture. At best, I mused while wincing in expectation of the inevitable, this will be an own-goal. The laws of physics seemed to allow for little else, given that Davies was extending himself at full stretch and in the wrong direction.

Quite how he therefore managed to avoid poking the ball into this own net having made contact with it, was a conundrum of the highest order. That he additionally managed to do just enough to divert the thing sufficiently that the waiting Newcastle forward behind him then missed the target, was quite remarkable.

Mercifully, having figured out, at least for one night, how to apply finishing touches to all the gorgeous build-up play, it didn’t matter too much that we remain pretty open at the back sans Van de Ven. It helps that for the most part, Davies and Romero know their eggs when it comes to the sort of defending that isn’t just a flat foot-race from halfway.

But had Romero been sent off for his bizarre late lunge, the AANP teeth would have been ground with a fury rarely previously witnessed. The game was won, our heroes were bedded in and well into their stroke-the-ball-about routine, when out of nowhere Romero took it upon himself to wait for the ball to depart the scene and then leave his studs upon the lower leg/above-the-foot region of some Newcastle sort. Irrespective of any sort of provocation – and frankly there didn’t appear to be much – it was about as knuckle-headed as they come, particularly as the young fool has only just reappeared after the previous three-month ban. Egads.

Still, we got away with that, and more broadly, delivered the sort of walloping that we’ve been threatening in at least 4 of the previous 5 games (or at least first halves). Continue to execute three or four of the numerous chances created each week, and we ought to be pretty well set when Maddison and VDV return; but irrespective of that, the mood is lightened for the week.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 1-4 Chelsea: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. The First Twenty Or So

And that, lest there be any confusion, is why it’s called All Action, No Plot.

Easy to forget after a binge like that, but way back in the opening 20 or so minutes our heroes were playing some of the best football I’ve seen in any season at N17. These racy starts have become something of a trend amongst our lot, one amongst a number of bobbish habits instilled by Our Glorious Leader in double-quick time, but in a pleasing break from recent tradition we actually had the good sense to turn complete domination into an early goal (and were a moderately-sized whisker from two).

Maddison may not be credited in the record books in years to come with any meaningful contribution to our opener, but by golly he was front and centre of the action – albeit from a temporary left-back mooring. His was a pass for the ages, transferring events from defence to attack, and taking out the entire Chelsea midfield in one thoughtful swipe of the clog.

Nor was it particularly anomalous. Everywhere one looked there was the sight of a lilywhite playing what on paper would seem a pretty nondescript pass – not much more than ten yards, A to B, ordinary fare – but actually delivered in such a way as to temporarily remove from action at least two or three Chelsea rotters, and turn the rest of them completely on their axis.

These passes came from our centre-backs, from our inverted full-backs, and actually from pretty much anyone who happened to be wandering in the vicinity bedecked in white. Typically played first-time and typically reversed, they were lightning-quick, and Chelsea could barely get a sight of the ball, never mind a touch. Had life continued thusly for the following seven-ninths or so of the match, I can only assume we would have racked up dozens of goals and beetled away up the High St still top of the pile.

I was also settling in for a full evening of Brennan Johnson and his assorted delights. Pre-match I had rather hoped that he might get the nod, he having displayed in his two or three cameos that instant grasp of the mechanics that seemed every week to befuddle Richarlison. Not wanting to wade into any debate about who is actually a better player, it nevertheless seems apparent that the former is a better fit for this particular position and in this particular team than the latter. A dashed shame then, that life being what it was, young Master Johnson’s night was pretty abruptly curfewed – and not for the first time. At the current rate, he might actually get to complete a full 90 for us some time around 2028, what?

2. The Non-Sendings Off

“Dashed shame” is how I described it, but in this I perhaps misled my public, or at least withheld a decent wedge of the facts. For while the departure of Johnson was duly mourned, the events that precipitated it were a pretty different kettle of fish, and the AANP mood was not quite as forgiving.

Taking things in calendar order, Udogie’s two-footed lunge was as thick-headed as it was peculiar. I’ve never understood the strategic thinking behind a two-footed lunge. Apart from the fact that just about any referee with a pulse will delight at the chance to thrust a red card in the relevant face, it’s also such an odd manoeuvre. Unnatural, is what I mean. And one does not really need to have played football at the highest level to appreciate that. In fact, one only really needs to possess feet. In my experience, natural motion is generally a one-foot-at-a-time affair, anything else typically leading to physical disarray and a pretty significant confusion of the limbs.

So had Udogie had stretched a single leg for all his worth, I’d have been with him. Had he slowed down and attempted to block off young Sterling, I’d have understood his thinking. But to interrupt his usual stride pattern, specifically to introduce into proceedings an entirely unnatural act was rummy enough; to introduce such an act in the knowledge that it is specifically flagged as being immediately worth a red card – well, to say AANP was perplexed is to understate things.

Had his follow-through clipped the man – and that was well beyond his control, and in the lap of the gods – he could have had no complaints about a red card. Rather than moaning at the ref, I would have strongly urged the defender himself to have his head examined and do a spot of mental arithmetic or something, to jimmy the grey matter along.

Next up was Romero, another who seemed oblivious to the fact that we were giving the other lot a pretty emphatic tonking, with little cause to upset the status quo, and decided instead to pick up the nearest axe and swing.

Once again, his little off-the-ball kick at an opponent seemed unnecessarily to invite a dubious appraisal of things by the ref. And once again, had the officials taken a militant view there would not have been any grumbling towards them from over here, but a few paragraphs of the coarsest Anglo-Saxon directed at the player instead.

3. The Sendings-Off

Romero somehow walked away from that one with his rap-sheet in pristine nick, and perhaps by this point considering himself invincible in the eyes of the law he continued hacking away until spotted and ejected. As a side-note, I do rather miss the days when winning the ball was sufficient and not too many cares were given about the follow-through, but it’s pretty common knowledge that leaving studs on a shin as a parting-gift will receive a pretty dim eyebrow from VAR these days. Once again there were no complaints about the decision, only hands flung skywards at the fat-headedness of our man.

And that really was the turning-point – or the first of them at least. That led to the removal of Johnson, at a point at which it seemed clear that he was well on top in his own private debate out on the left, and ensured that Chelsea’s temporary dominance of possession would become more permanent.

As it happens, I’m actually inclined to shrug off Udogie’s second yellow card. He’s still a prime dolt for his two-footed nonsense earlier in the piece, and admittedly he ought really to have listened to the cautionary whisper from the angel on one shoulder, urging him to exercise a spot of restraint, rather than bowing to the demands from the devil on t’other shoulder, encouraging a lunge on Sterling when he’d already been booked.

But as I say, I had a degree of sympathy, because he had just foiled a 3-v-2 attack by Chelsea, rather heroically and against the odds – and who amongst us has not got a little carried away by a moment of success and promptly over-egged the thing?

4. The High Line

The injuries, of course, were just dashed bad luck. All season there has lurked in the background the nameless fear that an injury or two might rip the spine from our lot, but we had chugged along thus far unscathed, mainly due to the absences being enforced on a strictly one-by-one basis.

Well last night that all went up in flames. Last night I got the distinct sense that if it were not one bally thing it would damn well be another. Romero’s red was followed by VDV’s hamstring, which was followed by Maddison’s ankle, which was followed by Udogie’s red, and there went our spine, for the moment and for the foreseeable.

This four-part calamity, however – and in particular the removals of Messrs VDV and Romero – served only to introduce possibly the most eye-catching segment of the production, which is saying something on a night of 5 goals and 5 disallowed goals and 2 red cards and countless VARs.

The high-line, featuring at its heart Eric Dier, was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating. Defensively – and let’st start with the defensive aspect – it was utterly bonkers. Dier is a loyal servant, and a vocal presence apparently, and various other things that sound good and might serve pretty well in the SAS or some such – but a lightning-quick athlete he isn’t. As such, I found myself holding my breath each time Chelsea dithered around the centre-circle, and our lot lined up on halfway, ready to turn and sprint back to goal.

But it actually happened so often, pretty much most of the time the ball was in play, that I quickly worked out that holding my breath every time was not the way forward. Not enough oxygen. Anyway, we were helped out in this operation by the fact that Chelsea, for all their millions, were actually pretty vacant between the ears themselves, either too impatient or not quite bright enough to time their runs behind us.

On top of which, young Signor Vicario (more on whom later), turned out to take to the role of Auxiliary Sweeper in His Quieter Moments with a casual shrug that did a disservice to quite how capable he was. Whenever Chelsea did time their runs correctly and race off towards goal, they were generally greeted by the well-timed presence of a goalkeeper yet to put a foot wrong, in comparison to a few thousand feet he’s put right in his time at N17.

And so it happened that from a state of pessimism and doom, the mood at AANP Towers swiftly turned into one of enjoyment and hilarity. No matter what Chelsea did, they seemed utterly incapable of what ought to have been completely straightforward, and one could almost taste their frustration.

Whenever they did get behind us, Vicario swept up; and when he didn’t sweep up he made an extraordinary save, or one of our panting outfield mob caught up and hacked it away – and the general sense increasingly developed that this was going to be an absolute blast to watch.

It couldn’t last forever of course, but I have since wondered how it might have played out with VDV in the fold, even down to nine men. I rather fancy that Chelsea could have played all night and they would have failed to pick that particular lock.

Anyway, Big Ange seemed pretty unrepentant about it all, and while it made for a fascinating watch while we were defending, I have since filled the idle moment by wondering what the rationale might have been. The best I can come up with is that by playing such a high defensive line, our attackers were able to continue the high press of Chelsea defenders, and sniff around for opportunity. Or, put another way, down to nine men, Big Ange still wanted us to attack.

5. Vicario

As if the game itself wasn’t non-stop, madcap entertainment, I discovered later on that Nicolas Jackson had had the Man of the Match rosette pinned to his breast, which afforded me another chuckle, he having delivered one of the worst striking displays I’ve seen at the place.

From the AANP monocle the standout performer was pretty comfortably the lad Vicario. Again, it was easy to lose in the mists of time, but in the first half, when still 11 v 11, he pulled off a now customary Save-That’s-Actually-Worth-A-Goal, sprawling full length to his left and, that done, having the presence of mind to extend a beefy paw, to make sure of things.

There then followed his quite sensational display of judgement and timing in repeatedly scampering from his line and facing down the assorted Chelsea forwards while Dier and chums were struggling to keep up. On top of which he made some further, remarkable saves, flinging every available limb and, I’m pretty sure, his face into the way of danger to ensure that Chelsea were kept at bay and the hilarity continued.

For the umpteenth time this season I reflected that this was the sort of super-human produce of which our former custodian could only have dreamt. I’m not too sure whose brainwave it was to drag Vicario over to these shores; I’m pretty sure I gave him a murky and quizzical eye when he did arrive; but by golly I’d sell every material possession I own, and quite possibly throw in my soul too, to ensure he stays in N17 long into the future.

Three rousing cheers for Vicario then, and an additional yip thrown in for Hojbjerg too. I’m yet to be convinced that he’s really the man for Ange-Ball, but if ever there were a situation for which he most certainly is the man it’s when the team is down to nine-men. I half-expect his eyes lit up when the red cards were flashed. Hojbjerg scowled and tackled and crunched his way through proceedings, clearing one shot off the line and generally giving the impression that he was born to play in this particular match.

It’s just a shame we couldn’t quite hold out; and then, having failed to hold out, couldn’t quite nab the equaliser, before Chelsea finally worked out how to beat the world’s most obvious offside trap.

But by golly, if one is going to lose one might as well as go down swinging, and I’m not sure I’ve ever witnessed such game, determined and entertaining swinging as that. We could all have done without the final three or so minutes of injury-time and what was contained therein; and I know that to admit enjoying a Spurs defeat is one of those cardinal sins for which one is expected to make a grovelling apology on some social media nonsense; and if we entertain while getting stuffed every week then I’ll have a pretty solid rethink.

But this was, yet again, just thoroughly entertaining stuff, the sort of fare I could happily gobble down for an hour and a half every week for the rest of my days. As you’re no doubt aware, the AANP blog began on a wave of still-flowing adrenaline the morning after our 4-4 draw at The Emirates, and last night’s adventure was two hours of the same madcap nonsense. Long may it continue.

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Spurs match reports

Palace 1-2 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1.  Davies vs Royal at Left-Back

Squad depth – or lack thereof – seems as likely as anything else to unstrap the safety harness and eject us from the vehicle this season. It’s hardly cold sweats in the middle of the night territory just yet, but the thought of pretty much any two or three of the choice XI (bar poor old Richarlison, perhaps) being simultaneously absented from a performance does make one widen the eyes and murmur, “Golly.”

And given this context I’ve been rather grateful to those gods responsible for these things for dealing us but a single absentee each week, allowing us just to dip a tentative toe into the ‘Strength In Reserve’ waters rather than having to plunge in fully and immerse the whole frame. Last week Bissouma was missing; this week Bissouma was back, and Udogie was missing.

In the sort of move that would baffle AANP’s better half, Our Glorious Leader therefore made an entirely rationale decision, and opted for Ben Davies – but any fans of like-for-like performance-matching might have been advised to prepare for a bit of a letdown. Where Udogie gives the term “Left-Back” the loosest possible interpretation, and bounds off to see what’s happening in midfield and attack and so forth, Davies’ approach is what you might call a tad more traditional.

Giving the air of a schoolboy who always did as told, Davies obediently trotted off to the left side of our defence, and made safe upkeep of this territory his priority. Which is not to say he didn’t partake in Ange-Ball and its liberal use of full-backs in attacking areas, but somehow when he ventured up the field he seemed to do so in a slightly robotic manner. If Richarlison received the ball on the left touchline and in advance of halfway, Davies took this as his cue, and dutifully trotted about 20 yards in advance of the action, and waved his arms around as instructed.

Now one could argue that this was precisely what was required, and in precisely the right circumstances – yet somehow this very precision was the problem. Much of the joy of Udogie’s performances is that one never knows quite what the hell he’ll do next, or where for that matter, whereas one could set one’s clock by Ben Davies.

On top of which, I’m not entirely convinced that Davies even had the conventional, defensive duties of a left-back entirely under control. Ayew and various others seemed to cause a spot of consternation down that particular flank, and with such limited outputs in either northerly or southerly directions, one understood the half-time move to trade in a Davies, B. for a Royal, E.

Emerson, whose lilywhite career has already waxed and waned like nobody’s business, is now finding himself having to make a fist of things as a reserve inverted left-back. And while on paper this might sound a bit thick for a born and bred right-back, it’s a role so madcap that it suited rather well a chap quite clearly missing a few key screw upstairs. Emerson swiftly beetled off into a deep-lying central midfield sort of role – alongside Porro, naturally – and the slightly chaotic nature of Ange-Ball’s formations was restored.

2. Richarlison vs Brennan Johnson

As ever, it was a tough old gig for Richarlison, who could not look more like a square peg struggling with a round hole if he were composed entirely of right angles and straight lines. As ever, there was no faulting his effort. Worker ants of the tireless variety could take a few tips from the lad, as he closed down Palace defenders, tracked back after their more attacking bimbos and patiently tried to outwit his man when actually in possession.

He might even have set up a first half goal, and quite brilliantly too, stretching all available sinews to head delicately back into play a ball that seemed to be sailing pretty serenely off into the stands – only for Maddison to lash the resulting gift off into the gods.

But while the various members of the backroom staff will no doubt be lining up to slap his back and commend him on his effort, the slightly awkward truth is that he’s not really delivering much in the way of an attacking harvest.

It’s probably worth reiterating his value in assisting our high press, for this seems to have brought about a decent percentage of the goals we’ve scored in recent weeks – and I can think of one recently-departed member of this parish who, for all his goalscoring, didn’t have the puff to chase down the opposition defence non-stop over the course of a full 90.

But alas. When it came to key passes, tantalising crosses or shots on target, the cup could hardly be said to floweth over. There have been a few inviting passes into dangerous areas during Richarlison’s stint on the left, and a fair number of shots from in and around the area, of varying degrees of inaccuracy. All ten-out-of-ten-for-effort sort of stuff, but it’s not really only effort we’re after, what?

Enter Brennan Johnson, who within about two shakes of a lamb’s tail had played a pretty critical part in a goal, first in rather inventive use of the forehead to control a cross and pass to a chum in the same motion; and then in dashing to the by-line to set up Sonny for a tap-in.

Better minds than mine will pore over the tactical minutiae that distinguished Richarlison’s performance from Johnson’s, but, put bluntly, we just seem to have a bit more attacking threat with the latter buzzing around on the left. One for Our Glorious Leader to ponder in the coming days.

3. Neil Ruddock and Des Walker

Back in the summer of 1993, a pre-teen AANP could be heard excitedly nattering away to anyone who would listen, and many who wouldn’t, that the gossip pages of 90 Minutes and Shoot and whatnot suggested that the lightning quick feet of Des Walker would imminently be speeding around the hallowed turf of White Hart Lane. This would have been pretty sensational stuff on its own, but the prospect of the jet-heeled Walker partnering with resident centre-back Neil Ruddock, a chap whose dispute-settling style might generously be termed ‘firm’, had the youthful AANP pretty giddy with excitement.

Alas, in confirmation of what had gone before, and a dashed certain omen of what was to come, Spurs rather broke my heart, by not only failing to bring Walker to our shores, but also parting with Ruddock that same summer.

The intervening thirty years spent watching our heroes have occasionally been somewhat trying – in fact, at times, particularly during the 90s, it felt like the life has rather drained from my core while watching our lot – but finally it feels that that promise of pace and power at the heart of our defence is being realised. Van de Ven and Romero are quickly morphing into a pretty sensational combo.

Both are about as comfortable in possession as central defenders come these days, which I’m not sure is the sort of accusation that could ever have been levelled at either of Messrs N.R. or D.W. But it is the glorious marriage of Romero’s clattering tackles – light on nonsense, heavy on force – and VDV’s swiftness of travel between points A and B that gives the impression that we have stumbled upon something special here.

Both were, in their own ways, in fine old fettle on Friday night. When Palace did breach the rear – which they did a mite too often in the first half – it seemed to be despite rather than because of our centre-backs, and indeed, Romero and VDV could as often as not be spotted planting a well-timed intervening clog in the way of things, to abate incoming trouble.

The earlier concern, about the potential absence of critical bodies, applies more to Romero and VDV than most, and another Top Four-standard centre-back will almost certainly be needed at some point between now and May. For the time being however, we might as well just enjoy the rare delights of a solid centre-back pairing.

4. Slow-Slow-Fast

My old man, AANP Senior, had the honour of being a regular at the Lane during our Double-winning season no less, so was presumably as excitable as the rest of us in his prime; but now, in his 91st year, he casts the beady eye in rather less forgiving manner. And when Messrs Romero and Vicario spent sizeable chunks of the second half dwelling on the ball under no pressure, before shrugging their shoulders and rolling it between each other, a certain cantankerous gruffling emanated from the aged relative. He was not amused.

Which was a shame, because I thought it was an absolute blast. Palace, understandably enough, had had a game-plan at nil-nil, to sit back and allow our goalkeeper and defenders all the possession they wanted, safe in the knowledge that no harm would come of it. But once our lot were one-nil up, it took a while for Palace to compute that their cause was not helped by simply sitting back and allowing Romero and Vicario to light cigars and natter away amongst themselves.

Eventually therefore, our hosts rather reluctantly committed a body or two towards the ball, and our heroes duly picked them off with aplomb. On several occasions, as soon as a Palace forward inched towards Romero or Vicario, one or other of this pair expertly bisected approximately half their team with a sudden forward pass into midfield.

This in itself provided a healthy dollop of aesthetic reward, but the fun didn’t stop there, as those receiving the thing in midfield were clearly well up on current events, and fully aware of the next stage of the plan. Whether it was Hojbjerg, Porro, Maddison or Sarr, the midfield johnnie receiving the ball would ping it wide, first-time and on the half-turn, and before you could say “This slow-slow-quick approach allows our lot to cut through Palace like a knife through butter, what?”, our heroes were in on goal.

This impeccable choreography was rarely better displayed than in our second goal, that slow-slow-quick approach being at the very core of the move. Romero dwelt and dwelt before neatly picking out Hojbjerg, and he swiftly conveyed the thing to Sarr, who crowned what I thought was a man-of-the-match performance with a glorious cross-field switch, from an innocuous right-back position over to Brennan Johnson in a more threatening left-wing spot. Johnson, as alluded to earlier, used his head to good effect, and a couple of classic Ange-Ball one-touch passes later Sonny was tapping in from point-blank range.

The move, in its entirety from back to front, was an absolute masterpiece, and while the television bods seemed to underplay it a tad, the fact that even AANP Senior was moved to mutter a pithy word or two of semi-satisfaction more accurately reflected its quality.

The late goal – which could be pinned pretty squarely on the otherwise decent Porro – was a reminder to our lot not to settle in for their nap before time is up, but this on balance was another deserved win, leaving only the question of whether Bentancur and Gil will make enough appearances this season to collect their League-winners’ medals in May.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-0 Fulham: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Hojbjerg

Evidence of the last couple of months suggests that, even though obliged to change his preferred XI by the rules and regulations, Ange did so only with the greatest reluctance, and likely a decent slab of harrumphing. But there we were, Bissouma’s previous follies meaning that Hojbjerg received a promotion, and at AANP Towers we rubbed an ever-so-slightly nervous chin before the curtain went up.

Anyone expecting Hojbjerg simply to get his head down and mimic the every shoulder-drop and forward burst of Bissouma would, of course, have been misreading the situation pretty drastically. Messrs P-E.H. and Y.B. are radically different beasts. Mercifully, however, if one could have drawn up a list beforehand of the preferred fixtures in which to replace the buzz and drive of Bissouma with the stasis and arm-flapping of Hojbjerg, I think a home date with Fulham might well have been pretty high up the list.

And frankly, it proved as gentle a stroll as hoped. In fact, in those opening ten minutes it appeared that we might not need Hojbjerg at all. As against Luton last time out, we had much of the runaway train about our work in last night’s opening scenes, running rings around our opponents and without too much need for the deeper-lying folk. This seemed to owe much to our pressing (which was mightily impressive throughout, strangling the life out of Fulham in their own half, bringing about both goals and generally compensating for a fair amount of sloppiness in the second half).

Back to Hojbjerg, and to his credit he did the various odd-jobs asked of him with pretty minimal fuss. The setup seemed to require him to fill in around various unglamorous locations towards the rear, but Hojbjerg being one of those curious eggs whose take on life is that the grubbier the task the better, this turned out to be a pretty convenient marriage. Fulham tried to clear to halfway, and Hojbjerg stepped up to snuffle it out; our heroes were forced to poke the ball backwards for a moment, and Hojbjerg availed himself to receive and re-distribute; and for good measure, when we threatened to become irresponsibly blasé about a one-goal lead, Hojbjerg was there to win possession high up the pitch and set up Sonny to set up Maddison for our second.

On the debit side, he did pick up an unnecessary and slightly odd booking, for opting to lunge at a Fulham body, changing his mind about matters fairly swiftly but finding that the laws of physics prevented him from effecting any alteration, and having simply to skid irresistibly about ten yards along the turf until he ploughed into his man; but then on the credit side he also played one of the passes of the season, about midway through the first half, reversing matters from left to right in a Harry Kane sort of way; so all told it was a perfectly acceptable night’s work.

Not a performance to win him any awards, nor to earn him a starting spot when Bissouma returns; but he did not look miles off the pace nor appear visibly out of sync when stepping into a unit that has been tightly-knit without him for 8 games, so he probably merits a nod of acknowledgement.   

2. Udogie

Never mind the miracles Big Ange has worked for our lot – his decision to hook young Master Udogie before we hit the 60-minute mark has left a pretty sickly hue over my fantasy team, so I’ll be demanding a full explanation at our next tete-a-tete.

I don’t know about you, but Udogie – or rather the positions and instructions Udogie is given – make my mind boggle like nobody’s business. It’s one of those awkward situations in which the more one tries to understand the thing the more complicated it all seems to become.

What I’m getting at is where the devil does he actually play? Convention would dictate ‘left-back’; the achingly fashionable amongst us call it ‘inverted full-back’; but watching the match unfold he seemed to decide that it was open season anywhere on the left, and if he had to slap a hand on the Bible and absolutely swear under oath he’d announce that an attacking midfield role, ever-so-slightly left of centre, was the spot for him. And since everyone around him was too polite or too consumed with their own affairs to correct him, there he stayed.

In the interests of accuracy, I probably ought to acknowledge that when we were out of possession he did trot back to an old-fashion left-back spot. In general, however, I cast a beady eye, spotted him a-wandering and duly scratched my head.

Anyway, whatever the hell you want to call his role, he did it pretty well, at least in an attacking sense. Maddison, as ever, was the brains of the operation, but I derived a fair amount of enjoyment in seeing Fulham simply unable to cope with the mere presence of Udogie as an additional forward body, adding to the numbers and generally making a nuisance of himself in between Richarlison and Son.

Out on the other side, Porro seemed more inclined to obey the rules of convention and hover within spitting distance of the touchline, generally limiting himself to one or two visits to the opposition area; but Udogie appears constantly to be one well-timed burst away from being our second striker.

As is often the case with these things, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and when Udogie was removed I thought we missed him somewhat. Emerson Royal, being a barmy sort, gave his own, rather madcap interpretation of the role, and with the entire collective being not quite at the races in the second half, the quality dipped notably.

So while I don’t pretend to understand his precise purpose, with each game I enjoy more and more the input from young Udogie, and hope that his early retirement last night was merely precautionary.

3. Romero

Not for the first time, some occasionally breathtaking football did not quite produce the rich harvest one would have hoped, and with only one first half goal to show for our efforts, those in the rear needed to pay a dashed sight more attention than one would have thought necessary.

At this point one could easily have gazed into the mid-distance, painted vivid images in the mind’s eye of Van de Ven neatly defusing bombs and extinguishing fires – and perfectly weighting passes that led directly to our opener, come to think of it – and purred appropriately at the chap for his highly impressive Jan Vertonghen Tribute Act.

But instead the AANP eye was drawn more towards the other side of central defence, where young Romero was busily plotting a flawless course through the night. Whenever Fulham broke down our right – and it seemed to happen far too often for my liking, considering the one-sided nature of proceedings – we seemed rather taken by surprise, as if such an eventuality simply hadn’t figured in all the pre-match planning. It was all a little too easy for Fulham to use that route to get within shooting distance. Where Senor Porro was in all this I’m not too sure, but happily the 2023/24 version of Cristian Romero has such matters well in hand.

On several occasions Romero popped up in precisely the spot in which trouble appeared about to befall, and for good measure, rather than simply blooting the ball to kingdom come, he typically had the presence of mind to make good use of it, either with a calming pass sideways, or, occasionally, with a gallop up the pitch.

As the game wore on and all in lilywhite cared less and less, Romero was called upon to do more than just intercept loose balls in his own area, increasingly being called upon to sprint back towards his own goal and put a lid on any looming trouble.

Much has been made of the calmer and wiser Romero, who this season thinks before hacking to pieces an opponent, but even with this new thoughtful head atop his shoulders, he still took every opportunity to put a bit of meaning into his tackles, going to ground and caring little if he upset the surrounding furniture.

As mentioned, Van de Ven did everything asked of him on the left, but I did particularly enjoy Romero’s bad-cop routine on the right.

4. Vicario

I trust that when Signor Vicario dived beneath the duvet and started totting up sheep last night, he was able to reflect on a pretty satisfactory day’s work for the employer. So far this season the young bean has attracted plaudits as much for his contributions to penalty area keep-ball as anything else, but last night he was called upon on a couple of occasions to lend a hand in the more traditional sense, and he did so in mightily impressive fashion.

It was the first half save that really caught the eye. A full-length extension, to a headed effort that for all the world looked already to be nestling in the net, was not to be sniffed at. Moreover, this came when the score was still 0-0, and when, although our lot were dominant, it was not yet clear that Fulham would be quite as bad as they were. It was worth a goal, and young Master V. ought to be serenaded appropriately for his efforts.

He had to make a couple more sharp-ish stops towards the end of things too, at that point at which a pact seemed to have been agreed by all concerned that 2-0 it would be, yet Fulham sneakily tried to score anyway. These later saves were a dash more straightforward, the ball being leathered pretty much straight at his frame, but I can think of former members of the parish who might have made a pig’s ear of them. They needed saving; and save them Vicario did.

Ironically enough, for one whose major contribution to date has been his confidence and capability with ball at feet, Vicario actually dropped something of a clanger in precisely that field in the first half, gifting possession to some Fulham sort inside our own area. Luckily enough, one of the main principles of the day – that Fulham were dreadful from root to stem – was swiftly reinforced, and they made little of the moment, but I thought it was a pleasing indication of quite how much Vicario has already banked that none in the galleries reacted with any opprobrium towards him.

5. A Below-Par Second Half

By my reckoning we ought to have been about 6-2 up at half-time, but instead had to make do with just the one – which would have been reasonable enough had we begun the second half with the same vim and vigour as that with which we ended the first.

Alas, our lot appeared to have tucked into sizeable portions of pasta at half-time, quite possibly washed down with an ale or two, because the sluggish second half approach was very much that of a troupe who felt their night’s serious business was done, and were content to pay only the loosest attention to proceedings for the remainder, seemingly adopting the view that any matters of precision and accuracy would take care of themselves.

Against anyone else this might have been a problem. Mercifully, Fulham – and in particular that lad Bassey, at the back – appeared to be Spurs fans at heart, and did their best to ensure a smooth passage to victory for us, both in spurning an alarming number of late chances but also, crucially, in gifting us a second goal to wrap things up, just when it seemed that we were starting to lose control of things.

How our heroes might have coped with the late concession of a goal, bringing the score back to 2-1, will forever remain unknown, but AANP certainly ground a displeased tooth as that second half unfolded. One would hope that the careless attitude was a product of the circumstance – a poor opponent; the sense that we could go up a gear or two if needed; the fixture list throwing up another joust on Friday night – but I would much rather have seen us roll up sleeves, apply boot to neck and see off the thing a little more professionally.

Still, it ended up being a mightily comfortable win, and with the Title now practically sewn up, the only question left at AANP Towers is whether we will bag the FA Cup as well.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Luton 0-1 Spurs: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Missed Chances

Easy to forget by the time the credits rolled and we let out that enormous, collective exhalation of relief, a few years having been shaved off each individual, but our lot might – and really should – have been two or three goals up before the clock had even struck 7 minutes.

Profligacy hasn’t really tended to be a particular problem around these parts, so one generously excuses the wayward nature of the finishing yesterday as an isolated incident. ‘These things happen’, seems the platitude of choice in such situations, ‘no hard feelings’. But even armed with this ‘Forgive and forget, what?’ attitude to life, one cannot simply gloss over the fact that for each of the spurned chances I raised my eyes to the heavens and unleashed an almighty howl.

For make no mistake, as straightforward chances go all three of these were absolute corkers. With Luton ambling about the place like they had no idea what sport they were playing (our lot had 96% possession in those opening exchanges, egads!) decency really demanded that we shovelled a few into their net and had the thing done and dusted inside ten minutes.

Naturally, the simplest of these tasks fell to Richarlison, who, bruised potato that he currently is, found some pretty extraordinary ways to fashion a pig’s ear out of them.

The first opportunity would be described by most of sound mind as a tap-in from one yard, and as such be as inexcusable as they come. However, in the interests of fairness it is only right to allow the most zealous members of the Richarlison Fan Club to stamp their feet a bit and highlight the fact that such a description glosses over the fact that the ball reached their man at a most inconvenient height, thereby rather putting the skids on the notion of this as a ’tap-in’.

One sees both sides. The ball, when it did finally arrive at the prescribed meeting point, was at what might be described as Davinson Sanchez height – meant for the feet, but sufficiently high that the dimmer members of the clan might try heading it instead. The point being that it was rather an awkward height, and Richarlison therefore deserves some sympathy for failing to keep the thing under his spell.

Personally I’m not particularly convinced, as the chap had seemed to have done the hard work – arrived on location, connected foot to ball – and quite simply missed the target.

(I noted images circulating around the interweb, no doubt posted with accompanying shrieks of outrage, that appear to show the Luton bobbie in Richarlison’s slipstream grabbing a handful of his shirt at the vital moment. I strongly recommend that these are ignored, for watching the incident again, with the beadiest of eyes, seems to highlight that this was quite the non-event, and did nothing to affect the outcome.)

Minutes later, Richarlison had the ball on terra firma, and went for the bottom corner, only to be denied by the leg of the Luton goalkeeper. Again, our man’s supporters might argue, with some justification, that he didn’t do much wrong – kept it low, aimed for the corner, struck it cleanly and so forth – but the critical point is that six yards from goal with only the ‘keeper to beat, any self-respecting striker ought to be depositing the thing as if shelling a pea, and off for the mandatory knee-slide without the need for any further points of debate.

Pedro Porro was next, letting the ball run a mite too far away from him and consequently extending the lower appendage slightly more than the textbook suggests is optimal, with the net result that he steered the ball the wrong side of the post. This one actually surprised me, because if the last nine months or so have taught me anything about young Senor Porro it’s that he seems to finish better than Richarlison. No airs or graces, just decisive thwacks into the low corners.

All very irritating, but at this point it seemed that our lot were up against a bunch of poorly-arranged mannequins, and had brought their short-sharp-passing A-game, so a further hatful of chances would arrive pretty sharpish. One little would have suspected that we would have been deploying skin of the teeth to cling on to a one-goal win at the end, but I suppose the moral of the story here is just to bury the dashed chances when they thrust themselves into one’s lap.

2. Bissouma

That gushing stream of early chances stopped, scratched its head and opted to become more of a trickle after those first ten minutes, but as all concerned readied themselves for the midway intermission the general sense remained that our heroes remained comfortably superior, in all respects other than actually bobbing along the scoreline.

And until that part Bissouma had been buzzing along doing the sorts of things that Bissouma does. Part of the joy of the man is that he manages to cram into his nine-to-five the work of several different men. He is at various points Bissouma: Destroyer of Worlds, by virtue of his ability snatch the ball from opponents just outside our own area; also Bissouma: Dropper of the Shoulder, a party-trick again typically unveiled outside his own area, when receiving the ball under pressure and displaying a Waddle-esque ability to send opponents into another postcode without actually touching the ball, but simply by dipping the frame; and Bissouma: Carrier of the Ball, which tends to be more front page news, as he gallops over halfway and threads the thing onwards to an attacking comrade.

All of which meant that when he was removed from the cast-list, it felt like we had had more than one man sent off. There is having a player sent off, and the reshuffling that this requires; and there is having Bissouma sent off. He’s a pretty valuable commodity.

A pretty brainless one, too. Harking all the way back to his lilywhite debut, when he was cautioned for tossing the ball away with a bit of feeling, the chap seems to exhibit a penchant for idiocy of a pretty high level.

For a start, in every game he seems to booked for the same foul, a rather needless, inelegant and, crucially, wholly unsubtle bundling over of a scampering opponent from behind. Occasionally in such instances one surreptitiously lowers one’s gaze and murmurs a line or two about tactical fouls – but too often with Bissouma it seems fewer parts tactical and far too many parts reckless.

But then, having collected his token yellow, to fling himself to the ground and have himself expelled from the vicinity was utterly mind-boggling in its bone-headedness. I mean, really. How does a fellow so wanting for IQ manage to tie his laces in the morning?

And more to the point, his dive was pretty unabashed cheating. AANP has a pretty strict moral compass, and bilge like this stinks the place out. Not at N17, thank you. One could argue that there have been plenty of instances in recent years of tumbling to the ground as if shot under the slightest contact; but giving the old to-dust-I-shall-return routine when no contact has been made at all just simply isn’t cricket.

3. Romero

I noted that Jermaine Jenas displayed the slightly lazy tendency of the modern telly-box pundit in shoving the Man of the Match brick at the goalscorer. In fairness young Van de Ven could be considered a fairly worthy winner, having kept everything under lock and key at the back, and then displaying an impressive ability to reshuffle what seemed like numerous feet in setting himself for the winner.

But from the AANP Towers vantage point it was the fellow joined to VDV’s hip who caught the eye. Young Cristian Romero had one of his zingiest days in lilywhite, or pink, or whatever the kids are calling it these days. Whether it was heading, blocking, tackling or racing back to interfere with an opposing striker just as they were readying themselves for a spot of shooting practice, Romero seemed pretty determined to make this his day, irrespective of what Jermaine Jenas had to say on the matter.

It was all the more impressive when one considers the hot-headed Romero of yesteryear, whose mantra seemed to be ‘Chop someone in half first, debate the finer points in life later’. Practically a Buddhist monk by comparison these days, Romero barely makes a foul, can be seen to weigh up the pros and cons before charging into the action and even produces a spot of the old UN-Secretary-General routine, wading into on-field rows as peacemaker of all things, ushering away the more hot-headed and vocal souls around him.

Much has been made of the impact of awarding him the vice-captaincy, and I suppose the evidence of this honour is there for all to see, although being of a different vintage I’m rather dismissive of such things myself. But if improves Romero as a player, and tightens the defence accordingly, then I’m happy to toot the nearest klaxon in support.

Back to yesterday, and both the occasional cross into our box and more frequent glut of corners conceded had the AANP teeth grinding away, make no mistake. However, Romero, aided by his chums, kept trouble to a minimum. (Credit at this point also  to Our Glorious Leader for the introduction of Skipp and particularly Royal, to augment our back-four into a back-five, and reduce the threat posed by back-post crosses.)

It ought not to have been a day for trumpeting the centre-backs, but it’s pretty reassuring to know that should they be thrust into service then neither Romero will grab the responsibility and sling it over his shoulder with meaningful looks in all directions.

4. Kulusevski

I suppose few in attendance would have given more than cursory glance of acknowledgement to Dejan Kulusevski for his day’s work. ‘Busy throughout, and particularly effective in the first-half’, might have been the summary in the local rag, before awarding him a 6 out of 10 and sinking its teeth into Richarlison.

But again, in the spirit of championing the lesser-heralded amongst the troupe, AANP was positively drooling about the chap by the time the curtain came down. In particular, it was the effort he put in in the final 20 or so, when both Sonny and Maddison were hooked for the greater good, and one imagines the dialogue between Big Ange and Deki Kulusevski running along the lines of:

BA: shrug

DK: shrug (of acceptance)

At which point Kulusevski loped off to be the central striker, a pretty lonely job when everyone else of an attacking persuasion was topping up on their isotonic fluids and energy gels on the sidelines.

But Kulusevski comes across as the sort of chap who, in his youth, if told to run home five miles if he wanted feeding, simply laced up his trainers and started jogging. Yesterday, he did not stop running for the cause in those final stages, either up the top or out on the right.

Regularly spotted collecting the ball and motoring off into a corner, pursued by two or three of the enemy, he found himself simply having to stiffen the torso and barge interlopers out of the way while he waited for a spot of company. The drill seeming to be that we’d clear the ball to Kulusevski and rely on him single-handedly to delay Luton’s next attack, which seemed a mite harsh on the lad, but he’s evidently an uncomplaining sort.

As mentioned, few headlines will be written about him, and I don’t recall spotting too many garlands about his neck as he trooped off, but his contribution as lone-johnnie-holding-up-the-ball-in-attack was priceless stuff.

5. Spursy

It was only Luton (just as last week it was only nine men, and the previous week it was a team shorn of three or four first teamers) but AANP can barely sit still with excitement. Not so much for the League table, although Monday 20th May has already been marked with a big thick cross as the date for the open-top bus parade along the High Road. Rather, the thrill of all this is that we continue to win games in which, in recent (and more distant) history our heroes would have come out with the best intentions but flopped badly.

After a couple of injury-time winners in recent weeks, this time we were deducted a player for half the game and told to sink or swim. There are, I suppose, tougher assignments out there, but this nevertheless felt like a significant impediment, and an equally significant achievement. Keeping Luton at bay for 45 minutes in these circumstances was mightily impressive going; having the spark to pinch a goal in the midst of it reflected that this was not merely a backs-to-the-wall operation.

As mentioned, it’s not the sort of output I’m used to seeing from our lot, but I suppose that’s what you get in a brave new era. Either way, it’s yet another of those irksome tests, passed yet again with flying colours, and it all does really make one wonder quite which replica shirt to don on 20th May.

Categories
Spurs news, rants

Spurs’ Pre-Season: Eight Tottenham Talking Points

What ho. With the new season rumbling into view we might as well pour ourselves a splash of something with a bit of oof to it, and bring ourselves up to speed on recent events, what?

1. Ange Postecoglou

Now here’s a man the cut of whose jib I can straight away give the approving nod. Ultimately, of course, it will all come down to the meat and veg of the Premier League, but nevertheless, Ange has all made all the right moves so far.

For a start there are his no-nonsense interviews, giving short shrift to baiters and sycophants alike, and generally cutting through the guff. His response to the Bayern shirt stunt in particular, and the Kane noise in general, has neatly summed up much of what there is to like about the fellow – not one to suffer fools, not one to skirt around a point and, one gets the impression, not the sort of chap one wants to antagonise any more than is absolutely necessary.

Nor does the new man give the impression that this set of players, fans, team and whole bally undertaking is beneath him, à la the last couple of incumbents. Whether or not one whole-heartedly buys into every quirk and idiosyncrasy, the broad approach – of wanting to roll up the sleeves and get the best out of our mob – is easy enough to get on board with.

I was also rather taken by Postecoglou’s comments about our heroes’ collective approach to those last few minutes of the first half against Shaktar. The gist of his thoughts on the matter were that, as a collective, they needed a slap about the face with a wet fish (I paraphrase) for indulging in a spot of motions-going-through and clock-playing-down as the half-time whistle approached.

Ange-ball, it appears, does not tolerate taking one’s foot off the pedal and batting for the close of play, as it were. His anthem is something more along the lines of ‘If we have the ball let’s dashed well attack, irrespective of the clock’, and this attitude meets with a pretty rousing chorus of approval at AANP Towers.

2. The New Style of Play

And then there’s the breath of fresh air that is our new style of play. Having spent the last three years positively yowling for something at least vaguely progressive, and instead being treated to a diet of deep-lying defences and vain attempts to soak up pressure – despite the attacking riches available – to say that Ange-ball is a pretty welcome sight understates the thing just a bit.

My spies who like to sit there and count these sorts of things reckon that in the three games so far we’ve totalled over 100 shots on goal. Now caveats abound of course. Our opponents have been so alarmingly weak that I suspect we’d have triumphed even if playing with boots tied together and blindfolds about the head. But nevertheless, it’s hard to imagine racking up a century of shots against these three in the Jose or Conte eras.

And the football itself has quite simply been a lot more fun to watch. It’s all a bit zippier for a start, with one- and two-touch gospels evidently having been drilled into hearts and minds throughout the place.

There seems to have been a collective agreement amongst our lot that these days the ball is going to be shoved from Defence to Midfield to Attack without too many wistful glances backward.

The days of having two poor saps in midfield outnumbered and flogged until they can barely stand also appear to have been given the Orwellian heave-ho. It’s a three-man job these days – or at least it will be on the shiny TV graphics pre-match, but once the starter’s gun fires our lot seem to be buzz about all over the place, with full-backs inverting and midfielders dropping and goodness what else. But AANP is not one to get too bogged down in the minutiae of life. Give me a good bourbon and some one-touch triangles, and I’m a pretty content sort of conker. And the early indications are that Ange-ball’s attacking 4-3-3 will hit the spot.

Until we have to defend, of course.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose is the rather wearied AANP take on our the current state of our back-four. Which is to say it’s pretty much the same old rot in the southernmost quarter, what? Better minds than mine can no doubt grab a scalpel and get into the small-print of precisely how and why we’re conceding chances and goals to even the most amateurish teams out there, but the general sense is that it remains awfully straightforward to waltz through our lot and have a pop.

Reinforcements are apparently incoming (and for what it’s worth, I’d give serious consideration to sacrificing one of my lesser-used limbs in order to secure the services of that Laporte bean), but when Ben Davies is being preferred at centre-back to Messrs Sanchez, Tanganga, Rodon and whomever else, one does conjure up the image of a rather stern-looking Ange giving the barrel a good scrape.

Still, such things take time to perfect, I suppose, and the grand fromage does at least appear acutely aware that the current back-four, and in particular the coterie of centre-backs, is not really fit for purpose.

3. Maddison

So to our new arrivals, and the early indications are that James Maddison is pretty much everything we hoped and dreamed.

Not without good reason Daniel Levy takes the occasional slosh around the ear from the faithful, but credit where due, he didn’t hang around in crossing t’s and dotting i’s to get young J. M. bunged into an uber heading up the High Road. The apparent price was pretty reasonable, and again, a silent prayer of thanks was offered for Levy not pulling his usual stunt of haggling over the last fiver and whatnot.

And the chap himself seems to have taken to life in our midfield without too much fuss, and actually with a fair amount of pleasure. It’s no exaggeration to say it’s been years since we had a spot of creativity in central midfield, and with a couple of chums handily placed around him to keep an eye on things, Maddison has appeared to have a whale of a time so far. Long may that continue.

4. Manor Solomon

The ins and outs of his transfer may be a tad confusing to simple folk such as AANP, but on the pitch young Solomon seems to have a few good habits about him.

Some quick-footed trickery is always a good bet to melt the hearts of the watching public, but counts for naught if it ends with a fellow skipping off into a cul-de-sac and ending up in a heap on the floor. Mercifully however, this Solomon bean appears to have the good sense to attach a spot of end-product to his hop-skip-and-jumping, and is happy to hang up a cross or deliver a pull-back as appropriate.

One rather disappointing offshoot of the Solomon Gambit appears to be the elbowing out of shot of young Bryan Gil, a creature of whom I’d grown rather fond in his occasional cameos last season. Injured, at the moment, apparently, but once fit I imagine he’d be quite a long way down the waiting list.

I also personally hope that Ivan Perisic sticks around, particularly if he is to be relieved of defensive duties and deployed solely in the wide attacking role for which Nature appears to have fitted him. Not necessarily a popular opinion, that one, so I won’t labour it, but if the ability to beat a man and whip in a cross with either foot is of value, then he strikes me as an egg it is worth having about the place.

5. Vicario

The brow furrows a bit here, I must confess. A bit early to make any sort of call on the new chappie tasked with ensuring the back-door is locked. All goals he’s conceded so far seem to have come from close range and not really given him too much chance.

That said, of the snippets of action over which I’ve cast my eye, I’ve not really had the old skirt blown up by his attitude towards dealing with crosses, he not yet having given the impression of being of the school of wiping out all in his path and thwacking the ball away with a bit of meat.

He does at least appear to be a bit more comfortable with ball at feet than poor old Monsieur Lloris – a low bar admittedly – and these days all the young folk are starting attacks from goal-kicks, so we might as well not fight it. But one over whom to keep a watchful eye, for now.

6. Van de Ven

AANP has spent his summer in man edifying ways – improving the mind, penning a book or two, giving the Aussies some clobber from the sidelines – but alas, I must confess that that time has not really been spent poring over hours of footage of young Master Van de Ven.

As such, he’s a bit of an unknown quantity in these parts; but consider at least what is known about the fellow. For a start, he’s supposed to one of the quicker of the featherless bipeds plying their trade in these parts – and if we’re going to be playing a high line, that will likely be a handy trait.

He’s also left-footed, which might not sound like much I suppose, but in his line of work, and given the current state of our centre-back menagerie, actually fits rather swimmingly into the broader piece.

None of this conjecture counts for much of course, until Sunday lunchtime, but with Eric Dier still knocking about the place as first reserve I fancy we have a further spot of shopping to do. In theory at least, a Romero-VDV defensive combo sounds like it ought to hit the spot. Fingers crossed for the chap.

7. Fare Thee Well, Young Master Winks

A quick valedictory note on poor old Harry Winks too, who’s biffed off down a division, which seems a tad unfortunate, to Leicester.

The young sport was never short of willing or devotion to the club, and as such will always be welcome for a bourbon at AANP Towers, but he was definitely one of those – and we’ve had a few – who appeared to have a lot of the ‘Cultured Midfielder’ about him but somehow seemed unable to kick on.

A decent enough first touch, and a willingness to collect the ball from his defensive chums seemed to bode well, but was too often topped off with an immediate shovel straight back to the defence, rather than an instinct for something a bit more ambitious.

Still, the chap was arguably our best player in the Champions League Final, which sounds like being an unlikely quiz question in years to come. So he’s no doubt deserving of kind words, but sic transit gloria mundi and all that. Better for everyone this way.

8. Kane

Who knows, eh?

Opinions differ, naturally, and the AANP take is that I’d rather have Kane for a season than £100 million. Not least because our record of exchanging great big swathes of cash for footballers has been pretty patchy (the mind cannot help but flit back to the Bale money, and Soldado, Chiriches, Paulinho et al); but also because even if we did spend wisely, we would never bring in someone of his quality. There’s a train of thought that if he gets us into the Champions League (which apparently extends to a Top Five this season) then he immediately nets us £50m or whatever, but even brushing aside that argument, I’m still firmly rooted in the ‘Keep The Blighter’ camp.

I’m quite content with the thought of 25 or so of his goals, a dozen or so assists and a cheery wave goodbye next summer. In fact, given that we didn’t spend anything to acquire him there’s even a spot of the from-dust-he-came-to-dust-he-shall-return about losing him on a free. Obviously not ideal, but if that were to transpire I’d lap it up happily enough. And who knows, if Ange-ball really takes off he might hang around and start scouting out the retirement homes of N17.

Bayern have been doing their pantomime villain stuff pretty well, going about their business in dastardly and, frankly, wildly ill-advised fashion. Most peculiar, actually. For a start their Brains Trust seems to have spent several weeks missing the quite straightforward point that they won’t get their man unless they pay the required fee. Seems a pretty obvious one, that.

On top of which, at least one of their number ought really to have done a bit of basic homework on Daniel Levy and his negotiating style, but again, they’ve sailed through that one with seemingly blissful ignorance, presumably adopting an approach that works domestically, of simply demanding and expecting then to receive. To give Levy another little doff of the cap, that he allegedly responded to their arbitrary deadline last week by first ignoring it and then jetting off on holiday is, if true (and it’s debatable) pretty ripping stuff.

As for Kane himself, he’s obviously convinced it’s the move of choice, but it seems a rummy old one to me. I suppose if the chap absolutely desperately wants a medal, then there are fewer surer bets than a Bundesliga at Bayern; but when the curtain comes down on him I doubt anyone will remember him for that rather than his goalscoring records with club and country (in the same way as Alan Shearer is generally thought of as a record goalscorer rather than Premier League winner with Blackburn). But to each their own. These young people will follow their own peculiar whims.

And that pretty much brings us up to speed. Admittedly it’s all a state of flux, and it seems there will be quite a few more bodies shoved out of one door while one or two are dragged in another, but one gets the gist – and by the time our paths next cross, the new season will be upon us!

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 1-0 Palace: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. The Change in Shape and Personnel: Porro

After a couple of weeks that have been heavy on action and light on plot, our latest Glorious Leader did the honourable thing and picked the option marked “Do Something – Anything – Differently”. Which translated into the hooking of Messrs Perisic, Dier and Kulusevski; and a line-up that, while still seeming pretty lopsided, was at least lopsided in a new and interesting way.

The change in formation struck me as one of those jobbies in which in possession the gang adopts Format A, but out of possession they revert as one to Format B, if you follow. So at various points Emerson was tucking in as a third centre-back, while at others he seemed to be surreptitiously shuffling off towards the flank to adopt a more conventionally right-back pose. In fact, it appeared at certain times as if our heroes were going about their business in a 4-4-2, which rather took me back to my salad days in the 80s. A pleasing riposte to false nines and that sort of thing, what?

Back to the general mass of humanity on our right side, and the reappearance of resident eccentric, Emerson Royal, was quite the pleasant surprise. For a start, he displayed a hitherto unknown sense of inconspicuousness in returning to the fold completely under the radar. I’d pretty much written the fellow off for the season, and rather forgotten about him in truth, what with one damn thing and another at N17.

But there he was, in that unspecified, hybrid defensive role on the right, crossing all t’s and dotting all i’s in the manner one would expect of arguably our greatest ever player. However, if the reception he received from the paying masses was rosy, I suspect it paled into insignificance next to that he received from Pedro Porro.  Poor old P.P.’s eyes may light up when charging into the final third, but if he’s shown us one thing over the last couple of months it’s that he couldn’t look less comfortable in his defensive duties if he slung a sandwich board about his frame bearing the legend “I Just Want To Be A Winger”, and continued wearing it while trying to defend.

With Emerson babysitting him however, it was a different story. Porro was able to shove most of his eggs into the attacking basket, and on balance one would say he ended up with a few more pluses than minuses to his name.

He slung in enough crosses that sooner or later he was bound to strike oil with one of them, duly doing so to create our goal; but as well as his general output I was pretty satisfied to see him scuttling into view, stage right, with every attack. Again, the goal was a decent example of that, Porro getting his head down and hurtling over halfway out on the right, even as the attack was still having its genesis somewhere nearer the left flank – all of which preliminaries meant that when Kane lobbed the ball off towards the right of the area, the young frijole seemed to have approximately a quarter of the stadium at his mercy to do as he pleased.  

2. The Change in Shape and Personnel: Dier (and Romero and Lenglet)

The other principal consequence of the rejig was the removal of Eric Dier from any area in which his slightest involvement might spark the usual disaster. It is, of course, a little difficult to judge the success of someone’s absence. One could, in theory, emit a joyful whoop at the fact that Dier was not in situ to dither on the ball or play a chum into trouble or mistime a lunge or get dragged out of position or get outpaced; but this seems a little hollow. Rather like celebrating the fact that a piano hasn’t fallen on one’s head – good news, of course, in anyone’s book, but more the sort of thing one curses when it does  happen, rather than celebrating when it doesn’t.

More usefully, the absence of Dier seemed to have a calming effect upon Romero, who, since returning to the day-job with a World Cup winner’s medal around his neck, has given the impression of turning up for work every day since absolutely sozzled in celebration.

Yesterday, however, with the absence of a calamitous defender on one side of him, and the presence of a capable defender on the other, Romero appeared pretty steady on his feet. Of wild lunges and cavalier shimmies forward, there were none. He still found time to pick another lovely 50-yard pass or two – hang your head in shame, Sonny – but it was the principal business, of keeping things under lock and key at the back, that were of concern, and he seemed focused enough.

I’m not sure how much credit Monsieur Lenglet should be given for this. I’m never really sure how much credit Monsieur Lenglet should be given in general. He seems to be one of those chappies who has loosely the right sort of idea, and can also contribute a bit bringing the ball forward, which helps; but who will just shrug the shoulders and let out a sad gallic sigh if an opponent gets the wrong side of him, accepting his fate as irreversible, which nettles a bit.

Be that as it may, not being Eric Dier seemed to work in his favour yesterday, as did the fact that alongside him (I’m shuffling right-to-left here) he had Ben Davies in Cautious Mode, both full-backs for the day clearly having been drilled on the importance of being as boring as possible, for the greater good. Anyway, the nub of it was that Lenglet-and-Romero more or less worked, as a central pairing, at least when up against Palace at home and with Fraser Forster’s enormous frame behind them.

3. Ryan Mason

A triumph for Ryan Mason, then, a bean about whom I can’t really make up the mind, three games into his second stint.

That he cares about the club, with all the loveable idiocy of you, I or any other long-suffering fan, is beyond doubt. Cut Mason open and he bleeds lilywhite. Thrust a microphone in his face immediately after the final whistle, and within ten seconds he’ll forget the rules of diplomacy that the PR mob have spoon-fed him, and instead launch into some pretty impassioned stuff, his voice rising an octave, which is really the tell-tale sign that it’s all coming from the heart. After the public sabotage of Conte and Jose, this sort of thing is welcome stuff. This sort of thing makes me want to clasp his hand with firmness and meaning, and there’s not much stronger sentiment than that.

The players are apparently fond of the chap too, or at least happy enough to do his bidding and enquire how high when he yips ‘Jump’. Again, after a couple of years’ worth of managers taking every opportunity to advertise to the world how inept the players are, this seems a pretty useful commodity.

Tactically, I find him a bit harder to fathom. The changes made yesterday seemed to do the trick, at least suggesting a spot of welcome clarity at the back, as well time well spent behind closed doors. It’s hardly his fault that there is not a creative midfielder to be found at the club; and his adjustment to a back-four featuring bona fide full-backs, while seemingly about as common sensical as it gets, was much needed (and yet, bizarrely, completely beyond the grasp of those who trod the path before).

I also rather like the spirit with which he approaches in-game tweaks and substitutions, as if struck by a realisation, which again had completely eluded his predecessors, that by virtue of his role he possesses the capacity to move the pawns about a bit and thereby effect change in real-time. The famous Dier-related adjustment against Man City was apparently his bright idea; and he can take a sizeable chunk of the credit for second half comebacks against both Man Utd and Liverpool, improvements of sorts being evident after his tuppence worth at half-time.

But nevertheless, I have my doubts in this regard. Improved though we may have been after half-time in the aforementioned matches, they were still his troops, under his orders, who fell behind in the first place. (One sympathises here, admittedly, for he was dealt an abysmal hand; but one cannot really have it both ways – credit for the comeback goes hand-in-hand with chiding for the deficit.)

Nor does young Mason exactly come across as particularly Churchillian in manner. Fun though it is to see a genuine fan taking charge of things, for all his being a likeable young soul I struggle to imagine him either stirring fire in bellies or plotting tactical works of genius. Not his fault, of course, that he’s a contemporary (or junior) of half them, but still. Gravitas and nous do not really seem to be his selling points.

The big caveat here, of course, is that this judgement is based purely on the evidence of what Mason presents to the public in press conferences and interviews and whatnot – and here I may well do him quite the injustice. The impression he gives in front of the camera is that of a passionate fan, rather than one of the game’s great thinkers; behind closed doors there may well lurk a far more astute mind (indeed, the murmurs one hears from behind the scenes suggest as much), and one heck of a communicator too.


For now, at least, his presence at the helm makes a goodish amount of sense. Whatever the problems at the club, they were not of his making. If he can inspire our lot simply to care as much as he does, politely demote those worth demotion (irrespective of reputation) and continue to instil the same level of organisation and clarity that was evident on Saturday, then it will be a job pretty well done.

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Spurs match reports

Newcastle 6-1 Spurs: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Happy Birthday AANP Senior

This weekend was the 90th birthday of my old man, AANP Senior, which is a solid innings by most metrics.

Having seen our lot lift all but two of the trophies in their history, and seen in their entirety the lilywhite careers of Messrs Greaves and Kane, I classify the aged relative as something approaching Spurs royalty – so it seemed a bit rotten that he should spend his birthday sitting through that garbled nonsense yesterday. But I suppose if we’ve learnt anything it’s that our heroes will repeatedly find new and innovative ways to plumb new depths, what?

(He was pretty philosophical about it though.)

2. The Players

I recall in my younger days one of the female chums giving me a funny look, and possibly patting my head, saying, “There are many, many things wrong with you,” and it was a sentiment that sprung to mind last night as I recollected the day’s events and tried to make sense of them. For there was not really any single issue that sprung to mind. In fact, one cannot think back to the game without about eighteen different problems immediately jostling for position at the front of the queue.

But amidst the behind-the-scenes circus currently in full effect at the place, the players certainly contributed to the general spirit of full-blooded incompetence yesterday.

I could bang on all day about Romero waddling around from minute one in his own area with his hands behind his back, and it wouldn’t begin to address the problems in the vicinity – but nevertheless, why the dickens was Romero waddling around from minute one in his own area with his behinds his back? Yes, yes, we all know the handball rule means that merely possessing arms is in some cases a punishable offence, but really. The chap was facing down a fellow about to shoot, the situation seemed to demand a spot of spread-limbed antagonism. Instead of which, Romero made himself as small as possible, the complete opposite of what the impending crisis required. On top of which, this arms-behind-back nonsense had the unhelpful immediate consequence of constricting all his subsequent movements in the adventure, Romero hereafter proceeding about the place with all the freedom of one bound by a straitjacket.

Not that Romero was the sole culprit. Right from kick-off, Dier opted against bringing down an aerial ball when given the time and space to do so, instead heading it first time in a manner that stacked the odds against Sarr, who duly lost it. This may sound a pretty incidental detail, and a lot of the time it wouldn’t amount to much I suppose. But in a way, just carelessly tossing the ball around without too much concern for its eventual whereabouts sums up a lot of what is wrong with the troupe. Put another way, next time someone wonders aloud what is meant by the players lacking a winning mentality, I’ll plant them in front of a screen and show them a clip of Dier aimlessly heading the ball with the air of a fellow who thinks it’s someone else’s problem.

On top of which, it wasn’t quite such an incidental detail, because Newcastle promptly scooped up the thing and opened the scoring.

Perisic reacted to the save from Lloris, immediately prior to the first goal, by taking the sight of the loose ball squirming free as a cue to take his first break of the day. Perisic instead adopted a watching brief, as a Newcastle sort politely shuffled forward to poke the ball into the empty net.

Porro for possibly the second goal (I think, one rather loses count) had the decency to check over his right shoulder for imminent threats, and having clocked one such foe lurking with a spot of menace, reacted to the incoming cross by giving it his best Perisic impression and letting the ball sail past him, seemingly convinced that a strategy of non-interference must eventually come good. To his credit, where Perisic had simply goggled a bit, Porro at least made a perfunctory attempt to appear engaged, by raising an arm to appeal for offside. Pointless of course, and infuriating too, in this age of play continuing so that VAR can sort it out at a later date, but if the drill amongst our lot was to find ever more appalling ways to stuff things up then Porro was fitting right in.

Of course, no abject lilywhite capitulation would be complete without Monsieur Lloris adding his signature move of just not bothering to move at all, and he rolled out one of his best for number three (or was it four?), making zero effort even to stretch out an arm, or even twitch a limb, as the ball sailed past him.

This, of course, is but a selection. Everywhere one looked, there seemed to be one of our heroes stumbling off into some new crisis that only ended with the ball in our net and Eric Dier puffing away angrily as they marched back to starting positions. So, chronic and deep-rooted though the problems at the club may be, the current mob out on the pitch are certainly adding their tuppence worth of hokum to the mix at every opportunity.

3. The 4-3-3

The pre-match announcement of the switch to 4-3-3 struck me at the time as ripping news. Indeed, it would be no exaggeration to say that it raised my level of expectation from ‘Nil’ to ‘A Flicker Of Hope’. I’d been baying for the thing all season after all, the sight of our midfield pair repeatedly being outnumbered and generally cut to ribbons week after week having an oddly discouraging effect upon the juices.

Of course, it’s difficult to measure such things as the success of one formation as compared to another, all sorts of wacky metrics being available in these days of Opta stats and XG and so on and so forth. But it’s seems a fairly safe bet to suggest that most right-minded folk would point to a 5-0 deficit after 20 minutes as evidence that the thing had not quite transpired as an unparalleled success.

So no real quibbling on that front, but nevertheless the whole thing left me rather miffed. Like most things in life, done properly a 4-3-3 would seem a perfectly reasonable way to conduct one’s day-to-day. Somehow however, our lot managed to take a pretty normal state of affairs and turn it into the sort of nightmare to rival a stretch in the flames of Hades.

Now there are a few rummy elements to this. One thing that occurred to me is that the club never waste an opportunity to bleat on about how our lot have one of the best training facilities in the business. As bragging rights go, it’s a peculiar one admittedly, but if it helps bring out the best in the troops then I’m all for it.

However, seeing them scuttle about the pitch yesterday like they’d not previously heard of football, let alone adjusted to the rigours of a 4-3-3, did get me wondering what they hell they’ve been doing all week in those gleaming training facilities. One appreciates that change is always a bit much to stomach, we homo sapiens being creatures of habit and whatnot, but honestly. They began proceedings looking uncertain if they were in the right half of the pitch.

Another challenge that has been widely highlighted is that apparently having a wing-back play at wing-back is hunky-dory, and a full-back play at full-back is tickety-boo; but if a wing-back is every required to play at full-back cracks will appear in the sky and the very fabric of reality will come crashing down.

This seems to be the expert take, and is used to explain why, for example, Perisic was utterly incapable of exhibiting any signs of life when the situation at Goal 1 yesterday required him to extend a leg and poke the ball clear. Wing-backs, after all, are incapable of defending. Similarly, Porro’s inability to jog back alongside the striker on his shoulder was not so much his fault, as a desperate flaw in the system – wing-backs are incapable of defending.

So if that’s the unquestionable truth then I suppose we ought to accept it, but I did occasionally pass a hand over the fevered brow and wonder, as our lot fell apart at the seams, whether anyone had tried training Perisic and Porro – and indeed Romero and Dier – to adapt to this new and mind-boggling setup, viz. The Back Four. In this age in which every baked bean ingested is recorded and every drop of perspiration monitored, I’d have thought they’d have the resource at the gleaming training facility to sit down with a couple of the players and shove a few hours of analysis at them, touching on some of the key do’s and don’ts of the role.

4. Kane

It obviously got rather lost in the mists of general wretchedness knocking about the place, but Harry Kane popped up with a heck of a goal. On another day I would have lit a cigar, been pretty liberal with the bourbon and scrawled some of the best prose going in salute to it. There was a spot of one-touch stuff at the outset, completely out of character with the general sentiment of not-knowing-what-day-of-the-week that had been adopted by one and all, before Kane was released on halfway.

And while his little dribble to beat his man owed much to general bluster and force than any particular finesse, it achieved the objective, and left him to make a left-foot shot that many would have dragged wide.

So well done him, although for how much longer such jolly sentiments are lobbed his way remains to be seen. If he decided to sprint out the door as soon as the whistle blows on the final game of the season, one would understand the sentiment.

However, one point I have begun to mull in my quieter moments, is whether a permanent absence of Kane might work to our benefit. One treads carefully here, dodging the slew of incoming rotten fruit, and picking the words delicately, but the point I’m driving at is that we no longer press from the front, with any real sense of verve or spirit when Kane is leading the line.

Essentially this is because the poor fellow is completely out of puff, having strained every sinew non-stop for about four years under Poch. These days, his top speed is something of a chug, which is more than adequate for most of the tasks on his morning To-Do list – finish with the right foot; finish with the left foot; win a foul; drop deep and ping; finish from outside the box; and so on.

But when it comes to pressing the opposition, Kane is something of a spent force these days. This is entirely his prerogative, so no complaint there; it does, however, prevent the rest of our mob from effecting a high press as a team.

This is a bit of a tangent that probably needs some cove with a screen and some whizzy graphics to do justice to, and if push came to shove I’d certainly keep the fellow in the ranks and let him do his damnedest pretty much any way he pleases. But as well as wing-backs who can’t play full-back, the generally decrepit nature of whichever system we’re peddling does seem to include an inability to shove any pressure on the other lot when in possession at the back.

5. The Running of the Club

Well that Stellini chap has taken the well-trodden path, so no need to bother about him any longer, and poor old Ryan Mason is now faced with the gargantuan task of trying not to devastate his CV before he’s had a chance to write the first entries.

But further up the food-chain, if I have correctly picked up the occasional whisper, it seems that there might just be one or two murmurs of displeasure against one D. Levy Esquire.

If he would stick to the business side, steer well clear of the football side and bring in a few qualified eggs with a good knowledge of the club, AANP would probably be happy enough, in truth. Off the pitch he knows his beans well enough, and if things pootle along well on the pitch then I’m happy not to give him a further thought. But things on the pitch could not really be much worse, which does rather bend the argument a good 180 degrees.

The complete lack of strategy in the pre-Nuno and pre-Conte appointments (as evidenced by shortlists containing all manner of managerial styles) was troubling stuff, and since then it seems like the blighter has stumbled upon a whole series of choices on the football side of things, which, while no doubt well-intentioned, have really piled one steaming mess upon another.

The ominous silence around the managerial situation in recent weeks – bar, bizarrely, a few off-topic lines at the old alma mater last week – may have been just the job in the 1970s, when one waited patiently week to week for news from the club, but these days serves only to infuriate an already pretty restless bunch of natives.

And frankly twenty years at the head of any company strikes me as pretty unhealthy, although I don’t suppose I’d be giving tongue to too many grumbles if we’d picked up some trophies and waltzed into the Top Four with Levy still at the helm.

However, be all that as it may, we appear to be stuck with the chap, for the foreseeable anyway. And in truth, if we could only appoint a manager capable of giving some direction to the current rabble, I’d once again shove Levy from my mind and just enjoy the ride. One understands the calls for the entire useless shower to be shoved out the door and start from scratch; but looking at Villa, Newcastle and, to an extent, Man Utd, turning their fortunes around with only minimal cosmetic surgery, I do still cling to the hope that a competent manager would give a spot of direction to the existing squad.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-1 Brighton: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Danjuma

Being the sort of chap who likes to keep an audience on their toes, I thought I’d begin with a spot of wittering on the rarely-sighted Danjuma, not least because he was the principal object of a spot of post-second goal gushing from yours truly yesterday.

It might not necessarily be the view clung to by the masses, but I was already greeting with boyish enthusiasm the energy of Danjuma, even before it led, in a slightly convoluted way, to our second goal.

Danjuma came bounding on with all the perk and vim of a man who had spent several months in a Conte-induced purgatory and had a few sackfuls of energy to release. In that respect I suppose he had much in common with Lucas Moura at Everton last week, but whereas Lucas channelled his efforts into imprinting his size nines across someone else’s shin, Danjuma’s approach wasn’t quite so lacking in a few spoonfuls of common sense.

Which is to say, in the first place, that he didn’t stamp on anyone – an obvious baseline, one might think, but nevertheless the sort of thing one can’t take for granted amongst a gang as low on the grey stuff as ours. Anyway, having confirmed the ability to chase everything that moved without getting himself sent off, what really grabbed the attention was the fact that, having buzzed from one outfield player to another in pursuit of the ball, Danjuma then turned everything upon its head by daring to chase down the Brighton goalkeeper as well.

This was front-page stuff. I had noted over the course of the game that our high press was being applied with a little more meaning than usual, but that once the ball beetled its way back to this ‘keeper, Steele, our lot tended to slam on the brakes, and subject him to little more than a beady eye.

No doubt this was part of a masterplan concocted by the Brains Trust. Something to do with cutting off angles, or not leaving gaps, or some other such gubbins. Be that as it may, Danjuma was clearly having none of it. Goodness knows what his superiors made of it, but the first chance he got he put his head down and fairly raced off towards that Steele fellow, leaving the latter in no doubt that the time for a pause and restorative break was long gone.

I don’t mind admitting that this sent a quiet thrill through me. After all, if one is going to press 90% of the way up the pitch, why not shrug the shoulders and go the distance?

It is probably important to note that Danjuma’s press did not in itself draw a mistake – Steele with ball at his feet is no Hugo Lloris, and simply funnelled the thing off to his nearest chum as if it were something done since he were knee-high. However, Danjuma’s lust for involvement, as well as drawing a satisfied nod from these parts, also seemed to have the infinitely useful knock-on effect of prompting everyone else in lilywhite to look at one other and murmur, “Well if he can do it, dash it, I might try as well!”

And so it happened that Danjuma’s charge on the ‘keeper was followed by Son charging at the next chappie in possession (Webster, apparently). This Webster fellow then popped along the hot potato sharpish to that Mitoma lad, who had Romero charging at him; and at this point all that charging paid dividends, as Romero emerged from the argument with his inventory reading: Size 5 Football (x1). And from there, within 3 passes, Kane was doing his thing and we were up 2-1.

The extent to which the goal can be attributed to Danjuma is of course the sort of debatable stuff that will sit right up there for centuries to come, alongside butterflies flapping their wings and causing cyclones and whatnot – but at a point in the game in which we were looking as likely as we’ve done for several weeks to craft a goal, I was glad to see Danjuma raise the energy level a notch and have some level of involvement in a goal.

2. Hojbjerg

A propos the goal, P-E Hojbjerg would no doubt have given the chin a slightly irritated scratch as he read the above, and rightly so, for it misses the point rather wildly to bang on all day about Danjuma chasing a back pass to little avail and then omitting to mention the critical pass that set up the goal.

But that, and more, was contributed by the same P-E H. Having been released by Sonny, Hojbjerg’s interest in affairs suddenly rocketed, as has often happened this season when he is granted temporary dispensation to rub shoulders with the elite in the final third. Off he galloped into the area, before, crucially, taking a deep breath or two, as I understand these Scandinavian types are fond of doing. This was an important move, because if he had simply attempted to pick out the only teammate in the box – my golden boy, Danjuma – he’d have had a dickens of a time manoeuvring the ball around four Brighton defenders to reach him.

Just as well that Hojbjerg’s fabled capacity to hear at bat-like frequencies kicked in, this no doubt allowing him to catch the heavy breathing of a lumbering Kane, arriving in the second wave. Hojbjerg effected his pass to perfection, a good ten yards behind everyone else, after which there still followed a pretty lengthy interval, as all in attendance waited a little longer for Kane to catch up, but when he did the fruits were ripe.

On a tangent, I have to admit that that pause – as the entire stadium took a sharp old intake of breath, and held it, before exploding – was one of the AANP highlights of the season.

Back to Hojbjerg, and a big old tick against his name, for the run, awareness and delivery. The problem, however, is that that same big tick is both preceded and followed by a couple of emphatic red crosses.

Not five minutes earlier, it had been Hojbjerg’s errant leg that thrust itself into the limelight for no good reason, clipping the twin limb of Mitouma inside the penalty area. Inadvertent it may have been, but in these days of constant and panoramic surveillance, one ought to be pretty darned sure about whether or not one will clip the leg of another in the area. The fact that the VAR spook gaily waved it on should not exonerate our man.

He followed up later in the piece by conceding a couple of pretty unnecessary transgressions – more clipping of legs, actually. And from one of these free-kicks the similarly bone-headed Lenglet played pretty fast and loose with the rules, grabbing at a shirt with two hands, which at the very least prompted those concerned to institute polite enquiries.

So much though I enjoy Hojbjerg’s spirit of willing and general fire-in-belly, and, of course, his contributions when let off the leash in the final third, I do wish he would focus a bit more on the basics within his own defensive game. But in a way, it rather sums up the chap – a mixture of valued contributions and lamentable, avoidable gaffes.

3. Skipp

Alongside Hojbjerg, young Master Skipp beavered away in his usual understated manner, and as ever I was all for it.

I suspect that beyond N17 few would afford him more than a shrug of the shoulders and a nonplussed look, but his lack of glamour ought not to mislead. Skipp keeps things ticking.

I suspect I have prattled on about this before, but I am particularly drawn to the fact that if a winning pass does not immediately present itself, he does not dwell or dither. The chap distributes as if on a timer. Speed – of distribution – is of the essence, in the mind of young Skipp. Whatever the circumstance, his motto is that gag about things being best done when done quickly, and if that means he should simply shovel the ball sideways or backwards then it’s fine by him, seemingly aware that there will be another day and another opportunity to show his full passing range.  

And it is quite some range. We saw a few weeks ago when he set Richarlison free for a disallowed goal, that he has in his armoury a pass of the 40-yard ilk, and he was at it again yesterday. Neither led to goals, but both – one in each half, from memory – found their man and helped turn defence into attack pretty neatly.

On top of which, he also set off on a couple of healthy, long-distance gallops, as circumstances dictated were prudent. Running at full pelt with the ball for 40 yards or more is pretty impressive stuff, and it all nudges towards the sense that here is a lad who might eventually grow into quite the all-round sort of bean.

4. Sonny

Not that there were any headlines for young Skipp. That was Sonny territory yesterday.

One might, I suppose, if in particularly curmudgeonly mood, complain that Sonny did little of note apart from score one and pop up with a spot of behind-the-scenes assistance for the second  – but this, to me, would be pretty rich stuff. The whole point of Sonny is to score and do a spot of behind-the-scenes lifting and shifting for others to score, so if he can check both boxes I think the appropriate reaction is a slap on the back and reminder that his bank account will be credited in due course.

His goal was an absolute dream. Different goals please in different ways of course, but Sonny in particular has long had a line in those curling efforts that start outside the post and curve inwards, leaving the goalkeeper fully extended and still falling short, for added aesthetic pleasure. I suppose part of the reason we see so few of them from him these days is that various opponents nowadays know better than to let him try that particular party-trick. It was a delight therefore, to see him unleash it once more, for old time’s sake.

And as mentioned, he also did his best, in understated fashion, towards the second. Once Romero had won possession near halfway, the ball was fed to Son, who for reasons to be fully investigated, had at this point popped up on the right flank. Sensibly, rather than try this season’s choice routine of running into a brick wall and tripping over his own feet, Son opted to pop off a quick pass; and what a pass he popped. The nutmeg is one of AANP’s personal favourites at any given point in any given game; when it is effected in the build-up to a goal, all the better.

Son’s nutmegged pass was just the excuse for which Hojbjerg had been looking to bound forward, and as mentioned above, the Dane duly did his thing. Sonny may have offered little else in an attacking sense, but if this is to be his weekly output then I would happily sign him up to it pronto.

5. An Oddly Enjoyable Win

I emerged from that win in vastly better spirits than anticipated. Admittedly, this is not least because I fully expected our heroes to collapse in a heap at the first sign of trouble, but even though we had less possession, and were not half as competent in midfield as the other lot, this produced one of those ear-to-ear grins across the map.

I suppose it is partly because in those moments when we did counter, the mechanics seemed to whirr and hum as well as they have done for some time. A low bar, admittedly, but still enough to get me off my seat a few times.

Kulusevski, while still not exactly the swashbuckling hero of last season, seemed to have a few vague recollections of dance routines and jinky steps that have served him well before. In the second half, I fancied that we even looked likelier to score than they did. At one-one, with the game approaching its finale, I experienced something other than the usual dread; and all of this, coupled with the marvellous pause before our second goal, put a spring in the step and song on the lips.

No doubt we had a couple of helpful interventions – or, I suppose more accurately, benefited from the absence of a couple of unhelpful interventions. The AANP tuppence worth is that the disallowed goals were scrawled from the record books rightly enough, but the penalty shouts were another matter.

However, the outrage accompanying all this has been rather entertaining. One understands the Brighton howls of indignation. Tough to swallow, no doubt. More than happy to administer a sympathetic pat, if it helps. But it is all rather amusing, what? One would think, from the outpouring of apoplexy that no other side has ever suffered a VAR bruising since the thing was unveiled. And frankly, the rarity of benefitting so obviously from a spot of VAR fumbling has contributed all the more to making this an absolute delight. Heaven knows we’ve suffered at its hands often enough in the past, and will no doubt do so again soon enough – so that being the case, I’m happy to throw back an extra bourbon in celebration of it tonight! But a sympathetic pat to our guests, of course.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Everton 1-1 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. The Post-Conte Era

AANP is pretty sharp. The former Commander-in-Chief may no longer have been of the parish, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour or so into proceedings last night when it dawned on me that actually, for all the bluster and announcements, not a dashed thing had changed.

For a start there was the formation. Now one generously acknowledges that, thirty games into a season, one can hardly force a completely revamped model down every available throat, and expect everything to fall into place without so much as a squeak. The newly-installed Brains Trust had had by my reckoning about five days to inspect the troops. So, much though the wretched 3-4-3-featuring-two-defensive-midfielders grates, one understood the logic and waved an accepting – if grudging – hand.

But nevertheless, while tearing down the foundations and creating something completely wacky and new might have been a bit rich, a few nuanced adjustments would have been nice, what? Brave new era, and all that. Would it really have cost the earth, I asked myself, to have rearranged the deck-chairs and including an extra creative soul in midfield? Not that we seem to have any such souls left, but with a bit of jiggery-pokery – and maybe a Pape Sarr – I thought we might see Hojbjerg pushed further forward, or Kulusevski more central, or Kane and Sonny as a front two, or literally anything that indicated that Conte had biffed out the door in deed as well as word.

But nope. The formation was exactly the same. And if that was not enough, the performance ended up being even more Conte-esque than it had been under Conte, which takes some doing.

In fairness, there were patches of play in the first half that weren’t too bad. Everton had obviously got into their heads the ridiculous notion that we were the sort of mob that would fold immediately under questioning, and so spent the opening exchanges charging in a frenzy at whichever of our lot were in possession, lacking only a bayonet to brandish and a war-cry to shriek. And our lot responded pretty impressively, at least at various points between approximately minutes 5 and 25. Whomever was in possession tended to do a quick tap-dance, shimmy around the nearest swinging Everton leg and pop the ball off to a nearby chum, at which point the whole routine began again.

So we looked competent enough in possession, and able to sidestep the Everton press. Most notably to the AANP eye, we moved the ball pretty quickly. One got the sense that Team Stellini had spent their five days barking a few choice phrases celebrating the virtues of the quick pass and one-touch football, because there was a welcome dash of urgency about the place.

On top of which, whether by our design or the accident of Everton being rather narrow, Messrs Perisic and Porro had a few moments of joy up the flanks. Hojbjerg seemed to be having one of his better days in the centre. Kane had a couple of near-ish misses. Rumours of a new-manager bounce were no doubt miles off the mark, but for half an hour or so I at least thought that we might just about edge our relegation-zoned, lowest-scoring-team-in-the-division opponents.

2. The Performance at One-Nil

I should have known better of course. From the latter part of the first half onwards, our lot absolutely stank the place out. Whatever upper hand we might have had early doors was old news by the midway point, and there was not much improvement in the second half.

It took some pretty generous and unsubtle interventions from Everton to get our noses in front, because goodness knows our clueless heroes weren’t going to manage it themselves. First that laddie got himself sent off; but on seeing that our lot hadn’t really taken the hint, and were still scratching their heads a bit, another Everton slab of meat took it upon himself to give us a penalty, just to make sure.

And at that point, I fancy I even allowed myself a smile, which just goes to show one never really learns. The one-nil lead was not really a deal-breaker; but a one-nil lead against ten men with under half an hour remaining struck me as the sort of binge even our lot couldn’t foul up.

Of course, it is a little hard to describe what happened next. One simply stared in disbelief, and rubbed the eyes a few times. After Sheffield United and Southampton – and seemingly every other game we’ve played this season, in truth – it shouldn’t have come as any surprise, and yet this seemed to be one of the worst performances of the lot. By just about any metric available, we managed to let ourselves get comprehensively outplayed by ten men. Even now, 24 hours on, the recollection of it seems to hollow out my insides.

It is tempting to get a bit Shakespearian about things and declare this the worst I’ve ever seen from our lot, but having had my teenage years fashioned by the delights of Francis, Graham and Gross a little perspective is probably in order.

Nevertheless, though, this collective offering – let’s call it The Conte Tribute Act – was down there amongst the absolute dregs. If a chum had suggested to me that with twenty minutes to go against one of the worst teams in the league, and up a man, our lot would choose the option of dropping deep, ceding possession and praying for the final bell, I’d have laughed them out of town and suggested for good measure they had over-indulged in the sauce. And yet our lot did precisely that! Forsooth!

The amateurish passing from the back; the aimless hoicks upfield; the introduction of Davinson Sanchez as a means to shore up the defence; the brainless red card; the continued absence of Danjuma – I’m not one to betray the emotions unnecessarily, but when I tell you that at least one of my lips quivered with despair as I watched matters unfold I rather fancy you get the picture.

3. Son

The rest is mere details. By full-time I was in such a state of shock that I found myself groping blindly towards the drinks cabinet, but at half-time, when thoughts were slightly better ordered, one of the principal points of concern was the latest dithering performance from young Sonny.

The wise old coves have it that form is temporary and class permanent, which is true enough I suppose, but it makes this dip in form one of the longest temporary contracts in living memory.

The poor blighter was dreadful yet again, in just about every area of his game. I admired to an extent his diligence in trying to track back or drop deep to receive the ball, but seeing him trip over his own feet and fall to the dirt upon every contact, I did look skywards and utter a silent prayer or two that he might just relocate to the top of the pitch and stay there. I much prefer the chap playing on the shoulder of defenders and scurrying off towards the opposition goal.

Not that his attacking manoeuvres bore much fruit either, mind. The days of him dipping a shoulder, side-stepping a defender and whipping a shot goalwards seemed pretty distant specks as we watched him shuffle straight into an opposition frame and, more often than not, complete his routine by yet again hitting the turf.

After last night it is admittedly hard to make a case to suggest that Lucas is the answer, but one does cast a longing look or two towards Danjuma on the bench and wonder what on earth that is all about.

4. Lloris

Amongst the bigger decisions our newest Glorious Leader had to make was between the sticks. Absence, of course, makes the heart grow fonder, and Fraser Forster has not been without the occasional flaw, but I did puff the cheeks and think it rather a shame that he was automatically elbowed aside and the red carpet rolled out for Monsieur Lloris.

In Lloris’ defence he did grab a cross or two of the high-and-swirling variety in the first half, which lowered the blood pressure a bit around these parts. However, with the ball at his feet he seemed, as ever, to be not entirely sure of what day it was or which sport he was playing, and there were more sharp intakes of breath than any right-minded nurse would consider healthy whenever our lot tried to play out from the back. An admonishing clip should be aimed around the ear of Romero at this point, for his bizarre inputs into this particular nonsense, but the whole fiasco did have me pining for the return of Forster.

The real blow to the ribs, however, was the goal. The objective viewer would, naturally enough, raise an appreciative eye at the quality of the strike, but at AANP Towers the headline was all about Lloris and that utterly infuriating habit of his, of simply standing and watching, rooted to the spot, as the ball sails past him.

I don’t mind admitting I could have absolutely screamed at him to use his bally hands. Why the dickens does he keep doing this? Adopting the pose of readiness, as if coiled to leap into action, and then, as the crucial moment approaches, instead of leaping as advised, simply swivelling the hips to watch the ball? It happens over and over, and drives me to absolute distraction. What is stopping him from extending the frame and at least broaching the possibility that he might reach it?

It is galling at the best of times, when he is nowhere near the ball; but last night the thing whistled within his wingspan! I’m not sure he even needed to dive in order to reach it, simply extending an arm might well have done the trick. That the ball was travelling at a fair old lick is beyond doubt; but geographically this was no insurmountable challenge.

Utterly bewilderingly, after that utter crate of garbage – and all the other ones we’ve witnessed – we sit fourth in the table, but given the games played and whatnot (and, more pertinently, the utter guff we keep peddling) we’ll be waving that one goodbye pretty sharpish. One can only look onwards, and hope yet again for an upturn on Saturday, but this really is getting a bit thick now, what?