1. Quick Passing
A 2-0 home win against ten men of one of the bottom mobs might sound like routine stuff, but it was the small-print of this one that won over AANP. As in the recent wins – and indeed the preceding draws and defeats – our heroes monopolised possession and topped the charts by just about every metric you cared to consider – passes passed, shots shot, tackles tackled and so forth.
But what jumped out from this one was not so much the data in the spreadsheets as the football played on the green stuff. Principally, it was the speed with which our lot shovelled the ball from Point A to Point B.
A little context first. Harking all the way back to the days of Poch, around about the time that we become an established Top Four-or-near-enough sort of bunch, our lot have generally struggled against what the modern observer seems to call The Low Block, which as I understand is those sides that set up camp around the edge of their own area, and pack every available space with defenders, rendering furtive entry nigh-on impossible.
No blame apportioned there, except that – still harking back to the Poch era – the lilywhite approach to solving such riddles always seemed to have been to approach the thing in maddeningly laborious fashion. Put simply, it was always done so dashed slowly.
One could forgive the sideways passes themselves, because such poking and prodding was typically what was demanded; but when each member of the cavalry insisted on taking three or four touches, scouring the environs, throwing in another two or three touches for good measure and then shovelling it to the nearest teammate east or west anyway, one did rather fight the urge to thump the dome against the nearest brick wall.
“Faster, for the love of God,” tended to be the chorus from AANP Towers. My point being that if they absolutely had to pass sideways, sideways and sideways again, at least do it at a lick that made the ensconced opponents realise that they’d better shuttle left and right briskly.
Fast forward back to yesterday, and this urgency and speed of passing was actually in evidence. One might think this a pretty moot point, but AANP was all for it. Switch the ball quickly, even if it is in front of an opposition defence, and they still have to shuffle from their posts, adjust their body-shapes and start glancing around to ensure that their defensive shape is robust and the distances true.
Pretty much from the off yesterday, our lot were popping the ball left and right with a pleasing urgency, rarely racking up more than two touches per man. Individual trickery played an important point, and crosses delivered into tantalising areas helped, but the rat-a-tat nature of our passing around 20-30 yards out set a positive tone, and it’s a gambit I don’t recall from our lot when faced with a team set on defending deep across the past half-dozen or so managers.
2. Tonali and Fernandes (and the Curious Assistance Provided in Absentia by Bentancur)
Last week at Chelsea, Fernandes M. took the honours, with Tonali S. amongst the nominees for Best Supporting Cast Member. It was therefore a particularly beady eye cast upon the pair this time around, to assess whether the Chelsea performance was merely a serendipitous one-off, or whether the seeds of something more sturdy and fruitful had been planted. And, whisper it, the early signs are that it was the latter.
One does, of course, want to keep these things in perspective. There are several dozen further races left to run, and plenty more challenging opponents against whom to run them. Even allowing for these important T’s and C’s however, Tonali and Fernandes were pretty imperious yesterday. As well as the razor-sharp, one-touch passing when they actually had the ball at their feet, it was the work done off the ball or out of possession that earned the tip of the cap.
Tonali is starting to come across as one of those intelligent beans who will rarely be spotted making lunging tackles because his reading of the game removes the need for any such crude interjections. Early-stage interceptions seem to be more Tonali’s currency, in a manner popularised by Ledley King a few decades back. Add to that a few additional gallons for the lungs, and an ability to dictate a handy rondo, and we have ourselves a mightily useful little midfield nib.
Alongside him, Fernandes did enough to suggest that last week’s tour de force was no fluke. The de Zerbi Way seems strongly to encourage the swift and feisty hunting of possession once surrendered, and in this respect Fernandes (as well as Marmoush, interestingly) seemed keen to establish for himself a reputation.
When allied in midfield, it creates a handy-looking platform for the more glamorous colleagues to peddle their wares further forward.
All of which suggests that after a spot of early-season bedding-in and acquainting of strangers, we might be onto a good thing. This is quietly thrilling news, and has the potential to lay the base for a long and storied period of health and prosperity. A slight curio amongst it all is the fact that this easing of square pegs into appropriately-shaped holes has come about since the enforced absence of Senor Bentancur – which itself came about rather by chance.
I’m quite the fan of Bentancur, in his purest form. He’s the sort of chappie I’d subscribe to watch on a 90-minute player cam, in appreciation of his touch and technique. If one problem has followed him about in his lilywhite career however, closer than his own shadow, it’s been the difficulty of categorising him.
Enforcer? Deep-lying creator? Goalscorer from deep? Box-to-box run-all-day sort of chestnut? Bentancur seems to be none of the above, simply a useful fellow to have about the place, shuttling things from one place to another.
With him out of the equation, however, a natural pattern seems to have emerged to our play. Tonali and Fernandes link up at the base, and Maddison, or Gallagher, or Marmoush, or whoever else, bring their own unique take on the Number 10 role further north. The role of Bentancur, for the foreseeable, would appear to be as a reinforcement from the bench.
3. Tel (and that LWB Cameo)
As with Tonali and Fernandes, so with Tel. Which is to say that following his heroics last week, I honed in on Tel’s performance yesterday as eagerly as a trainspotter keeping an eye out for a revered steam engine.
The official AANP assessment is that the sequel was passable. Young Monsieur Tel certainly bounded about the place with the enthusiasm of a puppy who has recently received many a tummy-tickle for having fetched one previous stick, and therefore thinks he ought to repeat the trick at every opportunity.
Confidence was not an issue for Tel. Where previously he has shown a tendency to receive the ball out left, cut back onto his right and relay responsibility elsewhere, yesterday he seemed pretty determined to take on as many defenders as Palace sent to mind him, often doing so successfully. The final ball could still benefit from a little spit and polish, but by and large I was pleased to see the lad look to build on last week’s success.
With Tel’s work done there was time for a welcome introduction to life at the sharp end for young Williams-Barnett, and the whippersnapper did not disappoint. The poor Palace sorts tasked with keeping him quiet would have needed a sit-down in a darkened room after his brief cameo, and even I rather lost my bearings at one point as the lad twisted this way and that.
Fun and games though it all was, however, being a curmudgeonly sort I cannot let this sort of thing go without a cautionary word or two. One does not have to cast the mind back too far to gather in evidence a few exhibits of spotty-faced schoolboys bouncing onto the N17 turf to mesmerise us all on debut.
Mikey Moore did something similar a year or two back; I happened to be commentating when Max Dowman made his bow in similarly effective fashion for the Woolwich; and even switching codes I think back to Jamie Smith running riot with the bat in his opening few innings for England – but after a couple of appearances, once opponents have had a chance to do a spot of homework, these young sorts can find that life isn’t all nutmegs and fan ovations.
Put another way, defenders soon learn to kick lumps out of them before they can build up a head of steam. Easing LWB into things with the odd appearance here and there would seem a reasonable ploy. Should he find he comes up against a few brick walls and needs more time to sit down and solve these problems, a brief loan might be the tonic. However, if each lilywhite appearance is on a par with yesterday’s we’ll be in for a treat, because he produced more output in five minutes than Tel did in approximately 85.