Tag: Son Heung Min

Villa 2-1 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

Post author By AANP
Post date May 14, 2023
2 Comments on Villa 2-1 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. The Tactics

Ryan Mason still seems to be receiving a free pass from great swathes of our support. For reasons I don’t particularly fathom, truth be told, but there we go, and I voiced a few of the yays and nays around him last week, so won’t bother going into that again.

This week, his grand masterplan was a dastardly plot to beat Aston Villa’s high line by releasing Sonny with passes from deep, to sprint off into the wide open spaces and make merry.

Here at AANP Towers we spotted three critical flaws.

Firstly, the bally thing just didn’t work. Say about it what you like, and who knows, perhaps the Villa back-four spent the afternoon close to tears with the stress of it all – but the facts are that this approach brought us zero goals. In fact, this approach brought us zero chances, because every blasted time we tried it, Sonny or Richarlison stuffed up their lines and strayed offside.

Once or twice would be forgivable – “teething problems’, would no doubt have been the gist of the exchange amongst the Brains Trust on the sidelines – but when it came to minute 96 and Sonny was yet again caught on the wrong side of the red line, there was nothing for it but to sink the old head into the hands and hope that when reincarnated I come back as something less exasperating than being a Spurs fan.

And when I screech that it happened ‘every time’, this is not a spot of hyperbole, thrown in for dramatic effect. It just happened over and over again. Our heroes simply didn’t learn. Richarlison one understands might want to sneak in a headstart; but goodness me Sonny ought to have worked out that an extra six inches or so were not really necessary when blessed by nature with a pair of size sevens as spring-heeled as his. Surely, ran the train of thought, if Sonny started level he would still have had a decent chance of outsprinting the Villa mob over fifteen yards or so?

Secondly, even if this tactic had born a spot of occasional fruit, one would have thought a Plan B might have been tried at some point too, or even a Plan A, Version 2. Mix things up a bit, what?

Take that lad Porro, out on the right. A flawed sort of chap no doubt, but if he brings one asset to the table it’s his capacity to sling in a decent cross. One might have thought that Mason’s pre-match pearls of wisdom might have included the suggestion that every now and then we keep the Villa mob on their toes by feeding Porro, sticking an extra body or two in the area and seeing what might happen. Maybe just once or twice.

But the evidence of the eyes indicated that Mason & Chums were not having any of it. As far as “Villa (Away)’ was concerned, the strategy was evidently to be “Beat the offside trap, or nothing”. No matter that it failed the first half-dozen times, for a good hour it was our one and only idea.

Thirdly, the whole setup made for a football that was pretty dreadful to watch, from a lilywhite perspective. After a whole season of games, pretty much every one of which has made the eyes bleed, it takes some doing to find a brand new method of boring to tears the watching masses, but this Low-Block-And-Beat-The-Offside-Trap approach managed it.

Central to the approach seemed to be the mad idea to just let Villa have as much possession as they wanted, which as a year of Jose proved, even if successful sucks every ounce of joy out of the thing. Whenever we did stumble upon possession, our heroes seemed strangely unable to master the art of the six-yard pass, picking out opposition players a little too frequently for comfort (and to be fair, young Mason can hardly take the fall for this one; this is just down to the players’ own ineptitude).

And of neat triangles or the whizzy stuff that lights up the eyes and quicken the pulse, there was none. It was just left to Kane, or Lenglet, or whomever to try sticking the ball behind the Villa back-line for Sonny to dash onto and over-complicate everything before the flag went up anyway.

So in short, this plan brought no success (and did not even get as far as sticking within the rules of the game long enough to gauge whether it might bring any success); had no alternative; and was awful to watch. The ‘Give it to Mason’ campaign, as much as there is one, will need a few additional compelling arguments before AANP is swayed.

After an hour of this nonsense however, Mason had the good grace to bang his head against the nearest wall and try something different. Richarlison was relieved from duty, Kulusevski was stationed out on the right, and for two minutes or so the entire collective bucked up their ideas a bit. Irritating, then, that that particular balloon was punctured by their second goal, after which both sides pretty much shrugged their shoulders and were happy to bump into each other and shout for the remainder.

As if to really twist the knife, the only time our heroes showed any genuine urgency was for approximately five minutes of injury-time at the death, after Kane’s penalty. If they’d bobbed about their place with that same meaning and dash from minute one I’d have been all for it. Our lot might have had a decent stab at the win, for a start, and we the viewing public might have had something about which to make a racket. It might even have added a bit of gusto to the “Mason In! (Permanently)” campaign.

But when they only muster that energy for added time at the end of the ninety, I’m afraid they won’t get much more than icy glares and a few stinging words of rebuke from these parts.

2. Kulusevski

As mentioned, just about the only time things picked up, added time aside, was during a brief, post-substitution surge. Bissouma looked game, possibly just excited to be on a real pitch again, but the lightning rod for that halcyon ten minutes seemed to be Kulusevski.

He beavered away in that curious manner of his, bludgeoning past people in that ungainly fashion that suggests that while he was not born to be a footballer he has nevertheless hit upon something so might as well keep going until told otherwise.

It was already a big day for trying the same old trick over and over again, but whereas springing the offside trap had failed miserably, Kulusevski’s party-trick of chopping back inside his full-back (again, in the ungainly manner of someone who prefers football not to involve a ball) seemed to keep working, no matter how many warnings his opponent had.

With the first few steps of Operation Kulusevski working so well, it was slightly maddening that the final element kept missing the mark, but life – particularly in Season 22/23 – is like that, what? Where last season the young specimen would cut in on his left and either find the net or hang the ball up for an arriving surge at the back post, this time around the ball has tended to fly off into the galleries, leaving all in the vicinity with hands on heads and a general chorus of “If Only…” echoing about the place.

There’s no real knowing what zany idea Mason will magic up next week, but having injected the faintest murmur of a pulse into a collective that had otherwise looked for all the world ready for a toe-tag and body-bag, one wonders if Kulusevski might be involved from the start next week.

3. Forster

In the great Lloris vs Forster Debate, AANP comes down pretty heavily on the side of the latter. Monsieur Lloris has played a fine old innings, no doubt, but in the last season or three the old bean has seemed to lose the faculties somewhat, so if he is lofted on the shoulders and carried off into the sunset, he has my blessing. ‘All hail that Foster chappie, at least for the time being’, is very much my motto.

As such, having nailed my colours to this particular mast, I rather find myself bending over backwards to applaud Forster’s every contribution – never missing an opportunity in so doing to pointedly highlight how Lloris would never achieve such glories – and excusing his mishaps. And there were arguments in both camps yesterday.

For a start, and in the debit column, Forster made a couple of very good saves. One in particular, in the first half, involved some of that quick-reaction stuff, which always looks good when replayed from multiple angles. It was a low shot, well within his vicinity, but involved him bringing the entire frame down towards the dirt in double-quick time. This he achieved within the necessary timescale, managing to scoop back a ball that seemed almost behind him. Buoyed by feverish anti-Lloris sentiment, I applauded as if he had taken a bullet for the Pope.

I also noted that at one point a corner was hoisted into the general mess of limbs that is the penalty area, and where Lloris tends to flap around in such situations, Forster got such a meaty paw onto the thing that it flew off towards somewhere near halfway. Again, the reaction at AANP Towers was mightily overblown.

The whole propaganda machine was thus pootling along pretty smoothly until that second half free-kick. Even I can admit that Forster did not really cover himself in glory at that juncture.

The shot may have ended up at the opposite end to that which he had opted to patrol, but still. It was not in the top corner for a start, and more pertinently, he actually did the hard part well enough, transferring himself from right to left in good time. All that was left was to bring that same meaty paw back into play, and bat the thing off into the gay old meadows of Villa Park. Instead, he got himself in a bit of a tangle, and batted the thing into the roof of the net.

Now my Spurs-supporting chum Ian, not being one to hold back on a spot of constructive criticism, duly acted as judge, jury and executioner and delivered an instant take on Forster’s attempts, and not a complimentary one.

My immediate reaction was to point out that at least he tried to save the thing; Lloris, I inevitably argued, would have stood rooted to the spot and watched. And Forster, in his defence, did have a lot of bodies around which to peer. Failing to slap the ball away may be a flaw; not being able to see straight through the human body is not.

But nevertheless, he might have done better. Coming at a time when we were just beginning to impose ourselves, it did much to kill off the game too. While there’s no knowing what the hell will be going on at the club next season, the AANP vote would be for a younger, shinier upgrade on Lloris to be unwrapped pretty sharpish; and for Forster to remain in situ as this season, backing up when required.

Tags aston villa, Dejan Kulusevski, Fraser Forster, Hugo Lloris, Premier League, Ryan Mason, Son Heung Min

Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-3 Bournemouth: Five Tottenham Talking Points

Post author By AANP
Post date April 16, 2023
18 Comments on Spurs 2-3 Bournemouth: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Actually Not A Bad Performance

A pretty distracting feature of this latest drama was the overbearing urge to fling the head skywards and yowl away in despair. Difficult to focus on much else I mean, when beating the chest, tugging great clumps of hair from the scalp, uttering every oath known to man and similar such healthy mood outlets.

But having stared vacantly off into the mid-distance for a good few hours, Reason gradually returned to her throne, and the old silver-lining-finder in the AANP blood kicked in and started doing its thing. At least, I began to muse, this wasn’t one of those defeats in which we sat back, ceded possession and gradually dropped deeper and deeper until stuffing up the whole thing in the dying seconds.

Replaying the whole dashed thing in my mind, I actually thought that this wasn’t one of our worst performances of the season. In fact, it was probably one of our better ones – although the bar here is admittedly low. In the first half hour or so, we looked pretty threatening each time we buzzed forward, and before and after the opening goal we might have had another, if those tasked with such things had taken a bit more care.

Things drifted a bit thereafter, and by the hour mark we were behind, which is pretty poor form at home to Bournemouth, dash it; but then for the last half hour we again got our affairs in order and hammered away.

Moreover, even The Brains Trust seemed to up their game, dispensing with that back-three guff and going full Ossie by the climax, with no fewer than 5 attackers (plus two others christened by Mother Nature as wing-backs) flitting about the place. The naysayers may point out that a fat lot of good it did us, but after the negative dross of the last three years – and three managers – I don’t mind admitting to feeling a gentle thrill as one after another forward were shoved into the mix and the strategy became ever more akin to teenage AANP gaily throwing caution to the wind on Football Manager.

For all that I still thought we rather obviously lacked someone in the centre with a twinkle in their eye, but the poking and prodding around the area, and steady stream of half-decent crosses at least made us look like a team pretty annoyed to be behind and pretty determined to correct the situation. Just a shame that amidst all the excitement we rather neglected the whole business of sweeping up behind us. And frankly, with the upcoming fixtures as they are, losing this one verged on criminal negligence, but still. Nice to see us doing some attacking, what?

2. Sonny

Nice also to see Sonny zig-zagging about the place with some of his old joie de vivre. I hesitate to suggest that he is now fully restored to his former glories, but after last week’s throwback goal, yesterday I eagerly lapped up every hint provided that his tendency to collect the ball and dribble north was slowly morphing back towards that of 2021/22.

And whether it was to do with the Bournemouth approach or some other cause, in the first half in particular it did seem to me that the Son of old was occasionally hoving into view. It helped that rather than collecting the ball inside his own half, and promptly failing to hold it up, he generally received the ball yesterday around the final third and pointing in the correct direction. After all, a Sonny jinking towards the opposition goal is infinitely more pleasing upon the eye than a Sonny trying to shield the ball when facing his own net.

He popped up with his goal, of course. Not necessarily one about which to write home, but if a recent Golden Boot winner struggling through leaner times finds a straightforward close-range opportunity thrust his way, one doesn’t ask questions. Sonny tucked the thing away with minimal fuss, and one could almost see the injection of additional confidence ooze onto his map as he wandered off for the regulatory knee-slide.

So that was welcome stuff, but as mentioned it was his general air, in the first half in particular, that brought a bit of fizz to proceedings. Those moments when he picks up the ball around 20-25 yards from goal, in an inside-left sort of channel, and then dips the shoulders this way and that, makes to duck outside, and then inside, all the while with a general air of a bumblebee that has stumbled upon a whole gaggle of flowers in bloom and can’t decide which to get at first.

At one point when Sonny scuttled off into the area he cut in and out so often, and threw in so many stepovers, that I rather fancy the Bournemouth laddie tasked with stopping him was struck with a spot of motion sickness. It would have been one heck of a goal if a defensive foot hadn’t spoiled things; but the general sentiment remained – the fellow had hit a bit of an upward trajectory.

Bar perhaps that hat-trick against Leicester, this seemed the first time all season that Sonny had looked a genuine nuisance at the top of our attack. The onus changed a bit in the second half, as our heroes took to swinging in crosses, but and of course it all fell apart fairly miserably at the end, but this at least gave reason to stride off into the next coiuple of fixtures with a bit of purpose.

3. Perisic

I also thought in that first half that Perisic was having one of his better days. This stood to reason – if not really required to do much defending, and allowed simply to park himself in the final third, jiggle between left and right clog and swing in crosses with either of the aforementioned, Perisic becomes quite the attacking asset.

And so it transpired, at least in the first half. At this point, Porro was seemingly still adjusting to things and appeared to have received special dispensation not to get involved with any attacks until 4pm local time, so it was all Perisic.

This got my vote. The Bournemouth right-back became the latest in a pretty long stream of souls who have this season discovered that Perisic doesn’t actually have a weaker foot, so it didn’t really matter in which direction he tried to escort him. Perisic’s crossing was a constant threat in the first half, and he chipped in pretty regularly in the second too, at least until the formation switched from Wing-Backs to All-Guns-Blazing.

Oddly enough, given that all season the theory has been peddled that Sonny’s ills have been at least partly due to Perisic stepping on his toes, the pair seemed to stumble upon quite the understanding. As Son drifted infield, Perisic overlapped, a routine that, despite its breathtaking simplicity, seemed sufficient to have Bournemouth defensive brains melting, and amongst other delights brought about our opening goal.

Given the struggles of Son to date this season, I presume that the winnings pocketed by the Perisic-Son combo yesterday were at least in part due to obliging opponents; and the thought of Perisic being shoved back and forced to dig in defensively against more accomplished opponents does bring out the cold sweats; but as an attacking asset he’s a pretty handy chap to have around the place.

4. Porro

As mentioned, it was a while before the memo about wing-backs making merry in the final third reached Pedro Porro. Unfortunately, before he was able to crack on with this part of the routine, he made an almighty hash of things at the back, landing the collective right in it.

I’m all for our heroes trying to be proactive, and looking forwards before all else on receipt of the ball; but there’s a pretty obvious asterisk to be slapped against such recommendations: viz. that one carry out such undertakings without imperilling the entire blasted operation.

So when Porro received a pass on the touchline, deep inside his own half, one could salute his initial pivot – infield and forward, bearing all the hallmarks of a wing-back looking to inject a bit of fizz and impetus into things. At that point however, a splash of good old common sense would not have gone amiss. Red and black shirts were converging en masse. Porro had made his point, about beetling forward and showing intent and whatnot; now was the time for him to shovel the ball elsewhere and move on.

Alas, the blighter made a pretty serious error of judgement, in trying to take on and dribble through the advancing Bournemouth horde. It was a pretty wretched attempt all round actually, as he didn’t achieve anything near a successful dribble, his touch so heavy that it amounted virtually to a pass straight to an opponent. In a trice he had ceded possession to no fewer than three attackers. The rest was rather a formality, and well might P.P. have hung his head in shame.

This punctured the atmosphere like the dickens, which was a real shame because, as mentioned above, we had tucked into this one with a bit of appetite in the early knockings.

However, to his credit, Porro set about his business in the second half looking every inch a man who wanted to redeem himself. He was a pretty willing galloper to the byline, as occasion demanded; but vastly more eye-catching was the stream of crosses delivered from his right boot to the penalty area. True, one or two went a touch askew, but in general he sent them over with lovely whip and shape, and I was pretty dsigruntled to see so little fruit borne from them.

Ultimately then, for all his second half efforts, the chap ended the afternoon in debit rather than credit, but whereas some amongst our number attract a fair bit of stick for their faux pas, Porro seems the sort of egg who will make a few decent contributions to the cause in his time.

5. Davinson Sanchez

Hard not to mourn a bit for poor old D. Sanchez, what? Full disclosure, of course, I think the fellow is an absolute disaster of a defender, and ought to have been carted off the premises long ago – but to err is human and all that guff, and in fact yesterday I’m not sure he even erred so significantly.

True, his attempted challenge on the Bournemouth nib in the build-up to their second was at the half-hearted end of the spectrum, but it seemed to me that the ball’s journey from his foot to that of the goalscorer (Solanke) was as unfortunate as it was inept. It seemed fairly reasonable to expect a nearby teammate – of whom there were several – to do the decent thing and step across to hammer the ball clear.

Anyway, nobody did, and having begun that move by losing his bearings in what is unfortunately rather trademark style, he ended it by delivering the assist for the Bournemouth goal. A pretty standard day at the office, by his wretched standards.

But apparently thereafter the chap was booed when he next got involved, and that just isn’t cricket. I’m all for filling the air with a choice curse or two in a moment of instinctive reaction when a lad really stinks the place out; but to wait until his next involvement and deliberately give him the bird says more about those doing the cat-calling than the object of the cat-calls, if you follow.

I suppose the thought probably entered the Sanchez dome at that point that a spot of public support from The Brains Trust would not go amiss; but if he had set his heart on any such vote of confidence he was in for a bit of a shock. An ugly business, substituting a substitute, and unlike a mass brawl involving all 22 plus the benches, I’m not sure it is a sight that too many people genuinely do enjoy. Sometimes, however, the greater good demands these things. Tactically, one understood. On a human level, however, I did rather want to shove a consoling bourbon his way.

That said, if Sanchez never plays for our lot again, I will chalk that up as a major bound in the right direction. The long-awaited overhaul ought to start with him. His confidence is on the floor, and I get the impression he doesn’t exactly instil much steady assurance amongst those around him either. Pack him off to Ligue Un or some such, and let him start again. I’ve no idea what fate befell Monsieur Lenglet yesterday, but if he remains incapacitated a pretty sizeable call awaits for the trip to Newcastle next week. It could be sharp intakes of breath all round.

Tags Davinson Sanchez, Ivan Perisic, Ossie Ardiles, Pedro Porro, Premier League, Son Heung Min

Spurs match reports

Spurs 2-1 Brighton: Five Tottenham Talking Points

Post author By AANP
Post date April 9, 2023
4 Comments on Spurs 2-1 Brighton: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Danjuma

Being the sort of chap who likes to keep an audience on their toes, I thought I’d begin with a spot of wittering on the rarely-sighted Danjuma, not least because he was the principal object of a spot of post-second goal gushing from yours truly yesterday.

It might not necessarily be the view clung to by the masses, but I was already greeting with boyish enthusiasm the energy of Danjuma, even before it led, in a slightly convoluted way, to our second goal.

Danjuma came bounding on with all the perk and vim of a man who had spent several months in a Conte-induced purgatory and had a few sackfuls of energy to release. In that respect I suppose he had much in common with Lucas Moura at Everton last week, but whereas Lucas channelled his efforts into imprinting his size nines across someone else’s shin, Danjuma’s approach wasn’t quite so lacking in a few spoonfuls of common sense.

Which is to say, in the first place, that he didn’t stamp on anyone – an obvious baseline, one might think, but nevertheless the sort of thing one can’t take for granted amongst a gang as low on the grey stuff as ours. Anyway, having confirmed the ability to chase everything that moved without getting himself sent off, what really grabbed the attention was the fact that, having buzzed from one outfield player to another in pursuit of the ball, Danjuma then turned everything upon its head by daring to chase down the Brighton goalkeeper as well.

This was front-page stuff. I had noted over the course of the game that our high press was being applied with a little more meaning than usual, but that once the ball beetled its way back to this ‘keeper, Steele, our lot tended to slam on the brakes, and subject him to little more than a beady eye.

No doubt this was part of a masterplan concocted by the Brains Trust. Something to do with cutting off angles, or not leaving gaps, or some other such gubbins. Be that as it may, Danjuma was clearly having none of it. Goodness knows what his superiors made of it, but the first chance he got he put his head down and fairly raced off towards that Steele fellow, leaving the latter in no doubt that the time for a pause and restorative break was long gone.

I don’t mind admitting that this sent a quiet thrill through me. After all, if one is going to press 90% of the way up the pitch, why not shrug the shoulders and go the distance?

It is probably important to note that Danjuma’s press did not in itself draw a mistake – Steele with ball at his feet is no Hugo Lloris, and simply funnelled the thing off to his nearest chum as if it were something done since he were knee-high. However, Danjuma’s lust for involvement, as well as drawing a satisfied nod from these parts, also seemed to have the infinitely useful knock-on effect of prompting everyone else in lilywhite to look at one other and murmur, “Well if he can do it, dash it, I might try as well!”

And so it happened that Danjuma’s charge on the ‘keeper was followed by Son charging at the next chappie in possession (Webster, apparently). This Webster fellow then popped along the hot potato sharpish to that Mitoma lad, who had Romero charging at him; and at this point all that charging paid dividends, as Romero emerged from the argument with his inventory reading: Size 5 Football (x1). And from there, within 3 passes, Kane was doing his thing and we were up 2-1.

The extent to which the goal can be attributed to Danjuma is of course the sort of debatable stuff that will sit right up there for centuries to come, alongside butterflies flapping their wings and causing cyclones and whatnot – but at a point in the game in which we were looking as likely as we’ve done for several weeks to craft a goal, I was glad to see Danjuma raise the energy level a notch and have some level of involvement in a goal.

2. Hojbjerg

A propos the goal, P-E Hojbjerg would no doubt have given the chin a slightly irritated scratch as he read the above, and rightly so, for it misses the point rather wildly to bang on all day about Danjuma chasing a back pass to little avail and then omitting to mention the critical pass that set up the goal.

But that, and more, was contributed by the same P-E H. Having been released by Sonny, Hojbjerg’s interest in affairs suddenly rocketed, as has often happened this season when he is granted temporary dispensation to rub shoulders with the elite in the final third. Off he galloped into the area, before, crucially, taking a deep breath or two, as I understand these Scandinavian types are fond of doing. This was an important move, because if he had simply attempted to pick out the only teammate in the box – my golden boy, Danjuma – he’d have had a dickens of a time manoeuvring the ball around four Brighton defenders to reach him.

Just as well that Hojbjerg’s fabled capacity to hear at bat-like frequencies kicked in, this no doubt allowing him to catch the heavy breathing of a lumbering Kane, arriving in the second wave. Hojbjerg effected his pass to perfection, a good ten yards behind everyone else, after which there still followed a pretty lengthy interval, as all in attendance waited a little longer for Kane to catch up, but when he did the fruits were ripe.

On a tangent, I have to admit that that pause – as the entire stadium took a sharp old intake of breath, and held it, before exploding – was one of the AANP highlights of the season.

Back to Hojbjerg, and a big old tick against his name, for the run, awareness and delivery. The problem, however, is that that same big tick is both preceded and followed by a couple of emphatic red crosses.

Not five minutes earlier, it had been Hojbjerg’s errant leg that thrust itself into the limelight for no good reason, clipping the twin limb of Mitouma inside the penalty area. Inadvertent it may have been, but in these days of constant and panoramic surveillance, one ought to be pretty darned sure about whether or not one will clip the leg of another in the area. The fact that the VAR spook gaily waved it on should not exonerate our man.

He followed up later in the piece by conceding a couple of pretty unnecessary transgressions – more clipping of legs, actually. And from one of these free-kicks the similarly bone-headed Lenglet played pretty fast and loose with the rules, grabbing at a shirt with two hands, which at the very least prompted those concerned to institute polite enquiries.

So much though I enjoy Hojbjerg’s spirit of willing and general fire-in-belly, and, of course, his contributions when let off the leash in the final third, I do wish he would focus a bit more on the basics within his own defensive game. But in a way, it rather sums up the chap – a mixture of valued contributions and lamentable, avoidable gaffes.

3. Skipp

Alongside Hojbjerg, young Master Skipp beavered away in his usual understated manner, and as ever I was all for it.

I suspect that beyond N17 few would afford him more than a shrug of the shoulders and a nonplussed look, but his lack of glamour ought not to mislead. Skipp keeps things ticking.

I suspect I have prattled on about this before, but I am particularly drawn to the fact that if a winning pass does not immediately present itself, he does not dwell or dither. The chap distributes as if on a timer. Speed – of distribution – is of the essence, in the mind of young Skipp. Whatever the circumstance, his motto is that gag about things being best done when done quickly, and if that means he should simply shovel the ball sideways or backwards then it’s fine by him, seemingly aware that there will be another day and another opportunity to show his full passing range.

And it is quite some range. We saw a few weeks ago when he set Richarlison free for a disallowed goal, that he has in his armoury a pass of the 40-yard ilk, and he was at it again yesterday. Neither led to goals, but both – one in each half, from memory – found their man and helped turn defence into attack pretty neatly.

On top of which, he also set off on a couple of healthy, long-distance gallops, as circumstances dictated were prudent. Running at full pelt with the ball for 40 yards or more is pretty impressive stuff, and it all nudges towards the sense that here is a lad who might eventually grow into quite the all-round sort of bean.

4. Sonny

Not that there were any headlines for young Skipp. That was Sonny territory yesterday.

One might, I suppose, if in particularly curmudgeonly mood, complain that Sonny did little of note apart from score one and pop up with a spot of behind-the-scenes assistance for the second – but this, to me, would be pretty rich stuff. The whole point of Sonny is to score and do a spot of behind-the-scenes lifting and shifting for others to score, so if he can check both boxes I think the appropriate reaction is a slap on the back and reminder that his bank account will be credited in due course.

His goal was an absolute dream. Different goals please in different ways of course, but Sonny in particular has long had a line in those curling efforts that start outside the post and curve inwards, leaving the goalkeeper fully extended and still falling short, for added aesthetic pleasure. I suppose part of the reason we see so few of them from him these days is that various opponents nowadays know better than to let him try that particular party-trick. It was a delight therefore, to see him unleash it once more, for old time’s sake.

And as mentioned, he also did his best, in understated fashion, towards the second. Once Romero had won possession near halfway, the ball was fed to Son, who for reasons to be fully investigated, had at this point popped up on the right flank. Sensibly, rather than try this season’s choice routine of running into a brick wall and tripping over his own feet, Son opted to pop off a quick pass; and what a pass he popped. The nutmeg is one of AANP’s personal favourites at any given point in any given game; when it is effected in the build-up to a goal, all the better.

Son’s nutmegged pass was just the excuse for which Hojbjerg had been looking to bound forward, and as mentioned above, the Dane duly did his thing. Sonny may have offered little else in an attacking sense, but if this is to be his weekly output then I would happily sign him up to it pronto.

5. An Oddly Enjoyable Win

I emerged from that win in vastly better spirits than anticipated. Admittedly, this is not least because I fully expected our heroes to collapse in a heap at the first sign of trouble, but even though we had less possession, and were not half as competent in midfield as the other lot, this produced one of those ear-to-ear grins across the map.

I suppose it is partly because in those moments when we did counter, the mechanics seemed to whirr and hum as well as they have done for some time. A low bar, admittedly, but still enough to get me off my seat a few times.

Kulusevski, while still not exactly the swashbuckling hero of last season, seemed to have a few vague recollections of dance routines and jinky steps that have served him well before. In the second half, I fancied that we even looked likelier to score than they did. At one-one, with the game approaching its finale, I experienced something other than the usual dread; and all of this, coupled with the marvellous pause before our second goal, put a spring in the step and song on the lips.

No doubt we had a couple of helpful interventions – or, I suppose more accurately, benefited from the absence of a couple of unhelpful interventions. The AANP tuppence worth is that the disallowed goals were scrawled from the record books rightly enough, but the penalty shouts were another matter.

However, the outrage accompanying all this has been rather entertaining. One understands the Brighton howls of indignation. Tough to swallow, no doubt. More than happy to administer a sympathetic pat, if it helps. But it is all rather amusing, what? One would think, from the outpouring of apoplexy that no other side has ever suffered a VAR bruising since the thing was unveiled. And frankly, the rarity of benefitting so obviously from a spot of VAR fumbling has contributed all the more to making this an absolute delight. Heaven knows we’ve suffered at its hands often enough in the past, and will no doubt do so again soon enough – so that being the case, I’m happy to throw back an extra bourbon in celebration of it tonight! But a sympathetic pat to our guests, of course.

Tags Arnaut Danjuma, Brighton, Clement Lenglet, Cristian Romero, Dejan Kulusevski, Harry Kane, Hojbjerg, Oliver Skipp, Premier League, Son Heung Min

Spurs match reports

Everton 1-1 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

Post author By AANP
Post date April 4, 2023
16 Comments on Everton 1-1 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. The Post-Conte Era

AANP is pretty sharp. The former Commander-in-Chief may no longer have been of the parish, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour or so into proceedings last night when it dawned on me that actually, for all the bluster and announcements, not a dashed thing had changed.

For a start there was the formation. Now one generously acknowledges that, thirty games into a season, one can hardly force a completely revamped model down every available throat, and expect everything to fall into place without so much as a squeak. The newly-installed Brains Trust had had by my reckoning about five days to inspect the troops. So, much though the wretched 3-4-3-featuring-two-defensive-midfielders grates, one understood the logic and waved an accepting – if grudging – hand.

But nevertheless, while tearing down the foundations and creating something completely wacky and new might have been a bit rich, a few nuanced adjustments would have been nice, what? Brave new era, and all that. Would it really have cost the earth, I asked myself, to have rearranged the deck-chairs and including an extra creative soul in midfield? Not that we seem to have any such souls left, but with a bit of jiggery-pokery – and maybe a Pape Sarr – I thought we might see Hojbjerg pushed further forward, or Kulusevski more central, or Kane and Sonny as a front two, or literally anything that indicated that Conte had biffed out the door in deed as well as word.

But nope. The formation was exactly the same. And if that was not enough, the performance ended up being even more Conte-esque than it had been under Conte, which takes some doing.

In fairness, there were patches of play in the first half that weren’t too bad. Everton had obviously got into their heads the ridiculous notion that we were the sort of mob that would fold immediately under questioning, and so spent the opening exchanges charging in a frenzy at whichever of our lot were in possession, lacking only a bayonet to brandish and a war-cry to shriek. And our lot responded pretty impressively, at least at various points between approximately minutes 5 and 25. Whomever was in possession tended to do a quick tap-dance, shimmy around the nearest swinging Everton leg and pop the ball off to a nearby chum, at which point the whole routine began again.

So we looked competent enough in possession, and able to sidestep the Everton press. Most notably to the AANP eye, we moved the ball pretty quickly. One got the sense that Team Stellini had spent their five days barking a few choice phrases celebrating the virtues of the quick pass and one-touch football, because there was a welcome dash of urgency about the place.

On top of which, whether by our design or the accident of Everton being rather narrow, Messrs Perisic and Porro had a few moments of joy up the flanks. Hojbjerg seemed to be having one of his better days in the centre. Kane had a couple of near-ish misses. Rumours of a new-manager bounce were no doubt miles off the mark, but for half an hour or so I at least thought that we might just about edge our relegation-zoned, lowest-scoring-team-in-the-division opponents.

2. The Performance at One-Nil

I should have known better of course. From the latter part of the first half onwards, our lot absolutely stank the place out. Whatever upper hand we might have had early doors was old news by the midway point, and there was not much improvement in the second half.

It took some pretty generous and unsubtle interventions from Everton to get our noses in front, because goodness knows our clueless heroes weren’t going to manage it themselves. First that laddie got himself sent off; but on seeing that our lot hadn’t really taken the hint, and were still scratching their heads a bit, another Everton slab of meat took it upon himself to give us a penalty, just to make sure.

And at that point, I fancy I even allowed myself a smile, which just goes to show one never really learns. The one-nil lead was not really a deal-breaker; but a one-nil lead against ten men with under half an hour remaining struck me as the sort of binge even our lot couldn’t foul up.

Of course, it is a little hard to describe what happened next. One simply stared in disbelief, and rubbed the eyes a few times. After Sheffield United and Southampton – and seemingly every other game we’ve played this season, in truth – it shouldn’t have come as any surprise, and yet this seemed to be one of the worst performances of the lot. By just about any metric available, we managed to let ourselves get comprehensively outplayed by ten men. Even now, 24 hours on, the recollection of it seems to hollow out my insides.

It is tempting to get a bit Shakespearian about things and declare this the worst I’ve ever seen from our lot, but having had my teenage years fashioned by the delights of Francis, Graham and Gross a little perspective is probably in order.

Nevertheless, though, this collective offering – let’s call it The Conte Tribute Act – was down there amongst the absolute dregs. If a chum had suggested to me that with twenty minutes to go against one of the worst teams in the league, and up a man, our lot would choose the option of dropping deep, ceding possession and praying for the final bell, I’d have laughed them out of town and suggested for good measure they had over-indulged in the sauce. And yet our lot did precisely that! Forsooth!

The amateurish passing from the back; the aimless hoicks upfield; the introduction of Davinson Sanchez as a means to shore up the defence; the brainless red card; the continued absence of Danjuma – I’m not one to betray the emotions unnecessarily, but when I tell you that at least one of my lips quivered with despair as I watched matters unfold I rather fancy you get the picture.

3. Son

The rest is mere details. By full-time I was in such a state of shock that I found myself groping blindly towards the drinks cabinet, but at half-time, when thoughts were slightly better ordered, one of the principal points of concern was the latest dithering performance from young Sonny.

The wise old coves have it that form is temporary and class permanent, which is true enough I suppose, but it makes this dip in form one of the longest temporary contracts in living memory.

The poor blighter was dreadful yet again, in just about every area of his game. I admired to an extent his diligence in trying to track back or drop deep to receive the ball, but seeing him trip over his own feet and fall to the dirt upon every contact, I did look skywards and utter a silent prayer or two that he might just relocate to the top of the pitch and stay there. I much prefer the chap playing on the shoulder of defenders and scurrying off towards the opposition goal.

Not that his attacking manoeuvres bore much fruit either, mind. The days of him dipping a shoulder, side-stepping a defender and whipping a shot goalwards seemed pretty distant specks as we watched him shuffle straight into an opposition frame and, more often than not, complete his routine by yet again hitting the turf.

After last night it is admittedly hard to make a case to suggest that Lucas is the answer, but one does cast a longing look or two towards Danjuma on the bench and wonder what on earth that is all about.

4. Lloris

Amongst the bigger decisions our newest Glorious Leader had to make was between the sticks. Absence, of course, makes the heart grow fonder, and Fraser Forster has not been without the occasional flaw, but I did puff the cheeks and think it rather a shame that he was automatically elbowed aside and the red carpet rolled out for Monsieur Lloris.

In Lloris’ defence he did grab a cross or two of the high-and-swirling variety in the first half, which lowered the blood pressure a bit around these parts. However, with the ball at his feet he seemed, as ever, to be not entirely sure of what day it was or which sport he was playing, and there were more sharp intakes of breath than any right-minded nurse would consider healthy whenever our lot tried to play out from the back. An admonishing clip should be aimed around the ear of Romero at this point, for his bizarre inputs into this particular nonsense, but the whole fiasco did have me pining for the return of Forster.

The real blow to the ribs, however, was the goal. The objective viewer would, naturally enough, raise an appreciative eye at the quality of the strike, but at AANP Towers the headline was all about Lloris and that utterly infuriating habit of his, of simply standing and watching, rooted to the spot, as the ball sails past him.

I don’t mind admitting I could have absolutely screamed at him to use his bally hands. Why the dickens does he keep doing this? Adopting the pose of readiness, as if coiled to leap into action, and then, as the crucial moment approaches, instead of leaping as advised, simply swivelling the hips to watch the ball? It happens over and over, and drives me to absolute distraction. What is stopping him from extending the frame and at least broaching the possibility that he might reach it?

It is galling at the best of times, when he is nowhere near the ball; but last night the thing whistled within his wingspan! I’m not sure he even needed to dive in order to reach it, simply extending an arm might well have done the trick. That the ball was travelling at a fair old lick is beyond doubt; but geographically this was no insurmountable challenge.

Utterly bewilderingly, after that utter crate of garbage – and all the other ones we’ve witnessed – we sit fourth in the table, but given the games played and whatnot (and, more pertinently, the utter guff we keep peddling) we’ll be waving that one goodbye pretty sharpish. One can only look onwards, and hope yet again for an upturn on Saturday, but this really is getting a bit thick now, what?

Tags Antonio Conte, Arnaut Danjuma, Christian Stellini, Cristian Romero, Davinson Sanchez, Everton, Fraser Forster, Harry Kane, Hojbjerg, Hugo Lloris, Ivan Perisic, Lucas Moura, Pedro Porro, Premier League, Son Heung Min

Spurs match reports Spurs news, rants

Conte (& the Southampton Draw): 5 Tottenham Talking Points

Post author By AANP
Post date March 19, 2023
7 Comments on Conte (& the Southampton Draw): 5 Tottenham Talking Points

1. Conte’s Rant

I must confess that a good deal of what you might call the specifics of Conte’s rant escaped me. This is certainly not a pop at the fellow’s English, which is a dashed sight better than any other tongue in which I’ve dabbled (when it comes to asking for a cheese sandwich in DuoLingo Spanish, I’m your man; when it comes to discussing the merits or otherwise of my colleagues in a foreign vernacular, I demur to Conte).

But still, this was not one of those systematic jollies, in which each point is clearly labelled and unpacked, leaving the listener in no doubt about the way of things, before moving on to the next item. First listening to his words, and then poring over the transcript, it seemed to me that Conte had about half a dozen different ideas swirling around, and they all oozed out on top of one another.

Nevertheless, one got the loose gist. “Angry man ranting” was the nub of it. Whatever calm and considered plan he might have prepared before strolling out to meet the assembled press, once he had taken his seat and got down to business he seemed not to be able to contain himself. Nor did the passage of time soothe the savage beast, and by the time he had finished ten minutes later the whole thing reminded me of that scene in Predator in which Arnie and chums unleash their heavy artillery and spend a good minute or two of screentime just mowing down every tree in sight.

So while the small print of his frustration was a little mysterious to me, it was pretty clear that one or two things had got up him. Most notably, he seemed at pains to communicate that he was less than entirely enamoured of his beloved players. If I understood him correctly, I also fancy that he aimed a swipe at the board and owners; and for good measure he then veered down a side-road into the theoretical and peeled off a strip or two at the club generally, as an entity. At that point a few questions from my undergrad days about personal identity came swimming back to mind, but they swam off again sharpish.

The underlying feature seemed to be that Conte had just about had enough of the current state of things. And, indeed, the state of things for the past twenty years. So what to make of it all?

2. Conte On The Players

His principal target was the playing personnel, and here he has a point. Whether or not one also drags in the board, the manager or both is pretty racy stuff, but as starting points go this is actually pretty straightforward. That the players repeatedly foul things up on the pitch is difficult to dispute. I doubt there’s a lilywhite in the land who hasn’t at some point this season wanted to grab various of our heroes, give them a pretty violent shake and then smack them across the face with a wet fish.

“Selfish” seemed to be Conte’s word de jour yesterday, but more generally the notions of our lot being unable to cope with pressure and offering little more than half-hearted shrugs in the face of trouble certainly rang true. Far too often this season and for several previous seasons, the players have stunk the place out.

3. Conte On The Board

The board – I think – were next in the firing line, but at this point the mood darkens rather. This seems to be a matter that turns family members against each other, if you follow my thread. Some are ‘yay’, and some are ‘nay’, but everyone seems to voice their point with gusto.

Those who side with the owners can point to the large sacks of cash flung around to bring in such luminaries as Sanchez, Ndombele and Lo Celso in recent years, the argument being that money most categorically has been spent.

More pertinent to the serving monarch, Messrs Kulusevski, Bentancur, Perisic and Porro each seem to have Conte’s personal seal of approval emblazoned across their foreheads. Added to which, Richarlison and Bissouma, whilst each having so far had much about them of the damp squib, nevertheless seemed to receive from the Big Cheese a satisfied nod of approval upon arrival last summer, as if to say, “Precisely the squad member needed for a campaign on several glorious fronts.” Conte, the argument runs, has had his wish-list pretty handsomely indulged.

However, no sooner would the Defence nestle back into its seat than the Prosecution would leap up and start raging that Conte wanted but two things last summer, viz. a right wing-back and left-sided centre-back. On the RWB front he has had to wait half a season for one shiny new Porro to arrive. As for the left centre-back, the whole sorry episode reminds me of that gag from the Good Book, which asks what sort of fellow would hand his lad a stone if he requested bread, or a snake if he requested a fish – both of which suddenly seem pretty rosy deals when compared with receiving Clement Lenglet, when asked for a world-class left centre-back.

A messy old business then. The AANP take is that the players certainly deserve stern words; the culture of the club has indeed been severely lacking in the Winning Mentality department; and that while the board has chipped in with cash it has made various howlers in other areas.

4. Conte Himself

Much of which, however, is for a different day. Following Conte’s tantrum, the burning question at AANP Towers was around the responsibilities of the fellow himself. Shaking an angry fist at the players, for their displays every week for the last year, is all well and good until one remembers that they set foot on the pitch each time with Conte’s own words ringing in their ears. If things have been so bad, what the devil has he done about it himself? Listening to the chap whinge away you would think that he has been barred from speaking to them for the past year.

Conte himself bleated that our lot today are worse than last season, which seems true enough. But given that he is the one running the whole operation it does rather suggest that he ought to have a solid chunk of the responsibility shoved across his shoulders.

To howl about the selected players not being up to the task (or being too “selfish”), whilst resisting any personnel changes as if his life depended upon the same XI, has a bit of a whiff about it. Which is to say nothing of the rigid tactics, or the peculiar reluctance to give things a shake mid-match with a few substitutions.

It is possible that this entire episode was part of the old psychological one-two, aimed at instilling a spot of fire in the bellies of the outraged playing personnel. I suppose I have heard wilder theories in my time.

The drearier conclusion, as pointed out by various more knowledgeable sorts, seems to be that the whole monologue was Conte’s attempt to protect his reputation. That is to say, with pastures new awaiting him, and a sorry end to the season fast looming at N17, it is in Conte’s interests to position the club as beyond saving, the players as empty-headed dullards and the managers – both present and previous – as pretty helpless innocents.

All of which might be true, I suppose. He’s laid it on a bit thick though, what?

5: The Match Itself

After all that – which enfolded, lest we forget, after our heroes had thrown away a two-goal lead in the final fifteen against the divison’s bottom team – to pop back and pick out the positives from the match itself feels a bit like coming home to find the house burnt down, but noting that the sun is shining so it’s not all bad.

Still, there were some plus points, as Conte’s dearest pals are no doubt reminding him. Pedro Porro looks a handy addition, for a start. I’ve previously given quite the salute to his crossing in the final third, and on Saturday I noted that he also possesses a mightily impressive cross-field diagonal from deep. This was unleashed a couple of times, the first of which had Sonny clean through in the opening moments, and really ought to have brought a richer harvest than a shot so wide it headed out for a throw.

On top of which, Porro showed himself to be fully signed up to this business of wing-backs appearing in the penalty area to try their luck at goal. As well as his actual goal, he treated himself to two other pops from close range, both of which, alas, sailed over. Encouraging stuff though, for the remaining ten matches in which we continue to use wing-backs.

Sonny did little to impress throughout, but his pass to create Porro’s goal was an absolute delight. It got rather lost in the tornado that followed, both on and off the pitch, but his one diagonal seemed to take out literally half the Southampton team in setting Porro free on goal.

The other fellow who caught the beady AANP eye – yet again, it should be noted – was young Master Skipp. There were, admittedly, a couple of errors that might have been more severely punished, and his usual rather harsh yellow card, but otherwise Skipp delivered a near-faultless central midfield display. As often sighted winning possession as picking a pass, he hummed away incessantly, generally taking on life’s grubbier jobs as if thrilled simply to be asked.

So much for the silver linings. Heartening though Skipp and Porro were, the lip I chewed throughout was a pretty dashed frustrated one. At no point in this match did our heroes look to be in control of things – which may be acceptable against PSG, dash it, or even AC Milan, but not against the league’s bottom side. At best, our lot threatened on the counter; but on balance it seemed the slight majority of the game was spent diligently trying to keep Southampton at bay.

Even if this had succeeded, it is a dreadful approach to life against a team in that position. And having got ourselves two goals to the good, all as one dropped deeper and deeper, chanting in unison “Backs to the wall” as more and more defensive sorts were thrown on to give it the old skin-of-the-teeth routine. As such, one understands the manager watching that and then promptly losing his sanity – but if this nonsense is still unfolding after a year and a half of Conte, either he is too dim to notice the problem or not good enough to solve it.

Tags Antonio Conte, Clement Lenglet, Dejan Kulusevski, Ivan Perisic, Oliver Skipp, Pedro Porro, Premier League, Richarlison, Rodrigo Bentancur, Son Heung Min, Southampton, Yves Bissouma

Spurs match reports

Milan 1-0 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

Post author By AANP
Post date February 15, 2023
5 Comments on Milan 1-0 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Sarr

It’s not often I can claim to speak for the masses, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t alone in reacting to the news of poor old Bentancur’s twisted joints by feeling the stomach sink a few levels, and having a nameless dread creep up my spine and make itself at home slap bang in the middle of my very soul.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but R.B. has been the heartbeat of the operation. Kane may be the poster boy, but just about everything is run by Bentancur first, for him to stamp with his seal of approval. The prospect of heading off to the San Siro of all places, minus this fabulous chap, had me grasping pretty desperately for the whiskey and rocks, with emphasis on the former.

With Hojbjerg also otherwise engaged, and even Bissouma passing on this particular invitation, that nameless dread was having a whale of a time churning up my insides as I tried in the first place even to remember who the fourth and fifth choice centre midfielders would be.

Sarr and Skipp it was to be then, and as the whistle tooted at 20.00 GMT, AANP had much about him of Daniel entering the lions’ den with a few nervous looks east and west.

Incredibly, however, young Messrs Sarr and Skipp saw it that central midfield ought to be the last of my worries. The defence? Errors lurking not far from the surface. The attack? Nary an idea in the tray. But central midfield brimmed full of energy and natty decision-making throughout.

I loosely recall young Sarr being flung on for twenty minutes or so against Palace a few weeks back, and looking the full potato back then, but with an asterisk against his name in virtue of the fact that we were 4-0 up at the time, and I rather fancied that even I might have looked vaguely competent in such a circumstance. Last night, however, was no 4-0 twenty-minute cakewalk. Sarr was up against a competent mob, and in what sounded like a pretty punchy atmosphere.

And yet the young pup set about his work from first whistle until last in absolutely first-rate fashion. I can barely think of a duty that the modern midfielder ought to execute, which wasn’t executed with all manner of flying colours by young Master Sarr.

He gobbled up loose balls and generally ensured that his opinions were heard in midfield, making clear to any Milan sort who thought that the central areas would be ripe for a spot of casual R&R that no such luxury would be afforded. And this sort of energy in the hub of the team does all manner of good, setting the tone and giving the impression that whatever else, our lot will not go down without a spot of fight and a few swings of the blade.

On top of this general Seek-and-Destroy approach to midfield life, I was also rather taken by the occasional glimpse Sarr gave of a natty forward pass. The sort that is diagonally delivered so as to bisect an opposing two or three midfielders, if you can picture the scenario. Sarr used this weapon in moderation, which is reasonable enough; but he nevertheless made it clear that such a thing is a gift he possesses.

All told, the young cad vastly exceeded expectations, and moreover did enough to suggest that Central Midfield need not be a topic of furrowed broughs and panicked curses for the remainder of the season.

2. Skipp

Of the pair, Sarr probably edged things from the AANP perspective, but young Master Skipp was not far behind. In fact, Skipp was not far behind anyone in midfield the whole night long. If a Milan sort had ball at feet and a bit of greenery in front of him, you could bet a few quid that he would also have a spot of Skipp CO2 warming the back of his neck.

Skipp’s starting positions were not always in quite the ideal coordinates, but one of the advantages of being an indefatigable sort of bean is that such oversights can quickly be corrected. If Skipp didn’t necessarily always put out the nearest fire, he did at least keep a close eye on it and generally harry the dickens out of it.

Another minor note I would scribble in his margin is that he did tend to opt for a backwards pass as his default option; but in the context of everything else it seems a mite unfair to beat the poor lad with this particular stick. Skipp did a splendid job of things, both in the blood-and-thunder aspects and also when stretching every sinew to keep our hosts at bay.

Perhaps most striking from the AANP perspective was the relentless energy he and Sarr displayed throughout. Both Bentancur and Hojbjerg will put in the hours – neither could every really be accused of shirking their duties – but the two on show last night were relentless. Every time a Milan player took up possession in or around the centre circle, as sure as night follows day you could guarantee that one of Sarr or Skipp would be buzzing into view at a rate of knots to confront them and set about debating the thing.

Bentancur, as mentioned above, is the central cog in all this, but I do sometimes watch Hojbjerg and wonder what he is adding beyond a lot of increasingly irate pointing and shouting. He has some very good days (witness Man City the other week) but also some pretty anonymous ones. Moreover, he just doesn’t seem to have the energy and pace of the younglets of last night. The point I’m driving at is that if we were to kick off the next game or two with Messrs S & S in residence, and P-E H wrapped up in a duffel coat on the bench, then I’d greet the news with a pretty nonchalant shrug – and that’s high praise for the young pair.

(Alternatively, switching to a back four, starting S&S and having a third midfielder alongside them, to add some attacking flavour, would really make the eyes leap from their sockets.)

3. Romero

Alas, not everyone was as on top of their game as the midfield youths. Senor Romero has had plenty of sparkling days in lilywhite, but it would not be stretching the bounds of literary credibility to state that last night was not amongst them. Some way down the list, I’d fancy.

For a start, this business of his wild, bookable lunges has really gone too far. Now don’t get me wrong. AANP appreciates the singing thwack of one hefty limb against another as much as the next cove. A time and a place of course, but who amongst us does not occasionally think that matters of disagreement are best settled by a challenge of sufficient rigour and meat to win ball, upend man and excavate a small plot of land simultaneously?

All well and good, if done with observance of appropriate conditions. Correct and exact timing of the deed being one such condition. Making clear to the viewing public that winnings have been obtained from the transaction is another. Tick these and various related boxes, and such acts of robustness can earn pretty enthusiastic reviews.

Romero, however, seems to have started caring less and less about the small print, and begun obsessing about nothing else than sending his nominated target cartwheeling about five yards skywards, seemingly treating this as the principal objective of his each and every matchday. I’m not entirely sure what’s got into the chap. He’s just won a World Cup, dash it, what the devil is he trying to prove?

Anyway, it happens like clockwork – unnecessarily and often a little early on in proceedings. And not for any obvious higher purpose either. Should he take a great big chunk out of an opponent who is readying himself to deliver a fatal blow and leather the ball into our net, I would offer an accepting shrug and console myself that his intervention was made for the greater good. But Romero tends to launch his ambush when the opponent is involved in some pretty innocuous hobnobbing a few yards south of the halfway line, with no real danger appearing anywhere on the radar.

At best it leaves the blighter on a tightrope for the rest of the half. One understands the principle of pressing high and giving the opponent a timely nudge; and one similarly sympathises if once in a blue moon the fellow loses his head and aims an unsubtle kick; but to wildly swing the hatchet every ruddy game does make one scratch the loaf and ask politely if the young man is quite right in the head.

On top of that, Romero made a pretty serious clanger in the opening exchanges, which led to the only goal. Now it’s hardly for me to lecture anyone on the art of defending, but the consensus amongst the great and good seems to be that he got himself in a frightful positional muddle in trying to deal with the aerial ball lofted in his direction, resulting in some pretty frantic back-pedalling, an attempted header in which just about every limb was pointing in sub-optimal directions and an ungainly descent to earth. As the Milan charlie sped away towards goal, hindered only by the moving mannequin that is Eric Dier, Romero was still untangling his limbs on the San Siro turf.

One could, of course, excuse such errors as part and parcel of human fallibility, but on occasions such as these we really need players of the ilk of Romero to rattle off near-flawless routines. Goodness knows we have enough of his comrades queueing up to botch things without him also getting in on the act.

4. Sonny and His Would-Be Replacements

Oddly enough I actually thought that Sonny looked a bit rosier of cheek than he has done for much of the season. Particularly in the early knockings, he seemed taken by the urge to scurry with or without ball – albeit typically in his own half – but in general he seemed a bit more fluid than in recent weeks. The ball was not getting caught in his feet, nor was he running straight into the nearest opponent.

Alas, “Not running straight into the nearest opponent” was probably the highlight of his performance. He could occasionally be spotted, pootling around with an air of a fellow who wants to make his mark, but offered precious little creative spark or availability to assist those around him.

Nothing new there, I suppose – but there’s the rub. This happens over and over, and while we were all thrilled for the young bean that he bagged a couple against Preston or whomever in the Cup, he remains distinctly off-colour. And whereas in years gone by one would be a mite wary of replacing him with someone of obviously lesser calibre – a Clinton Njie, if you will – we now have a shiny, functioning and rather expensive Richarlison primed and ready to replace him. Fresh from a pretty wholesome World Cup too, dash it!

So what the hell is the delay? Sonny’s little mournful period of introspection has dragged on for months now. While we all sympathise with the chap, I rather wish he could conduct his soul-searching somewhere less public, and let Richarlison stomp around from the start, and for a few consecutive games. Or give the lad Danjuma a swing, if that fits the positional narrative a little better.

Either way, this business of Sonny being undroppable only really makes sense if he is tearing up the town each week, leaving in his wake a trail of dazed opponents and all manner of goodies in his swag bag. He isn’t, and each week the harvest is weak. And yet, Our Glorious Leader will not be moved. To say the mind boggles understates the thing.

Nonetheless, despite all of the above, I still oozed back to the ranch last night fancying that we could fairly comfortably progress from this tie. Of course, it would require the half-decent version of our lot to turn up, and what the hell sorcery is required to produce that is anyone’s guess. But the point is that Milan were no particular great shakes, and our lot have enough about them, certainly in attack and, seemingly now, in midfield, to click into gear, once the stars align. So not all doom and gloom.

Tags AC Milan, Antonio Conte, Champions League, Cristian Romero, Hojbjerg, Oliver Skipp, Pape Matar Sarr, Rodrigo Bentancur, Son Heung Min

Spurs match reports

Spurs 1-0 Man City: Six Tottenham Talking Points

Post author By AANP
Post date February 6, 2023
14 Comments on Spurs 1-0 Man City: Six Tottenham Talking Points

1. Conte-Ball: Defending

I suppose the more smug amongst us would claim, on the basis of recent history in this fixture, to have seen this coming (although I’ve always thought there’s a certain wonkiness to such reasoning, namely that the results and personnel and whatnot from years gone by ought not to have anything to do with getting one’s hand dirty in the here and now).

Anyway, the point here is that if some of the smarter coves had pencilled in “1-0” beforehand then good for them, but I’m not sure any man, woman or child on the planet would have foreseen us accompanying that 1-0 scoreline with a masterclass of this ilk.

‘Masterclass’ was the term I used above, and I’ll fling it around a bit more now. From the off it was apparent that City were going to grab the ball and hang on to it for most of the evening. And frankly, not an eyelid was batted at that. I think we’ve all seen enough of this mob to know that that’s how they set about in life, and of itself it doesn’t really cause that much damage. One just learns to work around it, and our lot certainly seemed to take it all in their stride. Collective shrugs and diligent positioning seemed about the sum of it from our heroes, with everyone knowing their lines and the whole thing panning out as if it had been rehearsed this way for months.

When City oozed up towards our area, our back five generally did sensible things, which started off as a relief and quickly became a rather satisfying watch – doubling up on Grealish and Mahrez, blocking off shots, that sort of thing. It helped that Pep pulled his usual party-trick of wildly over-thinking matters rather than simply shoving the best midfielder around behind one of the best forwards around and letting them go wild; but that wasn’t really our concern. If City were adamant that feeding Haaland was only to be a last resort then that was their prerogative. The crucial thread from a lilywhite perspective was that as and when required, our back-five kept the other lot at arm’s length.

Nor was this set-up the sole preserve of the designated defenders. As City scratched their heads and popped possession around in the middle of the court, our attacking triumvirate obediently trotted off to their designated targets, allowing Bentancur and Hojbjerg to dash around putting out fires in midfield. It was all so well organised that one could well imagine Signor Conte lighting a most satisfied cigar, if such things were not – presumably – frowned upon in the healthcare centres of Turin.

2. Conte-Ball: Attacking

However, defending against City is but one part of the challenge, and a relatively straightforward one at that. The broader picture was more complex. The whole thing was like one of those GCSE Maths equations from back in the day, containing all sorts of garbled messages within various sets of brackets, and just when you’re patting yourself on the back for deciphering the contents of one set of brackets, you look up and realise there’s about fifteen others to come. So it can be with playing Man City. Setting up to defend against them is all well and good, but after about five minutes of that I did find that the ghost of Jose Mourinho was sidling up to me and quietly enquiring whether I could stomach it for a full 90 minutes.

Mercifully, Conte’s masterclass extended well beyond the perimeter of our own penalty area. There was also a plan for the opposing penalty area, and extraordinarily, the critical component of this was Eric Dier, of all people.

The gist of the thing was as follows. With City rolling the ball around their own playpen, casual to the gills, our front three shoved up in the faces of their back three. This was a steady start, thrusting the main characters into the foreground as it were. But it was the supporting cast who caught the eye, because Eric Dier then mooched forward from his position slap bang in the heart of defence, and stationed himself slap bang in the heart of midfield.

If one were a little petty and childlike about such things, one might gently clear the throat and refer to having banged on for weeks about the need to shove another body in midfield; but that is hardly germane. What was critical here was that Dier’s temporary foray into midfield meant that Hojbjerg and Bentancur had licence to press further forward. And the upshot of all this small print was that when our esteemed hosts shuffled the thing from A to B without due care and attention, Hojbjerg was on hand to snaffle the life out of the poor mite in possession, setting up Kane for his moment. Cue more cigar smoke billowing around the hospital wards of Turin.

The other element of the plan was arguably the most fun part, comprising as it did our heroes racing up the pitch on the counter-attack every five minutes, against a bizarrely undermanned opposing defence. In the first half this tactic kept things interesting, albeit the winnings never really extended beyond the occasional corner.

But in the second half, by golly it looked like every time we cleared the ball we would, within about three and a half seconds, be up the other end and clean through on goal. Of course, at one-nil, one always gives the fingernails a good going over, but nevertheless it was actually pretty riotous fun.

I had never quite followed the whirs and clicks of those “Expected Goals” statistics, but I think the point of them is to reflect that, in a game like yesterday’s, for all their possession City didn’t really look like scoring (even the shot that hit the post seemed to do so rather apologetically); while our lot could conceivably have had three or four in that second half. Possession be damned, this was a triumph for Expected Goals and cigar smoke.

3. Emerson Royal

And as if cantering to a pretty serene and composed victory against the Champions wasn’t already peculiar enough, the poster boy for the whole thing was none other than Emerson Royal.

I have heard it said that the rationale in shoving overboard Messrs Spence and Doherty while treating Emerson to pats on the head and tummy-tickles was that while the former pair are moulded in the same gung-ho shape as Pedro Porro, Emerson is a more defensive sort of breed, and therefore increases the options in the squad. This actually makes a decent wad of sense, but for anyone struggling to follow the thread, yesterday’s match offered a handy visual illustration of the key points.

There will doubtless be games in the coming weeks in which teams opt for the more conservative approach and sit back waiting to see what we’re about. In such instances, the more attacking wing-backs – those from the same conveyor belt as Pedro Porro – will doubtless be called upon for attacking input. Yesterday, however, was a day for clear-headed defensive thinking, and to his credit Emerson plugged away at his task like the dickens.

And it was quite some task, make no mistake. He was up against renowned trickster and professional ruffian Jack Grealish, a fellow as adept at beating a man as he is at tumbling over that same man’s outstretched lower limbs.

It was one heck of a contest. Emerson may have miscalculated the coordinates once or twice, but nine times out of ten he seemed to get the better of Grealish, at least depositing the ball beyond the boundaries of the pitch to let all colleagues to his left catch their breath and reset.

And while Emerson may have displayed hitherto unseen powers of long-term concentration in his defensive duties, he was still happy to throw off the shackles and jump on board whatever attack we stitched together. Indeed, in the second half, as Sonny, Kulusevski and Kane went through the gears and over halfway, Emerson could be seen regularly steaming up and straight through the centre like some demented Olympic sprinter, not necessarily waving his arms and pulling faces but quite possibly yelling “Give it to meeee!” as he motored into the heart of City’s holiest of holies. Quite batty, that chap.

4. Hojbjerg

The consensus seems to be that Emerson was the pick of a pretty impressive bunch, but P.E.H. was hoving into view in his wing mirror at a rate of knots. In fact, Hojbjerg seemed to appear pretty quickly in the wing mirrors of all present, having one of those games in which you looked in one direction and saw him ploughing over a couple of challenges, then looked in a completely different direction and saw him chasing down a City bod.

A lot of the fellow’s work tends to be undertaken in the shadows. Sounds a bit murky admittedly, but I mean his job often involves adopting an appropriate position and stance of readiness, and as such forcing whichever opponent to think twice about whatever perfidy was lined up. The chap aborts, and Hojbjerg, without appearing to do much, has averted a spot of danger.

Yesterday, however, felt a bit like that moment when the anonymous vigilante pops up from out of the shadows, removes his mask and gives cheery waves to all around him, drinking in a spot of applause for good measure. As well as covering a decent amount of mileage in shadowing runners and blocking off passing angles, Hojbjerg also waded knee-deep into the thick of things, and could regularly be spotted breaking up attacks and emerging from a melee of limbs with something of a limp, but the ball, nevertheless, ensconced in his care (his role in the goal being a case in point).

A word similar merit too, to Bentancur, whose ability to receive the ball in a pretty perilous range of circumstances, but calmly manoeuvre a course to safety like the best of them, is now rolled out so regularly I rather start to take it for granted.

5. Sonny

And while on the subject of brief words of commendation being sprinkled like confetti about the place because why not, I’ll reach over and give Sonny a playful punch on the upper arm.

I appreciate that some in the gallery might, at this point, think things are getting a little out of hand, and furtively shove the decanter to a spot beyond my immediate grasp. But while Sonny might not have been solid pillar upon which the whole jolly ruckus was built, he made his own little contributions here and there in our counter-attacks; and, more pertinently gave another glimpse or two that Form may be returning to her throne.

Last week saw the welcome return of Sonny’s Shooting Boots – lower league opposition or not, it was a relief to see the chap strike a ball with the sweet timing of a cover drive at Lord’s. And yesterday, I felt like a further box was ticked in his rehabilitation, as on several occasions he collected the ball and set off on a gallop.

Nothing particularly memorable there, you might think. But consider the context, of his inability all season to take three steps without stumbling like a chap having the dickens of a time remembering which leg is which, and the sight of him tearing through the wide open spaces yesterday made the the juices flow and pulse quicken.

There was a spot of end-product thrown in too, the loveable bounder picking a couple of sensible short passes to his left and right at the conclusion of his jollies, where previously in such circumstances he had seemed to get a little lost in a cloud of options and bounce straight into opponents. Not quite vintage Sonny just yet, but the evidence suggests it’s on its way.

6. Kane

The final word, however, belongs to Harry Kane. In truth, the first and middle words ought to as well but I’m sure he won’t mind. His finish was actually one of the less sensational variety, although it still boasted the impressive quality of being his first kick of the ball in the match.

But this was a day to salute the fellow’s longevity. As he himself noted afterwards, the years have rather whistled by – eleven of them now, since the Shamrock Rovers affair – but to rack up 267 goals in that time is really the sort of stat that makes you pause, compute and then widen the eyes and say “Golly”.

When I consider the hours my old man, AANP Senior, has spent rattling off the exploits of Jimmy Greaves as the stuff of legend, it is easy to take for granted quite what a privilege it is to witness Kane go about his relentless business each week. Kane will be spoken of in the way Greaves was, and while there is no real knowing what the blazes will happen to English football in the coming decades, it seems rather a stretch to imagine some other johnnie buzzing along and rattling off 268 or however many more. A privilege to have him about the place. Bravo, sir

Tags Antonio Conte, Emerson Royal, Eric Dier, Harry Kane, Hojbjerg, Jimmy Greaves, Man City, Premier League, Rodrigo Bentancur, Son Heung Min

Spurs match reports

Preton N.E. 0-3 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

Post author By AANP
Post date January 29, 2023
3 Comments on Preton N.E. 0-3 Spurs: Three Tottenham Talking Points

1. Son

“That’ll do,” would presumably be the anthem at Casa Son this weekend, after that rousing exhibition. Those in the broadcast studios seemed pretty eager to advertise this as something far greater. Itching to herald the return of Peak Sonny, it seemed to me. Which one understands I suppose, for nothing attracts the masses like some overbeefed headline, but the reality struck me as being a tad more mundane – to wit, this was good, wholesome stuff but still some way from the Sonny of recent years.

Not to denigrate the young lemon’s goals, for they were amongst the finest of their vintage. ‘Aplomb’ doesn’t really do either justice, as both were despatched with a whole glut of plombs.

The warning signs had been there. In the first half on a couple of occasions he had adopted that pose of old, squeezing the ball from his feet, giving himself a yard or two and whipping the thing for all he was worth. The Preston goalkeeper had made a bit of a drama of blocking them off, seeming to dance all around them even when they were being rammed straight down his gullet. His closest chums had no doubt feared for him in anticipation of a moment when such shots were directed to more eastern or western extremes.

And in the second half it came to pass. Sonny married dead-eyed, bottom-corner accuracy to that whippy technique, and at that point one would have forgiven the Preston GK bod for stuffing his possessions into a bag, slinging it over his shoulder and clocking off for the evening.

Son’s first was absolutely top-notch stuff by just about any metric you care to think of. The poor old Preston defender who trotted out to challenge him would probably have thought that from about 25 yards the chances of significant damage ranked somewhere between ‘Moderate’ and ‘Low’, but this did not take into account the fact that Son was about to unleash a shot for the ages.

It was one of those that starts its journey gaily swinging well outside the line of the post, and then injects one heck of a plot twist, veering back into focus and inside the framework. For added panache it even ended up in the bottom corner, the footballing equivalent of shooting someone a look of quiet superiority. I can’t quite remember whether the Preston goalkeeper bothered to throw in a dive, but if he did it would have been strictly for ornamental purposes only.

The second goal was less about artistic merit and more a tale of clinical goalscoring. A scribe who simply wants to communicate the essentials and get on with their evening might sum it up as “Left-foot, close range”, which I suppose would get full marks for veracity, but would rather short-change the public. It may have all happened in the blink of an eye, but there was actually a decent amount of spadework to be done from the moment Perisic flicked the ball into Son’s path. A touch to control, a pirouette to shift the old balance from hither to thither, another touch to set the thing just so – all this was crammed into a single frame, and before you knew it Sonny was leathering the thing. By this point one rather felt for that hapless Preston goalkeeper as he dabbed a mournful glove at the ball whizzing past him.

So in terms of goals scored and the manner in which the aforementioned was undertaken, this was pretty sparkling stuff. Focus only on the goals, and you could – as did the BBC mob – make quite the song and dance about how all of Son’s woes were now behind him and he was now once again the master of all he surveyed.

However, not to put too great a dampener on things but while his finishing boots clicked smoothly into gear in that second half, various of the other crucial elements seemed not quite to have landed. The fleet-footed dribbles through crowded areas did not quite strike oil. Those gallops of his from deep and into wide open spaces rather spluttered and came to a halt. In short, this seemed not so much the Son of old as a pretty impressive attempted clone, which on the surface had it nailed, but on closer inspection still required that a few glitches be ironed out.

Nevertheless, a couple of goals against lower-league fluff were the sort of thing any capable doctor might have ordered. Bash out something similar in a week against Man City and we really can give the hands a gleeful rub and start referring back to his output of seasons past.

2. Sessegnon

And perhaps the gentle nature of the opponents fed the thinking of Our Glorious Leader in opting for Sessegnon on the left, as an opportunity for the young fellow to cast aside his cares and make a goodish bit of hay.

Alas, with each passing game Sessegnon strikes me increasingly as one of those eggs for whom no amount of assistance will make much of a dent. One can only bang on about potential for so long, what? At some point the fellow will have to puff out his chest and start playing like a wing-back of near-enough Champions League standard. As with Sonny, one would have thought that lower-league fluff would provide a decent platform.

Instead, I noted fairly early on in proceedings a rather gloomy correlation between Sessegnon arriving Stage Left to deliver his lines, and our move, whatever it happened to be, immediately breaking down. If he tried to take on his man, he failed. If he tried to deliver a cross, he failed. I didn’t witness it, so cannot be sure, but have a feeling that if he had tried to write his own name or recite the alphabet, he would have pretty quickly come a cropper, and trudged off with that usual, melancholy expression that is becoming so familiar.

If this is to be his lot in life – I mean filling in on the left in the occasional low-stakes jaunt – then I suppose we can all muddle through. Make polite noises and avoid any awkward conversations about where the hell we would be should the Perisic engine ever splutter to a halt. But if Sessegnon is ever to develop and progress into a first-choice ripsnorter of Rose-esque quality then he really needs to get a wriggle on.

The occasional 8-out-of-10 would be a solid start, and really, by this stage he ought to be stringing together several of those consecutively. Instead, Sessegnon seems rarely to elevate himself above a 6, and more typically, as last night, he registers a performance so ordinary that it feels kinder not to rate him but to gloss over his presence altogether, and bang on a bit about Son and Danjuma and whatnot instead. With that Destiny fellow apparently crossing t’s and dotting i’s out on loan in Italy, it might be that the remaining few months of the season represent Sessegnon’s last stand in lilywhite.

3. Subs

With the game near enough won, Conte did what any right-thinking bean would do, and swapped around the pieces on the board. In fact, Conte had already licked his lips and exercised his creative juices, with the selection of Perisic as the central attacker, but the second goal brought a slew of changes that frankly had me struggling to keep up.

Of course, Danjuma was the most fascinating sight, the entirety of AANP’s knowledge of the chap prior to his arrival deriving from one of those computer games one ought to know better than to dip into.

He seemed to make a solid stab at things, what? Full of beans, and no qualms about waving a few angry limbs at whomever was in earshot and calling a spade a spade. His very first involvement was pretty breezy stuff – giving and going, that sort of jolly rot, and very nearly finding himself clean through.

He didn’t have to wait too long for his moment of glory either, and while even his closest family members would struggle to build an argument suggesting that his strike was an aesthetic masterpiece, his goal was nevertheless a triumph for such virtues as arriving in the designated spot at the designated time, and generally sharpening one’s elbows and showing a willingness to pop into the area and have a sniff.

Less glamorously, and a fair few yards further south, I thought this was the best little cameo from young O. Skipp Esq. to which we have been treated all season. Having looked quite the appropriate fit whenever he featured last season, this time around things have been more stop than start and more miss than hit. A lack of game-time has obviously not helped, but last night he popped up with all the usual willing, and then, impressively, proceeded to get just about everything right every time he touched the ball.

One doesn’t read too much into these things of course, as there can be few gentler introductions in life than coming on when two goals up against a lower-league side, but nevertheless, having witnessed Bentancur shimmy about the place for an hour looking comfortably better than all around him, it was heartening to see young Skipp similarly do all that one would hope of the competent, modern midfielder.

And finally, as ever, young Gil came on and tore around like an over-excited puppy. A few neat passes, some quick feet and a handy contribution to the third goal represented a decent ten minutes’ work from the likeable young sprout. Despite a few eye-catching recent performances it appears that Gil remains a few notches down the pecking order, with rumblings of a loan move echoing about the place. Such is life, I suppose, but I do rather enjoy seeing these glimpses, and would welcome more.

All things considered, this was a pretty satisfying evening’s work. A second successive clean sheet, a rest for Kane and goals for Sonny, a debut goal for Danjuma and some decent substitute contributions make for as serene a Cup away day as one can imagine. I don’t mind admitting that I put in a worried gulp or two when I saw we’d been drawn away to a Championship side, but even during the slightly stodgy first half there was never a point at which we looked in danger of fouling the thing up.

Tags Antonio Conte, Arnaut Danjuma, Bryan Gil, FA Cup, Oliver Skipp, Rodrigo Bentancur, Ryan Sessegnon, Son Heung Min

Spurs match reports

Fulham 0-1 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

Post author By AANP
Post date January 24, 2023
6 Comments on Fulham 0-1 Spurs: Four Tottenham Talking Points

1. Kane

Decency dictates that we start with this chap and do him a bit of homage. It’s hardly an unusual script – great swathes of tepid dross punctuated suddenly by a moment of quality from Kane completely out of keeping with the rest – but even more remarkable for it.

Covering the specifics first, and when Kane received the ball one would have hardly expected the Fulham gang to sound their klaxons and generally lose their heads. Admittedly, Kane receiving the ball just outside the area is not ideal for any opponent, but contextual factors at least seemed to be stacked marginally in their favour.

He received the thing with his back to goal for a start. This by no means neuters him, but one would have expected the Fulham ‘keeper at least to allow himself a short puff of the cheeks, for the immediate threat of a shot seemed pretty low on the Risk Assessment.

On top of which, Fulham had their back-line in position and ready to get down to brass tacks. The chappies on Sky Sports took to whining that one of the centre-backs might have moved half a yard more to the left or some such guff, but when such intricate witterings are being voiced it is time to block the ears and move on. Our attacking move was in what rugby bods might call its third or fourth phase, and Fulham were fairly well organised, with banks of four and five and whatnot all neatly arranged.

Moreover, on receiving the ball in this position of fairly bleak promise, it is not as if Kane then dipped a shoulder, unleashed a Cruyff and was suddenly clean through on goal. He, understandably, collected it and set off on the scenic route, around the outside of the area. If those in Fulham’s Control Room had started shooting each other quizzical looks, with hands hovering uncertainly over the button marked ‘Panic’, one would have understood, because through this manoeuvre Kane was, if nothing else, setting himself up on his right foot. Nevertheless, there was a whole gaggle of bodies stationed between him and the goal, so if alert levels had remained low one would have sympathised.

Kane, however, being of a different plane, cared little for any of the above, and simply spanked the thing, without even bothering to look. To repeat, it was a piece of skill entirely out of keeping with what any of what had gone before, and well worthy of winning a match of high quality, let alone this onerous dirge.

While the chatter in some quarters is that Greaves has two Charity Shield goals that have not been credited to his account, which would bump his tally up to 268, I am happy for the pedants to tie themselves in knots over that one. Kane would no doubt have settled for a deflection of a lesser-used body part while he looked the other way if it had added to his numbers, but for him to equal our record in this particular fashion felt particularly satisfying.

On top of which, sources of good repute have been reporting that the curious bean is actually interested in extending his contract at N17, which, while welcome news, does make me wonder if the poor fellow has lost his mind. Still, it all made for a match-winning innings and rounded off a fun night-time jaunt. Who knows, it might even make those who once considered him a rotter reconsider their stance.

2. Our Passing (First Half vs Second Half)

To say that things started poorly is to speak rather kindly of affairs. We were, as is so often the case, pretty dreadful from the off. Fulham sorts seemed to scurry down the flanks at their convenience, producing a steady stream of crosses into our area throughout the first half, with which our heroes dealt with varying degrees of assurance and success. I suppose the important stat is the big fat zero in the ‘Goals Conceded’ column, but this vulnerability did make me sweat a bit, or at least would have done if I had had any optimism left in me while watching Spurs these days.

Anyway, aside from the free pass Fulham received down our sides, I found myself registering considerable bafflement at the passing display by our lot in the first half. Obviously, this being Spurs, one is used to seeing experienced international players set about their tasks like they’ve never seen a football before, but even by our standards the errant passing on display was pretty tough to digest.

Of course, nobody is perfect, and the occasional pass that doesn’t reach its mark one tries one’s best to shrug off. There tend to be mitigating circumstances – proximity of an opponent, lack of options, pressure to clear danger – that sort of stuff.

But as I watched on with ever growing incredulity in the first half hour or so, our lot seemed routinely to pass straight to opposing players. Sometimes under pressure, sometimes under none. And not those near-miss passes, the sort when an attacking nib is trying to thread one through the eye of a needle to set a chum clean through on goal – this was just basic five-yard stuff inside our own half. For the life of me I couldn’t fathom what was going on.

Anyway, whatever the mysterious goings-on afoot, we made it through to circa minute 44 unscathed, at which point we then turned up the dial a few notches and gave Fulham a few things to think about for a pretty impressive spell of about three minutes, culminating in Kane’s goal. Which did make me wonder quite how things might have panned out if we’d found our range and given them a bit of going-over a little earlier in the piece, but sometimes it is best not to overthink these things.

In the second half, our heroes tightened things considerably, and Fulham barely had a sniff. As impressive as the defensive arrangements was the fact that having blunted any approaching danger, our troops, in eye-catching distinction to the first half, started passing the ball around opponents and out of defence as if pinging it through a field of mannequins.

It was jolly impressive stuff per se, but particularly in light of the nonsense that had preceded it in the first half, I could scarcely believe what I was seeing. Put it this way, if you were in the market for thirty seconds of crisp, one-touch diagonals, you need not have looked much further.

After a while, these little moves stopped happening in any real attacking sense – the on-field consensus seeming to be that one goal ought to be enough – but whenever possession was won in and around our own area, the impressive little triangles would kick off once more.

3. Son

Those who care about such things would probably hammer home the fact that Sonny, strictly speaking, set up our winner. This I suppose is true by the letter of the law but does have about it the sense of one claiming to be a chef after producing a plate of beans on toast.

Still, it is one for the tally, so good for him. But if anyone were to point to that and use it as a defence of his performance, I would personally lean over and give them a pretty meaningful eye.

Make no mistake, Sonny continues to struggle through matches well below par. Every attempted dribble ended in a calamitous ball of limbs as he was pretty much snuffed out at source. In fact, every time he simply tried to run with the ball it looked as if either his feet or the ball, or all of the above, were drenched in treacle and then deposited in quicksand for good measure. In short, this vexing trend of things just not quite clicking for him continued to vex.

The gentle pass into the path of Kane, for his goal, was something of a highlight, not just because it led to the goal, but simply by virtue of it being an instance of him successfully finding a teammate.

Now I doubt there is a soul alive of lilywhite persuasion and sound mind who advocates any particular draconian fate ought therefore to befall the chap. Nobody is calling for his head, or suggesting we slap a price-tag on him and cart him off to the highest bidder.

But given that we have invested in a fellow of the beans of Richarlison, it does not seem too radical a proposition to suggest we swap the two of them around every now and then, what? If Sonny is simply not firing as programmed, so be it. Let him sit out a game or two, and there will hardly be a dip in quality if we shove Richarlison on in his place with instructions to do his worst. Different sorts of laddies no doubt, but the Brazilian seemed pretty bucked while on World Cup duty (albeit playing as central striker), and more to the point he would do no worse than the Sonny of Season 22/23.

If Richarlison is still labouring under whatever the latest ailment might be, then one grudgingly accepts that he is best left on the bench for now. Otherwise, however, the whole bally approach makes little sense. If he is not started now, when Sonny is at his lowest ebb, then when the hell will he be started?

4. Our Travelling Fans

A note in passing on the racket kicked up by our lot in the stands. Dashed impressive, I thought. High energy and relentless from first whistle to last, the only shame being that it did not occur to the eleven on the pitch to emulate them, but one can’t have everything I suppose. At one point our fans even cleared the throats for a rendition of McNarama’s Band, which had me raising a particularly impressed eyebrow.

On this business of the polite requests for structural reorganisation within the corridors of N17, AANP waves a weary hand, happy to let those better informed exercise their democratic right. But I was certainly taken by the din produced, back-slaps all round.

Tags Fulham, Harry Kane, Premier League, Richarlison, Son Heung Min

Spurs match reports

Spurs 0-2 Arsenal: Five Tottenham Talking Points

Post author By AANP
Post date January 16, 2023
12 Comments on Spurs 0-2 Arsenal: Five Tottenham Talking Points

1. Lloris

After yesterday’s mess, anyone in the market for a spot of finger-pointing would have no shortage of options, for “Sub-Par” seemed to have been the motto adopted by our lot throughout. Nevertheless, even Hugo Lloris’s own family members would probably have to accept that their man played a pretty critical role in the whole sorry affair.

It would be a stretch to say that we were on top of things, or even matching Woolwich, at the time of his main clanger. Although the scores were level, they were making good use of their extra man in midfield, passing from the back and through our press a little too niftily for my liking and having oodles of joy in that Saka-Sessegnon mismatch.

But nevertheless. The scores were still level, and our lot were showing a bit of willing going forward. On top of which the atmosphere in the place, while hardly confident, was at least still hopeful. When a first-minute pass into the path of Sessegnon on halfway is greeted by a roar the like of which is normally reserved for a goal, you know that the watching masses are suitably bucked. Anything, one felt, might yet happen.

Alas, what did happen was Monsieur Lloris treating us to the latest malcoordinated flail of his limbs. Maddeningly, he had signposted that he was in the mood for a clanger just moments earlier. A back-pass of the harmless variety had landed his way, and rather than just deal with the thing through means cultured or otherwise, he went down the bizarre route of assuming that he would be allowed to saunter unchallenged across his area for as long as he fancied.

Well, it didn’t take 10 years in the Premier League, 100+ international caps and two World Cup Finals to see that that the scheme was doomed. Barely had Lloris started dribbling the thing than an opponent was at his back, and routes to escape were fast disappearing. Lloris sought solace in the form of a countryman, but popping the ball at Lenglet’s right peg added a further layer of complication.

Not that Lenglet should have had too much difficulty in simply blasting the ball to safety, whichever foot was required, being an international footballer and whatnot. But, perhaps taking a cue from his captain, he botched the operation further by giving the ball straight to a Woolwich player in the six-yard box, of all things. In the panic that followed, Lloris at least had the dignity to save at point-blank range, but the awkward glances were already being exchanged.

And sure enough, calamity soon struck. Which is to say a fairly straightforward undertaking was required, and Lloris made a pig’s ear of it again.

One might leap to his defence by pointing to the various mitigating factors about the place. Sessegnon might have done better than simply stepping aside and waving Saka through; the cross when delivered caught a deflection of the small-but-critical variety; and it also came flying in at a rate of knots.

And if the blister charged with minding the net had been a ten year-old, or perhaps an elderly and overweight sort whose hand-eye coordination has always been a bit off, these might well have been acceptable excuses. But for a chappie whose life is dedicated to catching footballs, and who, as mentioned above, has more Premier League and international appearances than one can shake a stick at, such excuses do not wash. Catch the bally thing. Or at the very least buffet it off into a safe space.

Watching Lloris instead pat the ball upwards and backwards into his own net really did have the will to live seep from every pore of my being.

Thereafter, all the saves in the world would have done little to rectify things, because in a game in which we were second-best anyway, it was pretty crucial to avoid gifting them a goal, and similarly crucial to keep the atmosphere charged and hopeful.

Not that Lloris did make all the saves in the world thereafter. Romero was to a large degree at fault for the second goal – first in not bothering to close down the chappie, and then turning his back on the shot, forsooth – but from 25 yards or so one would expect a luminary of the goalkeeping trade to cover his bases and extend a sturdy paw sufficiently. Lloris was beaten too easily, and I imagine there are now few about the place who expect him still to be in situ come the start of season 23/24.

2. Sessegnon

For young Sessegnon already to have been chastised twice above in a sermon about the failings of another player entirely is rather telling.

His selection certainly gave the eyebrows of all in N17 a bit of a pre-match jolt, but one could at least attempt to explain it away, loosely on the grounds of the vivacity of youth – Perisic, after all, while a bit of a specialist with the ball at his feet and the masses howling for a cross, is not the sort of chap at whom one would point and say, “There’s the fellow on whom I wish to build a defence, particularly on account of his breakneck speed”. With Saka in opposition, I presumed that Conte saw in Sessegnon a young bean with enough to pace to thwart Woolwich’s right-sided threat.

A nice idea in theory, but pretty wildly off the mark in practice. How Perisic might have fared in that first half against Saka we’ll never know, but the berth was Sessegnon’s and it was pretty obvious from even casual observation that he was pretty powerless to stop Saka doing whatever he damn well pleased. With neither Lenglet nor Son particularly inclined to help out, we pretty much just resigned ourselves, at least in the first half, to that flank being wide open for business and as good as unmanned.

Sessegnon did show some early inclination to carry out the more attack-minded elements of his role, but even there, having made the necessary gallops into threatening territory, he was let down time and again by a string of crosses that seemed to give up on their mission as soon as they left his foot.

In the interests of fairness it should be noted that his dash infield, which brought about the first-half chance for Sonny, was impressively bobbish. It showed a spirit of enterprise and adventure we otherwise lacked, and was topped off with a surprisingly crafty little diagonal through-ball. What the devil he was doing there, in some sort of Number 10 slot, is anyone’s guess, but it was much-needed.

He also combined neatly with Kane for his one-on-one in the second half, but whatever merit he earns for making the run, he rather loses for failing to bury the chance.

Those two little jaunts aside, I saw precious little in his performance to impress, and even before half-time I was constructing the argument for his removal and replacement by Perisic.

3. Sarr

The other selection of considerable note was that of Pape Matar Sarr. One rather sympathised with the young bounder, for as long Conte sticks with his 3-4-3 then the central midfield pair will almost always find themselves outnumbered, which seemed a rotten hand to deal a fellow on his full debut.

I suppose if one were to cast a cursory eye over a narrative of the first half, and digest that the Woolwich mob cantered through the centre pretty much at will, one might conclude that the Sarr selection was a failure on a par with that of Sessegnon.

However, I am inclined to launch a fairly robust defence of young Sarr. Given that Woolwich employed a midfield three, often supplemented by a fourth in Zinchenko, Sarr admittedly spent a lot of time simply chasing shadows, but, as I have thought of Messrs Benancur and Hojbjerg at various other points in the season, the lad can hardly be blamed for being outnumbered.

When Sarr was able to intervene, he did so well enough. He took to his tasks with plenty of zest, shuttled the ball along to others sensibly and seemed pretty composed when dwindling options forced him to quicken his feet and dance away from trouble.

He is by no means the finished article, and his yellow card was evidence of the fact that this was a midfield battle we definitely lost. On top of which, for all his positives, he is another in the depressingly long list of hard-working but rather functional sorts, when our midfield absolutely screams out for some creativity. However, both in terms of being outnumbered in midfield, and populating said midfield with functional bods, the blame lies squarely with Our Glorious Leader.

All things considered, I thought Sarr bobbed about pretty well. Quite where he stands in the midfield hierarchy is a little unclear – I heard a whisper that Bissouma had a knock, and Bentancur will certainly waltz straight back in, but Sarr, it appears, is now a credible alternative to and possibly preferred option above young Master Skipp.

4. Kulusevski (and Son’s Ongoing Struggles)

If Sarr’s performance was one of our better ones by virtue of being acceptable enough, Kulusevki’s was possibly the best, by virtue of offering an occasional threat.

Not that you’d have known he was playing in the first half, during which time our heroes struggled to string three passes together. Naturally, beginning the second half with a two-goal deficit was the prompt for a slightly improved performance, and it seemed little coincidence that we were far more threatening once it occurred to those in lilywhite that they were allowed to pass to Kulusevski.

He did his usual thing – running literally around opponents, and yet doing so in surprisingly effective fashion; standing up crosses towards the back post; cutting in to curl efforts with his left foot. And on another day, one or two of those little adventures might have brought slightly richer harvest, but even though the conclusion of his little incursions repeatedly fell a little short, his presence and involvement at least sparked us into life.

By contrast, on the other flank, poor old Sonny once again laboured away like the less talented twin of the chappie from last year. As happens every week, he simply failed to run up a head of steam in any respect. Be it a dribble, shot or attempt to shield and hold up the ball, his bright ideas repeatedly came a cropper at source, and not for the first time we were as ten men and one passenger.

Injury and conditioning no doubt forbad an earlier appearance from Richarlison, but the AANP line from pretty early in the second half was to hook Sonny and plop the Brazilian in his place.

5. Conte’s Role In All Of This

For all of the above, however, my principal grumble is not so much the individual performances as the masterplan (a term with which I play pretty fast and loose) from Our Glorious Leader. Yesterday was a neat illustration of how we are getting on under the chap.

The formation, and in particular the use of a back-three, irks the dickens out of me. I suppose in theory one might argue that the more defenders one thrusts onto the pitch the less likely we are to concede. And perhaps amongst most right-thinking folk, this would work out swimmingly, one fellow covering the next fellow, and so on. If the back-three were watertight and achieved clean sheets every week, the case for it would be pretty compelling.

Amongst our lot, however, the back-three is anything but watertight. And not only is it a pretty flimsy structure, its very existence also weakens our midfield. Deploying three central defenders means deploying only two central midfielders; and as evidenced yesterday – and in almost every match this season – our central midfield pair are routinely overrun by opponents with a midfield three.

On top of which our midfield pair offer precious little creativity because their principal role is to destroy rather than to create. In fact, I often wonder if their principal role is simply to gulp down great mouthfuls of oxygen at every opportunity and recover after galloping around trying to do between them the work of three men.

Aside from the formation, The Conte Way irritates because it seems the general philosophy being peddled is to defend rather than attack or entertain. The strength of our squad is undoubtedly its attacking riches, yet Conte’s primary goal each week seems to be to focus on shutting out the other lot. All of which inclines one to fling up the hands and implore them just to attack for heaven’s sake, what?

The fellow seems to be steering our ship until something more to his liking comes along. One year in and his brand of football is neither fun to watch nor particularly impressive on paper (fifth we may be, but we’re pretty comfortably beaten by all of our ‘rivals’). As I saw it put last night, “Conte’s priority appears simply not to mess up”, and this isn’t much fun to drink in every week.

Tags Antonio Conte, Dejan Kulusevski, Hojbjerg, Hugo Lloris, Ivan Perisic, Pape Matar Sarr, Premier League, Ryan Sessegnon, Son Heung Min, Woolwich