Tag: Guglielmo Vicario

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Spurs match reports

Liverpool 1-1 Spurs: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Better

AANP opted to mute the commentary on this one. Charming, well-informed and objective though Jamie Carragher undoubtedly always is, I have long held a preference to gargle with broken glass than listen to his input for an uninterrupted 90. He’ll understand in time.

Thusly did it transpire that I watched this afternoon’s number with nothing more than the humming and whirring of the AANP Towers central heating for audio accompaniment, and frankly it’s the restorative sort of practice I’d recommend. Irrespective of whichever voice is behind the mic (and credit where due, in my fledgling commentary career The Drury has been most amiable towards me), watching without sound provides an intriguing new perspective on things.

Principally, I’ve no idea what the media narrative was for this one. With that in mind, as the game inched towards what seemed a 1-0 defeat, I found myself reflecting that I hadn’t expected a point, but had at least hoped for a spot of fight, don’t you know? And in that respect, this seemed a marked improvement on just about anything our heroes have peddled so far this year. Pausing to check that it is indeed March, and letting out a gentle sigh, the conclusion drawn is that whereas in previous weeks I simply saw zero evidence that we would win again this season – or, perhaps, ever – today at least suggested that there might be a win or two lurking in there somewhere.

Starting at the beginning, I’m not sure whether Our Glorious Leader noted – presumably with jaw on the floor in astonishment – that he had a bevvy of fit strikers at his disposal, and therefore opted for a 4-4-2, or whether he simply threw all his formation ideas into a sack, rummaged around and pulled one out, but that’s how we started.

Now my cheeks turn a damning shade of crimson as I admit that in recent weeks I’ve wondered if formations even matter, the gist being that no setup in the world could bring about improvement amongst our troops. And perhaps even today the formation had little to do with our gentle upturn. However, for whatever reason, it seemed to work a little better than in recent weeks (as not for the first time in 2026, the phrase “Low bar” politely clears its throat, acknowledges all present, and quietly slips back into the shadows).

To conceded just the single goal already represents progress, and beyond that there were not many clear-cut chances I can remember the other lot unpicking (at least not until the game became a little stretched in the latter stages, as we committed bodies forward and were caught on the counter).

And while I’m not sure that a 4-4-2 formation can take any credit for our heroes rolling up the sleeves and committing their souls to the gods every time a 50-50 hove into the view, as the game wore on our lot upped the tenacity notch by notch.

2. Danso and Dragusin

It made a rather pleasant change, frankly, to witness a pair of Tottenham centre-backs simply mooch about doing what ordinary, sound-minded centre-backs do these days.

There were no attempts to play extravagant through-balls; nor any 50-yard dribbles; nor were there any ill-advised charges into enemy territory to aim a thigh-high clobbering at an opponent. Dragusin and Danso simply perambulated the centre of defence, and blocked, tackled and headed as appropriate. As remarked above, Liverpool went home with precious few tales of clear-cut chances to relate. In fact, I fancy that we created more, and better, chances than they did.

Dragusin almost undid it all by indulging in an ill-timed daydream towards the end. Having just about taken charge of a situation inside his own area, rather than blasting the ball off into the atmosphere, or at least gambling on a pass back to Vicario, he seemed to forget he was playing football and drifted off to a different period of his life. Not the smartest option with Mo Salah lurking about 6 inches behind him, and there was a mighty sharp intake of AANP breath as Salah got his shot away; but that aside Messrs D. and D. seemed possessed of all the right sort of ideas.

3. Souza

That Souza nib deserves the subtlest tip of the hat. For a start, being only 17 years old, he’s probably never heard of a 4-4-2, so that would have boggled his mind. Progressive thinking, he no doubt muttered to himself, as the magnets were placed on the tactics board.

On top of which, by virtue of everyone else in N17 wandering around with arms in slings and feet in bandages, this young squirt, who presumably has been diligently left-backing his way through life since he was in nappies, was asked to make the best of life as a right midfielder.

Entertainingly, he reacted to the request by scurrying off to the left flank just about every time we advanced over halfway. Fans of symmetry would presumably have been fainting in the galleries as we ended up in a several-on-the-left-and-none-on-the-right format on multiple occasions. However, to his credit young Master S. displayed a sound understanding of the intricacies involved in flying up the left flank, and but for an inch or two in either direction he might have been involved in a goal before half-time.

He and Pedro Porro were up against a tricky little blighter in Liverpool red, and frankly neither emerged from those particular sit-downs with flying colours, but Souza did at least have the good grace to pump his defensive pistons as required. All told, his is a jib I shall hang in the gallery entitled “Cuts Of Which I Like”.

4. Tel

Tel, in common with the entire collective come to think of it (at one point Sarr turned into Maradona, dash it), was one who grew into the game considerably.

In the first half, The Tel Saga was one of a willing young bean whose repeated attempts to scamper past his man met with a constant stream of failure. However, the willing he showed did not go unnoticed, and looked a dashed sight better than the slumped shoulders and accusatory glares of his chums in recent weeks. Tel, to cut a long story short, brimmed full of willing in that first half.

In the second half, he was switched to the right, presumably to accommodate the left feet of Souza and then Xavi. While I assumed that being stationed in such an easterly post would negate the fellow’s prime weapons, it turned out that his juices were flowing to the extent that concepts such as ‘left’ and ‘right’ were mere detail. Instead, the thrust of the Tel approach by this point was to make himself a nuisance to whomever approached him clad in red.

Put another way, Tel seemed in that second half to have begun adding a spot of end-product to his first half willing. In fact, such was his liking for it all that when his number went up with about 15 to go, I rather drooped with disappointment. “Can’t see what Kolo Muani will do that will improve upon Tel’s performance”, was the gist of my complaint, neatly showing how much I know about it all.

5. Richarlison

As possibly the only member of the cast who actually has any experience of a relegation scrap, I suppose one should expect Richarlison to be prominent in games like this.

Now, as has been well documented, the chap’s love of a scrap is as great as his technical ability is small, and it was all on display today. Like Tel and most others, Richarlison grew and grew into the game, to the extent that he merited his own theme music and highlights show by the time he was hooked at the end.

Evidently tasked with filling the role of “Nuisance”, he set about things with his usual gusto, popping up multiple times in the Liverpool area to apply the finishing touch to our best moves. All errant finishing touches, but finishing touches nevertheless. And here, I suppose, lies the great conundrum of Richarlison, for he simply is not a great footballer, in the technical sense.

Take his goal, as a prime example. It was a pretty straightforward chance. Meat and drink to your standard, 6-out-of-10 striker. A square pass along the floor, unmarked from 6 yards out – there’s not too much additional detail needed in margins for that sort of opportunity. And yet Richarlison managed to mis-hit with his principal foot, thereby bashing it into his standing foot, in a technique one might describe as ‘Kinsky-esque’.

Anyway, it did the trick, mercifully. A mis-hit it might have been, but it had enough dingo on it to bobble its way past the ‘keeper, and it was a rich reward for the young bimbo for fighting the good fight throughout.

As an aside, there is probably an entire thesis to be written on Vicario; at least a sizeable chapter of which would focus on his performance today; several pages of which would zoom in on his flap-handed nonsense from the free-kick; but these good moods come around so rarely when watching our lot these days that I’ll give it a pass. By no means are we out of the woods yet, but for the first time in aeons I can at least see a green shoot of recovery. One simply hopes that our lot don’t take a flamethrower to it next time out, what?

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Spurs match reports

Fulham 1-2 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. The New Manager Slump

Just to prove that it’s not all whiskey-odoured spillages and cantankerous grumblings from the armchair, AANP had the jolly dubious ‘pleasure’ – a term not so much being misused in this sentence as straightforwardly butchered – of commentating on the latest debacle of the Good Ship Hotspur this afternoon, live and from a near-enough front row seat at Craven Cottage. Couldn’t have buried my head in my hands if I’d wanted to.

Needless to say, this being 2026 and all, our lot stank the place out for nigh-on the majority. Whiffling a goal out of thin air on the hour mark at least lent an air of respectability in the record books I suppose, and as is their wont our heroes will probably pat themselves on the back for applying a spot of added-time pressure, creating the illusion of a close-run thing.

Don’t be fooled, however. At half-time, a bunch of stats were thrust in my face, providing a bit of the old ammo for listeners, including the frankly astonishing record that at that point we’d had more shots on goal than the other lot.

Be that as it may (and closer inspection revealed that this included those speculative jobs from 30 yards that were charged down immediately upon leaving the lilywhite boot, without ever getting anywhere near the oppo goal), our lot were a rotten old mess. A sprinkling of Too-Little-Too-Late back and forthing around their area at the death hardly changes that.

None of which is particularly surprising, as we’ve watched this nonsense for nigh on two seasons without interruption now, but the concern here is that this Episode 2 of the Tudor era, and, well… not to be indelicate, but isn’t something supposed to happen at this point? ‘New Manager Bounce’ and all that hokum? Ought it not to have kicked in about now? Or, as my Spurs-supporting chum Dave so pithily put it, are we the only club in history who bring in a new manager and immediately become worse?

I suppose an optimist might argue that we are no worse, simply at the same level; but when Vicario, supposedly one of the few leaders of this inept pack, took aim and blasted a free kick from halfway straight out for a goal kick at the other end of the pitch, the words did slightly stick in my throat rather than spilling freely into the microphone. If nothing else, I suppose, we have ourselves a red-hot favourite in the race to be the clip that sums up the current management reign.

Returning to the New Manager Bounce, I scratch the old loaf a bit because one simply expects a reaction to the new chappie. Admittedly this Tudor fellow has been dealt a pretty duff hand in terms of personnel, and injuries, and so on. And as for formations, there are only so many positions into which diehard 6 out of 10ers like Dragusin and Gallagher can be shunted.

But I had expected a dash more purpose and vim about our play, a general sense of bullishness and enthusiasm. We might not necessarily have dizzied Fulham with an array of scorching one-touch passes, but I had rather hoped that we might simply overwhelm them with a relentless energy bordering on the violent.

Instead, there seemed to be a lot of the usual mediocre fluff that has been shoved down our gullets for the last year or so. Kolo Muani flinging up his hands, and Porro dedicating energies to writhing on the ground. Dragusin blooting the ball into no man’s land and Gallagher scurrying this way and that like an ownerless wind-up toy. One almost wonders if Tudor’s arrival actually has inspired the troops after all.

Sitting in on the press conference afterwards for an earwig, I got the impression that Tudor is the sort of soul whose default setting is to stomp moodily about any room in which he finds himself. He barked a fair bit about the VAR shout for the first goal (in his defence, in answer to a question); glared around as if trying to decide at whom to throw a chair; and ultimately resorted to answers of the curt variety before rising to his feet and stomping off again. I suppose one might paint him as the sort of character to strike the fear of God into some of the more nervous squad members, but frankly an inspirational sort of chump he did not seem.  

2. Sliver Linings. Well, Not Really, But The Least Dreadful Performances

Young Monsieur Tel bounded around like a garçon with a point to prove after his arrival, so that was nice. On one or two occasions, for a glorious couple of seconds, he looked like he might be about to Ginola his way in and out of the entire Fulham defence. It didn’t quite work, but even on a good day it’s rather cheering to see a fellow put his head down and slalom through opposition defence, so with so little else to raise the spirits his was a welcome contribution.

Our goal was a bit of a curio, by virtue of being entirely out of keeping with what had gone on in the preceding hour or so. For our heroes actually to open up the Fulham defence was a bit of an event, so well done to Messrs Tel and Gray for having the bright idea.

I also send a shrug of acknowledgement the way of Richarlison, for having the good sense to direct his free header into the net, before, naturally, picking up another of those Richarlison yellow cards that we can file under ‘Ludicrous and Unnecessary’.

It’s hardly a national secret that AANP is no huge fan of the chap, he being more likely to trip over his own feet and then start a fight with his shadow than actually produce moments of Brazilian magic in the lilywhite of Spurs. However, this afternoon, once introduced, he prowled and bumped and buffeted his way through proceedings, seemingly adopting the view that if he could not best Fulham with flair he would instead start fights of both the subtle and unsubtle varieties. I was glad to see someone in lilywhite (or, rather, natty black) care quite so much.

And I think that’s about as far as the praise extends today. The rest of them can pretty much go and boil their heads.

3. The VAR Shout

I’m rather reluctant to give this airtime, because, as last week, doing so creates the utterly false impression that if the decision had gone our way then the outcome might have been different. I think nothing of the sort. Our lot stank the place out inf the first half, and VAR call or no VAR call, we were good value for a 2-0 half-time deficit. Immediately prior to our goal, Smith-Rowe ought really to have dinked the game to bed. This was a well-earned defeat.

Nevertheless, one does rather wave the arms in frustration in seeing a replica of last week’s Kolo Muani shove go unpunished when executed against us this week. No doubt someone or other with a flair for these things will adjust their spectacles, bury their head in the minutiae of the game and insist something about on-field decisions that means that actually, everything was carried out to a ‘t’. But from the AANP vantage point it was a pretty rummy turn of events, what with one week’s two-handed push to the back receiving the finger-wag, and another week’s two-handed p. being gaily waved away.

Barely worth arguing about, however; we lost this one by virtue of being second-best rather than because of a refereeing call.

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Spurs match reports

Man Utd 2-0 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. Romero

This Romero business, what? In fact, I’ll actually gloss over the headline stuff here. The great and good have been tripping over themselves in the last 24 hours to rant and rave about his red cards – and understandably enough. Six of them in his lilywhite career takes some doing, and while one can debate the details of yesterday’s, the loose point remains that here is a soul with a reckless streak that might benefit from an intravenous injection of common sense and restraint.


But as mentioned, that particular line of marketing is one I’ll park for now. Instead, as Romero sloped off for that now-familiar early-exit, the troubling thought that gripped me, vice-like, was to ask myself is this fellow worth it? That is to say, is Romero actually all that good a defender in the first place?

Prevailing wisdom seems to be that here is a fine specimen of a centre-back, whose high-level outputs in the role are sullied only by his regular insistence on kicking unsubtle lumps out of opponents. Oh that we might remove his violent temper, continues the narrative, we would have on our hands a giant amongst defenders – or at the very least 50% of a dashed impressive centre-back pairing.

Where I raise an enquiring finger, however, is on this business of Romero being such a rip-roaring defender in the first place. Because when one stops, and steps back a few paces from the issue, and really gives it thought, one does start to ask oneself – is he actually? Really?

To cover some of the basics, Romero is preferable to, say, poor old Dragusin, but I feel like this does not advance the argument particularly far in either direction. I’ll also gloss over the arguments about Romero’s passing prowess from the back, on the grounds that this strikes me as a pleasant bonus, rather than an essential constituent of defensive DNA. “Defend first, distribute later,” one might say if one were packaging that argument into a natty advertising slogan.

But it’s when we consider the basic art of defending that I start to fidget a little. I’m not suggesting that he’s particularly bad at it, but it seems that his reputation for mastery at the back has been built as much as anything else upon his capacity to abandon his post and thump the dickens out of opposing forwards.

Call me a killjoy, but I’m not such a fan of this approach myself. Even when he times his collisions to perfection it all seems unnecessarily dramatic. One would never have caught Ledley adopting this slant on life. Could the angry young bean not simply stick to his assigned spot, and do all the necessaries from there? Could he not effect his blocks and interceptions and whatnot in the restrained style made popular by countless defenders of the past 100 years, rather than deciding that a tackle is not a tackle unless the opponent is launched into the atmosphere with boot-shaped imprint about his frame?

Frankly, I’ve had my fill of Romero. All that accompanying baggage has wearied me. Should willing suitors come a-sniffing in the summer, and – crucially, and frankly doubtfully – our decision-makers line up a replacement of decent standard, then I’d happily wave him off down the High Road.

2. Vicario

All things considered I’ve also had enough of Vicario, but oddly enough, I thought he put in a handy little showing yesterday. Admittedly, even Vicario on a good day includes at least one badly bungled task, and in the second half one errant pass resulted in the ball finding our net, albeit the flag was raised.

That aside, however, Vicario looked a model of calm and decency. Words I never thought I’d utter, which just goes to show, what? When flying saves had to be made, he flew and he saved. When less spectacular saves had to be made, he kept his feet on the ground and made those ones too. I wittered on about Romero and the basics of defending; and it strikes me that simply saving goalbound efforts just about encapsulates the basics of Vicario’s JD.

On top of which, I was also most pleasantly surprised by his sudden predilection for distributing the ball in swift and unfussy manner. It was most unexpected. Time and again, Vicario gathered the ball in his mitts and then raced to the edge of the area before popping it off into the path of a chum to run onto, a good 10 yards outside our own area, in behaviour striking for being so breathtakingly sensible, and as such entirely at odds with what we’ve come to expect from the curious little prune.

Contrast this to the blighter’s usual modus operandi, which is to wriggle and scream a few times, before allowing the opposition to settle back into their defensive shape, and then rolling the ball to a defender near enough our own 6-yard box forsooth; or, worse, dropping the ball at his own feet and then fighting the urge to spin and belt it into his own net or along his own goal-line, or something equally insane.

Yesterday, time and again, Vicario took the obvious approach so commonly eschewed, for unfussily posting the ball into the path of a teammate already on the run. How refreshing.

3. Relegation!

Being a cynical sort, I did contemplate that the one chappie of lilywhite persuasion who might actually have greeted Romero’s red card with some relief was Our Glorious Leader himself, on the grounds that for once the rotten fruit was not to be pelted his way. It has simply become part of the AANP post-match routine to sigh one of those world-weary ones, take a deep breath and then start slamming Frank with gusto. Yesterday, with a ready-made villain at whom to aim pelters, Frank was granted a day of respite.

He ought not to become too comfortable though. Our league form remains dire, and I would suggest that in approximately three of every four halves we play, the performances are utterly wretched. Neither the high-flying sides nor the lowly mob strike me as particularly beatable at present by the current N17 vintage. Frankly, if the opponent comprise 11 men with a pulse, I make our heroes firm second-favourites. With 29 points on the board, I struggle to see from where we eke out the required positive performances (across two halves) to drag us up to 40 or so. At the moment, in fact, I’m not entirely convinced we’ll hit 30.

Frank is presumably here to stay, unless we get sucked into the bottom three within the next month or so, and nothing about the chap inspires. It says something about his aura that when our lot do randomly spark into life, I now automatically assume that this is despite rather than because of the influence of our Big Cheese. I attribute it to Simons going rogue, or the wide men drifting into strictly forbidden positions, rather than any words of inspiration from Frank.

It’s all rather ominous. Better, I feel, to start the mental preparation now, for any potential relegation scrap, than to be taken by surprise come late-March.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-0 Dortmund: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. What The Devil Just Happened?

Spurs could be accused of many things – and goodness knows so far this season there have been all manner of unrepeatables from this particular quarter – but I certainly did not expect to sit here today scratching the head and digesting a rip-snorter of a performance (or half a performance, I suppose).

But there it was, for all the world to see. The defensive bods pottered about with a collective, calm reassurance of which few would have though them capable; and further north just about every cast member tore about the place with gusto, fully getting into the spirit of things with a whole range of slick passes, intelligent runs and, when occasion demanded, quick-footed trickery. If you rubbed your eyes, and gazed around in wonder, and ultimately poured yourself a dram because how else to react to such unexpected revelry, then you weren’t alone.

So a tip of the hat, no doubt – but towards whom, exactly? Well the players were marvellous, in that first half, so they can have all the backslaps going. Absolute blighters like Pedro Porro, who have studiously been slamming their crosses anywhere but the appropriate spot, suddenly started delivering the goods like billy-o. With every one of the ten outfield mob hitting their own respective heights (alas, my only first half memory of Vicario was his panicked little tap-dance inside his own area), the net result was that a pretty bricks-and-mortar Dortmund outfit was absolutely blown away by the shock and awe of it all.

2. Our Glorious Leader

The question I toss this way and that in my mind, therefore, regards the extent to which rose petals can be strewn in the direction of our resident Commander-in-Chief. Poor old T. Frank Esq. comes across as one of the nicest men around, which would please his parents no doubt, but in the field of Overseeing Affairs at the Great Madhouse of N17 he has to date been pretty seriously wanting, delivering on that early promise that we would definitely lose matches, and not much beyond that.

As such I’ve been scouring last night’s performance (or, more accurately, desperately trying to recall the various constituent parts) for traces of the Frank DNA.

For a start there was what looked suspiciously like a switch to three at the back, with Udogie surreptitiously tucking in alongside the more bona fide centre-back sorts, and Djed Spence running riot up the left flank, the moniker “Wing-Back” etched all over him.

And atop the tree, a spot of gravitas was added by the sight of half-man, half-machine Dominic Solanke bludgeoning aside those in front of him.

Whether or not Herre Frank can take credit for these tactical masterstrokes is subject to red-hot debate. The sight of a substitutes’ bench rammed choc-full of chappies plucked from the playground of the nearest secondary school gave a spot of hard evidence to the injury crisis about the place. As such, a lot of the decision-making conundrum was presumably removed from the Frank loaf. One might argue that as the rules stipulated he had to field eleven, and he had at his disposal only twelve recognised protagonists, the selection process rather took care of itself.

Similarly, whole dissertations could be penned on the extent to which Djed Spence’s left-wing gallops, or the immaculately timed one-two between Odobert and Porro for our second, were born of direct instruction from on high.

The official AANP verdict is titled ‘This is Not Frank’s Masterpiece Yet, Sonny Jimbo’, followed by the explanatory sub-heading, ‘One Swallow Doth Not a Summer Make’. And when a fellow sums up his thinking as well as that, I think he’s entitled to a quiet smile and a congratulatory splash of liquid gold; but lest there still be any confusion, I’ll add that I’d want to see a bit more evidence of a turnaround than one single half of top-notch football, especially as the mentality became oddly muted in the second half.

3. Spence

Depending on whose opinion you drink in, last night’s stand-out performer could have been Xavi Simons or could have been Pedro Porro, but the AANP eye was undoubtedly caught by Djed Spence and has numerous sashays down the left.

If you wear boots of different colours, and meet with triumph and disaster with the same languid shrug of the shoulders, you dashed well need to churn out left-wingery of the highest order, and Spence duly unveiled some of his finest work yet. It may be that detailed analysis reveals that the diverting runs of supporting cast members either side of him were crucial in creating space for him – but in real-time I allowed myself the pleasure of simply sitting back and being entertained, and in this respect the Spence cup overflowed splendidly.

Some of the more over-eager and enjoyment-starved amongst our number wasted little time in comparing Spence’s little left-wing recital to that of Gareth Bale a decade or so back, and while we can probably all be forgiven for a little giddiness of the head in reaction to last night,  it was nevertheless a treat to witness one of our number causing havoc in opposition ranks seemingly at will.

Whether or not Spence gets to peddle his wares again from that particular station remains to be seen (and similarly, a sliver of intrigue has been added to our weekend engagement at Burnley, to see whether the tweaked formation is cleaned, pressed and re-used), but either way, and intriguing string appears to have been added to the Spence bow.

4. Solanke

I mentioned above that Solanke gave the Dortmund defence a bit of a buffeting, and personally I was all for it. Richarlison may be our top-scorer, and Kolo Muani’s star continues to burn brighter than it probably should at AANP Towers due to that fabulous brace against PSG, but Solanke is the man who tugs at AANP’s attacking heartstrings.

When Solanke leads the press, he gives the impression of doing so with meaning. I watch him hare off towards whichever centre-back is in possession and am struck by the thought that here strides a man fully invested in his task. On top of which, on a more practical level, any defender possessed of sound mind, on seeing 6 feet and 15 stone of pure Solanke come hurtling towards him, will presumably know what’s good for him and ship out the ball elsewhere pronto.

I’ve heard it said by the sages who’ve been around a bit that the only thing better than a good manager is a lucky manager, and if that pearl of wisdom is roughly copy-pasted towards a striker one can applaud Solanke for finding a way to deposit the ball into the net last night.

Well might he have chortled in the aftermath, for it was a manoeuvre that displayed all the poise and grace of a newborn foal with a deep suspicion of its own limbs. Nevertheless, I have seen enough great strikers in lilywhite to appreciate that if one simply arrives at the appropriate coordinates and at the appointed hour, then much of the battle is already won. Who knows, with Solanke at the apex, perhaps Thomas Frank’s cross-dependent approach might have some mileage in it yet.

5. Danso

And before signing off, a gentle word of commendation for young Master Danso, who quietly slotted into defence, did everything asked of him with all the unfussy assurance of a seasoned regular, and will presumably slot back out again at the weekend.

It was the sort of performance that might easily have gone entirely unnoticed, particularly in the first half, when all the excitement was focused on matters 30 or 40 yards up the pitch.

But if Dortmund started to gain ideas above their station, and give an exploratory poke at our half of the pitch, Danso was happy to give a polite cough and step in to put an end to any dissent. He might not necessarily be blessed with VDV’s pace or Romero’s lust for high-speed collisions, but as first reserve centre-backs go, the chap is starting to win me over.

As mentioned at the outset, a collective performance like that might well prompt a whole range of fresh questions about the immediate future at N17 – but perhaps it is best for now simply to enjoy the good times while they last.

RIP AANP Senior – first-hand witness of the Double-winners, Jimmy Greaves fanboy and lifelong lilywhite.

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Spurs match reports

Forest 3-0 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. The Hangover

I took the liberty of indulging in a rare evening out in the metropolis yesterday, sinking a few in one or two of London’s watering holes, and shaking a leg on the occasional dance-floor, so it was a well-oiled AANP whose head hit the pillow in the wee small hours. As such, Sunday lunchtime did not catch me in my rarest form. The head throbbed, the breathing was deep and the exhalations were quite likely flammable. A gentle, restful afternoon beckoned.

This, however, was all acceptable enough, because I was not due to run out onto a football pitch and play, a princely sum having been thrust into my back-pocket for the privilege, with the expectation of being somewhere near my physical peak for the following 90 minutes. Put another way, I could be excused for moping about the place, the very embodiment of lethargy. For our heroes out on the pitch, no such excuse existed.

And yet. I’m not sure that in the entire match our lot strung together three consecutive passes of any meaning. Apart from Archie Gray’s instinctive turn-and-volley in the first half, I’m not sure we managed a shot on target either. AANP has never really been one for xG, the details of that particular data-point seeming to me often to obscure the actual game as it unfurls before the eyes; but its broad principle I do understand, and for our lot yet again to have failed to hit 0.5 xG in the entire match tells a gloomy tale (and not whilst playing any of Europe’s elite, mind, but a Forest side casting a nervous glance over the shoulder at the relegation spots, dash it).

To a man, our troupe looked thoroughly undercooked, from first whistle to last. As mentioned, the inability to string together more than a couple of accurate passes was bewildering, and every time someone or other did have the bright idea of swooping in to win possession, this minor triumph was fairly instantly sullied by an errant pass following it immediately.

The complete absence of quality throughout was loosely mirrored by a fairly minimal level of energy, all of which left me wondering by the end if the gang in yellow on display this afternoon had also been lurking in those drinking-spots and dance-floors, into the wee small hours last night.

2. Vicario

I prattled on a couple of weeks ago, in the wake of Vicario’s grade A blunder against Fulham, that the chap really needed to keep his head down and his nose clean for the foreseeable, and generally avoid drawing any attention to himself.

It was a sentiment that drifted to mind as I buried the head in the hands circa minute 50, at which time the ball gently rolled around inside the netting, Vicario having immersed himself in quite the pickle when dealing with a misdirected cross.

I didn’t hang around for the post-match niceties – the AANP hangover was bad enough after sitting through that 90-minute performance – so I couldn’t quote back to you the key points made by Master Hudson-Odoi when quizzed, as he presumably would have been, about whether that was intended as a cross or a shot. It seems a pretty safe bet, however, that when the moment arrived, shortly after he had twisted Bentancur’s blood to a level bordering on the inhumane, that on looking up from the left corner of the area, his strategy was to deliver a cross and rely on better-placed chums to do the rest.

Not being a goalkeeper, I’m not really qualified to opine in any real depth as to what specifically Vicario ought to have done, but in a broader sense, several decades of watching and occasionally playing the game has taught me that goalkeepers ought not let crosses drift past them and into the net.

So, wiser minds than mine would presumably be able to lay out the specifics of where Vicario ought to have planted his feet, and how his body-weight ought to have been distributed and so forth – but ultimately, surely, the drill would have been to have prevented ball from entering net. In this he spectacularly failed. While it was probably not the worst error a goalkeeper could ever make – frankly it was not the worst this specific goalkeeper has made in the last month – a goalkeeping error it nevertheless was, and the logbook of such misdeeds is now growing to troubling heft.

If he were in any other position in the pitch, I suspect Vicario would by now have been quietly demoted to the sidelines, with a view to clearing his head and returning a few weeks or months hence, fit and bronzed and ready to give that penalty area a jolly good marshalling.

However, he is not in any other position; he is in the unique position of goalkeeper, and Our Glorious Leader is therefore facing a rather delicate balancing act. The first reserve, young Kinsky, has shown himself to a goalkeeper possessed of various fine qualities, but also never too far away from an out-of-the-blue howler himself. While there is a legitimate question, of quite how bad Vicario has to be before he is dropped, the waters are slightly muddied by the fallibility of the first reserve. No point removing Vicario, I mean, if the chap who replaces him is just as creaky, what?

3. Thomas Frank

Talking of chaps whose performances are creaking like nobody’s business, at what point do we need to start talking about The Big Cheese?

As my Spurs-supporting chum Ian pointed out during the morbid, post-match back-and-forth, Forest are on their third manager of the season, yet the Dyche chap, approximately 5 minutes into the gig, seems to have slapped together a unit with some degree of identity – by which I mean that they have a shape, a playing style, and personnel each of whom seem to know their jobs.

Compare and contrast to our own Glorious L., and identity – as defined above – is rather awkwardly lacking. “A work in progress”, one might generously offer, and if still in generous mood one might also point to the notable absentees amongst the cast list – Messrs Solanke, Kulusevski and Maddison still all apparently chugging paracetamol.

However, to this I emit a rather cheesed off sort of tut, and point out that absent though that lot might be, the next cabs on the rank are hardly unproven youths from the academy, but multi-million pound A-listers such as Kolo Muani, Simons and Kudus (AANP has a moral objection to the classification of Richarlison as an A-lister, so I’ll stick with those three for now). Even making the presumption that Frank is prioritising the defence first, he ought still to be able to get some sort of tune out of that front three.

Irritatingly, our lot seem to have regressed since that Super Cup performance against PSG. The whole thing would drive me potty if watching it had not already sapped every ounce of enthusiasm from my being

 All three goals conceded were today had about them a touch of the unlikely (although I noted a compilation of long-range goals conceded by our lot this season ran to around a dozen, so something in the apparatus clearly isn’t quite working), but what sucked my will to live this afternoon was not so much the goals conceded as the complete absence of creativity or strategy in the other direction.

As ever, the gist seemed to be nothing more nuanced that Go Wide And Hope. Moreover, this GWAH gambit seemed explicitly to exclude use of the left wing, where Kolo Muani is rather mystifyingly square-pegged, leaving all our eggs in the Mohammed Kudus-shaped basket. (I slosh over the details of course – Djed Spence, for example, seemed task with much of the heavy lifting out on the left – but the vague point remains that we were oddly short of ideas beyond going wide and keeping fingers crossed.)

Four months into the season both results and performances are dreadful, and the occasional stroll against a European minnow is doing little to paper what is not so much a crack as a great yawning chasm. Frank needs to buck up his ideas and pronto.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 1-2 Fulham: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. Frank’s Insistence on Crosses, Crosses and Nothing But Crosses

One can well imagine the creased brow with which Herre Frank glugged down his morning brew at the breakfast table today, because the shipping of disastrous goals, and ceding of points to a team that, for all their merits, peddle utter bilge each away day without fail, doth not a happy camper make. Speaking as one man about the world to another, I do of course, incline the head sympathetically towards the chap. No-one really likes to see one’s fellow man take a bit of a kicking, especially when that fellow m. is an egg as laden with sound moral fibre as Thomas Frank.

This, however, is not a business for sympathy and consoling cuddles. It is, simply, a business for scoring more goals than the other lot – preferably doing so while swanning around the place playing the sort of breezy football that makes onlookers go weak at the knees and purr with admiration. And Thomas Frank does none of the above.

The drill is, presumably, to sort out the defence first of all, and peddle some pretty basic attacking fare up the other end, to help keep results ticking over. Now the word “presumably” is doing some generous grunt-work in that sentence, because our defence in its current state is anything but “sorted out”. And should any smooth-talker try to convince me otherwise, I would wave at them the 11 goals we’ve conceded within the last week alone. No matter the standard of the opposition, 11 goals in a week is laying it on a bit thick.

So after three months at the big desk, Frank has hardly worked wonders at the back. One might wave a forgiving hand. Ours, after all, is a defence that has creaked away for several decades.

Where AANP cracks his knuckles and shoots the inscrutable glare, however, is in the attacking third. Specifically, it’s Frank’s seeming insistence that the road to goals is paved with crosses from the wing and crosses from the wing only.

The chap seems to labour under the misapprehension that to build niftily through the centre is to commit some foul abuse against humanity. Of zingy one-touch football in the middle lanes there is no sign.

For clarity, I have no significant allergy to crosses from the wing. When delivered well they tend to be mightily effective, That Beckham character may have long ago disappeared under the detritus of celebrity, but once upon a time his crossing from the flank was an instrument of considerable impact. Indeed, as and when Senor Porro gets round to reading this, I don’t doubt that he’ll start gesticulating wildly and scream forcefully in my direction about how effective his deliveries can be.

However, by and large, crosses can be defended, if the unit tasked with so-doing know their defensive onions. One only needed to keep an eye on proceedings yesterday to note how the whole attacking strategy can be rendered null and void if the defenders arrange themselves at the appropriate coordinates. Our lot seemed to lob a decent number of crosses towards the area in each half, almost all of which seemed promptly to be repelled. To say that the plan had limited efficacy would be to undersell the thing.

The alternative, of a spot of midfield guile, seems to be well down the agenda. A stat before the midweek CL game suggested that our heroes had racked up a grand total of 4 through-balls all season, and I don’t know about you, but that one boggled the dickens out of my innocent little mind. I make that about one through-ball every 4 matches, which speaks volumes for the level of creativity spouting forth from the lilywhite midfield. That Simons has been banished to the bench in recent weeks says much.

As mentioned above, I can only assume that Frank considers defence the current priority, during which period of stabilization he will instruct the forwards to adopt the simplest route to goal, by going wide and crossing. AANP does not like the whiff.

2. Vicario

Mind you, Frank might have had the best plans in the world, but there’s no real legislating for a moment as knuckle-headed as Vicario’s little wander-and-kamikaze routine. Golly. As howlers go, it was a pearler. Credit to the Fulham chappie I suppose, because he was hardly presented with a tap-in; but nevertheless, the headline of that particular episode was the dreadful mess single-handedly crafted by our resident gatekeeper.

The reaction to Vicario thereafter – and I refer to the ongoing booing that followed the young bean throughout the game like a nasty spectre, rather than the immediate release of astonished vitriol in the 20 or so seconds after the goal – was not really cricket. Flag that he’s made an error, by all means. Bestow a dozen or so curses upon his lineage, of course. But thereafter, once the deed has been done and the head hung in shame, upon the restart of the game there is no real reason to keep giving him the bird throughout. Not really sure what purpose that served.

Back to the error itself, however, and as a lad who’s not exactly garnered universal acclaim during his lilywhite career, for one reason or another, you’d have thought that he’d have had the good sense to minimise the risk of increased opprobrium, particularly the sort brought upon oneself at a time of minimal preceding risk.

And minimal preceding risk was abundant in N17 when Vicario first wandered from his post to inspect the left touchline and take possession. Pedants might point out that a Fulham nib made a perfunctory toddle in his direction, but I’m not sure any jury would accept that the match had entered a high-stakes moment at that juncture. Any onlooker of sound mind would have advised the basic two-step: “Clear the ball, return to the goal”.

Whatever the hell then crossed Vicario’s mind next is a little tricky to fathom, but the takeaway, particularly amongst those who have viewed him with a suspicious eye, was that he tries to be far too clever, rather than sticking to the goalkeeping basics.

There was not a great deal he could have done about the first, nor indeed about any of the five that flew past him midweek – but drop a clanger of yesterday’s ilk, and precious few in attendance will shout from the rooftops about how innocent he was during the preceding half-dozen conceded.

No doubt Frank will stick with him, and we are hardly overflowing with obvious alternatives; nor am I particularly calling for his expulsion from the unit. I do advise the chap, however, to keep his head down and keep things as inconspicuous as possible in the coming weeks. There is a time to draw attention to oneself, and a time to melt quietly into the background; and the age in which we live is very much the latter.

3. Kolo Muani

Finishing off on a brighter note, as goodness knows we need one, it’s at least encouraging to see young Kolo Muani start to deliver on the sunny optimism that greeted his arrival, at least at AANP Towers.

It was a different era, of course, all joviality and positivity, but when he and Simons scrawled their initials on the dotted line, a couple of little jigs were danced around these parts.

Naturally, this being N17, there then followed the standard spate of injuries, but in midweek at PSG, and then yesterday, I thought that he at least started to look the sort of fellow who, quite frankly, seems too good for our lot. Obvious though it may seem, I was particularly enamoured of the volleyed goal in Paris, and while in yesterday’s second half there was a general uptick in performance across the suite, Monsieur K-M also struck me as the standout performer in the first half.

The bar is pretty low, admittedly. Richarlison gives the impression of a fairly moderate player near the peak of limited powers; Kudus has evidently something about him; but Kolo Muani, by virtue of his technique and ability to do naturally what most others would probably consider pretty exceptional, strikes me as quite the diamond in the rough.

It would, of course, make more sense to wax lyrical about the chap after a match in which he actually saves the day, or embellishes the day, or in general just peddles his wares on a slightly more positive day for our lot – but given the doom, gloom and general exasperation brought on by results of the last week or so, a dollop of silver linings does no harm, what?

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Spurs match reports

Everton 0-3 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. The Formation

If you had caught a glimpse of AANP during the opening exchanges of this one,  you’d have spotted him viewing proceedings with eyes narrowed and brow furrowed; and if on the basis of the narrowed e. and furrowed b. you’d inferred that he was having a dickens of a time trying to work out the formation adopted by our heroes, you’d have been bang on the money. Which, ironically enough, is precisely what AANP was not bang on when trying to decipher that set-up.

The first thought that floated between the AANP ears was that Our Glorious Leader had gone with two right wingers at the same time. Which, if true, would have been Thomas Frank’s prerogative, of course. He’s the shot-caller, after all. If he wanted to go down the Not-Typically-Done route then he had every right. As long as it works, went the AANP take, then do your damnedest.

But while I was lustily supporting this little tactical quirk, it dawned on me that whatever our formation was, it wasn’t one featuring two right wingers. The next notion to spring to mind was wing-backs, but this did not seem quite right either. Spence, perhaps, was adopting wing-back-like poses on the left; but out on the right, Johnson didn’t really appear to be signing up to the “back” part of the wing-back arrangement.

And what, I asked myself, was Kudus? Or perhaps more pertinently, where was Kudus? Because for what I assumed was a Number 10 sort of role, he seemed to be drifting out to the right an awful lot.

Anyway, the main takeaway of all this was that it’s a good job I’m not a manager, as I’d have spent most of that first half simply goggling at the lilywhite formation rather than doing anything useful.

With the dust settled, I guess it was a 3-2-4-1 sort of get-up, in possession at least – with Spence and Johnson up the flanks, and Simons and Kudus inside them. Frankly, the label matters little at this point, for the gist is that it ought to have provided a few more passing options whenever we advanced up the pitch, as well as the standard defensive stability of the Palhinha-Bentancur double-act.

I suggest that it “ought” to have provided more passing options going forward, because in practice the quick passing routines didn’t really register. Not that it mattered too much today, given that our set-piece sequences were immaculately choreographed, and all defensive parts in fine working order at the other end. But I nevertheless noted, with a sigh that was two parts patience and one part disappointment, that despite a Spence-Simons-Kudus-Johnson line supporting Kolo Muani, we remained a little light on the old whizz-bang when trundling forward.

2. Set-Pieces

One can’t have it all, however, and to criticise in the slightest a 3-0 away win at a mighty imposing estate would be pretty off. With two goals nodded in from set-pieces this had the Frank fingerprints all over it.

I view set-pieces much as I view technology, in that it ought to supplement rather than replace the honest sweat and endeavour of the good souls involved, and our heroes used it marvellously today, supplementing things like billy-o.

There was the delivery, for a start. The Porro corner for our second contained a level of spite that ought really not to be allowed before the watershed. It absolutely fizzed into the area, to such an extent that had it not been converted one would really have had no option but to launch an independent enquiry to understand why not. Mercifully, Van de Ven had the good sense to give the ‘keeper a knowing shove and then angle his head appropriately, but while it was the Dutchman who drank in the plaudits, the AANP glass was raised to Porro.

While the delivery for the opening goal (courtesy of Kudus) did not necessarily carry quite the same level of menace, it being swung a tad more gently towards the far post for Bentancur, I did nevertheless applaud its accuracy. A yard higher or lower and the whole operation would have crumbled in its infancy. Kudus, to his credit, dropped the thing at the designated coordinates, and at the designated time and – critically – at the designated height.

Interestingly, although that aforementioned D.H. was, specifically, head height, Bentancur took it upon himself to improvise a little. And there was no harm in that at all. If a little innovation was good enough for Thomas Frank when doodling his formations, then it was good enough for Bentancur when arriving at the back-post. One might well have spotted Bentancur mouthing the words, as he shimmered towards the back post, “Just because it’s called ‘Head height’ does not preclude me from using my shoulder, what?”

The moment of improv. worked swimmingly, and VDV’s head-angling got its first taste of action. And let’s face it, if the t’s are crossed and i’s dotted on set-pieces as meticulously as that, then there is a little less pressure on the front five to string together too many slick passes.  

3. Danso

As mentioned, VDV knew a good thing from approximately two yards out when he saw one, and full credit to him, but with Romero again missing – that innocuous pre-match ‘knock’ of last week proving a dashed sight more sinister than we had initially been led to believe – I once again adjusted the monocle and subjected young Master Danso to feverish scrutiny throughout.

And once again – for the third time in a week, in fact – the fellow emerged with a laudable report card. One doesn’t have to search too hard to find a fish of lilywhite persuasion who will fold their arms, tilt their head and remark sadly that the absence of Romero deprives us of some incisive passing from the back, the undertone being that we might as well all pack up and go home in the absence of such line-breaking gold. AANP, however, is a more traditional sort of egg, brought up to believe that a defender’s purpose in life is to defend, and it was with this anthem on my lips that I meted out the approving nod and slapped the approving thigh each time Danso unveiled another of the defensive basics.

I think I heard within the post-match burble that Danso rattled off more clearances than anyone else in the vicinity, and while I couldn’t put a hand on the Bible and swear to it, I certainly would not be surprised. He seemed fully committed throughout to the basic notion that Ball Near Goal was Bad, and Ball Away From Goal was Good – and frankly it was an attitude that I could get on board with.

He might not necessarily be the sort of fish we want manning the helm when Europe’s elite come to town, but for an hour and a half in the pouring rain in Everton, he put the fevered mind at ease.

4. Vicario

A congratulatory word also for our resident back-stop, who had seemingly been convinced that the final whistle at Monaco still had not sounded, and consequently just carried on where he left off there.

Two second half saves in particular were of the absolute highest order. Admittedly I say that from a position of general ignorance when it comes to this goalkeeping lark, but to stick out a paw from point-blank range when the opposition chappie is pulling off an overhead kick seemed to take some doing; while the save from a shot that took two deflections really did have me purring in admiration. Reflexes, one was inclined to murmur, maketh the top-notch save.  

My views on Vicario at corners remain a little more mixed – for every successful punch to the edge of the area there seemed also to be one rather sorry attempt to propel himself forward that was aborted midway through when he ran into a jungle of bodies. However, this was a day to salute, again, the fellow’s fine shot-stopping, and those two second half saves were essentially worth goals.

A second clean sheet, on the road, within three days, is not to be sniffed at, and certainly provides a useful base upon which to build a hale and hearty future; concerns about creativity can wait for another day.

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Spurs match reports

Monaco 0-0 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. Not The Finest Hour of Our Glorious Leader

I don’t know if you’re one of those sorts who goes in for karmic retribution – which I believe is the concept that if rotten luck befalls you then it’s just a spot of cosmic justice being meted out that you jolly well deserved in the first place – but with my eyes glazing over and my will to leave departing my soul last night, I did wonder what the hell I’d done, in this life or a previous one, to deserve the dreadful dirge on offer.

This apparently was our first nil-nil in well over 100 games, since that wretched night when our heroes collectively gave up against AC Milan, so it took some doing. In fact, I thought that nil-nil flattered us. Just plain ‘nil’ on its own would have summed up this garbage just as well.

Our Glorious Leader, as ever, was his usual, relentlessly sunny self when it came to the post-match waffle. He’s a likeable sort of egg – not that that is either here nor there – and after just 12 games one still ought to just wave him along and let him get on with things. Moreover, we remain without a couple of key personnel, and it’s on nights like this that the absence stings particularly, of Solanke up top to hold up the ball and drag his chums up the pitch, or Romero at the back to get the ball rolling from the back, as it were.

All that said, however, some of his selections do verge on the squiffy. I suppose he would justify Gray at left-back on the grounds that he’s a versatile young thing, and Spence needed a rest; but this insistence on both Bentancur and Palhinha sitting deep as a non-committal twosome is a tad wearying.

Either way, we failed to land a glove upon a Monaco defence that had yet to keep a clean sheet this season, and that relies upon Eric Dier of all people to hold the back-line together. Another of the likeable contingent, no doubt, but when Dier’s the big defensive absence one ought to lick the lips and rub the hands at the prospect.

Anyway, we somehow snuck out with a clean sheet and a point, and this slightly misleading statistical entry was in keeping with events so far this season, in which we haven’t been particularly good at any point, but continue to rack up reasonable-looking takeaways.

2. Vicario

No doubt about the standout performer last night, Vicario earning the full monthly envelope in the space of one 90-minute display. A timely innings it was too, as the chap has started to attract some pointed looks and uncensored critique in recent weeks.

His early weeks of this season have seen him pat a few too many efforts back into the path of trouble; and then on Sunday he provided a bit more ammunition for the naysayers, leading with his wrong hand for the Rogers goal, and then not bothering to go with either hand for the Buendia goal but instead giving it his best Lloris impression and watching the ball fly past him.

Anyway, last night he decided that he would deign to move in the direction of incoming shots after all, and evidently bitten by the bug couldn’t stop doing it once he’d started. Nine saves in total, apparently, and while I suppose one or two might have been of the gentler variety, I greeted numerous of them with that mixture of relief and pleasant surprise that indicates that these were not all run-of-the-mill numbers, but involved a fair amount of nifty reflex and full-body extension.

These days goalkeepers seem to be judged by just about every metric except their ability to save incoming shots, so there was a certain satisfaction in brushing away thoughts about his distribution and conduct at corners and so forth, and simply applauding the fellow for diving hither and thither to keep the ball out.

3. Slip Pickings Elsewhere On The Pitch

At this point in proceedings I generally like to pour myself an additional splash of the old nectar, think back to some of the other highlights and prattle on a bit about whichever members of the troop caught the eye. A certain impediment hoves into view this time, however, namely that the entire collective was in ghastly form last night.

I suppose in the first half one could engineer a spot of positivity. Odobert, for example, looked as threatening as he has done for us since arriving, at least until it came to adding a finishing touch to the build-up.

That left side of attack remains an elusive sort of spot, with gumboils like Johnson and Simons going through the motions but giving the distinct impression that whatever the question, they are not the answer. Odobert still ought to have the words “Work In Progress” stamped in sizeable red font across his frame, but in the first half at least he looked promising.

Also in the first half, Archie Gray initially seemed to be setting himself up for an eye-catching night’s work. He was pretty diligent when it came to popping up conveniently in the background to politely clear his throat and bail out a chum in trouble; and he put his heart and soul into a number of supporting dashes up the left flank, each of which were rather cruelly ignored by Odobert but which nevertheless served some purpose in creating space.

However, as and when he got down to the actual meaty business of applying boot to ball, his evening slightly fell apart, as he started dishing out errant passes. He was no worse than anyone else clad in dreamy black, but having looked the part in those early moments I cast him some hurt looks thereafter, like those of a jilted ex, upon seeing him fail to live up to the billing.

Early days, I suppose, both in the Champions League and more broadly, but while one imagines that the produce will improve in quality in the long-term, as all concerned learn each others’ names and begin to feel more comfortable in the Tottenham garb, in the short-term I do tense up somewhat and wonder where the hell any improvement will come from by the weekend.

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Spurs match reports

Leeds 1-2 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. Vicario

AANP missed the real-time screening of this one, having popped out of town for a wedding, so found himself in that curious position that is occasionally thrust upon one, of being fully aware of the scoreline and general talking points by the time a chance arose to settle in and watch from start to finish.

As such, I was already aware of murmurs amongst various Tottenham folk that our resident backdoor-minder had not covered himself in glory. While it would be a stretch to say that my fingers therefore drummed away at the guillotine in anticipation of a few Vicario howlers, I did nevertheless brace myself.

It seemed that aside from the mundane to-ing and fro-ing, there were four eye-catching moments to his afternoon’s contributions. The first was that item early on when one Joe Rodon – formerly of the N17 parish – planted a back-post header against the post. It might get lost in ensuing debate that Destiny Udogie did just about enough whispering in the Rodon ear at that particular juncture to force the man a little off-balance, so congratulatory tap of the hat-rim is probably due, before we start dissecting the life and times of Vicario in the preliminary seconds.

Put bluntly, Vicario seemed completely to lose his bearings. As the cross was swung over, from the right, the curious young eel began wandering from his line without any clear purpose, looking rather like an abandoned puppy that had scented food in the mid-distance and was uncontrollably drawn towards it.

The ball sailed over him at the sort of height that Vicario-on-a-step-ladder might have had a job handling, but the problem was that once gripped by the urge to wade off into the masses, it was rather tricky for him to undo this. Indeed, even when struck by the error of his ways, he could do little more than shoot a vaguely horrified glance in the loose direction of where the ball was dropping, and perhaps give tongue to a muttered Ave Maria.

As mentioned, Rodon at the back post could do no more than steer the ball against the frame, the sort of outcome that presumably will spare Vicario too dedicated a media spotlight, but those of lilywhite persuasion have seemingly chalked it up as the latest blot in what is becoming an increasingly crowded copybook.

Vicario was less fortunate with the next eye-catching moment, the one that saw him repel a shot from inside the area, but somewhat gum up the following chapter, by spilling the thing into the path of a conveniently-placed Leeds sort. Here, I should point out that just as AANP giveth with one hand, AANP taketh with the other, for while Udogie was earlier to be praised for his alacrity in defence, for the Leeds goal he did switch off long enough to allow Okafor to poach away to his heart’s content.

It was, however, an untidy piece of work from Vicario that presented the opportunity so neatly. Having reacted to the initial, deflected shot pretty well, Vicario then – as is becoming something of a trademark – did not really pay sufficient care and attention to the geography of the occasion. This tendency of his to shovel the ball straight into the path of chappies lurking for scraps has proved his downfall before, and needs a spot of care and attention. The whole routine of saving close-range shots is negated if at the end of it all he is simply going to present a two-yard tap-in to the next fellow in the queue.

Hammering home the point, he made an excellent couple of stops deep in stoppage time – but the second of these resulted in the ball popping upwards and most fortunately into the path of that man Udogie once again, who was able to nod it behind for a corner, when a yard either side there would have been yet another tap-in for the waiting scavengers.

It does make one scratch the head somewhat in truth, as to precisely where Vicario should be depositing these incoming efforts. Conventional wisdom has it that they should not be padded straight out in front of goal, and by and large he avoids this. However, this is certainly not the first match in which, in attempting to shovel matters out wide he has succeeded in not only laying them into the path of an opponent, but seemingly shaving the power off them too, making them that much easier to reach. I wonder if he might divert them behind his goal instead, or push them wide but with a bit more force, so as to send them out of the area.

Either way, there seems something slightly rummy about the current approach, of teeing them up at a gentle dribble for a short-range tap-in from an angle.

2. Kudus

On a brighter note, one of the grumbles of recent weeks had been that the creative well seemed to have run pretty dry, and while it would be a stretch to say that shots now fly in from every angle, two of the attacking mob in particular seemed to bound about the place with heartening vim and zest.  

Kudus naturally grabs headlines on account of having struck oil, but even aside from his goal his general attacking play had much about it of the useful sort of pest. Not only does the fellow come across as the sort of chappie against whom one would rather not defend, but he does so across multiple formats.

By which I mean there is Kudus the Wide-Man – hugging the touchline and dipping multiple shoulders this way and that, with a view to whipping in a teasing cross, if not seeking out a chum better placed to do the same; then there is Kudus the Inside-Right, whose goal in life is not so much the whipping in of wicked crosses as the twinkle-toed foray infield, to cause mischief around the outside of the area – which may take the form of a shot, as demonstrated yesterday, or may take the form of link-up play with nearby comrades.

As has been remarked upon before, the earnest bean’s combination of strength, close control and low centre of gravity appears to make him a fiend of an opponent, and while he has clearly had the occasional quieter afternoon, when on song – as yesterday – he is quite the asset.

3. Simons

Further east, there were more glimpses of young Simons finding his range. Officially, I suppose, assigned the Number 10 role, Simons seemed pretty insistent about his coordinates, coming across as the sort of egg who, if not allowed to take up a specifically inside-left sort of spot, would simply fold his arms and refuse to engage. Luckily, those about him in black were all for it, and the young bean saw plenty of action.

Intriguingly, his was an afternoon less of mazy dribbles, and more of furtive darts that were followed by the picking of some eye-of-needle passes, of the ilk intended to really carve open an opposition defence.

I was all for it. These weren’t your standard roll-the-thing-square-five-yards variety; rather, Simons was in the market for a diagonal that scythed open Leeds and took out three of their defenders in one swoop, while Udogie (him again) burst in from the depths. At one point Simons scooped a pass up, above and behind the Leeds back-line, for Porro to gallop onto, which really did whiff of a man starting to take a liking to life in his new surroundings.

An underlying concern to all of this was that it meant our lot were relying a little too heavily upon moments of individual ingenuity, rather than any obviously well-constructed patterns and build-up play involving the entire entourage – but one takes the wins, what? It was only a couple of days ago that I was grumbling about the lack of anything approaching creative content at all, so to boast not one but two of the forward line prancing about the place with attacking juices brimming was a pretty welcome sign.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 1-1 Wolves: Three Tottenham Talking Points

(With apologies for recent radio silence – a lot going on at AANP Towers)

1. Misdirected First Half Optimism, Featuring Bergvall and Kudus

Hindsight, as a rather wise old egg once put it, is 20-20, so I suppose I look a bit of a chump admitting it now, but back in the first half of this binge there were one or two moments when I nestled in my seat rather smugly, a look of satisfaction etched across the map, as if to say “I’m rather enjoying watching our lot go at it.”

Back in that halcyon age, while it would be a stretch to say we were running riot and biffing the other lot from all angles with gay abandon, once settled in (i.e. after about a quarter of an hour or so), I did get the impression that the key question de jour was “When?” rather than “If?” if you get my gist.

And this sunny rationale was based largely upon the plans and deeds of Messrs Bergvall and Kudus, both of whom, in their own unique ways, seemed to be having rather a time of things. Indeed, for the disallowed goal they even crossed the streams, so to speak, interacting and exchanging pro tips on how to go about carving up an opposition back-line to pretty impressive effect.

Bergvall was very much on brand in that first half. If there were any beavering to be done, in an attacking sense in particular, he was generally at the front of the queue, both in and out of possession. Busily scurrying about the place, he had the air of a young man who looked ahead of him and saw nothing but opportunity. The chap has fast become an essential cog in the machine.

Kudus, of course, is a pretty different beast, being the robust sort of chappie who puts a bit more emphasis on meaty brawn and upper-body strength than young Bergvall. In his own way though, he’s equally effective, and having racked up that early header that was pushed onto the bar, as well as the disallowed goal, I was inclined to murmur a prognostication that when we did eventually take the lead, the fingerprints of Kudus would be all over the critical item.

And had that first half never ended, I’m still inclined to think that Kudus and Bergvall between them would have rustled up a goal or two from somewhere, and we’d have all swanned off down the High Road pipped to the gills with the night’s work.

2. The Oddly Lacklustre Second Half

Alas, all such sunny optimism rather went up in smoke as soon as the second half started, our lot becoming oddly reticent about the evening’s activities.

With the stunning insight that marks out AANP as a fan rather than a coach, I struggle to put my finger on what exactly went wrong, but the symptoms were fairly clearly demarked. Every loose ball seemed to be won by Wolves, and when they took possession of the thing they seemed oddly to have an extra man on the field, everywhere one looked. Had this happened against PSG back in August, one might have waved the forgiving hand; but to find ourselves comprehensively bested in one duel after another against the mob that sit bottom of the pile, and boasting a record of five defeats from five, was bothersome to say the very least. Had

It was not so much that there was a lack of effort from our heroes. They seemed sufficiently motivated. They just ended up being second-best in almost every matter that required on-pitch thrashing out – as was particularly neatly encapsulated by the Wolves goal.

I suppose one or two of our number can probably be excused – Palhinha seems convinced that the point of a football match is to flatten as many opponents as possible; and Romero’s adoption of the captain’s armband continues to translate into him charging about the pitch like a man possessed.

But seeing the more featherweight sorts – Tel, Odobert et al – hare towards the ball only to reach it a moment too late, or find themselves bouncing off a lusty opponent, left me harumphing discontentedly in my seat, and occasionally flinging a frustrated arm into the air, like nobody’s business.

Coming as this did, not too long after the dreadful, toothless production against Bournemouth, this served as another sharp poke in the Thomas Frank ribs, to urge him to find ongoing ways to get the best out of his charges.

3. Vicario’s Role in the Goal (With A Wary Eye on Spence)

Now AANP can hardly claim to have canvassed opinion of all sixty-odd thousand in the shiny bowl last night, much less the watching millions drinking it all in from their sofas, but nevertheless a murmur of discontent did reach my ears regarding the conduct of our resident last-line-of-defence, in particular regarding his handling of the goal we conceded.

The charge, as I understand, is that in saving the initial header directed towards him he might have invested in a longer-term solution than simply shoving it straight into a bundle of waiting limbs to his right, the result of which action was a ricochet that fell kindly to the Wolves shyster S. Bueno.

Well. Here I really do I have to draw myself up to my full height and clear my throat with a bit of meaning. Now I’ve historically been as happy as the next man to lay it on a bit thick towards Vicario at the appropriate moment – a flap at a corner, or knuckle-headed distribution, or whatever – but in this instance I stand shoulder to shoulder with the chap. As far as I could make out, Vicario pretty much ticked the essential boxes with that save.

In the first place, he got there. Full stretch, and levering himself off the ground, it was one I suppose you’d expect an international goalkeeper to pull off, but nevertheless, it required a spot of the basic mechanics, and he did that well enough – particularly given that the principal protagonist, Bueno S, was swinging a boot at the ball from a yard away.

Having reached the ball, where Vicario seems to have attracted opprobrium was in then shovelling it to his right, and into the legs of Palhinha. Here again, however, I side with the case for the defence. Vicario’s second objective, having already stopped the ball from hitting the net, would have been to push it away from the centre of the goal – and this he did. That there was an onrushing Wolves sort arriving at a rate of knots stage right was slightly rotten luck, and an element that ought to have been the responsibility of one of the outfield mob, rather than Vicario. (Although I repeat, the ball actually bounced of Palhinha rather than the incoming Wolve).

Either way, I thought Vicario did all that could reasonably have been expected of him in that particular chapter. If I were to point an accusing finger and yell a spot of invective, it would be directed at young Djed Spence. This might seem a tad leftfield to the casual bystander, but look again, closely, at the details, and you’ll note that as the corner was initially delivered, Spence’s defensive responsibility consisted of chaperoning the Wolves number 4 – one Santiago Bueno.

Spence, however, seemed to shrug off this responsibility as soon as the corner was taken, immediately losing sight of his quarry and instead becoming distracted by the prospect of a header. He lost both the header and Bueno, allowing the latter to swing an initial boot at the ball as Vicario made his save, and then to poke in the rebound as it fell neatly into his path.

This level of defending drives me absolutely mad. It should not be so difficult to keep tabs on an opponent at a corner. One understands if a run is blocked off or a spot of wrestling ensues – but none of the above applied to Spence in this instance. He simply forgot his raison d’etre, and let Bueno have the freedom of the 6-yard box, forsooth.

Not that the two dropped points were the sole responsibility of Spence, of course, but those scowling and muttering about Vicario’s antics might adjust their aim.

A draw is, of course, vastly preferable to a defeat, but AANP is in no doubt that these are two dropped points that we’ll look back upon with regret come May. I’m not entirely sure that Palhinha read the mood in the camp either, whipping off his shirt and flying off in a frenzy after an equaliser against Wolves of all teams, when the drill was surely to return to stations and search for a winner, but I suppose for now we should simply be grateful for what we salvaged.