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The Athletic FC Podcast Network. Hello, everybody, and welcome once again to The View from the Lane. It's the multi-award winning Tottenham Hotspur podcast from The Athletic. And joining me, your host, Danny Kelly, are The Athletics' Jack Pipbrook and James Moore. We will be talking about the goalkeeping situation very soon. We'll also get a preview of what's, I think, a very important Premier League game against Fulham. But we'll start with the most...

upside down dramatic bewildering game of european football that spurs have been involved in since oh i don't know about a week ago against galatasaray um oh let's start um jack you were there what what did you make of the game uh i thought it was a really entertaining game

It was a funny mix of high quality and bad football. You know, there were a lot of very good players on the pitch on both sides. And both teams played some very good stuff, but also with lots of bad moments as well. Like Spurs had...

I think three phases of the game where they just seemed to switch off or they couldn't really get going. Roma were very up and down as well. It could have been basically any scoreline. Tottenham could have won it by a mile. But I think Roma could have scored a lot. They had three goals disallowed for offside. Quite close to offside, but they were offside. They missed quite a few chances as well. Forster made two brilliant saves, one in each half.

And I know that on this podcast, we do a lot of...

from the final score to a sort of big profound conclusion. And I think it's driving us all a bit mad because we draw these big positive conclusions when they win and then these bad conclusions when they lose to Ipswich. But I feel like maybe we can have a day off and draw not too many profound conclusions from this one just because it was such a...

it was a game that could have gone any way, basically. Having said on Monday that what I felt Spurs needed was almost like a bad performance and a good result, like to really dig one out, what we kind of ended up with there, and I was talking about the Fulham game when I said that, but what we ended up with there on Thursday night was a kind of reasonably good performance and a kind of not catastrophic result.

So it's somewhere in the middle. And in a way, I kind of take quite a lot of comfort from the fact that, you know, we've so many times we've seen, you know, when Spurs have played well, they've played incredibly well. And so got an incredible result or they completely sunk the place out and got a bad result. There's been very little kind of in between those two stalls over the last couple of months. So to kind of have something, despite it being quite a mad game, that feels like a slightly more normal kind of outcome to a game like that. In a way, I take some comfort from that.

But whether or not it's a good result or a bad result, at half past six, I think you would not have said, half past six, London time on Thursday evening, you wouldn't have said it was a must-win game. But I think by 10pm, when you've seen Solanke, Kieliszewski, Porrow and the two centre-backs who may also have to play a lot of football in the next few weeks, all play 90 minutes. I wonder whether that feels like

need the payoff to that of that to be three points because now you know I think they're ninth in their table aren't they they've got Rangers away in the next game and I believe Rangers are eighth having won 4-1 up the next that is correct I think

I mean, I know the difference between finishing first and whatever it is, 24th, is only really two games, an extra two games. But I would imagine they're pretty keen to avoid that. You press on a particular bruise here because, first of all, you know, it was a mad game. It was incredibly entertaining, provided if you could take your navy blue tinted spectacles off. And you're right, we've had great performances and terrible performances. This was the one...

I guess even more than Brighton, where the two things were mixed together, not even in one half was good, one half was bad. And they played brilliant stuff and absolute rubbish at different times in the game. As did Roma. I think you mentioned, you kind of said that, Jack. It was an incredibly odd matchup

mixture of oil and water for both teams. That's what football is meant to be like. That's what football is normally like, isn't it? I think for normal teams, that's what they do all the time. No, no, but we live in the age of possession, don't we? Although, of course, that is an age that is now passing away from us. We live in the age of possession where you're supposed to control the game. As if you can... Look, I've said this before. I'm going to say it again. Football is essentially chaos because it is based on an absolutely ridiculous idea

I put the ball in the centre spot. I say to you, Jack, I am going to burn your house down unless you can take that football and put it in that giant thing at the other end. That's the shape of the goal, about the size of a container. And your instinct is to pick it up. Of course it is. That's what a human being does. But you're not allowed to pick it up. So the game is the greatest game ever invented because it's based on absolutely anti-human stupidity. And so, yes, the idea of controlling it. Sorry, Pep.

The idea of controlling it is so ludicrous. I'm going to sound... I haven't even got to my point yet, but go on. Sorry. No, please carry on. I better help that thought you want to say about that in mind. The point I was making is the not winning the game means that not only are they threatened with two extra games, but they can't rotate the team in the next three games in the way that they would have wanted to.

I think the extra two points last night from the chaos, and I'm not for one minute suggesting they deserved it. People will point to me at XG. The evidence in your own eyes is that a 2-2 draw is about right. I think a 4-4 draw would have been about right. But it means that they probably can't play the dark kids in the last two games now, which is a shame. Sorry, Jack. I interrupted your interruption. It's fine. All I was going to say is... What I was going to say was... No, sorry, Greg.

Very good. Thanks very much. Teams do control games. The history of football in the last 10 or 15 years is that teams can, in fact, control games. Although Tottenham, that's not exactly how Tottenham try and do it. But anyway, that's a side point. One thing where I agree with both of you is that

He picked a team to win this game. You know, if you're going to play Son, Slanky, Kulosevsky, Poro, and you're not going to... That's a team to win the game. Like, if he wanted to... If he thought, oh, we'll just take a point and then we'll see how we get... Then he would have played Bergvall, he would have played...

I mean, they didn't actually have that much on the bench. I think he said afterwards he had four kids on the bench. And a lot of the players who would have, you know, in an ideal world rotated in for this game are injured. You know, some of them quite badly in the case of Richarlison and Odebe. But yeah, it was a strong team. I actually think...

I think they're probably just, I mean, I reckon they probably need 16 points. I asked Pasacoglu afterwards how many points he think they needed and he didn't want to say, but I think 16 points would probably do it. So that's two points per game. So 10 points in five games is about par, although they do have, of their three left, two are away and one is at home. I think they probably had the two hardest games now with Galatasaray and Roma.

I think a win in Glasgow will not be a laugh, I promise you. Especially for the manager. Yeah. Maybe they're a point or two under par at the moment, but they're basically going to have to win one of their two away games, aren't they? It seems like that. It does, yeah. I also think, by the way, if the second Roma goal had been on 70 minutes rather than 91 minutes, I kind of feel like you'd feel quite differently about the whole thing. I'm sure it would still feel frustrating, but...

It's way more deflating to concede right at the end, obviously. It's a results business, isn't it? And the result changed after 91 minutes and that doesn't sit very well.

Just talk about some of the things that happened in the game. First of all, I suppose we should talk about Forster. We will come back in the second part of today's podcast to the Vicario situation, as I understand government circles refer to it. Forster had to play, obviously. As far as I understand, there was absolutely no demonstrated trust in either of the other goalkeepers. I say this

fearing, you know, putting the mockers on things. I thought he did all right, didn't he? Could he have saved the first one if he'd moved his feet faster? I didn't see a replay of that. Our screens weren't working. So I've only seen it live. When I watched it live, I thought, could he have got there? But I've not seen it back. It's a pretty good header, but it looped in the air and...

my instinct was that Beccaria would have stretched himself I suppose I have to avoid the venom cliche there like stretch Armstrong and reached it but he didn't other than that I thought James he had a pretty good game Forster I mean two fine saves yeah a couple of very good kind of reflex saves one low one kind of maybe a slightly more comfortable height but obviously from quite close range towards the end that he tipped over but

Pretty comfortable coming to get crosses and set pieces other than that one that you just mentioned they scored from in the first half. I mean, as for whether or not he could have saved that, I mean, I know he is pretty much as tall as a crossbar, but it did go in off the bar, didn't it? I mean, it wasn't like, you know, it's kind of coming at waist height.

So, yeah, it's savable, but I don't think it's kind of lamentable, if you know what I mean. To be honest, the biggest thing is probably, or at least as much as anything else, is probably how confident the other players are in him. And I don't really recall a moment where they shied away from playing the ball back to him or they kind of overprotected him or whatever else. It all kind of felt like they were fairly comfortable and confident with what was going on behind them. So,

Yeah, I mean, you know, had we recorded a podcast on Tuesday, I suspect, you know, it would have been a bit dramatic. But clearly it is a big problem for Spurs and one, to my mind, they should address in January if we were on the basis. We'll get on to that, yeah, for sure. But I mean, I don't think it needs to be a complete, you know,

a complete kind of psychodrama and i i actually like the fact that whether by instinct or um instruction he actually did mix it up didn't he there were several attempts to play the ball quite long towards solanki and son um by the goalkeeper um and i didn't fear for him at any stage with the ball at his feet and we should talk about jack the um

The first half, I mean, people will be being more upset about the result than we are, but you're absolutely right. Whoever said that 70 minutes would have changed the whole feeling of this thing. But there were times in the first half where Spurs were playing, I thought, absolutely brilliantly. They kept on beating the opposition. And on another day, look,

I don't know what the XG was. I tend not to look at that stat. I look at shots at goal by and large. They can be deceptive too because Manchester City had lots of shots at goal in the game at the weekend. But Spurs appear to be making brilliant chances

and they got, you know, two goals and a lot of really brilliant chances. They were playing really well. Yeah, it was a weird first half, wasn't it? Because, obviously, you know, Spurs started pretty well, and then the middle section of the first half, I thought Spurs were terrible. The Dybala section. Spurs just totally switched off, and they were...

I thought Roma looked really, really, really good at that point. Obviously, if the El Shirawi volley had been allowed, then it would have been a different game. But after that, the sort of last 20 minutes or so of the first half, I thought Tottenham were fantastic. And they should really... There was the one where Kulosevski hit the post and then Son has to score the rebound and puts it over the bar.

Son, I think Son forced another good save. Poro from distance. Kulishevsky from the edge of the box. And I remember at halftime thinking, Tottenham, this shouldn't really be 2-1. Tottenham were so dominant in the back end of the first half. And they just looked, I thought they looked really, really energetic and really powerful. And I just thought, really?

Roma, even though Roma had quite a few very good players, I just didn't think Roma could live with Tottenham physically. And Poster Coghlan kind of made the same point afterwards. He said, we should have had it killed at half-time. Like that spell in the, you know, from let's say 25 to 45 minutes, that was when Tottenham should have scored a third or even a fourth goal and put the game to bed. What was Poster Coghlan doing his nut about with Brennan Johnson?

Very, very demonstrative. Very, very physical. The TV people couldn't quite tell me what was going on. Does anyone know post-match? I think it was playing the ball backwards rather than forwards. Yeah, he'd kind of dropped off and played into his own half and played the ball backwards suddenly when I think Bostacoglu kind of wanted him to be in possession carrying the ball up the pitch and out of possession kind of stretching Reimer, pressing them right back. I guess that was...

I guess that was the theory. I thought it was good. I'm in no way convinced by managers to spend the whole 95 minutes as though they're literally about to have spontaneous human combustion on the side of the pitch. But occasional rollicking or instruction with very direct language, I think it doesn't do any harm at all. The start of the second half was...

It was clear that Spurs, the very sort of momentum they'd worked up at the end of the first half, Jack, was completely reversed. Some credit must go to Roma here and to Claudio Ranieri, who they decided by getting the ball wide to Angelino on one side and to a variety of players over the other side, where Spurs had a left-footed right back. And they started to look like

a team that was going to cause Spurs plenty of problems. The second half, what did you make, James, in terms of, you know, it wasn't quite, Spurs were not as dominant in the second half, but they still continued to make loads of chances. Yeah, they did. I mean, you know, the first half is where they should have really won the game, but they still had those chances in the second half. I mean, that Solanke header against the bar as well, that he then couldn't quite kind of dig out once it was on the floor. Kolosevsky through, where I think Hummels gets across to get a block.

where it felt like maybe he could have pulled the trigger like a kind of nanosecond earlier. One or two other chances as well. I mean, I don't think you should need to score three goals to win a game against a team who are either kind of 12th in Serie A or whatever. Yeah, they're struggling under... Yeah, you know, if you're winning by one goal after 85 minutes, massive cliche, but, you know, the game is still alive and you can still...

not get what you deserve and I you know I would disagree with what was being said on the TV country in the UK last night I thought Spurs did deserve to win the game I thought you know the XG they were ahead but

And they had a lot of good chances. Someone said to me on Blue Sky last night that that is slightly misleading because obviously the disallowed goals are all chalked off from XG. So, fine. I don't imagine the El Shirawi one would have been particularly high, I guess. It's frustrating rather than kind of concerning, I'd say. I mean, obviously there are little concerns, but I don't think like, I don't look at that as a 90 minutes and think they've got some big problems here.

Little exercise, which I thought about doing last night, because I don't want us to influence each other, because I think it's quite interesting. Have you got a pen? Everybody got a pen or a pencil there? Could you write down right now who was your Spurs player of the match? Right, Jack, who was your Spurs player of the match? Solanke.

Okay. I certainly didn't write him down. Do you want to give us 15 seconds? Well, I mean, I think I'm just bored of always saying Kulosevsky. I think Kulosevsky is probably the correct answer, but I didn't think he was... He faded in the second half, to be fair to him. Yeah, also he seemed to... I kind of got the impression with him yesterday. He looked a bit too desperate to score himself. You know what I mean? Like he was kind of taking on shots. He's taking on lower percentage shots than...

and sort of snatching at things a bit. So I didn't think he was as good as he can play, though I did think he was good. Solanke, I know Solanke missed that header he should have scored, but he seemed to be quite effective. I love that bit where he skipped past Hummels on the left. Obviously, he started the move that ended up with Son's penalty early on.

I just thought his all-round game and commitment was pretty good. So I've gone for Solanke. What have you written down, James? I went for Benton Kerr, who if he had been able to stay on the pitch and we assume he was kind of taken off because he was on that yellow card and was probably fortunate to have not been booked before that, really.

I suspect Spurs may have been able to kind of see that out or certainly would have had more of the ball in the last kind of few minutes. So I went with him. I thought he was very good with them without the ball. Maybe I'm just a natural controversist. I've written down Archie Gray's name here. I thought playing...

Against expectation, I thought he did really, really well. I've not seen enough of this lad playing to get a feel for him. But in the second half in particular, when Spurs were under pressure, he defended okay, but he also kept getting the ball, playing it brilliantly or getting past his man. And he ran right to the very end. What is he, 18, 19 years of age? He ought to be running right to the end of the game. I thought he did well. ♪

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Welcome back to The View from the Lane. Now, we did a podcast on Monday where the hats were very much on the side of the head and all was right in its best of all possible worlds. Almost before the ink was dry on the podcast, yes, I know, we had the news that Guillermo Vicario played

I mean, I'm no doctor, apparently played on a broken ankle for two thirds of the game in Manchester, leaving us with, we had a lot of, I have to tell you the listeners, the downloads and subscribers. We had a lot of WhatsApp action about what it needs to do an emergency podcast.

God, it's an emergency and cast in that tiny bit of sentence talking about a man having a leg operation. We decided, well, there was a kind of vote of let's leave it here. Here's a chance for us to talk about this very thing. I guess, James, the big issue here is not Forster himself.

because we know that he is experienced and limited. Let's leave it at that for the sake of argument at the moment. I wonder if the gods of football have a tremendous track record. If you leave a chink in your armour, they will find it. Should we be in this position where we've got two untrusted players

goalkeepers in their mid-twenties and a veteran as backup to the first team goalkeeper? Yeah, I mean, I would say probably not. I mean, I don't think this is necessarily an entirely unforeseeable circumstance. I mean, in modern football, the way goalkeepers are exposed to more kind of challenge, I mean, I know this isn't how he got injured, but goalkeepers are exposed to more challenges than they were 10 years ago because they're coming out and playing and rushing out to the feet of opposition players far more than they were before.

And if you look at someone like, you know, Alisson's had quite a few injuries, Edison's had a couple of injuries, Neu's had injuries. It's not like, Lloris had a ridiculous number of injuries, really. So it's not like uncommon for goalkeepers to get injured. And I think like to have one injury after whatever it's been, sort of 15, 16 months of being a first choice goalkeeper isn't really terrible going. So it does seem to me that they had...

Three transfer windows since Postacocca came in and Vicario became number one, obviously, summer of 23 January and the summer just gone. They could and should have addressed that. We saw at the end of, well, towards the end of Conte, no, no, actually it might have been after Conte had left, actually. It was probably Stellini, wasn't it? Because he got injured in the Newcastle game, didn't he, Lloris? So, yeah, towards the end of that season, 22-23, we saw Forster play...

probably about 10 games I think maybe and although there were some good moments I think it was a penalty saving against Nottingham Forest and a few other good moments here and there like over the course of the whole piece didn't look massively comfortable considering a few goals that we felt were probably preventable I mean I think we knew from that point that they needed to sign another goalkeeper and they haven't done that

And I've said before, and it sounds like a bit of a lie, but I also believe it to be true. Tottenham don't have a second-choice goalkeeper. They have three third-choice goalkeepers. Yeah, I agree with that. I think that what Forster offers, I mean, he's probably, in an ideal world, you'd say he's probably closer to the kind of Richard Wright, Scott Carson type. I mean, just in the sense, if you compare him to the profile of second-choice goalkeepers at the clubs that Tottenham are aspiring to compete with,

you know, Kelleher, Ortega at City, who came in and did really well last season when called on. Obviously, Arsenal just signed Neto. I never really know who the Chelsea second-choice goalkeeper is. They seem to have about 10. They've got eight second-choice goalkeepers, yeah. I don't know if it's Jorgensen or Bettinelli now, but I just, I mean, I think, like, as James says, like, anybody could have said to you over the last year and a bit that,

Tottenham are in trouble if Icaro gets injured. Like, we've said that a million times on here. So everybody knew that this was a possibility. And I feel like Tottenham have kind of, they've taken a risk and paid the price. You know, it's like going on holiday and not buying travel insurance. Like, you might get away with it, but you might not.

We don't know how this is going to affect them in the next, you know, until either Vicario gets injured or they sign somebody else in January. I don't know. I don't know if they will sign someone else in January. I know that Postacoglu said they're not going to go and get a free agent, but let's wait and see. But yeah, if it does damage the team, and I suspect they probably will drop points because of this, I kind of feel like they only have themselves to blame. The question then is...

Should they, in January, from what will be a very narrow pool, go out and buy this goalkeeper, offer somebody money that they can't refuse? And by which I mean somebody, I mean both the club and the goalkeeper. Forget about that injury situation. They should be looking to do that. Irrespective of Vicario being injured now, when he's going to be back, they do need to sign another goalkeeper. That is the lesson. So...

I mean, argue a toss-over or not, that should be the priority. Argue a toss-over whether it should be possible to sign more than one player at any one time. That is the thing they should be looking to do for the start of that window. Well, I guess the interesting question is, what sort of profile would they go for? Would they go for somebody who is a kind of younger version of Forster and a bit more mobile? Or would they go for...

somebody, you know, like a kind of short term, just sort of short term, big name free agent, like Navas or Karius? Or do you go for somebody young and cheap who can, who you can kind of develop? I'm sure there's a lot of, as Danny says, I'm sure there's a lot of good young, modern style goalkeepers who they could use in, you know, in Germany, in France and Italy.

in Spain, they could bring in on a pay rise. So I just don't know what the you know, would they, whether they'd want a kind of because if you get someone like a carriers or an avas or whatever, it would be free, but they'd want a lot of salary. Whereas if you go and get somebody who's maybe a first choice at a mid table club in a different league in Europe, the wages will be a lot will be a lot less, but you might wind up having to pay I don't know, 1012 million euros.

So I just don't know what they'll be looking at internally on that. I'm not convinced a Karius or a Navas would be... It would be like, if it's an improvement, it's kind of an equitable improvement. It's almost not worth the risk, I don't think. It just doesn't feel very Tottenham. Yeah, well, it's not going to happen, and I don't think it necessarily should. Yeah. When have Tottenham ever gone in for the kind of like...

big name free transfer in January? I can't say it. It doesn't feel right. I don't see that. To answer your question though, Jack, I mean, I guess our old friend, the homegrown quota will probably be a factor. Although I think in the Premier League they do have a spot. So...

And maybe they shouldn't worry about that so much, but yeah. We'll come back to what else they might want to address in January. But something they do seem to be addressing, Jack, you broke a story this week. And it was a very pleasant story, in my opinion, and I'll no doubt get plenty of brickbats for saying that. But Spurs are going to extend Ben Davies' contract.

Not a situation I would have envisaged, but even at the start of the season. Yeah, so I did this story the other day saying that Davis is basically in the same boat as Son, which is that, yeah, his current contract expires at the end of this season, but within that contract, there is an option for next season, which Tottenham can trigger.

And as in the case of Son, Tottenham intend to trigger that option. In practice, all this means is Tottenham, I imagine it's done by a letter saying, this letter is to confirm that we intend to trigger the extension. And then Davis will then be contracted for next season. I believe the system is you have until...

like the last maybe like the last month of the season to do it and so that means that Davis and Son will both be there next season it will be Davis's 12th season at Tottenham and Son's 11th

season at Tottenham. Obviously Son's 10 year anniversary is coming up this summer, which is amazing really. And it shows how, you know, how important I think it is. But I mean, both on the pitch, I think Davis has done pretty well this season. Like he's only played, I think last night would have been his seventh start, but he's, you know, he's really good against City in the league. He was really good when he came on against City in the League Cup, really good in that Villa win.

And, you know, he's very reliable and adaptable, you know, different positions, different styles of play. But I also think kind of off the pitch, given that Spurs are bringing in this new generation of players

Young players all the time, and also given that they've lost Kane, Dier, Lloris, Hojbjerg, etc. in the last few years, it's important to have two guys who know the club and just get it. And also who, by everyone's account, are incredibly selfless, friendly, intelligent players.

welcoming people who are the kind of people you want as, inverted commas, cultural architects at your club. You did very well with the vibes thing last week. Now, cultural architects as... Somebody used that phrase to me the other day, actually saying that

they were explaining how at any club you need people who kind of set the right tone throughout the building and how players like that can often go a bit underrated and actually this was kind of

raised in the context of Hojbjerg. We were talking about why someone like Hojbjerg could be a bit maybe undervalued because all in the market. But I think that that's very much the case with people like Son and Davis. You happy with this, James? Yeah, I mean, I certainly don't see the harm. I don't imagine Ben Davis is a player on incredibly wild wages that are going to kind of stop the club from being able to sign anyone else. I do think they need to add players

something that ranks defensively obviously if I love Vescovic coming in over the summer but I would suggest maybe one more on top of that I think I certainly think that's a sensible move as Jack says you bring something to the culture but also I've got to be honest if you know we've got nine substitutes if Ben Davis is the 20th worst player that we're putting out you know on the on the team sheet in any given week then I'm very comfortable with that he is he has a he's not he's you know

He's not Beresi, but he has a floor of performance. I see people giving absolute pelters in other forums. I don't get it at all. I think this is weird, weird kind of Davies.

antagonism out there and I think it's basically but I think he's kind of like a I get the sense he's almost like a proxy for arguing about Enoch in the sense that a lot of the people this is a bit of a characterisation but here we go a lot of the people who hammer Ben Davis on Twitter are basically people who think that Enoch are really bad and they the implication sometimes it's explicit as well is that

Like, it's a lack of ambition to have Ben Davis at your club, playing at centre-back sometimes, and, you know, having a contract for next season. And so by criticising Davis, it's a stick to beat the ownership with. I think this is completely bonkers. I think that Davis is really good. I mean, he's not the best player at the club. He's not the best player...

you know, he's not the best player I've ever seen, but there's a lot to be said for having people like him in the building. And I think, so I'm always a bit surprised when people think that he should be, you know, terminated and told to go and play for, I don't know, Leicester City or someone next season. I mean, whether or not you think that he should be playing for the club, I'd sort of say similar to what we said about people like Dier when he left Leicester.

The kind of lack of respect for a player, a person who's given so much to the club over a prolonged period in what has been relative to what's come before a very successful period, even if it hasn't had a trophy in it. I don't really understand what football is to you if you feel like that. You might not want to be there, but to be so indignant about it suggests there's something else. I find it very odd.

Yeah, I was doing some very bad podcasting there. Every word you said, I was nodding along vigorously. Very quickly, because we were talking about the Vicario situation. That, of course, now has cast a sort of tarpaulin over the January transfer window because is there anything else Burrs should be doing? It is very possible that they will get to the middle of January, let's hope so, still very much involved in four competitions,

Is there a hole or two they could patch or improve the team in? And it should do in January? I think out wide is a bit of a question mark just because...

You know, some people have always thought they're probably one good wide player short, particularly now that Kulosevsky is a central midfielder. Obviously, Odebeer's injury has been really bad because he was the, you know, the bright new signing and he's barely played. Richarlison has played a little bit out wide, but he also has a bad injury. And, you know, I imagine he will be back on the market at some point in 2025.

And then Werner, you know, he's still on loan, hasn't pulled up many trees, although, you know, has had a few good moments recently against Manchester City, actually. So, yeah, I think for me, that's kind of the one where you'd say maybe it would make sense. But again, it would depend. Do they want another Werner-style player? Do they want someone young and cheap? I mean, it all depends what kind of profile they're looking for.

what profile of signing they would want if they want anyone at all. It's funny you mention understudies to Harry Kane there, Danny, because when it became obvious that Harry Kane was kind of unquestionably Tottenham's first choice centre-forward, the one I wanted as backup because of his kind of versatility was Loic Remy. And that is the kind of player they need now, like someone who can play...

as a kind of second choice centre forward or out wide he'd be perfect like Remy from like 2012 2013ish QPR era Louis Remy right exactly yeah he was so good at QPR there you go problem solved

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Welcome back everybody to the view from the lane. Um, let's look forward then, uh, the weekend we Spurs play Fulham, a game that, um, is important. I think for a number of reasons, one, it'll be a premier league game without Vicario two. They need to, I guess if they can add to the win against Manchester city, uh, you know, another win straight off the back of that in the premier league that you can, you can call that momentum, all kinds of reasons. Um, uh,

The problem is we've stubbed our toe against Fulham in the past. What can we expect here, Jack? How are Fulham going? Pretty well, I think. But I mean, they're Arsenal's team from three years ago, aren't they? Yes, I think Fulham have done really well recently because they've lost a lot of their team. Obviously, they sold Polinia to Bayern Munich, but they've lost Cordova-Reed. They lost Tosin. They've lost...

Willie-Anne. So they've had quite a big turnover of players, but they've had to kind of be imaginative and bring in new guys. But I think they've got quite an established style now, which means they've got stability now.

which is harder to get as a team who traditionally has yo-yoed a lot. But that means they've been able to bring in new players. They've obviously got lots of ex-Arsenal, you know, in Rhys Nelson, Iwobi, and of course Smith Rowe, I think he's been fantastic. Leno as well in the goal. And Leno, yeah. So I think Smith Rowe's been...

He's had a bit of, you know, I think if he keeps on playing this well, he could maybe get back in the England squad. I think he's a really, really, really exciting player. And Fulham, I think they have seemed to have enjoyed some success against Tottenham in the past. Obviously, last season, there was the 3-0 game at Craven Cottage in March was a sickener, really, for Spurs, because they just walloped Villa.

and it really felt at that point as if oh it's finally cracked you know they're going to do it everything's going to be okay basically and this is the kind of dynamic that we've seen at Spurs a lot isn't it you have this great moment after the Villa game and prior to the Fulham game we were all occupying the Charlie Eccleshare position weren't we it's all going to be okay now don't worry about it then all of a sudden you realise you are in fact on this vibes rollercoaster because Tottenham were so bad in that game at Fulham

And they lost 3-0. And frankly, they never really recovered. They got what? They were averaging a point a game through their last 10 or 11 league games, which is why they ended up in fifth rather than fourth. So the most important thing, actually, about this game is that this is Spurs' opportunity to...

put together consecutive Premier League results which is something they've struggled with and if they win this game then things will feel a bit more placid but if they lose it then people will say oh what was the point of being sitting anyway what was the point because we've you know we've gone from losing we've gone from winning a very difficult game and then not winning in theory an easier game so I think they have I think for the sake of the kind of conversation about stability and consistency it's they need to win

Yeah, I've forgiven them for Ipswich a bit now because if you said you were going to get three points from the Ipswich game and the Manchester City game, better to lose to Ipswich and then murder Manchester City. The problem with that is you've got to fold it up then with Fulham. James, are you gung-ho? Are we going to mash Fulham? Well...

I mean, it is a tougher game than it probably feels at first glance. As Jack says, Fulham are sort of kind of similar to Spurs, kind of flitted between good results and bad. I mean, I think most of the games they've lost have been against kind of teams you would maybe expect Fulham to lose to, bar Wolves last weekend. But it has seemed to have been the season when I've watched them play, like they've had a couple of good results and then I've watched them play and they've been not great.

I mean, they're only one point behind Spurs as well. I mean, I know we're not kind of massively enthusiastic about Tottenham's league position or points tally, but it probably goes to show that they're not, you know...

It would be a bit hard to say they're not a million miles off. I mean, I do worry about kind of fatigue. I mean, there were definitely some kind of fairly leggy looking players towards the end of that game. I mean, I'm skipping ahead into our voice note from Jay in a minute. But Ant Posterkoglu said in the press conference that Romero is unlikely to play. So you're not going to see a change there. And I mean, none of the other players who have been out are going to be back either. So...

your doggy maybe comes back in. I mean, if it was me, I probably would kind of give Poro that game off. I think he can't play every single minute of every single game. So maybe switch Gray to right back and two centre-backs are going to have to leave the same. Obviously, you're going to bring in Basuma for Benton Kerr. Do you put Madison in? Probably going to be a pretty tough game. You might want Sarr in there with Kulizevski and then that front three probably does pick itself. So,

That is going to be the test. I mean, it probably does feel like one where you do, having said it would be good to kind of click on, I do think it might be one where they need to get it done quite comfortably in the first hour or so. Be interesting to see how the Spurs press works as well. You know, we know it does very, very well. Statistically, it's the best in the league because Fulham have got loads of things they can do. But one of the things they definitely do is they use George Jim Anderson to beat the first half.

line of every press they try and play against. And if Solanke can be as brilliant as he can be, and the others, at closing down Anderson, then that will force Fulham to do things that they don't want to do necessarily. But let's not try and micro-predict something as unpredictable as football. As you say, um...

Jay Harris has been at the press conference and we'll hear now what Andrew's had to say in the build-up to this game against Fulham. Hey everyone, I'm just strolling down a nice country lane. Those autumn leaves falling around me.

Next to Tottenham's training ground, I've just gone to Posse Cogli's press conference. It was pretty routine. It's the third time this week we've spoken to him, so all the big topics have been ticked off by this point. I think the main talking point

It's basically that Christian Romero is closer to coming back from injury, but is unlikely to play against Fulham on Sunday, which means the trusted Ben Davies and Radu Dragosin partnership continues. Otherwise, there was a little bit of a reflection on Roma. He spoke about Brennan Johnson a lot, and I'm not too sure if some people saw, but there was a video last night, Apostol Koglu sort of shouting instructions at Johnson across the pitch, and he gave a little context, just saying that,

he felt on the ball Tottenham needed to be a little bit braver after they took a 2-1 lead and that Johnson I think had passed the ball backwards potentially but also that he wasn't too happy with the pressing from the front three that night but

He then said, you know, he's a massive fan of Brennan and it's just obviously what he's there to do, coach the team and push them forward. There was a little bit of chatter about Fulham as well. You know, one reporter compared this game to Ipswich and Crystal Palace and said, you know, how do you avoid making the same mistakes? And so he spoke about that. And I guess all we have to wait and see now is what the team can do on Sunday. And for anybody that was watching...

Go to the very end of the broadcast section and you might see me and Ange have a little bit of a joke as well.

Have a good one, everyone. Galatasaray, followed by the events that we've been discussing at the top of the show against Roma. It is fun, but the old nervous system starts to jangle after a while. Just to remind you, you can get involved with us as well. The show is its own official home on X and on Blue Sky at VFTL Podcast, or you can email us in the old-fashioned way at vftl at theathletic.com.

And let me remind you again that for the best Spurs coverage, and I mean this anywhere, make sure you sign up to The Athletic. Take advantage of our latest offer, just $1.99 a month for 12 months. Simply go to theathletic.com forward slash SpursPod to subscribe. The lack of victory against Rome means I have to return to my normal end of the show. Thank you all for listening. God bless you all. Come on, you Spurs. The Athletic FC Podcast Network.

The first ever 12 team college football playoff is set and you can join me, David Ubbin. And me, two-time national champion of Alabama, Damian Harris. And me, Chris Vanini, two-time national champion in the college football 25 video game. On until Saturday, the Athletics College Football Podcast for all the playoff previews, predictions, coaching carousel, and transfer portal news four times a week throughout the CFP.

Dame, how do you think Bama's going to do in the playoffs? Shut up, David. Listen, the time may be out of the playoffs, but I'm super excited to see the 12 best teams in the nation play. All the banter, insights, and more on Until Saturday. Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.