Is Europe the only thing keeping Ange in the job?
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The Athletic. Hello everybody and welcome once again to The View from the Lane with the Spurs podcast from The Athletic. We happen to be multi-award winning, which is great. Joining me, Danny Kelly, today are Jay Harris from The Athletic and making his debut and perhaps most

Trying to bring a little bit of other perspective to the usual gang moaning about yet another away defeat. From The Athletic, he covers Spurs these days, Elias Burke. Welcome, Jay. How are you? I'm all good, thanks. And welcome, Elias. Great to be working with you. Thank you for having me on, Danny. Good. It's a shame that it's not under better circumstances, but, you know. Well, to be fair, you could have said that you could have started any time in the last 12 months. The 12 months that I've seen Spurs play 38.

Premier League games, that is a complete season. And the last 38 games, they have accrued a vast total of 44 points. I'm not going to get too badly into the stats here, but since the manager seems to want to be gaslighting reporters who are asking questions at press conferences, it is worth noting that the record in recent times is only worse than

only worsened by the teams like Leicester and Southampton, obviously. It's worth noting too that since Leicester beat Spurs, they haven't got a single point or scored a single goal. So something is desperately wrong there. But look, there's nothing more fun in Premier League football, in my opinion, than...

than going to a match at Craven Cottage. Tell us about the day, first of all, and then we'll get into how Spurs were, because it is, Elias, one of the great experiences still open to fans in the Premier League, if you get a chance to go. Yeah, no, it's a great ground. It's like maybe my third or fourth time visiting Craven Cottage. Yeah, it's in a lovely part of the world. The walk to the stadium from Putney Bridge is great. Yeah.

And I mean, like, it's one of the stadiums where, you know, you're not kind of getting too much hassle from supporters sort of thing as well. Everything's all very pleasant there. Well, more about that later on. Yeah. Speaking about hassle from supporters, yeah. But yeah, it was, I mean, yeah, it was a good day. I mean, from a kind of weather and sunshine perspective. But I mean, for what happened on the pitch, yeah, not great for Spurs.

And Jay, I guess you'd echo all of that. And we're looking forward to a lovely afternoon in the London sunshine, even watching a Spurs team that had been, not heavily, but had been rotated.

Yeah, like Elliot said, Craven Cottage is one of my favourite grounds. That walk along the Thames is so picturesque. And it was, yeah, the sun was out and shining. I think the two things I wanted to see in the starting XI were Matisse's tail start and Archie Gray's start in central midfield. So I had a kickoff. I thought, right, I've got the two things that I want to see from that perspective. And so I was sort of raring to go. And then quite early on, it became pretty obvious it was just going to be

the type of game that we've seen hundreds of times this season already. Yeah. I won't be a hypocrite either. You know, I don't want to be Mr. Hindsight, another of the people who are apparently responsible for Spurs' problems. I wanted to see Gray in midfield, so I was pleased with that.

I think the form of Brennan Johnson meant that I wanted to see Tell, but I didn't expect to see both of them. But there they are. You know, they started. The first half, let's be truthful about it. The first half was one of those games you sometimes get in the Premier League where you wonder what all the fuss is about, why the TV companies pay so much money for it, where two teams armed with expensively paid, highly trained, very, very athletic footballers cancel each other out completely and appear to have no...

no-flare way of getting through each other's meshes. But, Elias, we've seen a lot of these games at Spurs where they don't start very well. But Norwich Fulham, to be fair. I mean...

You're better off getting a second half season ticket at Spurs recently. I mean, I think for the past three or four matches, I think, I guess it's four out of five now in all competitions. Talking about RZ, Man City and then Bournemouth. It's taken until the second half for Spurs to kind of wake up in any kind of sense. Yeah, I mean, yeah, Fulham weren't great. I would say Fulham with a better side. And, you know, Spurs didn't really create many chances. But I think it is...

I don't know. I've heard coaches and players speak previously about, okay, when you do an analysis of a football match, it's best to kind of really focus on the first half of the game because that's when you kind of really see what the managers tried to do in that match. Second half, you know, they make adjustments, players come on, etc. It's reactive, exactly.

And, you know, it's not a great indictment on Ange that, you know, in the past three or four matches, Spurs have really kind of done nothing. I mean, for the first time, not really created any chances. I mean, OK, they looked fine defensively, didn't really give anything up, but... Neither side had a shot on target in the first 31 minutes. Well, yeah, I mean... I think they were paying 70 quid to watch that. Yeah.

Is it nine matches now that Spurs haven't had a shot on target on Danj in the Premier League? Which, I mean, granted, you know,

Nuno and Antonio Conte didn't spend a great time at Spurs, not particularly long, but I think it's more than both of them combined. First half, so just three assists for the first half. What did you make of the first half, Jay? I won't leave the witness. What did you make of it? I thought Fulham were the better team and they had a very obvious...

which was basically to get Anthony Robinson or Timothy Castagna to just hurl crosses into the box, basically. I thought Smith-Rowe and Willian combined quite nicely on the left-hand side a couple of times, but without causing Spurs too many problems. But going forward, there was just a complete disconnect. Now, with Tell...

Because I wrote about this on The Athletic. Firstly, he is only 19 and he has only just moved to England from spending a couple of years in Germany. So far, he's played through the middle, on the left, on the right. But what I thought yesterday and what I said to Elias when we were sat next to each other was, he seems to be one of those players who, when he makes a mistake, becomes so desperate that

to atone for that error that he then makes another mistake in quick succession and there was a really good example of it. He went on a, he tried to go on a little bit of a dribble down the left wing. He lost the ball to Andreas Pereira, then tried to sly tackle Pereira right on the touchline but missed and then within 10 seconds he's fouled a Wobbe and he almost at that point just needed to get back into position and

and reset. So I felt like Tell struggled to make an impact. I'm sure we'll get onto Brennan Johnson and I need to pursue him in a little bit further detail. We will. But Johnson, I think there's always been a few question marks about his, his technical quality. I can remember a couple of times where he dropped to receive the ball and tried to like spin it around the corner for Solanke. And there was one occasion where Solanke didn't get it. And Johnson sort of shouted at Solanke. I could hear that from where we were.

I wasn't really too sure if that was Solanke's fault, though. It felt like Johnson was expecting Solanke to do a hell of a lot of hard work there to get that ball. So...

Part of me felt like it was a little bit harsh to single out Basuma and Johnson because no one played well in that first half. I wonder if that's more a comment on their performances over a longer period of time. Sure. And look, Solanke himself, a striker, particularly in these systems which have just one striker, that's...

they can look terrible because they're not getting the service. And he didn't, you know, he missed two good chances. We'll talk about those later on. But we suppose we're,

The most symptomatic thing was the Spurs were failing to get Solanke into the game, whether it was, like you mentioned, they were Brennan Johnson or generally. And so they were just very disjointed. I'm going to do something here. Now make a note of the time and the date. Well, it's St. Patrick's Day, hence the green shirt. Happy St. Patrick's Day, everybody. Make a note of the time because I'm going to say something slightly in defense of Brennan Johnson here. And that's this. The team selection...

With three midfielders, none of which were Kuliseski or Maddison, means that all the creativity then had to come from the wings. And we know that Ange Postakoglu wants his wingers to take people on. And I'm not sure that's Brennan Johnson's strong suit. So he was being asked to do something there that he hasn't been brilliant at, and I'm not sure he is brilliant at. As well as that, on a wider footballing point,

I'm going to say this now so that the manager can hear it, because I know he's an avid listener to the view from the lane. I understand about taking a man on and how the chaos it creates. And we see even teams like Manchester City, bad season that they're having in Doku and Savino. They try and beat that man wide in one-on-one situations. But it remains an...

I will not be removed from this, that if you can pass a ball, it is always better than running with a ball. The simple reason is this. Let's say we start on the halfway line and we have a person who we want to get the ball to 40 yards away. You can get the fastest player in the Premier League, let's call it Mickey Van De Ven for the sake of argument, with a ball at his feet and he can run as fast as he wants.

I, at 104 years of age and with one bad knee, can still get the ball forward better by kicking it. It will go much faster than Mickey can possibly do.

Now, there are other reasons why he might want to run with the ball, positional reasons, chaos reasons, all the rest of it. But overall, this idea of relying on people beating their man, it's – let me just check the UEFA manual here. It's bollocks compared to passing the ball properly. And the modern thing VAR is going to take his man on, is he? How often does that actually work? Pass the ball, gentlemen. And that's why with No Solanke and No Maddison, there's too much reliance on people trying to run at their men.

And we'll see that with Odebeer and the concession of the first goal a little bit later on. But that's not really, just quickly, that's not really on Odebeer. It's basically there's no one ahead of him. So he sort of has to overcomplicate it. Yeah, or kick it out. If he had a passing option, that situation probably wouldn't happen. Sure, and we'll get on to that. Look, the people who were...

obviously held responsible, and in one case very publicly, as being the ones who were

you know replaceable I don't know what the word is expendable even I suppose we shouldn't be surprised uh Elias by the the substitution at half time of Yves Bissouma but I think that's happened three of his last five starts for Spurs um and the manager clearly has no time for him or is that unfair yeah I mean Postacoglu said it in the post-match press conference that

games are drifting by him which is obviously not ideal if you're a midfield player that's the kind of the one position that you need games not to be drifting by um it i mean like basuma obviously wasn't great but it it's not a him problem the midfield is consistently like not very good um

I think only really Bergvall. I mean, Archie Gray, as I say yesterday, was fine. You know, he looked like a profile that could play there long term. It wasn't ideal. It wasn't perfect for him in the first half. There were a couple of moments where he lost possession and perhaps didn't look like

someone that had played there a great deal of time. But yeah, Basuma once again was the one to be hooked. I think it's three in his last six and obviously in consecutive matches as well. You get the sense that he's probably the easiest substitution for Ange at the moment and Johnson's in a similar boat in that respect.

And you'd say like right now it's not particularly clear what he's offering. He's not a six. You could say that he's not impacting the game offensively, nor is he stamping his authority on the game defensively. And if you're trying to play this kind of Angebo style that is a little bit kind of more high octane,

I really do think in Basuma's defence that having a player like Van de Ven in the back line that offers that kind of recovery pace ability, which allows the team to kind of push up 10, 15 yards and not have to think about what's happening so far behind them, allows him then to get a little bit further forward and get on the ball a little bit more defensively.

The games are a little bit like basketball games at the moment under Ange. I think in the past three or four matches that's been the case. And for a player like Basuma, if you're not winning your first contacts, if you're not being really, really good in possession and making decisions really well, you're not playing with confidence, it's a really, really difficult situation for a midfielder to be in. So

So, yeah, I mean, Basuma's obviously the player that seems to be singled out by Andrew at the moment and has been taken off at half-time, obviously, in 60 matches. But, yeah, I don't know. It's not just him.

No, no, the midfield balance wasn't right. I mean, but that's not blaming the three individuals because it hasn't been right for months and they look very, very porous. Again, with teams, you know, capable. In the first few minutes, Spurs, Fulham had an attack. It didn't come to anything. Again, you see all the Fulham players are beyond all the Spurs midfielders and you just think that's just not the way. Look, I'm maybe missing some revolutionary concept here, but that's just not the way things work at that level of football.

Brennan Johnson, again, I don't want to be, I've tried to defend him actually by saying that, you know, in the system that we, the team that we picked, he's being asked to do something he's not particularly good at. But it is a conundrum now, isn't it, Jay? Because the goals have dried up, the two against Ipswich. So he's got two in 10, so he's got nought in nine if you take the Ipswich game out.

And as we've repeatedly said, at the moment, the way Spurs are set up and the way he's playing, if he's not getting lovely one-touch finishes in the penalty box, it's very hard to see what he is contributing. And I guess, once again, Elias may not... I'm not a great believer in confidence either. I think that's what training is for, to take confidence out of it. But he does look drained of...

Whatever it is that brings footballers that extra 5% of snap in a game, it's not currently available to Brennan, is it? He's had a mixed season in that regard because obviously it didn't start particularly well. He came off social media because of the abuse that he received. Then he went on that. Which is scandalous. Yeah, of course. We're definitely backing him on that. Of course. Yeah, and then he went on that really impressive...

Tear. Scoring run. And now it feels like he's sort of just reverted back to the means where if he's not scoring goals, he doesn't really offer this team a lot. I think the difference between Basuma and Johnson's situation is you look at their age and you look at the length of their contract. So Basuma's 28 and he has a year left on his deal in the summer. And I think it's probably time to let him go. Spurs only signed him for, I think, £30 million from Brighton. So you could actually make...

a decent enough chunk of that back. But if you look at Basuma's minutes, even when he's not starting, he was an unused substitute in the first leg against AZ and he only came off the bench for about 15 minutes in the second leg. So that says to me, in the high profile important games, the manager doesn't trust him. With Johnson, who I think is 23 and his contract still runs for three or four years, he's still a young player. There's still hope that he can

continue to develop in a positive way. You know, Elliot spoke to me at the game yesterday and said he remembers watching Johnson tear people apart when he was at Nottingham Forest in the championship. And it just seems so bizarre that that version of him has never really come to fruition at Spurs. Maybe he is just not a good fit for this manager, this system. And we have to see whether he can continue to be coached in a way where he does show more of what he can offer. I do feel for him a little bit, but

He just unfortunately allows the game to pass him by too often as well. I sometimes think Johnson is the most guilty of turning backwards, not having that conviction to even attempt to take someone on. He just seems to take the slightly easier option and recycle possession. And what you need your attacking players to do is to be brave, to take risks, to make a mistake and then

When the opportunity presents itself again to make a risky pass, make the risky pass. Don't worry if it bounces back because one of those passes will pay off and it will lead to a goal. And at the moment, I just, I don't see any of that from him. Yeah, just on that, there was an instance in the game against Bournemouth

where he was one-on-one kind of making his way towards the box. It was him and Dean Howson. You know, he's a young centre-back, but he's six foot five. I think Brennan Johnson, if he was feeling the kind of confidence that you'd, you know, you really want a wide player to have, again, like really attacking the box and an opportunity to go at a defender, a centre-back one-on-one and kind of turned back and then passed it sideways. And you think, and again, like back to that point,

I think about the player that I saw in the championship for Nottingham Forest and then, you know, obviously in the Premier League as well. And that was a player that would directly take on a fullback, torment a fullback. I've seen him, you know, when I covered Derby a few years ago. He absolutely, at the city ground, like tore the fullback.

apart really. So, you know, the players there, like I've seen it, you know, he's got the pace, he's got the skill, but it just seems like he's lacking the conviction as, you know, as Jay said. It's really interesting because you say in the championship, I'm not going to talk about levels there because that's not what I want to say. It's really interesting this, uh,

Elias, because I was, my family got together yesterday because we're going to be together St. Patrick's Day today. And I was talking to my brother, John, who has been on this podcast. He's an Ipswich Town fan and he knows more about football, he's a TV producer in the football world, than any person I know. And with all due respect to you, me and Elias,

And I was asking about Ipswich's season in all seriousness because I'm really interested in what he has to say. And he said to me, think about the Premier League. He said that I've noticed because, you know, having watched championship football for a lot of the recent years, he says every team has got four great players, right? That's understandable. Most of these teams have had three or four transfer windows to get some really good players. But then on top of that, they've got seven or eight gigantic athletes playing

And this is something I've increasingly been coming around to, that you have to be a brilliant player. If you're under 5'10", you've got to be a brilliant player to play in the Premier League these days because they obviously want size and bulk and speed and athleticism. And you only have to look at the size of Liverpool's team, the size of Arsenal's team, the size of the team that Manchester City are going to put together post their ticket-tacker team. And I wonder whether Brennan is suffering enough

struggling with the physicality of the Premier League. That's just something I'm throwing out there because I think the Premier League, it used to be that the championship was more physically demanding. It's not true anymore. The Premier League looks to me, with all due respect to Ligue 1, which used to be the UFC of professional football, I think the Premier League is a very hard place to play now unless you are teak hard yourself.

Which brings us on to the moment in the game where Calvin Bassey ragdolled Christian Romero. I don't know what it looked like in the stadium. On television, I gasped because normally it's Christian sending somebody flying into low orbit. And his face, when he eventually came back down to earth without the aid of a parachute, was an absolute picture for the next 10 minutes.

He just chased around the pitch trying to kick anybody in a Fulham shirt except Kelvin Bassi because he looked too much of a unit. You saw this, I take it, that whole incident. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think just before even that happened, Romero had tried to...

I don't know if he was trying to slide tackle Bassey, but he slipped, which looked quite embarrassing in the moment anyways. But firstly, give credit to Bassey because it's an incredible piece of skill that gives him the yard on Romero. I wasn't sure he was going to make a Premier League player, but he's doing great, isn't he? I said this on the Totally Football show that I was on last night, that I think Bassey's probably one of the most underrated players in the Premier League. He's got a very...

Fantastic blend of skill and power. But yeah, when he gets that yarn on Romero and just dumped him to the floor, I think everybody in the press box and in the stand we were in sort of, yeah, gasped, just like you said, because Romero's normally the one dishing out that kind of treatment. I don't think I've ever seen him... I shouldn't be laughing because you're supposed to play, but it was funny. I'm glad you said it because it was funny. I've never seen anything like it. And it didn't surprise me that later on in the game,

I can't remember who it was that Bassey clattered into in the second half, but then Romero appeared out of nowhere and sort of let it go at him. So I think that's a rivalry that we'll see in the years to come anyway. So that's quite funny. ♪

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Welcome back to the Goofy Lane. Just because there is a new voice, I'll repeat today's lineup. I'm Danny Kelly. As you know, Jay Harris, once the Tyro on the thing, now a seasoned old veteran, is here as well and helping us bring some new perspective on matters Tottenham Hocular, if that's the right phrase. Sorry, probably the copyright from the Spurs PR department won't allow me to say that. Elias Burke is with us as well. The second half...

Well, we got underway and it was better because there was a bit more, as well as substitutions, Jade, they'd also been told to try and be a bit more intense, a bit more front foot. And we have to be truthful because we're talking about another damaging defeat here. But there was 30 minutes in the second half where they were at least a match of Fulham and I thought most of the time a better team.

Yeah, well, obviously he made those two substitutions at halftime. Son and Bergwau came on. I thought a doggy didn't have a great first half.

And I don't think he's been that good since he's come back from injury, if I'm honest. But I thought the second half he improved and there was a couple of times he was driving forward with the ball and tried to get crosses into the box. Obviously, he's got a great understanding with Son, so that probably helped. Whereas with Tell, which I alluded to earlier, Tell seems to play with a different fullback, different winger, different striker every week. So it's hard to build up chemistry with players. Tell, who is now on the right, he had a really...

a pretty impressive shot coming off, cutting inside onto his left foot.

And Maddison quite inventively chests it down to Solanke, who sort of balloons it over the bar. And Solanke just has to score in that moment. I think it's still 0-0 and it changes the game. But I think probably the biggest difference between the first half and the second half was Bergwau. I think I just came to this realisation yesterday that he is probably Tottenham's best midfielder at this point in time. It's probably not the most shocking thing to say, actually. How Spurs signed him for, I think it was...

8.5 million euros or pounds. It's scandalous, to be honest. Jorgaarden should be ringing them and getting them up on the phone and asking for a little bit more. Because after such a slow start where we were a little bit concerned if he might need to go out on loan, he just looks fantastic. I think his physicality has improved as well. He looks like he's bulked up. He looks like he's quicker. But he is one of the only players in this team

who, when he makes mistakes, seems to not get completely rattled by it and will continue to try risky passes or try to drive past players. He's just really been exceptional. And I think he just adds a little bit of drive to this team that's missing sometimes, even with the incident with Bassey, which...

I've seen the replay a couple of times. I'm still not too sure if it is or isn't a penalty, but even that willingness to try and take him on, I think says everything about how good he's been this season. He just needs a little bit more help. And to contrast the impact Bergvall had, I thought Maddison did not that much when he came onto the pitch. And Maddison's sort of up-down performances sort of continue, you know, fantastic against AZ in midweek and then doesn't really do anything yesterday. Yeah.

I mean, some of that is he's just not getting a run of games, is he? I mean, I'm trying to think how many games he's played. How many games has he played in the Premier League in the past five games? Not very many. I'm not too sure. But the flip side of that is that Madison does seem to break down

more often than other players. I don't think he's the most durable player in that Tottenham squad. I think it's fair to say. So I also understand why they... Well, I'd love to know who it was, but that's a separate issue, isn't it? So I understand why they manage his minutes like that. Because you remember, I think it was after the Man City game where he scored twice because it was just after an international break. And Ange Postakoglu made a point before the game about saying how, because Maddison didn't get called up to the England squad...

He'd stayed behind. They'd done extra training with him and just amping up his fitness had allowed him to produce that level of performance. So I think Madison's a player who, when he's not 100% fit, it's quite obvious that his levels drop. So I do understand why his minutes are managed. Yeah, Elias, we, Spurs, it is we, isn't it? Yeah.

I know you've done other beats, but now you'll have to become a complete convert like Jay has done. The second half, it promised much, and I guess the turning points are...

We'll talk about the penalty a little bit later or the lack of a penalty. And I'm only going to moan about the penalty because the manager talked about it afterwards. And again, he had some interesting things to say about the way football works in England. The two chances Solanke had, the header and the flick on that Jay talked about, I guess they were the turning points for Spurs in terms of turning better performance into possible victory. Yeah, I don't want to...

I want to cut him some slack because obviously he's been... He spent a period out injured. He's literally just coming back over the past kind of few matches, sorry. And...

There's definitely a difference between having Solanke up front versus having a Tell or a Son up front. He looks like a striker. He looks like an outlet. His movement, it looks like what you have to do, yeah. Well, exactly. And, you know, back to Tell quickly. You know, Tell was... I always have thought Tell's been quite neat in possession, but it's the moments outside of possession, you know, when he's out of possession, when he needs to move, when he needs to kind of offer a pass or something like that, or...

or run a channel or something where I think he doesn't look completely natural. Solanke's a natural number nine and it is helping Spurs a lot.

But, you know, he really does need to kind of start putting these chances away. It's been a few matches now. He hasn't scored since his comeback. I think he's on seven league goals from an XG of about 9.3, which isn't a huge underperformance, but it's an underperformance nonetheless. And, you know, when you get so used to having a striker over the past kind of 10, 15 years, like Harry Kane, who consistently overperforms his expected goals tally, you do notice some kind of drop-off. That said...

That chance yesterday, I think particularly off Madison's chest, I think the header was like, I think he did fairly well to kind of, from that kind of distance, to divert it at least kind of towards goal and, you know, make it look like a half-decent chance because it was, at best, I'd say a half chance. I think there's, you know, very few strikers that you could expect to take that one away. But the one from the Madison chest down,

As Jay said, he really kind of needs to be scoring from then. And I think, yeah, he has been a little profligate since he signed for Spurs. He's had chances all throughout the season. I mean, even towards the start of the season where you kind of expect a striker of his calibre. And, you know, based off what he did last season as well with Bournemouth, I saw him play a few times and he was always excellent. So I was really kind of hopeful about his move. And I think it's been a good signing. I think there's a lot of the right signs you've seen from Solanke.

Over the past kind of few months in terms of playing the position, you're confident that he is a striker, you're confident that he is a striker that can play for Spurs in the Premier League and, you know, potentially in Europe and so on. But in terms of kind of sticking those chances away, we do need to kind of see it a little bit more consistently now, I think.

Okay, so the game gets into, and it looks like Spurs are heading for their first 0-0 draw under Ange Postacoglu. I think their first 0-0 draw in two and a half years, which is no problem with that at all. Elias can tell you all about that because he was writing about that and then obviously Fulham scored and it just torpedoed 20 minutes of hard work. Yeah, May 2022, Brentford. I'm sure you would have been there as well, right, Jay? Yeah, I would have. I can't say I remember it, but I would have been there. No, there's nothing to remember probably, yeah.

And then suddenly, I was going to say suddenly Fulham score, but there's something else that happens before that Spurs change their defence. We've seen this in recent weeks, that as soon as they change the defence, they tend to concede. And I want to ask you, I'll start with you, Elias, what is going on there? Because even allowing for the fact that Romero was a pre-planned change, I fully expected then that Mickey van de Ven sat there on the bench would come on because he

If he's fit enough to be on the bench, surely he has to be available to play. But instead, they did the usual shuffle and played two people, one of whom is not suitable for a back four in Ben Davis and one who is not a defender in Archie Gray. I saw the...

postulated that they didn't want to have two left-footed players playing in the back four. And yet the second goal comes with Ben Davis playing at the right-hand side of the penalty area and getting beaten on his left foot. So I'm not really buying it. Let me just check my receipt. No, I didn't buy that either. Look...

Why didn't Van de Ven come on, Elias? You're a full-time Spurs reporter. Explain it to the dimwits like me. Yeah, I'm afraid I don't have the answers on that one. He spoke after the game against Starz. One of us asked him, one of the journalists asked him in the mix zone, you know, are you in a position now where you can play two or three times a week, Mickey? And he said, you know, yes, I feel good. I'm back to 100% fitness. You know,

I'm now in a position where I can start playing more consistently. And so, I mean, naturally, similar to you, I expected to see Van de Ven, you know, if Romero was substituted. And obviously it didn't happen.

From a Spurs perspective, can you understand it? Perhaps. You know, he's spent a long time out injured. He is, you know, you could argue that Van de Ven is Spurs' kind of golden goose. He's, I would say, Spurs' best player when he's fit. He is the player that could conceivably, you know, either take Spurs to a Champions League place and be one of the best centre-backs in the world. That kind of quality already at his age, we could go into any team across Europe and improve them.

Or, you know, if that doesn't happen, he could be a player that can move on for 100 million, 100 million plus. Naturally, you want to protect that kind of asset and make sure if he's, you know, if you've got any kind of doubt or any kind of uncertainty as to his fitness, you want to protect him as much as possible. Yeah.

And perhaps Ange saw it and was like, OK, Fulham haven't really offered a great threat throughout the second half. Maybe we can kind of make do with Archie Gray, who's played a great deal of minutes at centre-back. It's funny, the Archie Gray discussion, that we've all kind of decided that he's a number six. But really, he's played the majority of his career at right-back and has played more minutes at centre-back than he has as a number six. Obviously, he came through as a number six at Leeds and has played as a number six for England youth teams and stuff.

But, you know, perhaps, you know, Archie Gray has done pretty well there. And maybe the idea was just, you know, maybe we can kind of make it through. We don't want to risk Van de Ven. We can kind of give him the international break. He's not going away and kind of really feel good about him in a couple of weeks time that we can start playing him consistently. Didn't happen. And, you know, you talk about the two left footed situation now. I mean, when one of them is Van de Ven, like that's a risk you're willing to take because, you know, he's great.

Yeah, I'm sorry you mentioned the international break there because I have to now reveal that that is the sixth successive international break in which Spurs have lost the game going into it. The last time they managed to win one going into it was against Luton Town, who were at that stage getting literally spanked by every team that they played. And this is a really unfortunate habit Spurs have developed, and so is the losing game.

That's the 19th defeat this season, 15 in the Premier League, more than half the games they've played. It wasn't helped by the defensive change and Fulham's score. You're not prepared to blame Odeber, but I saw, you know, it was probably his first engagement, wasn't it? I'm not saying he's blameless. I'm saying that you also have to recognise that.

He got the ball in his own half, looked up, and there was literally nobody ahead of him. So he didn't have many options. I'm not saying he picked the right option. No, well, I would say he didn't. You know, you taking people on in the final third is good because that's what, you know, causes goals.

If you lose the ball there in the Premier League, there is not a certainty. Of course, a million things could happen between that and the ball crossing. Indeed, Madison had a chance to clear the ball, didn't he? Let's be truthful about it. But the danger is that the Premier League, even more than the Champions League, it does seem that that turnover lost in your own half is

tends to lead to real problems, particularly in a team like Spurs where the players are trying to get ahead of the ball at the first opportunity. So the goal goes in. Spurs could have equalised if they'd got the penalty, but...

Now, the penalty, Jay, I'm interested to hear you say that you've seen it a dozen times and you're not sure. And I'd agree with that. I think lots of teams might have got that penalty on another day. It might have been a penalty. What was interesting, what I want to talk about, Elias, is the post-match press conference where Antipostacoglu went into another one of his reveries about how

Spurs don't get, there's no national coverage of Spurs not getting a decision compared to others. And he was referring, I think, to the Bergvall carry on against Liverpool decision.

But if the manager sets the tone for that, the big clubs, their managers make sure that everybody in the room and therefore amplified to everyone in the world knows when they've had a dodgy decision. It absolutely may mean nothing, but it could just be putting one quarter or one half a percent of pressure on the next bunch of officials who turn up to referee, Arsenal, Manchester City, whoever it is. And it strikes me as one of those things

look, he's got enough on his plate without me getting onto him. The manager does do illogical things, says he's not bothered about criticism, then does a 25-minute soliloquy about the criticism he's getting. And there again, he sets the tone about if we're going to be a club that complains about the officials, get out front of it and do it, you know? Yeah, I mean, it was kind of worthless in the capacity that he did it.

Do you respect a club that puts less pressure on the officials? Maybe, but if it's going to earn you a penalty every now and then or it's going to earn you a few points, then who cares really? I do think, as you say, in the press conference, it's not the time to be complaining really. I've

Does Spurs have the reputation? Does Ange have the reputation of kind of getting on the officials? I would say he doesn't. If you look across North London, if you look at Arsenal and Arteta, he's obviously put pressure on historically. Has that earned them a few penalties, a few favourable decisions throughout the season? Perhaps. And could that be the difference? Who knows? But yeah, I mean, again, it wasn't the clearest penalty decision at the time. I didn't think it was...

Well, it might have been a penalty and it was one of those kind of decisions that you're fine with either way. If it is a penalty, you kind of, you know, you accept it. If it's not, then, you know, it is what it is. It wasn't like one of those kind of stonewall kind of decisions that have gone against the club. But yeah, press conference isn't the right place to be doing that, I don't think.

Yeah, and there's a part of me, of course, I've got to be careful with this because what I do for a living, there's a part of me that's almost given up trying to second guess the officials and how the VAR and the referee come to their final decision about penalties. Obviously, this is particularly in case of handball, but even fouls now, you know,

Did the touch that Bergville gets on the ball, did that influence the thing enough for Calvin Bassey to be penalised? Let's be honest, it was definitely a penalty you've seen given in the Premier League, but if it had been given against Spurs, I'd have been...

if not fuming, then at least quizzical because it wasn't quite the turning point that it, you know, it wasn't an obvious turning point in the game. The second goal, Jay, of course, an experts player came on and lamped the ball in almost, almost before he could get, you know, his shirt was still halfway down his torso as he scored the goal.

Yeah, so I remember Fulham had an opportunity to counter just before they scored and they worked the ball backwards. And I thought, why on earth have they gone backwards and slowed their momentum down? And then Leno just hits it long. And when it was Sessegnon 1-1 with Davies, I thought Sessegnon knows Davies. They would have trained against each other countless times. Is that going to give one of them a tiny advantage here?

And you have to give a little bit of credit to Sessegnon because he really did scrap for that goal. Curled it into the top corner. And for him, it's a nice...

because I think that's the first goal he scored at Fulham or for Fulham since he came back and the first goal he scored at the Craven Cottage. He's one of their own, according to the fans. I think it's the first time he scored at Craven Cottage in six years. So for them, it's a nice moment. Way too easy just for one ball to completely take out the entire defence. For Ben Davies, a senior Wales international, to get turned like that. I think even Davies knew. And, you know, Davies is a...

Davies is one of those players who most of the time when he is on a football pitch, he's probably going to give you a 6.5 performance out of 10, maybe a 7 out of 10. I think the way he reacted, even he knew and recognised he'd fucked up big time in that moment. And it just meant that the game was done and there was no chance of Spurs coming back from it.

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Welcome back to The View from the Lane. On St Patrick's Day, a little bit of news for you about one of Spurs' young players, Jamie Donnelly, who's been doing such sterling work at Lake Norian over the course of his loan period. He is, with having been born in Northern Ireland...

but of an English mother. He is qualified to play for England and Northern Ireland. Of course, due to the arrangements of the Good Friday Agreement, he's also allowed to play for the Republic of Ireland. And it looks like he's made his choice, having represented England at age group levels

He has been organising the paperwork with FIFA to become a Northern Irish international. He's been called up to the squad for the upcoming games. I suspect if the paperwork can all be sorted out, he will play in their competitive matches. So he will become a Northern Ireland international. Probably a reward for the work he's done this season, albeit in League One. And so well done to him.

Now, the Spurs game at Craven Cottage, of course, we always like to be described at the start, the lovely walk down the River Thames through Putney and all the rest of it. Sweetness and light. Not so after the game. Two things I want to discuss. First, the...

way that um jay i don't know if you were still watching or you were making your way to the salmon sandwiches um in the post in the post-match press box um but the spurs players made a desultory troop towards it and you know it's almost contractually obliged isn't it towards the traveling spurs fans who thank goodness hadn't traveled too far um waved and kind of didn't get too close to

because they knew what reaction they might get. The Spurs' away form is shocking. Let's not kid ourselves. They have, I think I said it earlier, they do have outstanding away wins where teams are on the verge of collapse. I think about Ipswich recently, Manchester United when they were running into their terrible run for Manchester City before we realised they're useless. Yeah.

But I started last night when I realized how badly they'd done over the last 38 games. I started to research the away form, and I stopped halfway through. It was making me ill. And I thought, you don't need this, Danny. A man in your condition doing this to his mental health in the middle of the night. No, stop it. So the one player who didn't wave from a safe distance was Matthias Tell. And I think he was rather surprised to get booed and called

Choi-oit, I suppose, is the phrase we're looking for. I think he's... Part of this is because he's come from the Bundesliga, where the protocol is that the team, particularly for Dunbad, he goes and genuinely thanks the away supporters, the ultras, and is prepared to stand there and take the...

criticism and brickbats that's coming their way but I think yeah I think there was no interface here it was just a load of Spurs fans shouting abuse and um and booing him I think he was a bit shocked by that Jay yeah and I think that's a quite unfair he's um only 19 years old obviously I spoke earlier that he's he's had his struggles but he's a young player and he's not really responsible for the the entire season and what's happened during that period of time he

He's come to this country. He's trying to do his best. As I said earlier, he's been shunted around in different positions. I remember in one of his first games, I think his first game was against Liverpool and the second game was against Villa and he scored in it. But I remember in one of those games, he sort of went over to the fans when he won a corner or throw in and sort of whip them up or whatever. So clearly he's someone who really values that interaction and that engagement with the fans. So I'd expect that's why he went over, but it shouldn't have been him

that went over in the first place. If anybody's going to do that, it should be the captain, the senior players. It should be Romero, Madison and Son doing that. And then of course, Tell acted as a bit of a peacemaker when Poster Coghlu was then involved in another incident later on. So I think that more, that speaks more about his personality as a character. He's clearly someone who cares and, you know, Tell's come from Bayern Munich. He's here on loan with an option to buy. It's not going particularly well.

no one would be that angry with him if he didn't particularly care right now. If he thought, I don't want to join them permanently, I want to go back to Bayern Munich and start again in the summer. But actually, let's give the lad some credit because he does care and he wants to rectify the situation. So yeah, I didn't think that the abuse he received was fair at all. Yeah, on that actually, I'm actually really impressed, I think, by Tell's character, just more generally. You know, on to the point that Jay's just made,

I think it shouldn't be underestimated how big it is to go from a club that you've kind of grown up in to join a club that's kind of in the midst of a crisis at 19 years old, playing in an unfamiliar position as a striker. He was a player that primarily kind of deputised on the wing or would come off the bench for Kane when Bayern were invariably 3-0 up and might score a goal. He's always kind of played in great conditions.

played for a fantastic France youth team he's not really had to deal with this kind of situation yet really before as a professional and the way that he's dealing with it is by being someone that is fronting up with the supporters that is not hiding I think even on you know yesterday as Jay mentioned you know not his best game but there were moments and you can tell that he's a player not playing with huge confidence I think there was that chance in the first half where he could have

maybe squared it to Solanke or perhaps gone with his left-hand shot. And if that was a player playing with, you know, with that confidence, having scored a few goals as a Spurs player, maybe he goes on and takes that opportunity. That was a good run, though. You saw something there. There was something in that, yeah. Exactly. So...

you know, I'm, I'm, I have to say, I'm impressed by the way that he's not kind of letting his head drop and is kind of standing up. And as you mentioned, those senior players aren't doing it. So, I mean, it's commendable for a, for a 19 year old that is, that is in a really tough situation, I think, to, to kind of go on and take that responsibility. I mean, I, I, I,

I'll defend Postacoglu here. He's entitled to talk to who he wants in this world. I just don't know that taking on football fans from the technical area or the pitch after a game is going to get you anywhere, but it's not the first time he's done it. If people shout abuse to him, he is entitled to turn around and say, what? We all would. I just wonder whether it would be more prudent to walk away. What do you think, Jay?

I think the first time this happened was Bournemouth away and I was there and, you know, he went over to the away fans and said after the game that they gave him pretty direct feedback and it didn't look particularly happy. It happened after a home game. I can't remember which one. I don't know if you remember, but as he was going down the tunnel, can you remember what game it was? No, I can't actually. I wish I could. And someone said something to him then. And then obviously it's happened today. And yeah,

I've got a bit of a split opinion over this because firstly, I think if fans or individuals in that particular moment are saying something personally offensive to him, which he alluded to at the Tamworth game, he said that some of the chants he received that day were out of line and personal. If he's reacting to things people are saying about him personally, then I can understand why it's difficult to control your emotions in that moment.

I thought so, yeah. Just for the record, I should have said it, what has he made, which is Leicester. After that dreadful defeat against Leicester, it was coming down the tunnel and people were leaning over to make their view plain, weren't they? You're going to get us relegated. That's it. That's what the guy said. Exact phrase, yeah. But if people are just saying, you're going to get us relegated...

I find that I don't know why he'd even engage with it because as you sort of alluded to earlier, he sat there on Friday in the press conference. And to be honest, it was quite a thought provoking exchange that he had with another journalist where they went back and forth with each other for five minutes.

about the scrutiny and the pressure he receives. And Pastor Coghlu said, you know, it doesn't bother me, it doesn't affect me. I think some of the criticism that I receive is cheap and shallow, and it's more to do with my background, etc. And I thought, okay, fair enough, he's opening himself up here. But you can't say that criticism doesn't bother you and doesn't affect you and then respond so visibly like that. And unfortunately, what it sort of says to people is that

It's quite easy to rattle Postacoglu. You can get at him and sometimes all people want is a reaction. And if he bites, then someone else is going to do it again. And I understand it must be incredibly difficult when you've got thousands of fans trying to wind you up and goad you. But the thing is, Postacoglu, I said multiple times that it doesn't affect him. Well, the evidence says the exact opposite, that it does affect you and it does get in your head and it just doesn't help you.

The relationship with the supporters. Okay, if it was a Fulham fan yesterday, then it's not the end of the world. But those scenes against Bournemouth after the Leicester game, people remember these things. And it just doesn't help the tension and the relationship between the supporters and the manager if he just reacts like that.

Yeah, and I agree. About Friday in one way, I agree. It's good to see somebody speaking plainly openly in what they think. Did I agree with him? Not really, because I think the comparison with plumbers who've been doing the job for 30 years was weak because every single –

well, nearly every single toilet in the world works in the same way. So plumbers tend to, you know, make a very good living wondering about doing the same thing. It's not the same with football. There are all kinds of cultures or all kinds of levels. And just because you've been doing it for 30 years doesn't prove that you're brilliant at it. You know, Mark Hughes, where's he working now? I don't know. And also, and sort of thank you for jolting my brain. Yeah.

Poster Coglou obviously compared himself, I think, to a plumber, a policeman, CEO of a company, and maybe there was one other example. Did surgeons get a mention as well? Possibly. The big difference between all of those people, maybe bar the CEO of a company, is that they will be earning significantly less money than Poster Coglou. So Poster Coglou earns a fair whack and...

you know, he has that greater responsibility and that's why he's got that money. So, and you're also in the entertainment business.

So I think that is why you are more susceptible to scrutiny impression. So you have to learn how to deal with that better. Yeah, and I think when you're part of that kind of, you would say he's 0.1% higher, you know, top of the chain in his job role and he's earning that amount of money. Naturally, the scrutiny, it's football. It's not, you're not performing plumbing, you know,

I don't know. You're not plumbing in front of 50,000 people every week, are you? It's not a great comparison, I must say. Listen, thank you for once again steering me through. I can't say I've been more upset by defeats at various times this season because I was half expecting this.

and particularly with this run into the international break. But thank you for bringing a new perspective to it. Thank you, as always, Jay, for your perspective. Let me just tell you, though, that those of you that there's another show I want you to listen to when you're finished with us. It's all about the underground world of fake football shirts, the athletics...

Adam Leventhal has spent nine months investigating fake shirts and uncovering some pretty shocking details along the way. Adam's investigation has taken him all over the globe, talking to sources from the USA all the way to China, finding out how these fake shirts can affect your health, your finances, and indeed the links of some of the manufacturers to criminal gangs. It's called the Underground World of Fake Football Shirts, and you can hear the whole story over on the Athletic FC podcast now.

And I recommend it to you. Of course, you should be reading about Spurs.

Elias, Jay and others on The Athletic and I say that every week and it's true. You can get in touch with us on social media, Blue Sky X Twitter at VFTL podcast and you can email us with your views and praise preferably but we will respond to criticism as well. VFTL at theathletic.com. It only remains to say thank you to Elias. An excellent debut, my friend. Thank you to Jay. Brilliant as always and to all of you for listening.

I don't know what to say about the Spurs players going off for international duty. I almost want some of them. Some of them have got to get minutes in their legs. Some of them have got to have a rest. It's very complicated. All I will say, as always at this stage, even though it's hard and it's through gritted teeth, because many of you are going to work this week getting yet more grief about Tottenham Hotspur. But come on, you Spurs. The Athletic.

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