Tag: Micky Van de Ven

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Spurs match reports

Brighton 3-2 Spurs: Three(ish) Tottenham Talking Points

1. The First Half

One might say there was something for everyone yesterday. For lovers of Angeball there was a first half, and particularly a first half hour, in which all involved absolutely purred about the place; for those who can’t stand the chap there was a capitulation that even by our lofty standards was a bit of a corker.

The first half couldn’t have been much brighter and breezier, with slick, one-touch combinations all over the pitch. Moreover, each of the assembled cast members were beginning to give the impression of knowing precisely what, where and when the chap next to him would do. If Porro were passing infield to Kulusevski, for example, Johnson did not need any further prodding, and was already haring off down the wing, in full expectation of the ball being pinged first-time into his path before the nearest Brighton sort had worked out what direction he ought to be facing. Benefits, one assumes, of fielding a relatively settled eleven.

Nor were these little link-ups being executed just to look pretty. They were moves with a specific purpose. Within about two or three passes one of the front-five were generally speeding off into the Brighton penalty area and clearing the stage for a pop at goal, and such was the routine in that first half that just about every time we took possession of the thing one felt that the culmination of the sequence would be some manner of attempt lasering in towards the Brighton net.

While it was very much a collective effort, I found myself drawn to the notion that Kulusevski is possibly the key component in an on-song Spurs, at least when whipping up a head of steam from deep. His energy and directness seem to instil a certain nervousness in opposing sorts, all the more so when given the freedom to advance centrally rather than having his movements slightly curtailed out on the wing (although his combinations with Johnson and Porro on the right were nevertheless effective).

A gentle ripple of applause too for Solanke for his contribution to both goals. There were many pairs of hands involved in both, of course – and for the second in particular I think the fingerprints of a good half-dozen could be detected – but AANP is a particular fan of a well-weighted pass inside a full-back, which turns him around and allows an onrushing colleague to arrive from deep at a rate of knots and collect in his stride. Solanke had a bit of a knack for the things in that first half, timing to perfection the pass for Johnson’s opener, and then playing in Werner in the build-up for the second.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see Maddison popping up in advanced positions – at times the furthest forward, in fact – given that, with Kulusevski alongside him, he has previously seemed happy enough sit five yards deeper. On more than one occasion in those early stages he rather stealthily wormed his way forward unnoticed, before ripping off his mask to reveal his identity only once well inside the Brighton area and with a sight of goal.

Another notable feature of the first half was the alacrity with which our lot swarmed over Brighton whenever they gained possession inside their own half, Spurs players to a man giving the impression that they had little time for such interruptions and wanted to revert to relentless attack at the earliest opportunity.  

All in all, it was the sort of fare on which we have dined pretty regularly this season, augmented, in a pleasing break from the past, by no fewer than two of the chances actually being taken. While several others were spurned, I did beetle off for the half-time snootful with a pretty satisfied exhalation. A fairly pleasing opening stab, was about the gist of it, at least in an attacking sense, and while our lot are always susceptible when in reverse, there seemed no reason to suspect the attacking free-for-all would let up.

2. Werner’s End-Product (and a Word on Mikey Moore)

Before getting down to the grisly details, a pause to sink the head into the hands and muffle a few unrepeatables, as I reflect on the latest misadventures of poor old Timo Werner.

Nothing about him surprises us any more, of course. His is a movie we’ve all watched a few times now. Plenty of willing was on show, as ever, and, taken in isolation, that burst of pace ought to be worth its weight in gold. Not for the first time he appeared to have his opposing full-back at his mercy, being possessed of a far cleaner pair of heels. Werner needed only really to nudge the ball a few yards past the full-back and that particular part of the mission was as good as done. There was no catching him. It might as well have been an unguarded doorway.

Oh, that simply outpacing his man were all that were required, eh? If Werner could simply have beaten his man to the ball, raced to the by-line and then triumphantly put his foot on the ball and waved a colourful flag, we’d be throwing garlands around his neck.

Alas, there typically follows the delicate issue of an end-product, and here, as ever Werner tended to fudge things. The tone was set in the opening fifteen seconds, when Werner absolutely zipped away into space behind the Brighton defence (courtesy of another of those delicious passes between defenders from Solanke), and looked up to see young Brennan Johnson galloping in synchronicity, ten yards to his right.

Not much additional work was needed, the sum of it requiring that one international footballer pass straightforwardly to another, the path from A to B uncluttered by any third parties. This being Werner, however, he rather pickled the operation by delivering that final pass with far more oomph than the situation required, and the moment concluded down by the corner flag rather than in the back of the net.

This was probably the nadir, but thereafter every time Werner attempted similarly to cross to a suitable body in the area, he failed to hit the mark, most typically banging the ball straight into the nearest Brighton limb. Dashed frustrating stuff, given the ease with which he was able to scuttle past his defender in order to create the opportunity in the first place, but such is the package he provides.

To his credit, he did start to work out that crossing into the centre was beyond his capability, and opt instead on several occasions to play a shorter pass, of four or five yards. This proved vastly more effective, not least as it meant we retained possession in a dangerous area and someone slightly more qualified – by which I mean literally anyone else – was then tasked with picking the critical final pass. Maddison’s goal was created in this way, so it certainly had its benefits, it just seemed rather a waste of all that initial good work Werner would do in getting himself into a crossing position.

As ever, there were increasingly furious yowls from the assorted observers, with each Werner mishap, demanding that Mikey Moore be utilised instead. I would caution against this myself, the young egg’s brief cameo seeming to illustrate that at present all the talent in the world is somewhat on pause, as he is currently too lightweight for this sort of thing. Every time he tried to take on a man or two he was fairly straightforwardly buffeted out of the picture. His value may be greater when we lead and can counter, running into space, perhaps, than when he needs to flex the upper-body sinews and take on a waiting defender.

3. Defenders Who Can’t Defend

Concerns about Timo Werner, however, are a mere bagatelle when contrasted with the broader second half performance.

Going forward we showed far less of that first half potency, for reasons that can only be speculated upon. The intense, high press of the first half was wiped from the memory, with only Solanke really playing the game after the break, and while we still did look to create, notably on the right, there was nowhere near the same threat.

But vastly more disturbing was what was transpiring at the back. One understands that the whole Angeball apparatus lends itself to an often calamitous susceptibility at the rear. One hardly revels in the fact, but one understands it. If every man and his dog are going to attack, one rather anticipates that gaps will appear at the back.

What is a lot harder to stomach is when the opposition scythe right through the heart of our defence when all four of them are in position and in a neat line, aided by Bentancur and whomever else is nearby, and seemingly not having been under any imminent threat at all. For it is a pretty verifiable fact that Brighton did not have to work particularly hard to carve us open and shoot from the centre of the goal. Not unless one’s idea of hard work is to saunter unopposed through a front door.

The litany of individual mistakes makes for pretty gruesome recollection, to the extent that one barely knows where to start, but for the sake of a bit of order I’ll go through this geographically, right to left.

3.1 Porro

He may have escaped censure on the day, given the more obvious blooters from Udogie and whatnot, but Pedro Porro needs to dashed well pull up his socks and sort out his ideas. Simply being in the vicinity and running in the right direction are not sufficient. If Werner only had to outpace his opposing right-back to be free of him, then whomever was on Brighton’s left wing (typically Mitoma) did not even need to do that much. They merely needed to look up and kick the blasted thing, because as sure as night follows day, Porro was going to allow the cross to be made.

There was a warning sign in the first half, when Mitoma curled the ball into the area for Welbeck to pop wide, and it continued with Brighton’s first two goals, shortly after half-time. Watch the footage back and Porro can be spotted in the vicinity and appearing to chase back diligently enough – but, as with that first half cross, the blighter does nothing even to attempt to prevent the ball being knocked past him and into the centre. There’s not much point in there being a right-back on the pitch if he’s not going to make the slightest attempt to stop the opposition left winger, but Porro didn’t even outstretch a leg.

Similarly for the second goal, Porro ambles out towards Estupinian and in the blink of an eye the ball is played inside him, taking him out of the game. While Brighton did have an overload there, Porro might still have stationed himself somewhere that made the pass at least a mite more difficult, but instead Brighton simply hopped around him and cracked on.

3.2 Romero

If Porro can be chided for failing to prevent crosses, there ought to have been a safety net of sorts alongside him in the shape of Romero, but so far this season he has seemed to sleepwalk around the pitch with zero awareness, and seemingly not much interest, in what is happening around him.

As mentioned, the Mitoma cross in the first half found Welbeck unmarked from six yards out, and this represented an astonishing dereliction of duty from Romero. The genesis of this was no desperate sprint back from halfway either – Romero had all the time in the world to spot Welbeck and keep tabs on him, but simply dozed off while jogging back, lost sight of him completely and was mightily lucky that he missed the target when it was easier to score.

Then for the second Brighton goal, once the ball had been played inside Porro to Mitoma, Romero went out to meet him, but his attempted tackle exemplified much that was wrong with our defending. Frankly the very term ‘attempted tackle’ is pretty wildly misleading, because it was that in name only, consisting of Romero dangling a half-hearted leg at Mitoma with the air of a man who thinks there are plenty of others around who can put an end to the danger should  the need arise. One hardly calls for Romero to crunch him at the knee, but he could certainly have applied himself more fervently to blocking the man’s path and forcing him to look elsewhere.

And then for the third, Romero was back to his absent-minded self, rocking on his heels and simply watching on as the ball looped up for Welbeck to head in. In the last week or two I have lauded Dominic Solanke for anticipating a rebound well in advance, setting off at the merest sniff of an opportunity. In Romero we saw the polar opposite, a man utterly oblivious to the threat of danger, even within his own six-yard box.

Romero is mightily impressive in possession, demonstrating at various points yesterday and in recent weeks his eye for a natty, threaded pass in midfield that bisects the opposing press – but first and foremost the man is a defender, dash it. Above all else he ought to be defending. In common with those around him, he seems far more attuned to life when on the attack than when keeping at bay the other mob.

3.3 Van de Ven

No doubt about it, VDV’s pace is a blessing like few others, particularly when deployed within the Angeball high line. If a foot-race to the ball is in order, to snuff out a looming threat, VDV is your man; and indeed, he has a rather pleasingly no-nonsense approach to covering the left-back position too, regularly seen to rush over and put in a slide-challenge that deposits the ball out of play and allows everyone else to man their stations.

Yet in terms of the basics of one-on-one defending, such as making a tackle or simply preventing an opponent from skipping gaily past to t’other side, VDV is alarmingly susceptible. Standing one’s ground and forcing an opponent to take a roundabout route to goal ought not to be the complex operation that VDV has turned it into.

Again, for that second Brighton goal, VDV was turned inside out far too easily, and on various other occasions in the second half in particular, he seemed to be beaten with minimal effort. If sides play some scintillating football that tears the defence to shreds, one can bow an accepting head, but Brighton really did not have to work particularly hard to bypass VDV – or those around him.

3.4 Udogie

Rather more conspicuously, Udogie made quite the pig’s ear of his clearance for the first goal, but in a way I am more inclined to absolve this. That was a lapse in concentration that might have happened anywhere on the pitch; more concerning is when he has to carry out basic operations when up against an opponent, and is beaten with the same ease with which I skip past my youthful nephews out in the park.

The third Brighton goal being a case in point (a move preceded, by the way, by Udogie needlessly running the ball out of play instead of clearing up the line). The Brighton chappie posed no threat with back to goal and few options available, and for clarification was not Pele either. Yet Udogie allowed him wriggle past him with the sort of perfunctory challenge that Romero had been showcasing earlier, a slackness that cost us a goal.

As can certainly also be said for Porro and Romero, and to an extent is true of VDV, Udogie seems vastly to prefer life when charging forward. And he does a marvellous job of it too, which is lovely in its own wy – but that’s not the point of a left-back! Our four defenders seem not to grasp the basics of defending. As mentioned above, it’s challenging enough when they’re all racing back from halfway and stretched in all directions, but yesterday they showcased that even when all organised and in position, they are simply such bad defenders that opponents can, with a few carefully-selected steps, waltz straight through the heart of them.

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Spurs match reports

Man Utd 0-3 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Micky Van de Ven

Good heavens. One feels like there should be a law against that sort of thing. And having done something similar against Everton a few weeks back, I think it’s safe to say that this cannot simply be dismissed, with a raised eyebrow and a bemused shrug, as a bit of an oddity and not one worth reading into. Hurtling straight through the heart of an opposition defence, from own half to penalty area, taking out four or five defenders en route, is evidently a character trait of Van de Ven.

Of course, as and when called upon VDV duly ticked all other, more conventional boxes, as any self-respecting centre-back would, but it was this unstoppable thrust from deep that caught the eye and arrested the attention, the sort of wondrous moment that generations to come will whisper about in awestruck tones.

My Spurs-supporting chum Ian noted that there was something of Gareth Bale about that gallop, and, while applying all understandable caveats, one does see the point. Visually, Van de Ven does not really whizz from A to B with the smooth grace of an Olympic sprinter, at least not when doing so with the ball at his feet. Like Bale (and, come to think of it, there’s a vague similarity to Kulusevski too), when VDV starts running with the ball he looks more like a wild beast charging down a hill, his speed on the gallop complemented by the vague sense that here is a chap motoring along with too much power simply to be nudged out of the way.

Either way, the pretty damning conclusion was that once he had revved up there was simply no stopping him. In fact, there was no getting near him. I suppose this might have had something to do with the approach of the United players as well as the force of the VDV run, for they seemed not to be struck by the concept that protruding a limb or stationing self in VDV’s path might have done something to at least delay – if not altogether stop – his progress.

But if any of you have ever seen a man possessed – and I’ve come across a few in my time – then no amount of protruding limbs or stationing of selves will stop him. Once hell-bent on running half the pitch and squaring across goal for a tap-in, there’s little the casual, or indeed particularly serious, observer can do. Brennan Johnson had the right idea – pop up in the appointed place and at the appointed hour, and greet the whole performance with such glee that you’re already smiling before applying the finishing touch.

2. This Week’s Angeball

Given that VDV went scything his way through United before the opening credits were off the screen, it is tempting to clear the throat and declare that he and his fine work set the tone, but I rather fancy that VDV buccaneering run or not, our lot would still have spent that opening half hour relentlessly hammering away at the opposition. It simply seems to be the Angeball modus operandi. Like a squadron of Pavlovian dogs, the sound of that opening whistle seems to be the cue for all involved to spring into a wild frenzy of attack upon attack, incessantly and until half-time.

(Indeed, proof, were it needed, that the first half barrage was not solely VDV-induced can be obtained from footage of last weekend’s start against Brentford, when we were a goal down within 30 seconds and adopted the same take on things that was in evidence yesterday after going a goal up.)

Once again, I gave the pre-match nod of approval in the direction of Our Glorious Leader, for opting for the Kulusevski-laden midfield rather than the safety-first option of Sarr or Bissouma. As against Woolwich one would have grudgingly understood had the verdict been a soupçon of caution for an opponent and stage such as this, but rather impressively Ange was having none of it. Instead, “Gung” and “Ho” were the words of choice, and just about every outfield player was on board.

Normally the centre-backs and a single midfielder are the only souls from whom one can expect any restraint, but with Van de Ven doing his thing as early as the third minute, it was evident that if you were on the pitch then you had licence to attack.

Both Udogie and Spence gave the impression that they much prefer lending weight to offensive issues anyway, and over on the other side Porro seemed in the mood too, so there were no shortage of volunteers for any given sortie up the pitch.

And as has been the trend for most of this season, our lot did not just dominate possession, but created a bucketload of chances too. Whereas in seasons gone by all that possession became something of a millstone around the neck, with the ball shuttled left and right ad infinitum outside the area as we suffered from a lack of ingenuity in the final third, yesterday there was no shortage of bright ideas from our heroes. One-twos in the area, Werner getting to the byline, Porro crossing from 20 yards out – there was a pleasing variety to our attack, and that’s on top of a high press that brought home all sorts of healthy harvest.

In the first half alone we were treated to one-on-ones for Werner and Maddison, and Johnson hitting the post, as well as the usual slew of half-chances, and while the tendency to keep missing these opportunities is rather vexing, and has already cost us this season, the creation of so many chances (two goals and two more one-on-ones missed in the second half) does suggest that we’ll rack up the goals this season.

Had we taken chances against Newcastle and Leicester as we did yesterday and last weekend, we would now be top of the tree, which is a point that I suspect will grind the AANP gears until mid-May, but nevertheless the silver lining here is that we repeatedly create chances, and as such, more often than not will outscore the opposition.

3. Kulusevski (and a Nod of Approval for Bentancur)

As mentioned, every man in lilywhite was in on the whole ‘Attack, Attack, Attack’ strategy, but in Kulusevski in particular we have something of a gem.

Strictly speaking that should be amended to ‘Kulusevski in a central role’, because when deployed through the middle rather than out wide his productivity shoots through the roof. He has his virtues as a winger of course – the VDV-esque quality of being quick than he appears he ought to be is quite the asset, but as was lamented on a weekly basis last season, his tendency, having done all the hard work on the right, ultimately to cut back onto his left foot in order to deliver a cross or shot, was as frustrating as it was unproductive.

In the centre, however, he is quite the menace, and with United either unable or willing to engage yesterday, he absolutely ran the show. There were so many ticks against his name that one rather made a mess of one’s notes. He delivers the beans in terms of joining in the high press, tracking back, running with the ball, evading challenges, displaying quick feet around the areas and, perhaps most impressively yesterday, picking passes from deep into the path of on-running forwards.

As a bonus, the presence of Kulusevski seems also to bring the best out of Maddison, the pair of them by the week seeming increasingly aware of who goes where on the pitch-map, and that little one-two in the first half that put Maddison through on goal had me purring.

In singing the praises of Kulusevski one ought also to pause and quietly salute the honest beavering of Bentancur, who, in much the same way as Kulusevski and Maddison further north, seems to be understanding better on a weekly basis the rigours and requirements of that perch just in front of the centre-backs.

He’s not really a tackler, but then that’s not his job. In possession he collects the ball from the centre-backs and comes up with bright ideas of where to deliver it next; and out of possession he tends to be in the vicinity as a third defensive body. The whole business of defending on halfway does still leave us wide open, no doubt about it, and overly-reliant on the pace of young VDV, but Bentancur seems aware that he is required to hang back and loiter, when all around him are charging forward, and he seems not to mind.

4. Werner’s Finishing (and Indeed Solanke’s Finishing)

As mentioned, thrilling though it is to see our heroes carve out chance after chance, I suspect I was not alone in spending that half-time break trotting a little nervously back and forth, wondering if we would rue all those misses. And while he was by no means the only culprit, Timo Werner’s did rather stand out, what?

He was at it again in the second half, of course, and to say it’s absolutely maddening doesn’t really do justice to the thing. The poor soul’s inability to score when clean through is absolutely bewildering.

One should know better by now than to expect, or even hope, that he might bury one of these opportunities, but when he’s clean through on goal I simply cannot help myself. I rise to my feet, the pulse quickens and I almost plead with him to do the honourable thing and put us all at our ease.

One can only wonder what goes on in training, when they practice these things, but out he does rather give the impression that he’s already resigned to making a pig’s ear of it as soon as let loose upon goal. The shame of it is that being blessed with such pace, he gets more of those opportunities than most.

Of course, he’s not the only one to come a cropper in these scenarios. Solanke took a leaf out of his book late on; Maddison was denied in the first half (although the circumstances there seemed to mitigate, he being a lot closer to goal and actually producing a solid effort in the form of a cheeky dink) and frankly I feel like Sonny misses as many as he scores when clean through on goal these days. And has been well-documented, when clear of a defence, one has probably a bit too much time to consider the permutations and get one’s brain into something of a muddle.

But nevertheless. Werner misses these dashed things literally every time.

As ever, I watched his all-round performance with a highly critical eye yesterday, and was not particularly impressed. The one trait he displays that did deserve a spot of rowdy approbation was that tendency to shove the ball towards the byline, out-pace his man and pull it back across goal. He did that at least a couple of times, and that no obliging foot was around to prod home was not his fault. This option seemed rather useful, far more so than his usual approach, of swivelling one-eighty and knocking the ball back towards halfway.

However, Mikey Moore having been given fifteen minutes to find his feet, one wonders whether he might earn a start next time Sonny is declared MIA, with Werner to input later from the bench.

As mentioned, Solanke also duffed up his one-on-one, but that aside he put in another impressive shift. In particular I was rather taken by his awareness in heading the ball out right and into the path of Johnson, in the build-up to our second, rather than aimlessly heading it straight down the throat of the United centre-halves.

Moreover, having spent countless playground hours in my youth trying to emulate the goal-poaching prowess of one G. Lineker Esquire, AANP was particularly taken by Solanke’s goal yesterday. As mentioned midweek, those poached finishes from close-range are something of a dying art, and certainly not the sort to which we Spurs fans have been treated in a while (even Herr Kane seemed not to include too many of those amongst his repertoire). If September 2024 is anything to go by, however, Solanke seems to prefer nothing more than to stab in a loose ball from six yards or fewer.

I’m all for it. They all count, after all, and while his two previous efforts were following up goalkeeping spillages, I was thoroughly impressed by yesterday’s, involving as it did a spot of deeper loitering at a corner, before gambling on a near-post flick, and getting scruffy studs on the ball from approximately three yards out. A most pleasing throwback to a bygone era, and a potentially useful addition to the attacking armoury.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 3-0 Qarabag: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. The Glorious Lunacy of Angeball

There are several ways to skin a cat, so I’m reliably informed. Not a hobby for which I’ve ever gone in myself, you understand, but presumably the hypothesis stretches to playing with ten men too. Several ways to do it, is the gist. One can pack one’s own penalty area, abandon all notions of attack, adopt a 6-3-0 and feign injury every five minutes (and still fail to achieve the one, single object). Or one can go full all-action-no-plot.

In much the same way as the home game vs Chelsea last season – the poster-child for this sort of madcap wheeze – was encapsulated by that shot of all eight of our remaining outfield players strung across the halfway line, so the mental snapshot will live long in my head from last night, of poor old VDV and Davies manfully back-pedalling in the face of three Qarabag sorts, while a good 5-10 yards back Messrs Gray, Udogie, Sarr and Bissouma desperately tried to race back in time to avert disaster.

They needn’t have bothered, as it happened, as Qarabag appeared to have Ray Charles leading the line (and Johnny Wilkinson on penalties), they packing the sort of finishing quality that had you convinced they could have played all night without scoring. But that’s not really the point, what? The point is that even with ten men, the last thing any of our lot want to do is defend.

Not strictly true, I suppose, as the two centre-backs by and large stay at home and man the fort. And admittedly when the opposition has a little spell of calm possession, all in lilywhite will obediently trot back into formation and at least pretend to play the game.

But once we regain possession, heaven help the centre-backs and Vicario, because for everyone else, all bets are off. I doubt that VDV and Davies even hear the cheery adieus of Gray and Udogie as they go sprinting up into midfield. With Bissouma and Sarr the segue from defence-minded to attack-minded is perhaps a little more subtle, but within about ten seconds of our gaining possession they also find themselves almost irresistibly sucked up the pitch, leaving VDV and Davies to puff the cheeks and brace themselves for the inevitable two-on-two fandango.

Now personally I think it’s absolutely riotous fun, but then I’ve spent half my life penning a tome called ‘All Action, No Plot’, so one would expect as much. I suppose the grudging proviso I would make is that, given that every other team in the history of the game will be better in front of goal than Qarabag, there may be value in considering a minor modification – such as that one of the two full-backs hangs back at any given time, for example, or that the nominal sitting midfielder does actually, in real life, sit (as I actually thought Bentancur did quite well vs Brentford the other day). Some such low-level tweak might facilitate just a mite more security at the back to guard against the counter-attack, while still allowing all concerned to have an absolute blast when in possession.

Broadly, however, I love this stuff. It’s fitting that last night was a European jolly, as it allowed one to focus the mind’s eye on that AC Milan game under Conte, our most recent, prior European night, and an absolute low-point in the club’s history. Harking back to that felicidal theme, just as there are many ways to skin a cat, so there are many ways to go sixteen years without a trophy, and I’d rather we lose going full Ange and swinging wildly, than having Conte make our eyes bleed in a 0-0 against Milan that we supposedly had to win.

Of course, the smoking room at AANP Towers is full to the rafters these days of incandescent lilywhites petitioning for a return to paper-based transactions just so that they can rip up their season tickets in front of Our Glorious Leader. And one understands, because the man’s stubbornness does take the breath away somewhat. As indicated above, one need only make a few minor changes to maintain high levels of gung-ho whilst tightening considerably at the rear. In plain English, we could very feasibly have our cake and eat it.

We won’t, however. Ange won’t. Just about any other team in Europe would have scored three against us last night; it just means that next time we’ll need to score four. AANP is fully on board.

2. Dragusin

Still early days, of course, and the place is absolutely teeming with mitigating circumstances – he’s barely played; when he does play it’s once a month, hardly allowing him to learn the lyrics; it’s a different formation to the one he played at Genoa; it’s the madness of Angeball, for heaven’s sake; and so on.

This is not to exonerate Dragusin for last night’s faux pas, a clanger that I estimated was three parts complacency and two parts lack of concentration (and served also to ruin poor old Bergvall’s evening).

Rather, the point I make is that, more broadly, it seems too early to make a judgement. Early signs are that he’s going the way of a Ramon Vega, Federico Fazio or, to give it a suitably Romanian twist, Vlad Chiriches – viz. that he’s one of those bobbies who looks thoroughly at ease in national colours, and then appears not to know what shape the ball is when he trots up the tunnel at N17. But let’s give him time to make a few more clangers before we lock that one in.

If ever there were a time to throw in a seventh minute red card it was probably at home to Qarabag. More concerning to the inscrutable AANP eye was that this was the lad we spent months researching and courting. I mean, really? They have legions of scouts, and all sorts of files of data, capturing every conceivable metric – and the chap they pick for an Angeball central defence has a top speed of ‘Moderate Jog’?

‘Quizzical’ doesn’t really do justice to the look on my face as I try to wrap the head around that one. I’d have thought that before anything else, the absolute priority in a central defender who will be spending most of his time preparing to sprint back from halfway would be a turn of pace.

Anyway, there we go, and here he is, so we’d better muck in and hope that VDV’s hamstrings hold up for the next 50 or so games until May, because goodness knows the chaps alongside him won’t be much use once we lose possession.

3. Vicario

If you popped your head in around these parts after the Brentford game you’ll know that I delivered to the masses a pretty coruscating appraisal of Vicario’s misadventures, he having posted one of those wild performances from which one cannot tear away one’s gaze, in a sort of morbid fascination.

Well, he made amends last night. Whether someone had a quiet parola in his ear, or he simply tired of the wild hyperactivity and fancied a calmer night, I could not say, but this was altogether more conventional stuff, and quite impressive too.

As mentioned, the Qarabag compass seemed to point in every direction but the goal, but when they did finally hit the target Vicario did all that was required. In the second half in particular he made one or two highly impressive saves, padded out somewhat by a couple of more straightforward ones that he embellished with unnecessary leaps and roles and all sorts – but we can accept that. First and foremost, Vicario is a shot-stopper, and he stopped shots last night like a champion.

I was also rather taken by a moment in the first half – still at one-nil – when he came off his line to deal with a low cross in unconventional manner, sliding forward full-length across the turf to punch clear the ball as it was delivered. Looked a bit odd, no doubt, but a year of Vicario has taught me that here is a man who does not mind looking a bit peculiar to the average passer-by; and more to the point, it did the job. Had he not slid forward thusly, and instead stayed on his line, there may well have been an opportunity for the approaching Qarabag striker to miss another open goal.

And right on half-time, again with the score at one-nil and therefore the game far from won, he came charging approximately forty yards out of his goal, which cost me a few heartbeats I’ll never get back, but it was ultimately to good effect.

It came about when Ben Davies, in a rather charming act of solidarity with Dragusin, dithered on the ball when last man, was robbed and immediately exposed for having no burst of pace worthy of the name. The immediate fear that Davies was going to take that Dragusin Tribute Act a little too far and haul his man down was swiftly superseded by the sight of Vicario racing in the other direction, bringing with it a brand new fear, that he was going to trump Dragusin by clattering into the man from the front. Either way, in that split second, the AANP mind computed that we would be playing another nine-man defensive line on halfway, and wondered who our substitute goalkeeper was.

As it turned out, I need not have fretted. Vicario had his calculations spot on, reaching the ball first and then extending every conceivable limb to ensure that no rebound would get past him either. It spared Davies’ blushes, kept us in the lead and avoided a second red card – and while the 3-0 scoreline was evidence of a comfortable enough finale, had Vicario not got that challenge right then things really would have pickled themselves.

4. Solanke

The attacking mob can probably pat themselves on the back for last night’s efforts. Son looked a pretty constant threat on the gallop, and Johnson took his goal well (albeit he ought to have had a second), the young egg’s confidence evidently now on a pleasingly upward trajectory.

I thought it a slight shame that Kulusevski was stuck out on the right again, rather than the centre, but if nothing else his very presence appeared to terrify the Qarabag lot; and Sarr’s contribution to the high press helped bring about our opening goal. Young Gray was a curious mix of fine touches and technique, that give evidence of a pretty special footballer lurking, married to some dreadful passing and control to give away possession in important areas. And for some reason, every five minutes one or other of the Qarabag lot would stroll up to him and give him a hefty kick around the ankles.

But one of the most pleasing elements of the evening was the ongoing acclimatisation of Solanke to the lilywhite uniform. The headline, I suppose, was that he scored, which obviously helps jimmy things along, and I do rather think that the poacher’s goal, converting a rebound from close range, is something of a dying art. Not one we see so much of any more, don’t you think? Good for him, anyway, and a drink on the house for his alertness in beginning to chase for a potential rebound even before the ‘keeper had saved Son’s initial shot.

As much as his goal, however, I was rather taken by his all-round game. If there were beavering to be done in deeper positions, Solanke was a surprisingly willing volunteer. He held up the ball reasonably well, and picked the odd pass from deep for onrushing chums, into which category one might file his contribution to our opener. Solanke is evidently happy to play his part in a high press, and once the ball had been won he showed a pleasing spot of the old upper-body strength to shove aside his man, before rolling a pass into Johnson’s path just so.

While it was hardly world-beating stuff, it nevertheless seemed exactly the sort of performance he needed to settle into the role as our focal point, offering a threat in front of goal as well as contributing to the general to-ing and fro-ing further back.

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Spurs match reports

Spurs 4-0 Everton: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Odobert

I don’t mind admitting that AANP was as surprised as the next man on casting the bleary eye over the morning headlines a few days ago and seeing one Wilson Odobert unveiled as the latest shiny new lilywhite on the shelf.

Naturally, here at AANP Towers when such seismic events occur we hot-foot it to a darkened room and embrace technology, so within moments I was dusting off the spools and watching grainy footage of Odobert’s highlights from his former incarnations. And all very impressive it looked too, when condensed into a few minutes and soundtracked by some of that modern electronic noise; but the critical question was whether or not he could peddle such wares within the cut and thrust of the THFC Starting XI.

We didn’t have to wait long, Our Glorious Leader evidently deciding within 48 hours or so that Odobert merited elevation above the pre-existing queue of wingers. Naturally one respects the privacy and confidentiality of the changing room, but I would certainly have enjoyed the opportunity to sneak a furtive look at the maps of Messrs Werner, Solomon and Richarlison upon learning that Odobert was being shunted to the front of the Left-Wing queue.

And whoever whispers pearls of wisdom in the Odobert ear earned themselves a pay-rise, because within about the opening quarter-hour the young oeuf had ticked all manner of boxes on the ‘How To Please Your New Employer and Win Raucous Applause From Your New Fans’ cribsheet.

From the off Odobert took to the attacking requirements with breezy vim and energy, immediately adopted as one of the cool kids by Messrs Maddison and Udogie, and combining with this pair to impressive effect on the left. He attacked his man at every opportunity, but was also sensible enough not to go overboard and try the same trick every time, making full use of the availability of those around him to try to eke out opportunities.

A couple of dribbles and attempted balls into the centre gave the impression of a lad who knew his onions, and with Johnson, Kulusevski and Porro forming a similar alliance on the right, we seemed well-stocked in the department of provision from the wings.
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Odobert’s diligent tracking back towards his own goal to execute a sliding challenge early on in the piece was a smart move, earning him a rousing ovation, as many a seasoned observer turned to the chum by their side to remark upon his work-rate with an approving nod, but the moment that really caught the AANP eye and elicited a pretty audible purr from the natives was when he trapped a ball falling from the sky with the a level of control that could not have been bettered had he used his hands, and for added impact threw in a neat change of direction, all in the same movement.

So all pretty whizzy stuff from the new boy, and excited chatter was very much the order of the day, but here at AANP Towers we are nothing if not curmudgeonly old cynics. As Odobert departed early to his standing ovation I therefore cleared the throat and gave tongue to the sentiment that in future performances I’d like to see a spot of end-product. We do have a certain history after all, from Bergwijn to Bentley, Nkoudou to N’jie, of bringing in wingers who look frightfully bucked and full of ideas, only to underwhelm and rather quietly exit the place a year or two hence, with nothing but a few low-key sentences on the website to record that they were ever part of the gang at all.

And watching Odobert cut back one pass into a defender, and have another attempted cross turned behind by another Everton sort, the thought did occur that the odd piece of rotten fruit has been flung at Werner and even young Johnson for the similar transgression of failing regularly to generate an end-product that really does the business. So a decent enough start from young Odobert, but room for a notch or two of improvement.

2. Bissouma’s Redemption

I suppose ‘redemption’ is rather over-egging the thing, but having spent the opening weekend of the season on the naughty step it was very much in the interests of Yves Bissouma to produce a return to the form of early last season. While Everton were amongst the more feeble opponents ever to work up a sweat in the magnificent environs of N17, Bissouma still earned himself some pretty hearty back-slaps for his efforts.

This being the sort of bash in which our heroes monopolised possession, the onus was on Bissouma not so much to perform sentry duty and prevent an onslaught from the foe, as to use possession wisely when collecting it at the base of midfield. Pleasingly, the fellow not only got that particular memo, he also had the good sense to dip into the memory bank and trot out some of his greatest hits from early 2023-24. 

As such, we were treated to such classics as Bissouma picking out – and delivering – a natty line in short forward passes that bisected opposition defenders; Bissouma effecting upper-body swerves that sent Everton players off into different postcodes and allowed him to glide forward; and Bissouma running with the ball from inside our half to inside theirs. It was sensible use of the thing, and carried out at a healthy lick too, free from dawdle and ponderousness.

As an additional bonus, when Everton did healf-hartedly string a few passes together and make some perfunctory attempts to get over halfway, Bissouma was on hand to effect a couple of handy and forceful blocks and tackles. To repeat – and it cannot be overstated – Everton were awful, but we nevertheless required a chap to collect the ball from deep and have the clarity of mind to get us onto the front-foot. Bissouma did this more, and with tasty fixtures looming it was a most timely return to form.

(As an aside, frightfully good of the bean to chip in with the opening goal, a special mention to such efforts that cannon off the underside of the bar for a spot of additional aesthetic value, what?)

3. Romero

Keep this to yourself, but prior to kick-off I was becoming rather oddly invested in an earnest argument that questioned the defensive capabilities of Cristian Romero. Before you turn on your heel, never to return, a brief precis of the argument.

Romero, I hypothesised, was being praised to the rafters by such luminaries as that Messi chap, so evidently had something about him, but a nameless irritation had nagged away at me at times last season that such commendation was on account of the more forward-thinking elements of his play – his ability to pass from the back, and chip in with goals at corners and suchlike. Regarding the bread-and-butter, of marking his man and winning defensive duels, or besting attackers who tried to sidestep him, I was giving the upper lip a concerned chew. And if the concern brewed last season, it was given a fresh shot of biff last week at Leicester.

Well on the basis of yesterday, most of the above turned out to be amongst the finest rot ever peddled by this particular quill. Romero was in barnstorming form, not just hitting right notes but giving it full Midas and delivering an absolute defensive masterclass.

After one or two early misplaced passes to make the AANP pulse spike a bit, he settled into his groove and carried out his every duty like an absolute champion. Block tackles weren’t just carried out, they were delivered with the force of a man determined to send his opponent into next week. If the ball were lobbed forward for an Everton laddie to chase, Romero matched him stride for stride and either inserted self between ball and man, muscled the opponent out of the way or, if circumstances absolutely demanded, extended enough limbs to block any attempted pass or shot.

On top of which he was dominant in the air, picked out some delightful passes (witness the chipped ball that put Maddison through on goal early in the first half) and thundered in a headed goal. He very nearly preceded all of that with a goal in the third minute, having shown technique one would scarcely have credited him with to take a pass on his chest and thump goalwards.

I suppose that, as with Bissouma above, one can point to the quality of the opposition, but that Calvert-Lewin chap can be quite handy, and Romero did not allow him a sniff. Van de Ven was also in fine fettle, in particular in matters of bursts of pace, but goodness me Romero delivered an absolute masterclass.

4. Smart Formational Thinking

It was a strong afternoon for approving nods. Sonny, filling in atop the tree, demonstrated rather pointedly the virtue of the high press, before taking clinically his second half chance; Udogie seemed much more like his old self than last week; Vicario pulled off a very smart save at 2-0 that might otherwise have given the nerves an emphatic jangle; Spence caught the eye in both penalty areas in his cameo at left-back; and so on.

In fact, right from the line-up reveal an hour before the curtain went up I felt a quiet thrill, upon seeing the formational tweak of one holding midfielder and two more attack-minded sorts alongside him. The choice of both Maddison and Kulusevski to partner Bissouma was rather punchy stuff from Our Glorious Leader, the sort of decision that yelled ‘Fie upon thee, oh opposition sorts, I sneer at your line-up and impose upon you an attacking formation that will give you the dickens of an afternoon before you even think about scoring yourselves’. And it did exactly that.

As mentioned, Maddison swum off to the left to buddy up with Udogie and Odobert, while on the right, irrespective of the pre-match scrawls on the whiteboard, Kulusevski spent half his time operating as a second winger alongside Johnson. An intriguing gambit, and I suppose strictly speaking Kulusevski was more of an inside-right, expected to occupy spaces in between the right flank and the centre, but the net result was that the left side of the Everton defence was frequently overrun, with the additional sweetener of plenty of lilywhite bodies arriving to supplement things in the penalty area.

I piped up a few terms last season to campaign for Kulusevski to play centrally rather than on the right wing, and while he also drifted wide to excellent effect yesterday, his quick-footed trickery inside the area, which created Bissouma’s goal, rather exemplified the fine produce that sits within his size nines from a more central berth.

This overly attack-minded setup, in which Romero, VDV and Bissouma sit and everyone else flies forward, might perhaps be ill-advised against the league’s elite, and with Newcastle and Woolwich to come I suppose that Kulusevski might be jettisoned for a slightly more conservative option, but in a home fixture against a relegation contender I was all for it.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Leicester 1-1 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Solanke

Here we are again then, and it seemed appropriate that the first order of business should be to cast the beady eye over the new lad, from stern to stem. And actually, the first thing I noticed about Solanke was that he’d been blessed by Nature with a pretty substantial frame, the sort of which my old man, AANP Senior, would approve, he being of the curious opinion that a striker’s primary purpose in life is to be substantially bigger than anyone else.

I suppose it may simply have been that Solanke had a keen awareness for the preferences of the TV director, and duly attached himself to the smallest nearby opponent whenever the camera zoomed in on him, but either way he looked a towering presence atop our tree, and the sort against whom one wouldn’t necessarily elbow one’s way to the front of the queue in order to mark at corners and suchlike.

Aside from the crucial business of being a bit of a unit, I actually thought Solanke did relatively well. Behold, I suppose, the first statement of controversy from the AANP quill this season, for this opinion is evidently in pretty sharp contradistinction to the line of thought of various others of lilywhite persuasion, not least my Spurs-supporting chum Ian, whose take on the fellow was distinctly uncomplimentary, containing as it did such choice nuggets as ‘Donkey’ and ‘Fraizer Campbell’.

However, the surgical eye to which I subjected young Solanke detected a fellow who did all the right things, until, of course, the part about sticking ball in net. But in terms of providing an obvious focal point, and finding himself a yard of space for a half-chance, I thought he ticked the boxes pretty solidly. Admittedly these may sound insignificant, but there were certainly times last season, when Richarlison was out – and even when Richarlison was in – when we seemed to lack any obvious beacon up top, at whom we could aim and around whom attacks could be structured.

Solanke was also willing to muck in and help out with the less salubrious elements of the day-job, regularly spotted dropping deep to collect and hold up the ball, and lay it off to onrushing midfield chums, as well as showing the requisite degree of enthusiasm for leading the high press.

The elephant in the room, of course, was the bread-and-butter stuff of being a striker, the actual taking of chances (at this point a less charitable soul – Ian, for example – would probably suggest that the elephant was Solanke himself). And here, Solanke did little to cover himself in glory.

No two ways about it, that diving header early in the first half should have been seen home. It was not entirely straightforward, admittedly, but having down the hard work of evading his markers and lowering the frame from the upper atmosphere down to somewhere nearer terra firma, the final but essential step was to pick a spot a good yard or two east or west of the goalkeeper, and direct the ball thusly. To plant his header straight at the doorman was a bit of a faux pas.

Less blame attached to him for his second attempt, a glancing header from a cross from the right, but I was a little underwhelmed by that effort he had early in the second half, when he again seemed to have done a lot of the hard work, in shielding the ball and wriggling into a bit of space from which to unleash, only to aim straight at the blasted goalkeeper yet again. As was remarked at the time, a more confident striker would presumably have aimed for a corner, whereas Solanke rather thrashed at the thing as if eager to get the whole business done and dusted as a matter of urgency, without too much concern for how the direction of his shot would impact the outcome.

It is not a particularly fanciful leap to suggest that the goals will come soon enough, and the rest of his game ticked boxes – just a shame for him and the collective that he didn’t nab a goal last night.

2. Maddison

It was fairly decent stuff all round in the first half, our offerings comprising not just plenty of possession but also the creation of a small bevvy of chances, both from open play and set-pieces. A two- or three-goal lead would, of course, have been welcome, and probably a better reflection of the balance of things, but one goal was the absolute minimum, so there weren’t too many concerns at the mid-point. And while various amongst our number were pottering about to good effect, I’d suggest that Maddison was probably the most prominent.

The thought nags that he could still do a mite more when it comes to opening up opposing defences, perhaps in the realm of spotting a dastardly diagonal pass that bisects a couple of defenders, if you get my drift, but nevertheless he seemed to be involved in most of the good things done, in that first half at least (and indeed the opening ten or so of the second).

Importantly, whenever we were in possession and surveying the terrain for opportunities, Maddison was not shy of waddling into view with arms waving and no doubt a few yelps vocalised, essentially demanding to be involved. And if you cast your minds back, this desire to be central to our string-pulling was the sort of thing for which I would frequently chastise a former parishioner, one C. Eriksen Esquire, who all too frequently would content himself with staying in the shadows and letting others get on with the game. Maddison, by contrast, was always eager for the limelight.

And his involvements were useful enough. As mentioned, a better eye for a defence-splitting pass along the floor might have helped, and in general he might have zipped things along a bit more quickly than he did. However, he was willing to dribble into the area and attempt pull-backs; he switched play from left to right pretty intelligently on a couple of occasions; involved himself in one-twos around the area; and as if to hammer home the point that he was the font from which decent things emanated, he created our goal with a well-flighted cross, the sort that rather invites teammates to dart towards goal and try their luck.

3. That Soft Underbelly

If you’ve bothered entering this corner of the interweb you’re presumably supported our lot long enough to be entirely unsurprised that we could dominate a match for the best part of an hour before conceding an equaliser to the opponent’s very first shot on target. No matter the personnel, it seems, or manager or kit or any other blasted element of the club, that soft underbelly will always exist, bringing with it an almost fascinating ability to fall into a blind panic at the first sign of trouble, and collapse like a pack of cards.

Being a glutton for punishment I took myself off into a darkened room and rewound the spool of last night’s match, in order to give the old forensic eye to the goal we conceded, looking in particular for a guilty individual at whom I might jab an accusatory finger. Curiously enough, however, there was no single individual obviously at fault, at least in the genesis of the goal.

Leicester were allowed to transit the ball from their own goalkeeper up to halfway a bit too easily for my liking, Udogie being bypassed in midfield, meaning that VDV had to scuttle across to left-back to cover, but as everyone raced back towards our goal the danger was hardly terminal.

Leicester swung a cross from the right towards our area, but it was one any objective observer would stamp as ‘Hopeful’, and not much transpired. At this point Messrs Maddison and Bentancur, tracking back to win a few brownie points with the management, might have put a bit more clout into their attempted clearances, but still, as Leicester tried again from their left there ought not to have been too much concern.

From here though, things took a bit of a nose-dive from a lilywhite perspective. Leicester’s cross from the left evaded everyone, but this should not excuse the fact that Decordova-Reid was gaily abandoned in the centre – Romero having gone wide to dangle a half-hearted foot at the cross, and Sarr and VDV rocking on their heels rather than marking anyone. Had Master D-R possessed a leg some four or five inches longer he’d had poked in unopposed from the edge of the 6-yard box, which reflects defensive work verging on the negligent.

Literally five second later another cross, this time from the right, exposed exactly the same failing. Romero ran straight past Vardy in order to take up a central station, and Porro, seeing everything unfold from the back post but considering decisive action to be beneath him, did not bother to pick up Vardy himself. Whether Romero ought to have delegated, or whether Porro ought to have had the good sense simply to get on with his job unprompted, is debatable, but it was the first attack worthy of the name that Leicester had created, and from it we allowed them two unmarked opportunities from six yards.

As an exasperating aside, a baffling aspect of this is that all four of Porro, Romero, VDV and Udogie are splendid players individually, but as a collective they constitute a most dysfunctional defensive unit, at whom one only has to sneeze in order to create panic, disarray and unmarked opportunities from close-range.

The next clear opportunity of the game came ten minutes later when Vardy was clean through and Vicario saved, and again Porro was a few yards behind his man. As with Udogie in the build-up to the first goal, this had the stench of full-backs pushed high up the pitch and leaving gaps behind – the alarming aspect of which is that this is hardly a new phenomenon. It was present throughout the entirety of last season, being a pretty fundamental weakness of Angeball, but evidently it is a weakness that is here to stay.

Aside from the goal itself, the complete cessation of control demonstrated thereafter was also pretty troubling. Someone or other with a bit of grey matter about them once opined that the true test of character is how one deals with setbacks in life, and by that gauge our heroes possess zero character between the entire lot of them. Conceding an equaliser in a game in which we had dominated was undoubtedly a setback, but it ought not to have led to a complete reversal in the balance of power. Ultimately the decline was only arrested by the stoppage for Bentancur’s injury, rather than by any intervention by our lot.

4. Gray and Bergvall

I suppose we had marginally the better of things in the final twenty or so, after the Bentancur injury and substitutions, but make no mistake, by that point the chuntering at AANP Towers had begun in earnest. The failure to take chances, coupled with the ease with which Leicester equalised and rounded off by the capitulation that followed, brought about all manner of grumblings from these parts.

I suppose a silver lining of sorts was injected by the youthful scurrying this way and that of Masters Gray and Bergvall. Neither seemed shy of rolling up sleeves and demanding the ball in central areas, and neither seemed content simply to ease themselves in on the periphery.

Both gave evidence that the strong technique and close control exhibited in pre-season could be replicated in competitive arenas, and while I’d probably stop short of demanding that they’re flung into the starting XI and have the team constructed around them, they appear the sorts who could be relied upon to help with the log-jam of fixtures that will doubtless descend upon us imminently enough.

There was still time for Bergvall to gum things up a bit, taking a few liberties too many in the right-back vicinity and conceding possession, resulting in yet another unmarked opportunity for Leicester and a full-body extension from Vicario to keep things level. I thought Vicario’s consequent rant at Bergvall was probably one for the cameras as much as anything else, up there alongside ostentatious celebrations for goal-line clearances, but it was probably a useful lesson for the Swede.

Silver linings and vaguely promising they may be, but it does little to disguise the fact that after the very first game of the season we’re already grumbling that, come May, we will be two points worse off than we should have been.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Sheff Utd 0-3 Spurs: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Dragusin and That Tweaked Back-Four

Reasonably enough, Our Glorious Leader persisted with the VDV-at-left-back-and-Dragusin-in-the-centre gambit, all concerned having performed passably well in midweek, and our opponents yesterday having already been relegated. Indeed, as with Burnley a couple of weeks back, the fact that Sheffield United were literally a Championship-standard team does skew the takings on this one, making it difficult to draw too many meaningful conclusions.

Nevertheless, should I happen to cross paths with any of Van de Ven, Dragusin or Romero in the next day or two, I’d offer them one of those silent but meaningful nods I keep in the armoury, the sort that wordlessly communicates respectful acknowledgement of a job well done without going overboard.

Dragusin comes across as a fellow who is happy simply to crack on with his job in unfussy fashion, leaving the histrionics and drama to others. I did note the chap make a mess of an early clearing header, resulting in a straightforward chance for Diaz that might have been decidedly stickier, but aside from that he generally conducted himself with a goodish amount of common sense, and intervened as circumstance required.  

With that in mind, the slightly terrifying visuals he deploys are actually a little misleading. His general bulk, not to mention that haircut and unsmiling stare, give him the air of one of those nameless henchmen who will face off with Jason Statham in the final act. By appearance alone one gets the impression that here strides a specimen who is comfortably master of all he surveys, and whom one will have the dickens of a job bypassing.

Yet in terms of his actual performance, it is all a little more low-key. Admittedly, he put that significant physical frame to pretty good use when we had corners to defend, politely introducing himself as “Vicario’s mate” to misbehaving Sheff Utd forwards, and treating them to a couple of meaningful shoves to hammer home the point, which served a welcome practical purpose, as well as making for good wholesome family entertainment.

But if, based on looks and gum-chewing alone, one expected Dragusin to spend his 90 minutes uprooting passing forwards and leaving them in crumpled heaps about the place, one was to be a little disappointed. Dragusin seemed to content himself simply with clearing whatever danger lurked, without too much fanfare or overthinking. This is not to denigrate him as agricultural or lacking in delicacy, for he showed himself capable enough with ball at feet and happy enough to muck in with the rest of them when they all started playing out from the back; but broadly he came across as not caring too much for headlines or limelight. “Keep it simple”, would appear to be the motto of the Dragusin clan.

2. Van de Ven

As mentioned, one does not really learn too much about the moral fibre and performance under pressure of one’s troops when up against the weakest mob in the division, and so as with Dragusin, one takes with a generous measure of salt the performance of Mickey Van de Ven at left-back.

Allowing for that, however, this was once again promising stuff at left-back from the earnest young bean. I would suggest that he perhaps lacks the general puff, to use the technical term, of Signor Udogie, in terms of galloping up, back and up again in the full-back role, VDV instead perhaps rationing his forward charges. But when he did venture north he did so with a few health dollops of gusto, and made sure to plant a flag or two commemorating his presence there, notably with a role in both of our first two goals.

The first was with what one might describe as a small but significant input, in winning possession for us high up the pitch – or, as AANP likes to call such things, a good old-fashioned tackle. The Sheff Utd chap had the ball at his feet in a right-back sort of spot, and was drinking it all in, and VDV simply sped over to him and effected a firm block tackle. I suppose if I were a SUFC fan I’d have waved around a pretty irate hand at my right-back at that point, for offering such meek input that he was promptly deposited on the floor, but from a lilywhite perspective it was most pleasing.

One does not see actual tackles much these days, with every contact causing someone or over to screech in agony and roll over a few times, and as often as not a standard spot of limb-to-limb contact now bringing a yellow card too. Therefore just seeing Van de Ven square up to the fellow; fly into combat with a bit of a sense that consequences could be damned; and come out on top, was a bit of an event in itself.

Thereafter, he sensibly decided that his contribution had already been memorable enough, and that it was the job of his more forward-thinking chums to chivvy things along further, so he posted the thing off to Maddison outside the area and within two passes we had the ball in the net. One can enter into rich debate, I suppose, to decide whose input had been most pertinent, but in simply winning possession in the first place, through the oft-neglected art of the block tackle, young VDV earned himself his latest free offering at the AANP Towers drinks cabinet.

Moreover, in case anyone missed it first time around, he got stuck in with another of those ‘Firm But Fair’ numbers early in the second half, in the build-up to what could be considered our decisive second goal. Again, there were various other contributory elements to be recorded before the ball eventually found its way into the net – the ricochet from VDV’s challenge forcing a full-length save from the goalkeeper, which I personally thought a little dramatic for what it was, and thereafter Brennan Johnson picking up the scraps before laying it off to Porro to finish – but VDV’s dedication to triumphing in what was, objectively, a 50-50 issue, was once again crucial.

3. Contributions to Our Goals

If AANP Towers is a regular haunt of yours you may recall that only a week or two ago I cleared the throat, surveyed the audience and then gave both barrels to that most irritating of concepts, The Assist. The case for the prosecution largely hinged on the notion that there are generally several contributory elements to any goal, and the notion that the penultimate chappie involved should merit some worthier praise than anyone else who chipped in with their tuppence worth is a tad presumptuous, what?

To illustrate what I’m wittering on about I invite you to look at our first goal yesterday, or Exhibit A, as you may wish to refer to it. As mentioned above, a pretty critical role in this was played by young Van de Ven, out on the left, by winning possession in the first place. He then fed Maddison, whose input, it seemed to me, looked suspiciously to amount to miscontrolling the thing. As luck would have it, however, the ball bounced obligingly into the path of Sonny – whose own input, one might argue, also owed a little to good fortune, he dabbing a slightly half-hearted toe at the ball, which was just about sufficient to poke it through to Kulusevski.

The point being that before the ball reached the eventual goalscorer, three others were involved, and fan clubs of each would no doubt argue passionately that their man’s was the critical contribution – and yet the only statistic that seems to merit general acclaim is that Sonny provided The Assist. Of the contributions to the goal of Maddison and, in particular, VDV, there is nary a datapoint.

Now one might argue, and with some justification, that AANP really ought to find more useful ways to spend his time, but dash it, when the awards are handed out for that first goal it just doesn’t seem cricket to overlook VDV and instead droop a garland around the neck of Sonny.

The second goal followed a fairly similar pattern, with Brennan Johnson officially receiving credit for The Assist, while the good work of Sonny, in really setting the thing in motion, with a cunning dip of the shoulder out on the left, as well as Maddison and VDV in trying to force the issue in the penalty area, will go forever ignored.

Credit where due, Maddison did an excellent job of things in setting up the third. It was an Assist worthy of the name. I doffed the cap. But what the record books will fail to show is that Sonny again started all the fun and games, with some pretty innovative use of the outside of his right foot, curling a pass off into the great swathes of greenery ahead of Maddison out on the left, from which position the latter did his thing.

I suppose the moral of the story is not so much to belittle whomever provides The Assist as to acknowledge what are often more valuable cogs in the machinery earlier in the piece.

4. Porro

All that said, the greatest acclaim most typically belongs to the goalscorer, and by golly Pedro Porro has this week made up for some lost time in that respect. If there has been something of an injustice this season it is that young P.P. has finished with only the four goals to his name, for goodness knows he threatens each week to score an absolute belter, seemingly missing almost every shot by a matter of inches. Indeed, my spies tell me that he has 36 shots to his name this season, in 35 Premier League appearances, which makes me cock a suspicious eye at the Law of Averages for granting only three League goals. It somehow strikes me that he ought, by rights, to have scored a lot more, what?

Anyway, as mentioned, he started righting that wrong last week against Burnley, building up a head of steam before putting heart and soul into the finish; and, evidently having developed a liking for the act of almost tearing the net from its moorings, he was at it again yesterday.

Received wisdom generally dictates that one’s chances of scoring are generally increased by aiming for one corner or t’other, but such a theory evidently fails to take into account the absolute leathering applied to the thing by the right foot of Porro, which is seemingly sufficient to contravene the Laws of Physics and allow the ball to travel straight through the body of the goalkeeper.

Last week the Burnley ‘keeper was beaten at his near post, understandably taken by surprise at the speed at which Porro had the ball past him, and yesterday there was a pretty similar sequence of events, with the goalkeeper only raising his paws upwards in preparation for the intervention required when the ball was already bouncing out of the net behind him.

And when invited to make a speech toasting Porro’s two goals in the last week, as I inevitably will be sooner or later, I’ll be sure to commend in particular his talent for adjusting his balance sufficiently to ensure that in pummelling the ball with every ounce of force in his being, he did not lean back the one or two degrees that would have resulted in it flying off into orbit. It is to his credit that he kept his shots low enough hit the target.

5. Kulusevski

I don’t mind admitting that when the dramatis personae were revealed pre-kick-off, I took one glance, assumed with a weary sigh that Johnson and Kulusevski were on the wings and Sonny therefore upfront, and then focused my energies on the back-four.

Our Glorious Leader evidently had other ideas, and thus it transpired that Kulusevski spent his afternoon as the closest thing we had to a central striker. And a dashed useful fist he made of it too. I will leave others to argue over whether he was officially a centre-forward, or Number 10, or advanced midfielder, or some other variation, and instead simply attest to the fact that, whatever else one says about his contribution, he did the goalscoring part pretty well.

It seems unlikely that he was actually aiming for the inside of the post with that opening goal, but nevertheless, the gist of his thought process was presumably to plant the thing beyond the ‘keeper and inside the frame, and let the Laws of Physics – at that point still firing on all cylinders, pre-Porro – take care of the rest.

Easy, too, to bang on about the finish when it’s as aesthetically satisfying as that – inside of the post and all, always merits a cheeky splash of the good stuff over here – and overlook the preceding legwork, but the fellow collected the ball with back to goal and a defender loitering within his radius. He therefore deserves a decent lump of credit for that first touch, which simultaneously achieved the twin aims of shielding the ball from that defender and setting things up just so, for a left-footed swipe.

He then took time out to remind the watching millions that he is nothing if not left-footed, spurning an arguably easier opportunity fed to him (with some elan by Maddison) on his right, five minutes later, but ensured that we could all gloss over that with some impressive forward-play in nabbing his second and our third – checking his run to come inside the defender and then angling his body to finish with that same, much-maligned right foot, in what I can only assume was a pointed rebuke to AANP.

I can’t imagine that anyone seriously considers this set-up, with D.K. in the central striking position, as The Way Forward for our heroes in 2024/25 and beyond, and this is probably as good a time as any to hammer home once again that caveat that our opponents were Championship-standard, but it’s an interesting option to have, potentially allowing a neat segue into the 4-6-0 off-the-ball arrangement that caused Man City to scratch the old bean a few times midweek.

Thus ends a season in which, all things considered, we have pootled along to an acceptable enough resting-place (or at least it will be once the bonkers Australian friendly is done). All sorts of tweaks and improvements – and signings – and indeed sales – are needed, but AANP is pretty happy with the efforts of Postecoglou and the troops.

Enjoy AANP’s ramblings? Yearn to have them neatly contained in a book, with physical pages through which you can leaf? Then watch this space, as Seasons 2023-024 is soon to be published for your delectation.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 0-2 Man City: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Shiny New Formation

AANP is a creature of habit. Meals at the same time each day; lights out at the same time each night; a dram of the good stuff at the same time each morning – one knows where one stands. One knows what’s coming.

And it was in this spirit of continuity and consistency that I donned the monocle to give the teamsheet the once-over last night, and duly assumed that Sarr-Bentancur-Hojbjerg would spread out their picnic blankets in midfield, while Maddison, Son and Johnson would duke it out between them for spots across the forward line – my personal assumption being that Maddison would be on the left with Sonny through the centre, but being an open-minded sort I politely listened to various chums of a Spurs-supporting bent announcing their opinion that Johnson could be central, and so on.

The point being that we all just assumed it was Our Glorious Leader’s usual 4-3-3, because if there is one thing A. Postecoglou Esquire does not do, it’s change his approach, upon pain of death. Even if the apocalypse were upon us and flaming meteors rained down from the sky, Ange would stick to his guns, muttering something to the effect that this is how his teams play, and adding his trademark “Mate” as if to put an official seal on the notion.  

As such, I’m not sure the word has yet been invented to describe quite how quizzically I arched the old eyebrow once the curtain went up last night, and everyone started getting their hands dirty, because there before our eyes, our heroes were setting about their business in, for want of a better phrase, a 4-6-0 formation.

Son and Johnson stayed out wide hither and thither, that much I clocked myself pretty sharpish; but in the midfield it appeared that Hojbjerg sat, and Bentancur, Maddison and Sarr took turns – or at certain points just ganged up and went about things in unison – as False Nines, as the experts put it (sort of midfield bobbies with licence to spring forward into the area and yell ‘Boo!’ as and when the whim grabs them).

Anyway, having a reeled a fair bit with the shock of all this, it made sense to collect one’s thoughts and subject the thing to the critical eye – and I’ll be dashed if it didn’t actually seem to work out pretty smoothly.

Caveats abound, of course, as is always the case. We lost the game for a start, so anyone clearing the throat to produce a lavish speech about the unbeatable virtues of 4-6-0 could legitimately be interrupted with a pretty solid counter-argument. One might also point out that City weren’t really for sitting deep with all eleven camped behind the ball as other less forgiving opponents have been, so one couldn’t knowingly say how 4-6-0 would fare in such a scenario; and I think that what one might delicately describe as the forgiving atmosphere about the place meant that there was a lot less pressure on our heroes to perform than is sometimes the case. There was, one might say, a pretty high tolerance threshold for mistakes and missteps last night.

Nevertheless, I could not escape the sentiment that our lot were making a jolly good fist of things – and that, by extension, the curious new formation was delivering the goods. Critically, we seemed to benefit both in and out of possession.

Out of possession, the squadron of no fewer than six pristine lilywhites strung out across the midfield caused City quite the head-scratcher when it came to their usual gambit of poking a nifty pass through the lines and setting their forwards away. In terms of basic physics, there simply was not room for them to do so. Every time they tried any such pass, a Tottenham limb extended to cut it out – and if the pass evaded one extended Tottenham limb, you could bet the life of your least cherished child that another such limb would be in close proximity to get the job done. The only real attacking outlet City had (beyond our own suicidal passing from defence, more on which below) was to play the ball ahead of Kyle Walker and watch him and VDV sprint it out.

In possession too, for what felt like the first time since that fateful night against Chelsea in November, our lot seemed inundated with passing options n, and quickly getting the hang of the thing they took to knocking the ball around rather smartly. One of the advantages of having six in midfield, I suppose, is that there is always a supporting nib hovering nearby, whom one can spot from the corner of one’s eye and sling the ball towards whenever any danger starts approaching.

And as mentioned, with Maddison, Bentancur and Sarr each seemingly having been heartily encouraged to trot forward and explore the City area, there tended always to be a few members of the cavalry ready to offer their services whenever we did break forward. Admittedly we lacked a central figure up top, the sort of bird who might hold up the ball with back to goal and do other useful things, but when it came to breaking from around halfway and racing towards goal, we were actually quite well stocked.

2. Sarr

Vicario made some good saves (the first half block from Foden at close-range in particular seemed to defy physics, our boy managing to stick out an arm faster than the naked eye could detect), and Kulusevski seemed particularly motivated when he was introduced, but if I were given the chance to pin a rosette to any of our lot I’d beeline straight for Sarr.

I’d probably take a few hours to catch him mind, because the young tyro appeared convinced yesterday that the key to a good time was never to stop running. Even though he had five teammates alongside him, and as such one could reasonably have made the case for sharing the workload, Sarr seemed to have had it drilled into him that if there were a job that needed doing there was no point in waiting for someone else to do it, not when he could break into another gallop.

Within a formation that relied so heavily upon runners from midfield to do a bit of the heavy lifting – masquerading occasionally as forwards, chasing back to clog up our own penalty area when City did sneak through – the medical anomaly that was the Sarr lungs and legs were of particular value.

The thought nags, and will presumably continue to do so for the next couple of months, that our midfield could do with a slightly clearer delegation of duties, as I still narrow the eyes and furrow the brow when trying to work out exactly what Bissouma and Bentancur are supposed to be doing, but alongside a couple of well-drilled and well-performing sorts one can safely assume that Sarr will be a pretty critical cog next season.

3. Hojbjerg

A quick note on Hojbjerg, of whom this might have been our last glimpse on the hallowed N17 turf. Those of a comic bent seemed keen to suggest last night that if anyone were going to sabotage our efforts, and ensure that Woolwich remained trophyless, it would be that man P-E.H., and true to form he spent the evening marrying the sublime and ridiculous with gay old abandon.

One five-minute spell early on in the piece neatly crystallised his entire lilywhite career. It featured in the first place an absolutely glorious cross-field spraying of the ball, from inside his own half and nearish the left flank, forward about twenty yards within the City half and out on the right flank, one of those perfectly-flighted numbers that drops with just the right parabola over the reach of the full-back and into the lap of the winger. It was a reminder of how good a player he can be, all the more so as he collected the ball in the first place when we were being harried a tad in a little midfield cul-de-sac, with Hojbjerg proving the unlikely saviour to safety.

But then moments later came his wild clearance that led to Foden’s point-blank volley and Vicario’s save. As I recall, Hojbjerg had to effect an airborne clearance, the ball having looped backwards towards him, facing his own goal and under pretty minimal pressure. Not the most straightforward job on the To-Do list by any means, the ball having a dash of spin on it, and dropping from the heavens over his shoulder, which adds a layer of complication.

Nevertheless, however, to have kept one’s eye on the thing and effected an almighty thwack ought to have been a fairly routine exercise for one paid professionally to apply lower appendage to ball on a daily basis. Clear the thing and re-organise, would have appeared to have been the order of the day.

Hojbjerg, though, was to give us one final reminder of just how maddening a soul he can be, by completely slicing his clearance, applying no distance to it whatsoever but instead sending it spinning sideways, and into the path of a chap who last week was crowned Player of the Year by his fellow professionals.

Of course, circumstances being what they were yesterday, many received this intervention with hearty applause, but whatever one’s inclinations yesterday, the whole episode just seemed to rubber-stamp, at the likely end of his Tottenham career, that Hojbjerg really has been a most peculiar sort of egg.

4. Playing Out From The Back

Now this is a weekly gripe, albeit not one I tend to record too often for posterity in this particular newsletter, but if there’s one thing guaranteed to put the bird about me it’s this business of playing out from the back.

For clarity, this is not even something that irritates specifically when espoused by our heroes. When I watch any blasted game and the team preparing a goal-kick opt for those daft short passes across their own area, it sets me muttering away and waving an occasional, grumpy hand.

Some data for your digestion first. I read on a pretty reputable source last week, that on average this season our lot concede possession from this approach seven times per game. Seven times! On average it leads to the opposition taking one shot per game, and in total we have conceded seven goals this season, from trying to play out from the back.

If you’re anything like me you’ll have missed the second half of the previous paragraph because your eyes will have glazed over and a cold chill spread down your spine, at the revelation that this madcap tomfoolery results in us losing possession seven times per game. I was reminded of this abomination last night, when City’s first two decent attempts resulted precisely from them winning the ball on the edge of our area when we tried unsuccessfully to pass our way out (the Foden shot saved, and de Bruyne, I think, having a shot at the start of the second half, also producing a flying Vicario intervention).

What grates is that the return on this investment is negligible. If every other time we did it we ended up bearing down on the opposition goal within a hop and a skip, I’d be much more inclined to support it. “Why not?” I would rather rhetorically remark, “The odds are reasonable enough.” But the point is precisely that the odds are not reasonable. I don’t see the value of the dashed thing at all, truth be told. At best we make it to halfway or so, at which point Sonny runs the ball out of play or Maddison gets crowded out or Kulusevski fouls his man, and it is all for naught anyway.

I presume the theory is that, if done well, a spot of zig-zagging from six-yard box onwards can bypass a good four or five opposition attackers. Even this seems a pretty measly reward if you ask me, and hardly worth the risk. If it bypassed nine or ten opponents my attention would be gripped; but it doesn’t. Frankly, if one wants to bypass four or five attackers, a gently lofted pass out wide along the halfway line, from the size nines of Vicario, will do just as well, and without the risk of conceding possession on the edge of our own area.

It’s here to stay, so, as with so much in the life of a Spurs supporter it’s all pretty futile anyway, but next time you see our heroes concede possession in this absurd fashion in or around our own area, cup a hand to your ear and see if you can make out the well-articulated curse in the distance, for that will be AANP having dashed well had enough.

5. Our Glorious Leader’s Post-Match Rant

If you had cupped a hand to your ear last night, however, an hour or so after the curtain came down, the cursing you’d have heard would have had much of the Antipodean twang about it, because Our Glorious Leader added a most peculiar coda to proceedings.

For those whom this whole episode innocently bypassed, the gist is that in his post-match ramblings, Ange made clear – with some pretty sharp and testy retorts, and a few choice glares – that he was unhappy with the fan-base. He may have been unhappy with others too, his words were a tad cryptic and difficult to interpret in truth, but at one point he clearly indicated irritation that bellowing from the four stands of our lovely arena, which has previously acted as the soundtrack to a last-minute escape or two, was conspicuous by its absence yesterday, and that this irked.

The whole business of fan sentiment before and during yesterday’s production has been well-documented, and AANP being an accepting sort was quite happy for each man, woman and child to make their own choice. Indeed, it should be noted that our Big Cheese has himself previously been at pains to insist that he is not one for prescribing to fans how they should think or feel.

This seemed to go out the window last night. As it happens, I’m fully in favour of anyone grabbing by the shoulders each of our mob and shaking a bit of winning mentality into them. If four decades of watching has taught me anything it’s that one Spurs team after another is all too willing to accept being second-best, or worst.

What jarred a little last night, however, was seeing quite how angry Ange became, seemingly at the fan-base, when in recent weeks he has looked a lot less hot under the collar after a series of frankly dreadful performances by the players. The players’ performances in defeats to Fulham, Newcastle, Chelsea and Woolwich themselves, each very reasonably earned a spot of Postecoglou gruffling and varying degrees of displeasure – but nothing like the volcanic stuff that simmered away last night.

One doesn’t really know the full story, I suppose, and he might have woken this morning feeling a lot bonnier about life, with his airways having been cleared and bright new dawns ahead. Last night’s whingeing however, and the direction in which it was aimed, seem to have chipped away a bit of the goodwill that he has generally amassed over the last nine months or so. For avoidance of doubt, AANP is still whole-heartedly supportive of Team Ange, and pretty confident that a few key signings (and sales), and a willingness occasionally to tweak tactics (as last night), will see us faring better next time out than this – but the head honcho might be advised to direct his evil eye and scything commentary elsewhere for a while.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-1 Burnley: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Left-Back: Skipp

A penny for Emerson Royal’s thoughts, what? Truth be told, the lad seems to harbour such delusions of his own ability, genuinely convinced that no finer player than he ever trod the earth, that he probably viewed the selection of Skipp as a means of protecting him for the City game on Tuesday.

Skipp it was then, following a steady cameo at unorthodox left-back vs Liverpool. I suppose there cannot be many footballers it’s easier to tell apart than Oliver Skipp and Destiny Udogie, and these differences evidently stretch beyond merely physical appearance. Where Udogie is partial to a gallop from within halfway to the edge of the opposition penalty area – with or without the ball – Skipp is evidently a bit more reserved about the whole business.

Skipp is no doubt the sort who, when crossing a road, will look right, left and then right again – because one can never be too sure – and he brought this attitude of good common sense, with a dash of the old ‘Safety First’, with him into the arena yesterday. That is to say he seemed happy enough to venture forward over halfway and well into enemy territory, but only once sure that the back-door was locked first. More Ben Davies than Destiny Udogie, I suppose one might say – and as fourth- or fifth-choice, and still finding his feet in the role, that was no bad thing.

The one shame about his performance was that for the goal we conceded he paid rather cruelly for the briefest lapse of concentration. If any of the sticklers amongst you has ever queried precisely how long a “split-second” lasts, I’d suggest rewinding footage of yesterday’s Burnley goal and casting an eye upon young Skipp when the move is at its genesis, as for the briefest duration – a split-second, if you will – he gazes at the ball and the ball only, subconsciously taking a step or two towards it and rather letting drift from his mind the existence of that Brun Larsen fellow behind him. And that, alas, was all it took.

The B.L. nib had a yard advantage, and unlike Skipp was facing towards our goal, when the foot-race started, factors that did much to seal the deal. Ultimately, to use a sentiment that I suspect will one day be the epitaph on Skipp’s Tottenham career, while his honest endeavour could not be faulted he just did not quite make it.

As an aside, I did note something similar last week, when Skipp chased the shadow of Mo Salah for 20 yards before the latter deposited the ball in the net – but on that occasion the flag was raised. To this day it is unclear to me whether Skipp was actually in the wrong position, or whether Salah escaped him precisely because he had the unfair offside advantage. Either way, it would be understandable if our boy is yet to master some of the finer positional intricacies of the role – and let’s face it, that Skipp is even in the frame when these desperate sprints from halfway begin is something of an improvement, given that Porro and Udogie have spent the whole season being caught a good ten yards further up the pitch.

2. Left-Back: Van de Ven

So apart from his involvement in the goal conceded – or lack thereof, I suppose – Skipp’s afternoon passed without too much drama, either in terms of Emerson-esque moments to infuriate or Udogie-esque moments to take the breath away. The plot thickened like the dickens on 75 minutes however, when Skipp was replaced by Dragusin, who duly gave a Skipp-esque performance low on items of note, and the consequent re-jig saw young Van de Ven shoved over to the left.

AANP being a laid-back sort of egg, I took in this sorcery with an accepting enough nod; but for some amongst the tribe the move of VDV to left-back was evidently pretty sensational stuff. To update those who just watch the football and don’t pay too much attention to the noise, there has been a pretty rowdy minority waving placards and thrusting petitions about the place which have called for precisely this rearrangement in the absence of Udogie. “Give Dragusin a chance at centre-back,” goes the catchy refrain, “and more to the point let’s see Van de Ven at left-back, given that the chap is lightning quick, pretty comfortable on the ball and left-footed.”

So when the relevant stars aligned at minute 75 yesterday there was some pretty gleeful hand-rubbing going on about the place, as VDV At Left-Back campaigners got their wish. And lo, our newly-minted Best Performing Old Bean (and Best Performing Young Bean, to give him his full list of accolades) rose to the occasion like an absolute pro. Having provided a couple of immediate hints that he was in the mood, by gamely exploring the higher echelons of the left touchline, the manner in which he took his goal was enough to clasp the hand to the forehead and mutter a pretty meaningful “Golly.”

The fact that VDV was where he was in the first place, in order to avail himself of Maddison’s pass, spoke volumes. Maddison received the ball 10 yards north of the centre circle, and VDV was another 10 yards north of him – occupying what hearty traditionalists of good sense and sound mind might call an inside-forward sort of spot, in between Son out on the left and Scarlett in the centre.

To give it a different translation, he was in precisely the sort of position one would expect of Udogie on his more adventurous days, and as Maddison rolled the ball towards him he scuttled off in between the lines, as the knowing sorts like to say, into that space between Burnley’s midfield and defence that is guaranteed to cause looks of consternation to be passed around between them like a hot potato.

Having the gumption even to pop up in these environs I thought spoke volumes about the chap’s grasp of the role requirements and eagerness to partake of the attacking aspects of the binge; but then to collect the ball in his stride, skip past three quarters of their defence and finish the thing off was an absolute triumph, and wildly out of keeping with our laboured efforts in front of goal for something like the last six months.

In particular, I was rather taken by the dip of the shoulder that left the various Burnley sorts pirouetting on the spot like malfunctioning robots in need of instruction and direction, followed by the coup de grace, a remarkably thoughtful directioning of his shot one way when it looked for all the world as if nature was gently coaxing him to shoot the other way.

The usual caveats apply I suppose – only Burnley, only fifteen minutes – but it was a spot of quality the like of which we have sorely missed in the final third, and it poses quite the head-scratcher for Our Glorious Leader ahead of City on Tuesday. VDV at left-back is one thing, and as auditions go, this was one to file in the ‘Flying Colours’ category; but the whole issue also hinges on the delicate matter of whether that Dragusin chap would therefore be able to handle about eighteen foot of Haaland lumbering about the place.

3. Romero

Football is, of course pretty reactionary sort of guff these days. I mean to say you can’t lob a brick without hitting someone who insists that a current player is the best there’s ever been, and that there is nothing to a game beyond goals and assists, and generally peddling the slightly Orwellian line that there’s no point harking back a bit because football didn’t exist back then. And in keeping with this train of thought is the notion that the stand-out defenders are the ones who scored, because nothing else matters.

AANP does not go in for this mode of thinking, and as such will quite happily place neatly to one side the fine finishes of both Messrs VDV and Porro (who, to his credit, leathered his goal like an absolute missile – and then, fuelled by adrenaline, spent the remainder shooting at every opportunity). The standout chappie for my money was young Romero. The other pair may have each had their eye-catching moment, but Romero seemed to excel throughout.

Admittedly he did not have a great deal to do at the back, one early block being pretty much the sum of it, as Burnley pottered about fairly cluelessly throughout, but coming forward I thought he became an increasingly useful cog. He picked passes, ran with the ball and ran usefully without the ball, and generally contributed strongly to the improved second half performance of the collective.

A few inches this way or that and he might also have created a goal for Sarr and nodded one in himself, but all things considered I had him down as the pick of a pretty decent bunch. He will have sterner defensive tests to come – not least on Tuesday night – but that attacking string to his bow was put to mightily handy use yesterday.

4. A Welcome Upturn

Much-needed stuff in the end, both in terms of result and performance. No doubt it helped to play literally a Championship team, Burnley being pretty poor in every respect, but nevertheless, one can only do one’s best against the fodder placed in one’s way, and our heroes created plenty of chances in the second half in particular.

There were some much improved individual performances too. As ever one cannot escape too far from the clutches of the caveat that it was only Burnley, but it was good to see Maddison potter about the place with a dash more meaning than in recent weeks, and Bentancur similarly looked about more clued up when he trotted on, while Kulusevski improved after a dreary first half, and Johnson took up enough good positions to have scored a fairly straightforward hat-trick.

I was also impressed by young Scarlett, as much as anything else for simply giving us a bona fide focal point in attack as we pushed for the winner, even if he himself did not necessarily make too many seismic contributions.

The whole gang of them bucked up in the second half, albeit added aided throughout by Burnley’s pretty loose and liberal interpretations of playing out from the back, but as mentioned, and after a run of four defeats, one simply takes the win with a murmur of appreciation.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-3 Arsenal: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Corners Again, Blast It

Some have, understandably I suppose, raged that our first half was various shades of abysmal; and on the telly-box last night Ashley Williams, not a chap to whom I’d ever paid much attention previously, drifted into existence and promptly plummeted in my estimation by opining that the other lot were “magnificent” and “dominated the whole first half”; and I suppose rather than scratching the perplexed head I should celebrate the varied opinions and perspectives birthed by democracy.

But I don’t. Woolwich certainly defended stoutly, and goodness knows they took their chances in a way that had me casting covetous glances, but the suggestion that we were dominated in that first half seemed to overlook actual events and skip straight to the half-time headline. While the scoreboard was pretty emphatic, that was hardly a 0-3 sort of session.

Defending on your perspective you might suggest that our lot shaded the midfield joust in that first half, or you might suggest the other lot shaded it, but the crux of it is that whichever side did the better job of things did so by a whisker, for affairs in the middle third were pretty tightly-contested. On the one hand our press was pretty good, and their passing pretty poor; whilst on the other their defending prevented our heroes from flooding through and making merry.

As such, our first half harvest consisted of two near things from the bonce of Romero, a tight offside call and a clear opportunity for Sonny that he sent off into the gods; they, meanwhile, launched one attack of note but managed to score thrice; and life does not get much more vexing than that, what?

However, simply to lament that if were not for conceding from corners we’d have been slap bang in the middle of a contest at half-time is to miss the point, and by a considerable distance. The art of defending corners is every inch as critical a part of the game as shading the midfield. More so, you might in fact argue, as you’re a dashed sight more likely to score from a corner than from the halfway line. And the fact that simply earning a corner is near enough sufficient for any opponent to score against us frankly has the steam billowing from my ears.

But there we are. Just like last time out – and the previous time, and the time before that for goodness’ sake – simply swinging the ball into our six-yard box did the trick. Never mind that all eleven lilywhites were smartly assembled, and doing their best to lend a spot of credibility to the narrative by engaging in that push-shove routine with the nearest opponent; once the ball was airborne they all melted away pretty quickly, and the surge of Woolwich forwards from back-post to front progressed in relatively unencumbered fashion.

None of which would be a problem, by the by, if young Vicario took it upon himself to club everyone out of the way and batter the ball into the distance like a man possessed, or even – if you can wrap your heads around the absurdity – catch the blasted thing. But this, of course, is not really his style, he being a ‘keeper who prefers to stick to his goal-line and leave corner-related incidents to the Fates, seemingly reasoning that as a mere goalkeeper he is powerless to intervene in the journey of a ball approaching him at catchable height.

I actually allowed a smidgeon of sympathy to depart my soul and wing its way to Hojbjerg for his own-goal, on the grounds that he at least made an effort to get involved; but I was careful not to go overboard on that front, for the daft young melon did somehow contrive to station himself the wrong side of his man and facing his own net, with predictable results.

The Havertz goal contained no such noble efforts from our lot, facing the wrong way or otherwise. The fact that Havertz was sandwiched between our two central defenders and was still treated to a free header from about a yard out spoke volumes about the security levels that exist about the place. On top of which, lest we forget, at the death we had to rely on VDV to clear off the line yet another headed effort from a corner.

It is this utter impotence at corners, rather than any other element of our performance, or the various officiating calls, that has had the AANP blood boiling in the 24 hours since. That a bunch of handsomely paid professionals, with 15 days to work on the issue, could offer so little resistance every blasted time boggles the mind and then comes back up to boggle it further.

The post-match mumblings of Our Glorious Leader on the topic hardly put the mind at ease either, he disappearing into an odd, existential waffle rather than pledging to work on the issue day and night until the soles of their feet bleed and they head away footballs in their sleep. The problem seems blindingly obvious and yet, at the same time, blisteringly easy to resolve, which I suppose adds to the general sense of exasperation it engenders. As it stands however, we’re giving up at least a goal a game in this manner, and it’s become pretty farcical.

2. Kulusevski (and the Immediate Future of Maddison)

In weeks gone by I have pretty forcefully lent my voice to the campaign to have Kulusevski demoted from full-time duty out on the right, on the grounds that the young buck insists on spoiling the great finale of any given attack by cutting back onto his left foot at the critical moment.

Prior to kick-off yesterday, however, I quietly applauded his selection, reasoning that his forte is in carrying the ball over halfway and setting things in motion, and that against the division’s more progressive mobs this skillset might bring home the beans.

And all things considered, in the first half I thought he made a pretty good fist of things, not least because he indulged that urge of his to cut inside and hare through the middle, rather than hugging the touchline. One never really knows with our lot whether these individual forays into other positions are based entirely upon the whim of the individual or ordained from on high by The Brains Trust, but either way, the net result was a Kulusevski who caused a few problems in central areas and added a bit of heft in support of Sonny.

However, if I were gently encouraged by Kulusevski’s efforts in the first hour or so, I was even more deeply enamoured of his performance in the final half hour, when Maddison was withdrawn, various pieces were rearranged and Kulusevski was ordered to spread the good news from the Number 10 position.

Where Maddison had willingly but rather ineffectively dropped deep and tried to thread short, forward passes through impossibly tight gaps, Kulusevski seemed more inclined to puff out the chest, hitch up the shoulders and barrel his way through the centre. Sometimes it worked, quite often it didn’t, but it seemed that he – along with Johnson on the right, and the newly-installed Richarlison up top – helped to put us on the front-foot.

A little unrefined as a 10 he may be, and perhaps not as possessed of the defence-splitting pass, or vision to spot it, as Maddison, but Kulusevski does force the issue and give opposing defences a thing or two think about, not least his tendency to barge uninvited into the penalty area like some uncouth party-crasher. On top of which, when barging about the place as a Number 10 he does not need to keep cutting back onto his left foot, as he can simply point the compass North-West and make full use of that left foot from the off.

This is not to say that Kulusevski is the answer to all our creative ills, but with Maddison having gone distinctly off the boil since limping off against Chelsea back in November, I’d be perfectly at ease with a world in which the latter was quietly deposited on the bench for the next few games, and the former given free rein to carry the ball from a more central coordinate.

3. Richarlison

As mentioned above, Richarlison’s introduction seemed to contribute to a general positivity about the place. What he lacks in finesse – and basic ball control – the peculiar young bean certainly makes up for in the noble arts of Making a Nuisance of Oneself and Starting Fights in Empty Rooms, and while I actually struggle to remember too many deft touches and moments of ingenuity, he bounded around the place starting arguments and chasing causes, both lost and up-for-grabs, from the moment he entered the arena.

A different sort of beast from Sonny, no doubt, but exactly what was needed in the circumstance (that of having just pulled back a goal for 3-1). Where Son’s forte is in getting behind defenfers and haring off like the wind, Richarlison’s is in ploughing straight into them with a scowl.

I also appreciated the fact that as and when our wide-ish sorts tossed in crosses, we finally had someone on the premises with an inkling of what to do with them, Richarlison being pretty willing to hoist himself up towards the heavens and thrust a neck muscle or two. Compare this with Son, a forward I can barely remember challenging for a header in his entire Spurs career, and it did feel like we had an extra couple of routes to goal in that final half hour.

I don’t doubt that if Richarlison features more in the coming weeks I’ll find plenty of reasons to berate the fine fellow, his technique with ball at feet still requiring a spot of polish for a start, but the added dimension or two that he provides as a focal point of attack is a pretty welcome addition to a team that in recent weeks has at times appeared to forget the point of the exercise.

4. Romero

One probably ought not to let the narrative conclude without at least acknowledging the curious, rampaging efforts of Romero.

Now being an old-fashioned sort, AANP still likes to peddle the outmoded notion that a defender’s primary role is to defend. Not to play out from the back; not to bomb forward to support the forward; but to defend. And seeing Romero join the massed ranks who watched and flapped his hands a bit as a yard in front of him Havertz nodded in unchallenged, I did spit a feather or two. Room for improvement in the day-job, no doubt.

That said, if ever a team needed hauling up by its shoulders it was our lot at half-time yesterday, and Romero seemed pretty happy to stick his hand up. Admittedly this involved him first tearing up whatever instructions he was given about where to position himself and what to keep secure behind him, but he did it to pretty good effect, so well done him. Quite why he was flying up the centre of the pitch to charge down Raya’s clearance is beyond me, but there he was, and he also had the good sense to round off that episode by giving the ‘keeper the eyes, in order to roll the ball in.

Romero was also in the thick of things for our penalty, dishing out a bit of opinion and muscle when the ball was crossed into the area, immediately before it fell to Ben Davies who has promptly hacked down; and I seem to remember at least one crunching tackle high up the pitch that won possession and kept us on the attack, contributing to the general sense that this was a game he was determined not to see peter out in silence.

He might have had more than just his one goal of course, those first half headers doing the agonising thing – but for all the frustration of his near misses, the marginal VDV offside and even the bonkers decision to wave away Kulusevski’s penalty claim, ultimately I still fume and fume some more at our defending from corners.

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Spurs match reports

Newcastle 4-0 Spurs: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Our Defending for the First Goal

Odd to say now, or course – hindsight and all that – but for a third or so of the game (the first of them, in case you were wondering) I thought our lot looked pretty sharp. Newcastle started the game bursting at the seams with vim and vigour, which was understandable enough, and in such instances history tells us that Spurs are as likely to wilt as to respond in kind. It was therefore a most pleasant surprise to note that our lot had signed up for the former rather than the latter, and were doing a solid line in giving as good as they got.

Newcastle hounded away with their high press; our lot craftily dodged their hounding and high pressing, specifically by skipping away from challenges and firing out passes with a becoming crispness. When Newcastle nabbed possession from us and countered at a healthy lick, our lot raced back at a lick of equal velocity, and nascent flames were duly extinguished. We even fashioned the best chance of that opening half hour, and the AANP verdict at the 30-or-so-minute mark was that, if not necessarily of the highest quality, this was nevertheless close-run and fun-filed cuisine.

Of course the whole bally thing turned on and its head and disappeared down the drain with those first two goals. At which point I pause to air a grievance, because a two-goal deficit, while undoubtedly representing the deuce of an incline up which to go trudging, was nevertheless far from insurmountable. Two-nil, I rather fancy, is one of those score-lines possessed of devilish quality, in that whomever nabs the next goal tends to load up on momentum for the remainder. As such, had our heroes applied themselves sufficiently to fashion a presentable chance between approximately minutes 30 and 50, I’d have fancied us to make a decent stab of things thereafter. To see them instead simply meander through, rather than putting their backs into it, and then give up altogether dash it, after conceding the third, set the blood boiling like nobody’s business.

Back to those two goals conceded, and if you were to ask at whom the finger of blame ought to be directed, I would ask how many digits you had going spare. Those on telly-box duty seemed determined to lay it pretty thick all over Van de Ven. One understood the gist of course, the fellow’s curious but futile struggles against gravity being particularly eye-catching, but I was inclined to wave him an excusing hand. Perhaps I am too generous here, but it seems to that falling over is a bit of an occupational hazard in his line of work, rather than indicative of any major footballing deficiency.

I suppose one might argue that VDV brought it upon himself by racing back to his post too quickly, thereby quite literally setting himself up for a fall should a swift change in direction be needed, but I still bat it away as one of those things.

More culpable to the AANP eye were Messrs Udogie and Romero. Taken in order, Udogie had a preliminary bout to sink his teeth into, as the ball was hoicked up to halfway, and he and Gordon exchanged a few pleasantries. Frankly, at this point, with the ball bobbling up to head height and three of lilywhite (or skin-coloured atrocity) persuasion covering two attackers, one’s eyes would have popped out of the head if informed that within ten seconds the ball would have been in our net. And in fact, Udogie seemed to have got to the root of the matter and emerged triumphant, placing self between ball and Gordon, and looking to the future with sunny optimism – only to then take a tumble to earth for no good reason and under minimal contact.

This glaring error having been brandished for the watching world, the situation had darkened, for sure, but was hardly forlorn. Romero and VDV were left staring at the whites of the eyes of Gordon and Isak, and one would have fancied the chances of the former duo. It was not necessary for our pair to make off with the ball and dash up t’other end to score; the remit was simply to prevent any immediate danger from flaring.

Why, then, Romero went charging towards VDV’s man absolutely maddens me. There was really no need. VDV’s man, as the label suggests, was being closely monitored by VDV; but off charged Romero, and it was the work of an instant for Gordon (for thus do the documents of ‘VDV’s man’ state his legal name) to slip the ball into Isak. At this this point VDV recovered the ground and then fell, prompting that chorus of censure from the television studio; but to my mind those around him were equally complicit.

2. Our Defending for the Second Goal

As for the second, VDV’s ongoing to-dust-thou-shalt-return routine understandably reinforced him as the poster-boy of our defensive failings, but the real villain of the piece was undoubtedly Pedro Porro whose bizarre intervention set the blasted thing in motion.

If the early chapters of that particular scandal have slipped your mind they dashed well haven’t slipped mine, the gist being that a wayward clearance from Vicario towards our right was nodded back in our direction by a Newcastle head, presenting Master Porro with what might reasonably be described as a task for the to-do list, but hardly anything more demanding than that. In short, he had to reach a ball bouncing near the right-wing before an incoming Newcastle chappie, which task he accomplished without issue. All that remained was to deposit the ball into a location of minimal risk.

As such, the world was his oyster. Pretty much everywhere was an option, and pretty much anywhere would have sufficed. The stands, the atmosphere, over his head and back up the line – even booting it further in front of him and out for a corner would have been an odd, but low-risk choice. The one thing he needed to avoid doing was fashion a way to deliver the ball towards his own goal and into the lap of an opposing forward; but given the abundance of better and easier choices available, such an eventuality hardly seemed worth mentioning.

And yet. For reasons that a crack team of psychologists would struggle to fathom, Porro looped the ball back over the head of not only the oncoming Newcastle johnnie but also of Cristian Romero, who had quietly snuck up to the action to keep an eye on things. If Porro were attempting to lob the ball directly to Romero, he deserves to have the offending limb amputated and tossed into a river for such woeful technique, for instead of dinking the ball he put such mileage upon it that Romero atop a step-ladder would have struggled to reach it. If Porro were attempting to lob the ball back to Vicario, he needs his brain removed and given a pretty thorough examination, because it was pretty obviously a route steeped in danger and lit by flashing lights and blaring sirens.

Whatever his rationale, the ball then landed in the path of that Gordon blighter, after which VDV promptly rolled out his new party-trick and hit the deck once more, and in the blink of an eye, and the delivery of three glaring defensive faux pas, we were two down.

3. Vicario’s Distribution

You may have noticed that in narrating the genesis of that second goal, I made mention of Vicario’s dubious distribution, and while such things as isolated incidents can be excused with little more than an arched eyebrow and gentle reprimand, with the acknowledgement that even Homer nods, their occurrence in every blasted passage of play seems to merit a less forgiving once-over.

For this was not Vicario’s finest hour and a half with ball at feet. Even acknowledging that Newcastle made things difficult, by virtue of their high, collective press, our resident last-line spent pretty much the entirety of the game pinging the ball exclusively to opponents, stationed at different coordinates on the pitch, whenever he looked beyond his own penalty area.

My eyes may deceive, I suppose, for I did not observe with pen and pad in hand, diligently noting each successful and unsuccessful pass; but then one does not need pen and pad to detect a certain rumminess manifesting. And the sense that Vicario’s distribution was stinking the place out emerged at some point relatively early during proceedings and lingered until the conclusion.

In mitigation, as mentioned, Newcastle pressed, and whenever one of our lot misplace a pass I am always inclined to subject his teammates to an enquiring eye, to ask whether they might have done more to make space; but as a man whose strength is supposed to lie in the art of picking passes from within his own penalty area and facilitating this play-from-the-back gubbins, Vicario seemed to go about it with the air of one completely new to the past-time.

4. Our Defending at Corners

Not for the first time – and if any other Premier League manager has their wits about them it dashed well won’t be the last time either – our defending at corners represented not so much a chink in the armour as an absolutely enormous gaping hole through which absolutely anyone was welcome to wander, make themselves at home and have a free pop at our goal, safe in the knowledge that their exploits would remain entirely unimpeded for the duration of their visit.

Remarkably, when we defend corners we often do so with literally every member of the squadron pulled back into the penalty area; and yet despite this, every single Newcastle corner swung into that same, densely-populated penalty area seemed to be met by an unchallenged Newcastle head. The laws of physics should simply not allow this happen, and yet it did so repeatedly.

It suggests that there is a pretty critical flaw at the heart of our zonal marking system, for if all ten of the outfield mob, plus goalkeeper, are failing, under the zonal system, to get their heads to the deliveries first, then some different zones ought to be explored and pronto.

The only surprise in all this was that it took Newcastle so long to score from a corner – they had racked up well over a dozen by the time they did. It was bad enough yesterday, but augurs appallingly for the future, our complete inability to deal with corners suggesting that the only solution will be to try not to concede any more of them between now and the end of the season.

5. Werner’s Finishing

It’s possible that none of the above would have been an issue if Timo Werner knew how to finish. But I suppose that’s akin to suggesting that we would have won if we’d been allowed twelve players and were facing a team of children, some of whom were blindfolded (no doubt they would still have posed a threat at corners). The reality is that Timo Werner is very much part of the fabric, and by virtue of his position, remit and willing, as often as not will pop up in key goalscoring positions, to unfurl new and scarcely believable ways to mangle perfectly presentable chances.

It should be repeated and with a spot of emphasis that he pops up in goalscoring positions. This is to be applauded, and probably would be, and with some feeling, if he didn’t then appear quite so incapable of controlling his limbs at the vital juncture. But inviting crosses require arriving forwards, and Werner has some talent in that regard, arriving on the end of crosses like the best of them.

However, his treatment of Brennan Johnson’s early cross summed up better than a whole multi-tome thesis ever could quite how aberrant his finishing is. With the ball arriving at head-height, and no opposing defender blotting the horizon with their presence, Werner somehow managed so splay his limbs in every conceivable direction – an arm pointing here, a leg over there, his head doing its best to wobble from its moorings – and tumbling into view in this fashion it is hardly surprising that he failed to apply the delicate touch needed. As if to hammer home quite what a tangle he had got himself into, he concluded the operation by blasting the ball so high that it may have travelled vertically rather than diagonally or horizontally.

Later on in the piece, while the game was still goalless, our lot produced a lovely slick move on the left (a move that contributed to my thinking, at 0-0, that this was one in which we were capable of getting our noses in front), which culminated in Maddison beating his man and cutting the ball back into the six-yard box. And there, again to his credit, lurked Werner, demonstrating once again that admirable ability to sniff out goalscoring opportunity.

Alas, once again, as sure as summer follows spring, Werner’s sniffing of opportunity was followed by Werner missing a presentable chance, and while it was probably more difficult than the earlier opportunity, one can nevertheless make the case that a chap who’s spent his whole life being drilled in the art of kicking a ball into the precise spot of his choosing ought to have steered the blasted thing on target.

Make no mistake, however, this defeat was not down to Timo Werner and his finishing. The whole lot were rotten to the core. For all its virtues and for whatever talent lurks within the constituent parts, the Postecoglou Operation is evidently one that requires a considerable amount of further work.