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Do we really want to engage more in that match? Really? Tottenham went to the Emirates, a place they very rarely win, and proceeded to not win. Shocker! It was a pretty evenly matched affair until the point where it wasn’t due to Anthony Taylor deciding to give a red card because reasons, and after that it was pretty much a forgone conclusion.
Some players did well, others didn’t. North London is (temporarily) red. It happens. Life goes on. I don’t think it was as bad as everyone wants to pretend it is, though.
So I’m not putting a ton of effort into the theme this week. This match was stupid, so let’s get silly! Here are your Tottenham Hotspur player ratings to the theme of Spurs players as vegetables.
5 stars: Harry Kale
Nobody was as good as cramming a leafy, delicious vegetable into your open mouth.
4 stars: Clementine Lenglet
Yes, a clementine is technically a fruit, not a vegetable. Shut up, I get to make the rules.
Richarlison: (Community — 2.5): I actually thought Richy did quite well. Came close in an early chance and earned the penalty that Harry Kane converted. Did a ton of defensive work against Martinelli.
3.5 stars: Richardlison
Rodrigo Bentancur (Community — 3.0): Like Hojbjerg, outnumbered in midfield, but he looked the least likely to make a stupid mistake and even started a few promising counters.
Harry Kane (Community — 3.0): Atoned for his prior penalty miss by putting it straight down the pipe to level the score. Got muscled around a bit by Arsenal’s back line. Kane wasn’t really the problem on Saturday.
3 stars: Olive Skipp
Eric Dier (Community — 2.5): IDK, he was fine? Nowhere to be found for Xhaka’s goal, but by that point Spurs were a man down and were playing in a back four, so I’m not going to give him too much crap about it.
Clement Lenglet (Community — 2.5): I barely noticed him out there on Saturday, which means he didn’t do anything particularly good, nor particularly egregious. Baseline three stars.
Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg (Community — 2.5): Outnumbered and outgunned in the midfield, which was just the way Arsenal wanted it. Didn’t do an especially great job against [REDACTED] but had a ton of work to do.
Son Heung-Min (Community — 2.5): Showed flashes of himself here and there on Saturday, but nothing seemed to quite come off. Arsenal probably had a lot to do with that.
2.5 stars: Cuti Romaine
Cuti Romero (Community — 2.5): That was probably, and incongruously, one of Cuti’s worst defensive performances. Hard to blame him too much for Arsenal’s second goal (though he could’ve placed the ball anywhere except for at Hugo), but he also got beat a couple of times by Martinelli and others. Uncharacteristically poor.
Ivan Perisic (Community — 2.5): IDK y’all, he’s not really living up to our expectations after he was signed. Struggled defensively and was not a factor at all going forward in this one. He’s had a couple of poorish matches now. I wonder if Sessegnon should be ahead of him.
Emerson Royal (Community — 1.5): It was a dumb tackle. It was NOT a red card, so I won’t ding him too much for it. Otherwise, solid defending, god-awful in attack — same as usual.
Antonio Conte (Community — 2.0): A lot of people are giving Conte crap for the quad sub in the second half, but he’s right — the match was over by that point, and Spurs have a Champions League match in a couple of days. That said, it was still annoying. Spurs still aren’t clicking under Tottenham’s tactics. At what point does it get concerning?
2 stars: Lucas Morel
Hugo Lloris (Community — 2.0): Rough day for Hugo, and it’s a shame it had to happen on NLD Day. Let a goal slip right through his hands, cleared straight at an opponent on more than one occasion. Wonder whether his injury factored, but no, we should NOT have played Forster.
1 star: Joe Rodonion
No Tottenham players were as bad as this pun.
Yam Vertonghen Memorial Non-Rating
The five subs used on Saturday meet the threshold for ratings, but really what’s the point? The match was over by the time they got in. All of them were fine. None of them were great. The collective ratings from the commentariat hovered around 2.0 for each of them. Hi, Matt and Skippy, welcome back!
Yves Bissouma, Davinson Sanchez, Ryan Sessegnon, Matt Doherty, Oliver Skipp
Eric Lamela Memorial Shithouse Award
Cuti Romero: It had to be him again, right? I noticed several instances where Cuti clattered through the back of an opponent when given license to do so. I would also argue his gamboling run into the box is a form of shithousery, or will be when he eventually scores from one of those. We are witnessing the emergence of a Dark Arts master.
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