Tottenham Hotspur blew a golden opportunity to draw level on points with Manchester City and Arsenal today, but alas, had to settle for a 2-2 draw at Everton. Richarlison bagged a brace in the first half, Guglielmo Vicario made a major gaffe or two and manager Ange Postecoglu made some questionable substitutions.
We’ll cover all of that and more in this post match edition of Tottenham Hotspur news and notes.
Let’s start with Postecoglu, who seemed to blame this result, and by that we mean the two points dropped, on the officiating.
“I’m pretty disappointed, particularly conceding so late,” the Australian said in his post match news conference.
I thought we had chances to kill them off in the second half, we knew they would throw a lot of balls into the box and we would have to deal with a lot of things.
“It seemed like the refereeing was just going to let everything go and let the VAR pick up the scraps and for us nothing happened in that sense.”
A lot of Spurs supporters, at least the ones who use Twitter (what everyone outside of Elon Musk calls the social platform), are placing more of the blame on Postecoglu.
Specifically, they don’t like his late match substitution decisions.
Oliver Skipp is a trending term right now on “X” (lol!) because some Tottenham fans believe he should not have been brought on at the end, while the North London side was still trying to protect a win.
Ditto for the coming on of Bryan Gil (who was actually supposed to leave on transfer window deadline day, but obviously did not).
For once, this is on Ange. The subs he made were shambolic. Shouldn’t have brought on Skipp, Dragusin and Gil. pic.twitter.com/P3YdFOIEn7
— TalkTHFC (@TalkTHFC__) February 3, 2024
They do have a point. Elsewhere kudos to Richarlison. Not just for totally doing a 180 in the trajectory of his career (he now has nine goals in his eight league games), but for not celebrating when he scored.
The Brazilian didn’t want to show up his former team and former supporters, and doing so what a true conveyance of genuine class.
Finally Vicario is really having problems in goal, especially so on corner kicks.
Teams seem to be targeting Vicario now on corners after the Manchester City game. pic.twitter.com/K4Z8mZw3X8
— The Spurs Watch (@TheSpursWatch) February 3, 2024
Since the Manchester City match, his season has been in sharp decline. He’s now conceded more goals this term than Andre Onana of Manchester United. One has to wonder if Postecoglu may consider Fraser Forster time soon.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He’s written for numerous publications, including the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. He regularly appears on NTD News and WGN News Now, while writing for the International Baseball Writers Association of America. You can follow the website on Twitter.