Written by kirsikka
The team pretty much picked itself with Zabs serving the last match of his suspension and no sign of Smith or Araujo. Christie making the starting XI was the bonus, although from what AI said in his press conference, it sounds like he’ll be game by game for the rest of the season.
The shadow of Solanke loomed large on their team sheet, with him undoubtedly desperate to show he made the right decision last summer. Spoiler alert: nothing we saw today showed that.
Man of the match against Tottenham
Tavernier
Tavernier
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Evanilson
Evanilson
Vote
Christie
Christie
Vote
Kerkez
Kerkez
Vote
Huijsen
Huijsen
Vote
Kluivert
Kluivert
Vote
Hill
Hill
Vote
Someone else
Someone else
Vote|
One aside. I genuinely wonder how Sky Sports can spend countless billions on the rights to show PL matches live but still have such a loose grasp of every team outside the Sky Six. According to their pre-match lineup, Kluivert would be playing right wing for us today. Baffling.
Let’s be honest, this was never going to be 0-0 and we nearly saw why after fifteen seconds when Evanilson intercepted a terrible defensive pass only to see the keeper do well to push his shot wide. A couple of minutes later, another interception saw Kluivert through on goal but the keeper saved when, truthfully, we should have scored.
This was kind of a theme through much of the match. I don’t think Vicario had the best game of his career, however, he did enough in so many promising situations that we never closed it out. It isn’t one of those where you say miraculous saves kept them in it, but good goalkeeping did keep them within a sniff of us. Sadly, and I think you all know where this is going, we didn’t see the same at the other end.
Evanilson was back to his darting and flicking self, with one extraordinary backheel volley from the penalty spot needing to be saved. I still think there’s more to come since he drifted in and out of the game more than I remember from before the injury, but you can’t fault what he has delivered since his comeback. Promises much for the rest of the season.
After the lightning start, the first half did lull a bit with Spurs retaining most of possession but rarely threatening and us looking dangerous when we could press them high but spending most of the period in our half where it wasn’t as effective.
Just before half time, Kerkez intercepted an attempted Spurs break and streaked into the acres of space in front of him, looked up and picked out a pinpoint cross to the far post. Tavs came steaming in and knocked it into the net on the slide.
Kerkez will deservedly get most of the plaudits but it’s also worth giving a nod to Adams. He put on a burst of acceleration to close down a Spurs player when they were breaking and that’s why he mishit his pass into the path of Milos.
Meanwhile, that assist will have scouts at certain other clubs licking their lips. That was a 63 yard run according to Sky at half time. I can see it playing on repeat in the background as transfer teams discuss who to recruit for their vacant left back role this summer. Still, that’s a future worry.
Spurs rang the changes in the interval and came out much more aggressively, pinning us back for a spell. And yet, the best moment of the match was ours.
With Spurs threatening to score, a burst of pace from Tavs across the penalty spot gave him control of the ball, which he then dribbled out of the area on the left. As I breathed a sigh of relief, he seemed to forgo oxygen and instead continued accelerating. He skinned a man, played a one-two with Semenyo on the halfway line and went most of the full length of the pitch before playing a perfect cross for Kluivert to blast home.
Oh my word. One of the goals of the season. Genuinely incredible. Only…
The VAR replay showed that Semenyo had been lazy in getting back onside before the one-two, meaning for the second time in recent weeks Kluivert was denied a goal of exceptional beauty.
Still, we had weathered the early storm, sparked back into life and were all over them. Kerkez hit the woodwork with an angled scorcher tipped onto the post by the keeper.
The deserved second came when we carved them open thanks to some gorgeous body positioning from Kluivert. He picked up a ball from Christie in the middle and wrong footed the defenders by letting it run across his body, giving him space to play the perfect little pass to Evanilson who dinked it over the keeper and into the net.
Spurs were nowhere and reduced to hopeful potshots, although we got a warning straight after the goal when one from miles out bashed against the base of the post.
It was a warning we didn’t heed…
One minute later Spurs got one back. The defenders on the left were a body short and, with Christie puffing in his efforts to try to get back to challenge the man on the ball, their player pinged in a cross-shot that caught Kepa off his line. Luck or design? Only he knows but I’d be tempted to give him the credit for it.
I’m torn on this one. You want a proactive keeper who is positioning themselves to come out and take crosses, and even the best can get caught out by that kind of shot, but it still feels like it shouldn’t have beaten him. I’m sure he’ll be lambasted by some but, for me, that one was more “one of those things” that happen when your luck is against you.
Yet, we picked ourselves up and continued to threaten, with Kluivert the one to hit the woodwork this time, his angled shot coming out off the post after being played in by Tavs.
And then the fateful moment when the outstanding Tavernier was taken off for Brooks and it felt like we weren’t quite settled in to the change when the body blow hit.
I had my head in my hands in despair and so need to see a replay because, somehow, an enormous amount of space appeared on our right. I’m sure someone must have drifted out of position but I can’t say who at this stage.
The ball was played into that channel, Son raced onto it and Kepa came charging out. The commentary team said “You could see it was going to be a penalty two seconds before he made contact” and they were right. I knew what was coming and I’m sure every single one of you did as well. With Son going wide, Kepa needlessly clattered into him to give away the penalty.
They scored it, obviously, and I make that’s eight penalties faced in the last two weeks where Kepa hasn’t saved one himself. Bearing in mind his cup final shenanigans, it’s starting to feel like saving pens isn’t really his thing.
And that was that. A point that we’d usually celebrate but somehow leaves me a little deflated. The performance, though, was incredible and we mustn’t lose sight of that. Even if there is a sadly familiar story to the missed chances.
Selected Player Watch
—– Kepa —–
He’s done well this season but there’s no way to sugar coat he’s having a tricky patch. Needless penalty conceded against Brighton, unlucky but still carries some blame for the first today and then an utterly brainless penalty given away to cost us two points. The book was closed on who should be number one, but if he carries on gifting the opposition goals then it must surely be looked at again. One to watch.
—– Semenyo —–
Another who seems to have hit a sticky patch of form over the last month. It’s not really hurting teams the way he can and, sometimes, his full sprint tracking back happens a stride or two later than it should. Walking back into an onside position rather than jogging cost us one of the goals of the season today. Form comes and goes and I hope that’s all it is and not a case that his head has been turned and he’s believing the hype.
—– Tavernier —–
In stark contrast to Antoine, he was relentless with his running, full pace covering, mopping up messes as well as trying to get forward. His goal may be Exhibit A but the disallowed assist where he went from pretty much preventing a goal to creating one and, in the process, skinning multiple Spurs players, was one of the best things I’ve seen in an AFCB shirt. Alas…
—– Hill —–
It was actually a pretty quiet game for him but I thought he looked mostly solid. As I said, I need to watch the penalty back again because there was too much space for them to exploit but at this point I’m not sure if he was partly culpable. He isn’t Zabs yet, but few defenders are, and I think he has mostly done pretty well stepping into the role. I expect to see him start at right back next weekend.
—– Kerkez —–
Brilliant assist and was also in the game throughout, tenacious and pacey. We should enjoy these last few matches since I’m sure he’s off in the summer.
AI and Player Watch
Looking at the match overall, AI won the tactical battle by a mile. We should have been out of sight, but, and playing a record I’m sick of listening to, we didn’t finish them off. Instead we let them back into a game they had no right in which to have any interest.
I don’t think he did too much wrong. The one question I have is one that has been bumping around the back of my head for a while. That is, given how much he mixes up his forward line with his subs, it feels like AI is overly reluctant to take off Semenyo.
Maybe it’s related to his scoring prowess, but in the PL this season Antoine has completed the 90 minutes 22 times and only been subbed off 5. Compare that to Kluivert (4 x 90s, 22 x under 90) or Tavs (8 x 90s, 13 x under 90) and you can see there’s a clear wish to keep AS on the pitch for the full match whenever possible.
I’m starting to wonder if that should be questioned a little. Tavs was immense today and, a short time after he went off, they broke down his side and won the penalty. It isn’t hindsight to say I would have preferred to have seen Semenyo go off based on the performances we were seeing. I acknowledge I don’t have access to the stats that show their condition.
Aside from that, there are two narrative arcs today, and both have equally valid things to say.
In one, the fact that we went away to Spurs as favourites to win is incredible. To have followed that up with a performance that more than justified that tag and, as an AFCB fan, you have to think we’re living in dreamland. Well, that’s because we are. And don’t let anything else I say make you forget that’s what I think.
In the other, as a team chasing a European spot, you can’t keep letting teams off the hook. Based on the performances we have put in, we should have:
– Battered Wolves in the cup, but somehow they took us to pens.
– were probably slightly better than Brighton, but we let them sneak all the points.
– more than matched Wolves with ten men in the league but let them get the win.
– and today we tore strips off Spurs and yet handed them a point.
Separating who we are and where we find ourselves is a challenge as AFCB fans since it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking we should be grateful rather than disappointed. It’s possible to be both. I’m grateful for every minute of this season but disappointed that we’re letting the opportunities our incredible play is creating slip away and throwing away points on the back of that.
If we keep performing at this level, I’ve no doubt we’re going to pick up a lot of points between now and the end of the season. I just hope, come the finish line, we don’t regret all the points we’ve let escape us.
That said, classic AFCB under Eddie Howe often had a dodgy spell of dropped points around the February mark only to come bursting through to the end of the season. If we can replay the rest of that hit, then a run like that should still make things incredibly interesting.
Today was a point with which, in any other season, we’d likely have been delighted yet I can’t help but feel a smidgeon of sadness about what might have been. We’re still an absolute joy to watch, though.
Roll on next week. I’ll join the Brentford manager in relentless watch checking until the game kicks off.
Your say…
AFCBilbo
Today, some of the football was genius, and I didn’t see them getting anything until the lucky strike, but even then, we could have gone further ahead
Goalkeeper to blame for the penalty again, after Brighton, not a good look, but that’s probably why we’ve got him and he’s not playing for Chelsea
Disappointing not to take all the points and think we need a big result next week. – To join the conversation, please click here.