Former West Ham and Newcastle manager turned pundit, Alan Pardew, believes he’s found an issue with one particular Tottenham star that could cause issues for Ange Postecoglou moving forward.
Spurs have been wonderful to watch under the Australian and but for a injury-time equaliser against Everton, would’ve found themselves level pegging with Aston Villa in terms of points.
As it is, that late Jarrad Branthwaite effort kept the North Londoners two points behind the Villains who occupy the final Champions League spot at present.
Though there’s plenty of time for Unai Emery’s side to be overhauled, we won’t know until the end of the campaign just how crucial those two dropped points will be.
The match was also notable for the way in which Spurs keeper, Guglielmo Vicario, was targeted at set pieces and crosses.
It’s a weakness that Everton manager, Sean Dyche, had clearly identified, and as Pardew notes, that could well be a worry for Postecoglou in the remaining games of the 2023/24 seaon.
“They were pummelling Vicario yesterday at set-plays and they were obviously targeting him, and that’s a bad sign for Spurs because all Premier League managers watch things like that and they all will be like going to the set-play man tomorrow, ‘Make sure when we play Spurs, we are going to put in on him, Vicario, because he did look uncomfortable,’” he said on talkSPORT (h/t HITC).
“Tottenham need to get a procedure around that because they didn’t have anyone bossing the player who was irritating the goalie. They need to address that.”
Tottenham’s defenders will likely have to work extra hard in order to protect their custodian in future, as the last thing they need is to be consistently conceding goals from such situations.