‘Best goalkeeper in the league’ – Ex-Spurs Scout: Five things I learned from Tottenham win against Nottingham Forest
Tottenham News is delighted to welcome aboard our brilliant new columnist Bryan King, the former goalkeeper who spent six years as a senior scout at Spurs and 28 years in total in first-team scouting roles. Bryan also spent eight years on Everton’s recruitment team and 11 years scouting at Aston Villa across two different spells.
Tottenham made it back-to-back Premier League wins on Friday 15 December as they won on the road, beating Nottingham Forest 2-0 at The City Ground.
After a five-match winless run, Ange Postecoglou’s side now have six points from their past two games, winning consecutive matches in the Premier League for the first time since October.
Dejan Kulusevski was the star of the show in the Midlands, setting up Richarlison in the first half before scoring midway through the second to seal all three points for the visitors.
Yves Bissouma’s dismissal in the 70th minute made for a nervy finish, but Tottenham’s backline held strong as they recorded their first clean sheet since a 2-0 home win against Fulham on 23 October.
Ex-Spurs scout Bryan King was watching on for Tottenham News and has detailed five things he learned from the victory.
Tottenham have the best goalkeeper in the league
The one player who is impressing me more and more is Vicario. I think Spurs might have the best goalkeeper in the league, I certainly think he is the best goalkeeper in the Premier League at the moment. He makes saves at important times in games and he is very brave when he comes out at people’s feet.
He made a great save not long after Nottingham Forest’s disallowed goal, the ball was fired in low and there were two or three Forest players in central positions six yards out, and he dived out and held onto the cross. They always say a goalkeeper has got to keep the ball out of the net no matter what it takes, and his save with his foot toward the end of the match was fantastic. If Forest had got one at that time, it would have been a very hectic finish. You could see everyone was in total disbelief when he kept that out. He looks the full package.
He gets stuff away from the danger areas, that is what is most impressive. He cost the club less than £20million, talk about value for money. He was a very good buy.
Ben Davies has stepped up
I thought Davies did well. He looked solid, he didn’t take any chances, and he played it simple. It was a strong display alongside Cristian Romero, who seemed to have his tackling under control on this occasion. Davies has shown over the past couple of matches that his experience is very beneficial to the younger players around him.
Nottingham Forest aren’t a bad side and they put Tottenham under quite a bit of pressure, but Spurs defended very well throughout, and I thought the whole back four played well.
Destiny Udogie can be a liability
While Udogie did play well, he does need to watch his tackling. There were a couple of moments where his challenges were a bit reckless, especially when he got the yellow card just before half-time, it seems like sometimes the head rules the feet with him. He doesn’t mess around with his tackles, that is for sure.
He seems to sometimes make these tackles in soft areas of the pitch, areas where he doesn’t need to be challenging the way that he is. If he could just play it easy and do what he is doing getting forward and getting back he will be alright. However, there are moments in the game where he gets caught out and makes these unnecessary tackles. You can tell that he is still a young player, he is not getting booked for making last-ditch desperate challenges, these tackles are happening up near the halfway line.
Discipline needs improvement
Spurs have been losing players due to reckless challenges. Romero, Udogie and now Bissouma have all been guilty of this, and these are good players, players whom Tottenham cannot afford to lose and now they will be losing two of them against Everton, Bissouma and Udogie.
I think something needs to be said, these players need to be spoken to because it seems that opposition players look to be targeting them. You could imagine managers telling their players to have a go at the three of them because if they do they could wind them up.
That is a worry because you don’t want to be losing the Bissoumas and Udogies of this world.
Refereeing remains inconsistent
Bissouma got sent off, okay it did look like a reckless challenge, but I think Ryan Yates made a meal of it, there wasn’t massive contact there, and there were two or three tackles after by Forest players which could have also warranted red cards.
Again, there is a lack of consistency in refereeing decisions. There was one tackle during the second half where Murillo made a challenge on Pedro Porro, he got up and said that he got the ball, but he also got the man. It makes me laugh when a player gets up and starts pointing at the ball, yes you got the ball but what about the player you just took with it? He got a yellow card, I thought that could have been a red card due to the scissor motion of the tackle.
I thought Murillo was lucky on a couple of occasions, to be honest.
In other Tottenham news, one 16 per cent flop repaid the club badly during his performance vs Forest.