THOSE WHO TUNED into the first Monday Night Football of the season will have noticed one of the season’s first public bollockings.
It was administered to the 18-year-old Premier League debutant Lucas Bergvall by Guglielmo Vicario.
Some might say the Spurs keeper was a candidate himself for the first reprimand of the campaign, after almost assisting a Leicester goal with a diving header while several yards outside his area in the first half.
But he’d regained his sense of authority by the time Bergvall got caught in possession late in the game.
The young midfielder was harried by Kasey McAteer while in his own half with his back to goal. Then Stephy Mavididi stepped in to complete the dispossession. He strided on and crossed for Wilfrid Ndidi. Vicario dived to save his header then ran towards Bergvall, furious, waving his arms, and screaming as if the lad had missed the iceberg that pierced the Titanic.
Bergvall held out his hands, then his head dropped. In the moment you could see his sense of confidence and spirit – which had buoyed a fairly hapless looking Spurs – leave his body. It was quite sad. More so than the boom-and-bust team performance, more so than the two points dropped after 15 shots versus seven and 71% possession.
This got to the core of Tottenham’s problem, a side Ange Postecoglou described as probably lacking confidence after the 4-2 loss to Liverpool last season.
A lack of confidence, that quite possibly stems from a lack of leadership.
Tune in for Spurs against Everton today and there is every chance you will see a Spurs attacking player take a shot or fail to deliver a perfect pass to Heung-Min Son. The striker will hold his head or stretch arms, palms-out, towards where the ball should have been played, his expression one of profound pain.
This is the club captain. Son has been a magnificent player for Spurs since 2015, and seems to be an exemplary human being in many ways. But he’s not captain material.
He might be a more talented footballer by levels than those around him, but that doesn’t change the fact that his job as a leader is to encourage, to instil belief, to convey calm when needed and rally and lead by example when more fire is called for.
To single Son out in this regard is perhaps unfair. Such behaviour is common in many Premier League clubs. It baffles that players are allowed to carry on like this towards teammates. Especially when you consider the amount of money and thought that goes into making sure footballers are at their best when they need to be.
Yet you can invest to the point of having the world’s greatest training facilities, which Spurs have a claim on, with cutting edge science on diet, physio, gym, analytics and even psychology, yet it won’t matter if your players lack confidence.
The macronutrient ratio of your post-training-session recovery smoothie is fairly moot if players lack belief; if they are not happy. And it’s hard to see how they can be happy and confident when they are being undermined and belittled in public.
One of the first things any half-well-run kids team is told is that you don’t berate your teammates, you encourage and support. At some point up the football pyramid this seems to get lost for many.
You could explain it away as the ruthless upholding of standards by elite-level players – and therefore something us watching from the stands could never understand – but, honestly, that is nonsense. You’re talking about basic human psychology here. Anybody with common sense can tell the difference between a confident player and one who is lacking. Beatings are not the best route towards improved morale.
Diego Maradona in 1986 is perhaps the greatest player at his greatest time. Depends on your age, probably, whether you agree or not. Either way, he was something. The contrast between his otherworldly ability to lay chances on a plate and his teammates’ ability to butcher them was near comical. Yet there were no histrionics from Maradona. He just kept going.
There is little danger of Spurs transforming into world beaters if they become better teammates to each other – but it can help their cause.
Their brittle nature is all too evident. Watching on Monday night, you got the sense that no matter how well things were going early on, all could unravel in a moment. Perhaps this mentality is only native to a Spurs fan of several decades, but a younger supporter in the house made the point in the second half that Leicester would probably get one chance and score, following all of this Spurs dominance.
Now comes the time when we make Leicester look like Real Madrid, we said, after the inevitable happened. Further predictions of another swift Leicester goal or two proved overly pessimistic, but the not entirely temporary descent into headlessness did follow. Misplaced passes, defensive mix-ups, panic stations all round . . . For a finish, the young substitute who restored a bit of swagger and composure to Tottenham’s play almost got made a scapegoat.
He may have lost the ball, but at least he wasn’t afraid to seek it out in difficult areas. At least he chased back hard when caught out. He didn’t deserve the response he got. Hopefully Bergvall has the sense to disregard Vicario’s rantings, though that is perhaps expecting a lot of someone of his age.
What is reasonable to hope for is Ange Postecoglou will have a quiet word with Vicario and the leadership group and make clear the need for a different tone. The ruthless enforcing of standards – if they in fact exist at the club – must happen in a way which can’t be mistaken for empty posturing or signalling to the gallery.
But you’d wonder if Ange himself has succumbed.
The final chance of the night fell to Richarlison. His effort from close-range looked more like a defensive than an offensive header. The camera switched to Ange on the sideline, doubled over like he’d been booted in the gut.
Ange Postecoglou Moments 😂
— Manuel (@Quophi50) August 20, 2024
Before After pic.twitter.com/qKtpUaPBVD
Spurs supporters will know how he feels. In fact, they’re more familiar with that sense of hopeless exasperation than the manager. He’s passing through but it’s a lifelong thing for us.
While he’s here, though, he might at least set the right example when it comes to all of this. Let the honest errors go. Tell the lads to back each other in the difficult moments, of which there will be a lot.
And if you can’t keep the faith because, let’s face it, that’s asking a lot, then at least keep the head up, mate.
