1. Porro on the Right Wing
A line or two before the bank holiday draws to a close.
The great and good at N17 may have lobbed around transfer money like confetti this summer, but somehow we started on Saturday evening with Pedro Porro out on the right wing. I know neither know the workings of RDZ’s mind, nor did I see interviews in which he explained the selection, but I’ll just go ahead and take the liberty of assuming his hand was somewhat forced by the presence of his army of right wingers on the treatment table rather than the training pitch, and so Porro it was out on the right side of attack.
And frankly, I thought it was actually no bad thing. If you’ve dabbled at the AANP drinks cabinet before you’ll be aware that my opinion of Porro as a defender is not sky-high. A World Cup-winning right-back he might be, but I’ll be damned if I remember him blocking more than one cross per season. If you want a chap who can lose track of whatever is happening behind him as a cross is floated in, then Porro, I would suggest is your man; but a watertight custodian at the back he is not.
Porro’s fortes appear very much to emerge once he’s made the pilgrimage over halfway, and more pertinently up towards the opposition area. At that point his eyes light up, the crosses fly in and, if he’s within about 25 yards he’ll line up a pop at goal too. And to generally pretty punchy effect too – he’s not the breed of defender who gets a nosebleed and loses all sense of geography once within shooting range. I rather like Porro in the final third.
Thus did it prove on Saturday. I would venture that in the first half he might have been our most threatening forward. His nifty footwork very nearly brought an opening goal of the ilk that would have attracted a few admiring peers, being prevented only by a full-length diving Newcastle block, and in general his radar was just about on and his crossing good.
Admittedly one surprisingly half-decent outing on the right wing is hardly a reason to propel past Kudus, Savio, Kulusevski et al when (chortle) that lot return to fitness, but as curios go this was one of the more impressive variety.
2. Probably Not As Bad As We All Think
More broadly, there was a pretty understandable collective grump as well as slunk off to WHL station, but I thought at full-time and continue to think now, this was not of the calamitous standard of recent history.
An unequivocal home loss is undoubtedly shabby work; and coming on the back of the mother of all shopping sprees, the aesthetics, to use frightfully modern parlance, were not great.
Nevertheless, I actually thought that for the majority, and certainly while 0-0, we were probably the better team. Coruscating and irresistible it might not have been, but coming forward we seemed sprightly enough, and chances were made and missed.
The failing, to my weary and untrained eye, seemed primarily to be a distinct lack of awareness of one’s fellow man. Put another way, our lot came across as a bunch of strangers. Throughout the team there was a distinct whiff of chappies who’d not quite memorised the surnames of all those around them.
As I watched Marmoush skip past flailing Geordie legs and van Hecke confidently shepherd and wriggle away from prowling forwards, I was struck by the notion that the money almost has been wisely spent. Individually, these are a jolly talented mob. The evidence of past seasons at previous clubs has not lied.
Frustratingly, none of them seemed really to know the preferences and predilections of their teammates. There were no patterns or combinations. None of that borderline telepathic understanding that is a hallmark of a well-drilled unit. The Corluka-Lennon axis is a favoured example at times like these, of how a couple of teammates could develop an understanding of the other’s game and put it to good use; Kane and Son I suppose were another.
I suspect there is pretty good reason for this lack of intuitive link-up. Half the squad seem to have reported back after the summer break carrying injuries of varying degrees of severity; and another sizeable chunk seem only recently to have returned after the World Cup. They simply haven’t had much time on the training pitch with one another.
As such, depressing though the second half was on Saturday (not to mention the entirety of the game against Brentford) AANP is remarkably unflustered by it all. Allowing for the fact that our heroes’ ability to self-sabotage is unparalleled, I feel a comforting calm at the prospect of things clicking into gear in the coming weeks. Sporadic and a little disconnected it might all have been, but I saw enough individual quality on Saturday to put the old mind at ease. As players gain fitness, and a raft of introductions are carried out at Hotspur Way, I am shoving my chips in the direction of the situation improving markedly.