1. Still Not Really Panicking
Feel free to direct a mirthless laugh AANP’s way – you wouldn’t be the first – but I remain relatively unflustered by the current plight.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been clucking and tutting like the best of them. Results elsewhere being what they are, we appear to be bedding in for a three-week stint at the bottom of the pile, which ought really not to be The Tottenham Way, nor the trappings of a £400m-plus spending splurge. Stick the raw facts on a sheet of A4 and they do prompt a sharp and rather pained intake of breath.
And yet. Not for the first time this season I thought our lot set about the thing perfectly reasonably. For the first half, and frankly even at one-nil down, our heroes brimmed with a decent array of attacking ideas. We shovelled the thing around briskly enough, and the high press was executed relatively well.
Cast your minds back to the not-so-distant past and we would be treated to a dirge-like marathon of sideways passes that made for pretty painful viewing as we went through the motions of trying to penetrate a low block. Yesterday was not at all of the same ilk. But for some pretty energetic gatekeeping by that Suzkuki chap, and a couple of inches here and there – and a refereeing decision or two that on a good day fall in one’s favour – we would have toddled off for the half-time sherbet slapping each other’s backs and doing the maths on our ascent up the table.
My point is essentially that I’ve seen enough to suggest that if we keep beavering away thusly our results will sooner or later take care of themselves. It doesn’t seem a particularly outrageous call to suggest that our current brand of football is punchy enough to bring us a goal or two against most of the sides we’ll play week by week.
The perfect setup it most certainly is not. One does not have to peer too deeply to spot all manner of plot-holes. But broadly, we’ve played some decent stuff, a brand that would ordinarily have brought us a couple of route in wins suitable for third spot on the Match of the Day running order.
2. A Goalscorer
All that said, even if we weren’t peddling a half-decent attacking repertoire, if we had a 20-goals-a-season sort of joe leading the line then I suspect all this sackcloth and ashes stuff would be unnecessary. A born and bred goalscorer would rustle up a goal in even those games in which the well of creativity ran bone dry.
I’m rather a fan of Solanke as it happens. When fully fit and in the groove, he’s an AANP sort of forward – something of a physical specimen, capable of leaving a few bruises on opposing defenders, but also blessed with a sufficiently deft touch to keep his chums interested. If he ever strung half a dozen consecutive games together, I fancy he’d be politely tapping on the Tuchel shoulder.
I’m not necessarily convinced, however, that he’s the sort of fellow who will squeeze in close-range goals from all angles, or pop up in the r. place and r. time to poach one when there’s a ricochet in the area, and all that wholesome stuff. Just not an out and out goalscorer.
This is hardly his fault, and I’d still have him around the place. A fit and firing Solanke is quite the asset. But having thrown cash around like confetti this summer, the sight of our lot doing everything but score goals whenever we attack is quite the frustration dash it all.
Nor is Marmoush the answer, by the by; nor was Richarlison ever the answer. (For what it’s worth, I wasn’t convinced that Gakpo was either; although that Kroupi chap at Bournemouth seems a likelier fit.)
I’m sure countless better-informed minds than mine are poring over spreadsheets and scouring the planet for precisely such a fellow, and should the opportunity arise it’s evident that outlay is no longer the problem it once was. Moreover, our mob are not exactly shot-shy either. Just about every outfield player has had a pop at some point or other, and as mentioned above, the law of averages if nothing else suggests that these will start dribbling in sooner or later. The absence of a bona fide goalscorer, however, does mildly frustrate.
3. Van Hecke’s Off-Day
At the other end, poor old J-P van H had one of his less memorable jollies.
Last weekend against Everton I was positively gushing at the fellow’s performance, specifically when it came to spotting and then delivering his passes. “Cristian Romero eat your heart out”, the more sharp-eared bystanders might have noted me murmuring, as he dipped into his repertoire to deliver a range of short and long passes that were loaded with meaning and through-the-lines impact.
Eye-catching stuff, and it had me thinking that married to the jet-heeled pace of the fellow beside him, we had the makings of a half-decent centre-back pairing.
Alas, all the incisive passing in the world will only take a centre-back so far, if their engine starts spluttering when it comes to the day-job. And the Van Hecke engine was given a right old battering by Nicolas Jackson of all people yesterday.
It wasn’t a complete disaster by any means, and van Hecke did certainly fight the good fight. He just lost too many of the rounds. The nadir came with Jackson’s goal in the second half, when our defence found itself unpicked by the least subtle gambit in the book, Villa taking the opportunity to launch a ball from back to front. Really, if a pair of international central defenders can’t book in a quick strategy meeting and check the manual for a solution to that one, then a rather stern talking-to is on the cards in the debrief.
Van Hecke also picked up a yellow card, for rather needlessly throwing away his wicket, as I’ve heard it called, lunging away at Jackson in an act that seemed to epitomise his afternoon’s work.
His goal late on was taken with some aplomb, so credit where due; but there was a refrain from these quarters last season that a defender’s primary job is to defend, so while the 2025-26 night is still pretty young, the beady AANP eye will be fixed on the fellow’s defensive wares three weeks hence.
4. On The Bright Side
Too little and too late it might have been yesterday, but I think Future Spurs will be quite relieved that we at least clocked a couple of goals yesterday. There is enough doom and gloom and general negativity, from within and without, already. 20th spot after a half billion-pound outlay will invite that.
However, we don’t have to worry about fingers being pointed on the grounds that our lot still can’t score. That particular issue has at least been put to bed. Actually winning over 90 minutes might be beyond us, but a three-week period of soul-searching, finger-pointing – and, let’s face it, memes – about a chronic inability to score, might have been a bit too much, even for the most equanimous amongst us.
Simply being bottom of the pile is plenty of angst for one international break. I for one am mightily relieved that we don’t also have to contend with the deeper existential issue of whether our lot understand how to do goals.