Madders Makes A Fool Of Me & Lolo, Our Floored Genius.

It's often said that football matches are won and lost in midfield and in what was the best Spurs performance for a fair old while this was more than true. Brentford were obviously shorn of some important players, their midfield physicality being an important component in their usually efficient football machine.

Having said all that, the old cliche 'You can only beat what's in front of you' still applies and our side certainly made sure they did. After losing the Derby at home and then scraping past a Championship side in the League Cup, the last thing anyone would have wanted was to concede after twenty three seconds so of course Spurs conceded after twenty three seconds. Fortunately this didn't turn out to be the downer it could have been and the side responded very positively, creating a couple of half chances even before Dominic Solanke seized on a weak save from a Maddison shot to tap home his first goal for the club seven minutes later. 

Dom off the mark. Another 29 this season please.

Brentford Boss Thomas Frank admitted after the game that his side couldn't live with Spurs in the first half an hour, during which time Johnson put us ahead with an excellent finish after good work from Son and Maddison (again). For quite a large proportion of the years I've been watching Spurs they've been quite depressing but I read yesterday that this season they're the number one pressing side in the top five leagues in Europe. Maddison and Bentancur, more on him later, excelled in this.

Of course, it wouldn't be Spurs without some level of madness. For a period of time Brentford had a couple of decent chances, with Vicario making two notable saves, the one from Kevin Sharde's header particularly outstanding. Our keeper also somehow managed to get away with a blatant handball outside the area. Not sure how the officials missed it but again at the end of the game the classy Frank said that event hadn't affected the overall result. 

As Brentford pushed late on for an equaliser, sub Bissouma made a great tackle of the edge of our box, the ball broke to Romero who played an inch perfect ball through to Son who looked up and squared a pass to Maddison who lifted the ball over the onrushing Flekken to seal the points. This was the icing on the cake for his performance, with many fans and pundits suggesting it may have been his best in a Spurs shirt. This was of course always going to happen after some idiot not a million miles from here wrote the following last week in justification of leaving him out of Saturdays starting line up:

"No place for Maddison this week for me for two reasons. Firstly, he very rarely lasts ninety mins when he starts. He hasn't quite got to Rafa Van der Vaart levels of looking knackered after seventy mins yet but because he's not playing brilliantly his lack of fitness is showing more . Secondly, Kulusevski has been the best performer so far this season and is reveling in the position just behind the front three."

Scores, takes off shirt, gets booked, costs his Mum a point in FF, gets told off.

Alongside Maddison in the midfield, technically in the number six position, was Rodrigo Bentancur. You may have to forgive me a little hyperbole here because I think a fit and firing 'Lolo' is the best player at the club. I've watched him closely since his arrival from Juventus in January 2022. Initially I was a little skeptical because the Juventus supporters seemed fairly pleased to be rid of both him and Kulusevski who arrived together in a classic Daniel Levy 'sign one, get one on loan' deal. My initial skepticism soon disappeared as both players made an immediate impact. In fact, forgetting Harry Kane, in the period until Lolo picked up an ACL injury at Leicester just over a year after his arrival, I thought he was our most important player.  

Lolo in full flow. He's got the lot.

He was missing until October last year but a month after his return that dirty bastard Matty Cash injured him in the match against Aston Villa. This time it was ankle ligaments. He only missed about four weeks but struggled to return to the levels he'd previously reached. Fortunately, Ange seems to be a fan and the increased depth in midfield means under normal circumstances he'd be rotated like all the others in that area of the pitch. 

The reason that these are not normal circumstances are entirely of Lolo's own making. During an interview on Uruguayan television he made a 'joke' with the presenter based on the ethnicity of Son Hueng-Min. Not only was this in extremely bad taste, it showed awful judgement. Once news of this reached the European audience he apologised to Sonny and said the right things but of course by then it was far too late. The wheels of the Football Association can move slowly but even they eventually got around to charging him on September 12th with an aggravated breach of rule E3.2 as his 'comment' included "a reference, whether express or implied, to nationality and/or race and/or ethnic origin". In simple English, he made a racist joke. The punishment for this, if proven guilty, which is pretty much a forgone conclusion is a ban which can range from six to twelve matches.

If Sonny wasn't a 32 year old experienced International footballer and all round great bloke this could have caused a massive problem in the changing room. I also wonder what Yang Min-hyuk , the 18 year old South Korean who is due to join the club in January will make of it all. 

Someone's got some making up to do.

All of this comes in addition to the fact that Lolo is already serving a four game ban from International football. This was down to his part in what can only be described as a riot at the end of the match between Uruguay and Colombia. Several members of the Uruguayan squad ended up wading into the crowd where its alleged members of their friends and families were being set upon. Now nobody could argue that they were were wrong to try to protect their loved ones but in Lolo's case he was clearly recorded throwing a bottle into the melee. You have to ask yourself, in what way was that helping to protect anyone? In fact, it narrowly missed hitting a member of the coaching staff in the face and that could have caused serious injury. This incident again shows very poor judgement from someone who is now 27 years old. He's not a kid who could be easily influenced by an older peer.

What is confusing to me is that on the pitch Lolo doesn't show any of those old South American stereotypes that still get trotted out sometimes in England. Probably still harping back to the infamous games against Argentina in the World Cups of 1966, 1986 and 1998. He's not particularly dirty, he doesn't seem to harass the officials anymore than anyone else and I can't remember any instances of simulation.

What I do see is a midfielder completely comfortable in any of the three positions the modern midfielder has to occupy. As a number six, he tackles well, he can take the ball in tight positions and move it quickly on to those either wide of him of forward. As a number eight he can drive through midfield and travels box-to-box naturally following the pattern of the game. Even rarely as a number ten he has an eye for a pass that can break the line and slip one of the forwards in for a chance. He gets beyond the forwards and can finish when the situation requires and is also more than capable of completing a long pass when needed. 

More of this please Lolo, less off the field bollocks.

I feel that when fit and on form he's the closest we have at the club to a complete midfield player and at 27 he should be entering his peak playing years. The problem is that I also feel with Lolo we're always just the width of a fag paper away from him doing something stupid, generally off the pitch, that makes me pull out the tiny amount of hair I still have. If only he can cut this nonsense out.