Ange-Ball finally worked as intended on Saturday as Tottenham Hotspur rolled out to a solid 3-1 win over Brentford at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. It was pretty great — despite going down 0-1 after just 23 seconds to a wild Bryan Mbuemo volleyed goal, Spurs roared back and dominated the match with goals from Dominic Solanke and Brennan Johnson. It had a few dicey moments when up 2-1 in the second half, but a late goal from James Maddison sealed the deal. Super fun match, 10/10, would recommend.
Nothing complicated about this theme today, and it’s one that was inspired by the comments. I can’t remember who it was who suggested it — I want to say BroadBrookSpurs but it might have been someone else — but no matter, it was a great idea and I’m stealing it. It originates from whoever the dude was who did play-by-play for the League Cup match against Coventry, because he consistently mispronounced Dejan Kulusevski’s surname. I think he had at least 2 or 3 different pronunciations but midway through the match he settled on “Kuluskevski” with an extra K (for folic acid, I suppose).
It was annoying and irritating, but also kinda funny. So for today’s ratings we’re going with How to Spell Kulusevski (Wrong Answers Only). FFS, just call him Deki.
James Maddison (Community — 4.5): Is this the best match Maddison has played in a Tottenham shirt? Maybe not. But it’s probably pretty close. He was a monster in the press, winning the ball back over and over. He had a hand in all of Tottenham’s goals (including scoring the third) as well as in many other opportunities that never quite came off. Magnificent performance.
Ange Postecoglou (Community — 4.0): Manager ratings are always mostly based on whether the team wins, and we won comfortably, so 5 stars from me. But what was great about this match is that the team fully committed to Ange-Ball tactics against a team that was explicitly set up to frustrate us, and instead they beat the brakes off them. I honestly think in time we’ll look back at this match as the point where things started to “click.”
Brennan Johnson (Community — 4.0): Eff the haters. For the second match in a row BJ put in a very solid performance and got a goal to quiet his critics. And this time he even dribbled a guy! It was great!
Son Heung-Min (Community — 4.0): Six chances created and two assists, that’s a five star performance, right? Should be. And yet! There was something just a little off about Son’s match where he looks like he’s just off in attack — he’s not pulling the trigger where he usually would and looks like he doesn’t fully trust himself, which is odd. He had five star stats and a 3.5 star eye test. Just weird.
Destiny Udogie (Community — 4.0): Really, really good. Looks like he’s starting to round into form and was consistently a threat on the left side, especially tucking inside. His best match yet this season.
Rodrigo Bentancur (Community — 4.0): A quietly solid performance, especially in the press, after what was a pretty disappointing outing in the League Cup midweek. Did a lot of good work that went mostly unrecognized in the aftermath of the match.
Dominic Solanke (Community — 4.0): Finally broke his Spurs duck with a solid goal. Again does a lot of his good work off the ball and in the press, but that work is super important and he’s getting in the right areas to finish off those chances in the box. Once he hits full fitness I think he’s going to be a real positive addition.
Pedro Porro (Community — 3.5): Worked hard as usual, only this time didn’t quite have the impact that he often does when given chances. Not a poor performance, but overshadowed by others in this one.
Cuti Romero (Community — 3.5): See people wanting to give Romero some blame for Mbuemo’s opening goal, but I wouldn’t blame any defender for a player converting a wild 0.05 xG chance that was a foot behind him, even if he had plenty of space. Otherwise, solid enough, didn’t make any real mistakes.
Micky van de Ven (Community — 4.0): Picked up a cheap yellow and was a little lax defensively on a couple of plays, but otherwise solid enough.
Dejan Kulusevski (Community — 4.0): Was primarily responsible (if that’s what you want to call it) for Brentford’s goal by coughing up the ball in a bad area, but was quite solid again in possession afterwards in that central midfield playmaker role.
Guglielmo Vicario (Community — 3.0): Man, I just do not know what to do with this guy. Had a couple of Gomes-worthy gaffes in possession (which, y’know, Ange-Ball will get a keeper in trouble from time to time, but handling the ball outside his box???) but also came through with a couple of world-class reflex saves to keep Brentford at bay. A frenetic and just frankly bizarre performance. 3 stars feels right, I guess?
Yves Bissouma (Community — 3.5): A second half substitute for a knackered Bentancur, and he was pretty decent, which is about all you can ask of him in his first minutes post-injury.
Pape Matar Sarr (Community — 3.0): He was fine.
Remarkably, nobody in this category! Neat!
No Tottenham players were as bad as just giving up and calling him That Swedish Guy (though honestly I wouldn’t hate it compared to the rest of this list)
One Direction Memorial Non-Rating