Football365

Big thanks to the Premier League for putting four big games on simultaneously. Here’s a round-up for you, starting with the whopper of the day.

Derby victory for gloriously petty Mackems

“It is chaos – mayhem and chaos,” John Murray said on commentary midway through the first half, more we would suggest in anticipation of what the Tyne-Wear derby should be rather than what what was actually playing out in front of him.

That description hints at what was indeed a stunning lack of quality between the two sides, but is also suggestive of an end-to-end affair which it just wasn’t. Neither side had had a shot on target even after Sunderland took the lead early in the second half, as Nick Woltemade planted Nordi Mukiele’s cross into his own net.

“That was just barmy,” Peter Drury said having searched his commentary database of gods, mythical creatures and unusual place names and coming up empty in description of a quite funny but ultimately sh*t goal in what for what a casual football observer would have been condemned as a sh*t game of football.

There was though the sort of intensity and ferocity one would hope for from one of the biggest derbies in English football. Sunderland players roaring back at roaring home fans after crunching tackles and at any other given opportunity, while their Newcastle counterparts fell into their trap of making this a battle they always looked set to lose.

And in a glorious parting gift for Magpies trudging from the stadium, who had seen their team referred to as ‘visitors’ on the scoreboard in a sign of the pettiness to come, Sunderland posed for a photo in front of their own fans just as the Newcastle players did at the Stadium of Light after their FA Cup victory in January 2024.

The next derby can’t come soon enough for Sunderland and their fans as they look to improve on their quite extraordinary record of seven wins and there draws in their last ten Premier League meetings.

Haaland makes knackered Palace pay

Crystal Palace could have been 3-0 up and should at least have been in front when City took the lead, with Yeremy Pino missing the best chance, clipping the bar when played in over the top by Adam Wharton, who produced a ‘look at what you could have’ performance in front of Pep Guardiola, as opposite number Nico Gonzalez paled in comparison to Palace’s deep-lying playmaker.

But Erling Haaland got a chance and Erling Haaland scored, with just his second touch in the Palace box, making a very difficult header look absurdly easy from Matheus Fernandes’ cross. That was his 16th Premier League goal in his 16th game of the season, and he rounded off victory for City at Selhurst Park with his 17th from the penalty spot.

Phil Foden’s fine strike from the edge of the box following an excellent run from Rayan Cherki split Haaland’s brace and lifts City back to within two points of Arsenal at the top of the table.

A disappointing result for Palace, who again looked like they ran out of energy after a midweek game. They’ve now lost four and drawn one of their games after Conference League clashes, with their dalliance on the continent this term currently costing them in their bid to secure European football again for next season.

Morgan Rogers the second-best thing at Aston Villa

“There’s only Pep Guardiola who’s a better manager than Unai Emery in the Premier League,” Jamie Carragher said in the Sky Sports studio. And while there’s little doubt that Emery is the absolute best thing at the football club, there’s also little doubt that Morgan Rogers is the second best.

His first goal required a perfect first touch and fine swivelled finish into the corner and the second was pure technique. He’s now got the Marcus Rashford-esque dipping strike from distance nailed. Focus on the contact and the ball will do the rest. Alphonse Areola had no chance.

Ten wins in 11 Premier League games is ridiculous, made all the more so by Villa failing to win any of their first five and failing to score in the first four.

And we suspect Emery and his Villa players – who again showed their desire to fight by coming from behind twice at West Ham – will take great motivation from continued suggestions that they’re not really in the title race despite being just three points off the top.

Oh, Vicario

Only Wolves (7) have made more errors leading to opposition goals in the Premier League this season than Tottenham (5) after Callum Hudson-Odoi was gifted the opener at the City Ground.

Spurs fans on social media were very eager to lay as much of the blame as possible at the door of Guglielmo Vicario, who’s become the chief scapegoat under Thomas Frank this season.

Jeered by the Tottenham (un)faithful after his blunder in defeat to Fulham last month, it was his pass into Archie Gray, rather than the midfielder’s poor touch and dawdle which allowed Ibrahim Sangare to pick his pocket, which was the focus of the X ire.

Gray is fortunate as he a) was screaming for the ball as he dropped to receive it, b) had to lay it off first time in the knowledge (which he should have had if indeed he didn’t) that Sangare was breathing down his neck, and c) that Vicario made a second mistake to ensure Tottenham’s mini-revival under Frank came to an end.

Cross-shots like the one Hudson-Odoi scored from – which was definitely on the ‘crossier’ side of that balance – can fly in without the goalkeeper being at fault. But it’s really not a good look for the goalkeeper when they drop into the bottom of the side-netting rather than somewhere near the top corner.

Vicario could do nothing about Sangare’s stunning strike from the edge of the box, which swung away from the Tottenham goalkeeper and in off the post. And the performance from Spurs was such that this was a very long way from a game which can be written off as one which got away from them thanks to the errors of one man.

Toothless in attack, awfully weak when defending the flanks and clueless in midfield, particularly when looking to build attacks. And after Frank hailed the improved “structure” of their attacking patterns in the build up, Spurs were back to getting the ball and having very little idea as to what to do with it.

According to reports, Tottenham Hotspur are pulling out all of the stops to sign Antoine Semenyo, while they are keen to offload a midfielder.

Semenyo has been one of the standout players in the Premier League this season as he has taken his game to another level for Bournemouth.

The 25-year-old has dipped with Bournemouth in recent weeks, but he has still grabbed six goals and three assists in his 14 Premier League appearances this term.

The talented winger is expected to be one of the biggest talking points in this winter transfer window, as it has emerged that he has a £65m release clause in his contract that can be activated next month.

Liverpool are known to be interested in Semenyo as they scour the market for a potential replacement for Mohamed Salah, but Spurs are also said to be keen to sign him.

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A report from journalist Fraser Fletcher for our pals at TEAMtalk claims Spurs are ‘prepared to smash their wage structure’ to sign Semenyo, though Man City are also interested in beating Liverpool to the signing.

However, it is explained why Man City are said to be the ‘frontrunner’ to sign him.

‘Sources now position Manchester City as frontrunners, edging ahead of a determined Liverpool, while Tottenham Hotspur are ready to swing a financial sledgehammer to disrupt the race.

‘Despite whispers of Semenyo favouring Merseyside, sources believe City’s tactical fit gives them the edge. The player’s camp holds the aces, with a decision imminent to allow Bournemouth scouting time for a successor.’

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Spurs are also said to be working on exits and have already decided ‘to sell’ midfielder Yves Bissouma next month.

This is according to The Times, who have claimed that the ‘club is keen to offload midfielder following latest transgression in string of disciplinary issues, but could take up option to extend deal if buyer is not found’.

Bissouma has been filmed inhaling nitrous oxide for a second time, while he has also been guilty of turning up late to training.

The report claims: ‘Tottenham Hotspur will try to sell Yves Bissouma in January, but they are ready to extend the midfielder’s contract by a year if a buyer cannot be found.

‘Spurs want to offload Bissouma after his latest disciplinary issues, with the club determined to avoid losing the 29-year-old for free when his contract expires next summer.’

Former Tottenham scout Bryan King has suggested Spurs are “scraping around for players” amid links to Marcus Rashford, who he wouldn’t sign given a lack of loyalty.

Spurs have been linked with Rashford of late. They are one of a few clubs with links, but given their Premier League status, are one of the most intriguing.

Given the uncertainty over whether Rashford will sign permanently with Barcelona in the summer – having had a direct hand in 17 goals so far this term on loan – there seems a chance Tottenham or other sides could land him.

But after he decided against staying at Aston Villa, having had success in half a season on loan there last term, Spurs have been urged against the signing, by former scout King.

He told Tottenham News: “I wouldn’t have him. For me, he’s too similar to Richarlison or Dominic Solanke.

“They need a new centre-forward, but I’m not sure he’s the man for Tottenham. He should have stayed at Villa.

“I think he had a good season there, but why he never thanked them and stayed there, I don’t know. Where’s his loyalty? Is he going to show that to Tottenham?

“They’ve spent £165m on forwards, [Mathys] Tel, [Dominic] Solanke and Richarlison, and they still haven’t got a centre-forward. I don’t think Rashford is the answer. They’re scraping around for players.”

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It’s an interesting pivot from King, who on November 25 was advocating for the signing of Rashford.

He said then: “Of course, if he’s available. There are only so many strikers you can have. I think it would be decent value for any Premier League club. To get someone with the experience that he’s had for £26m would be great.

“There’d be no danger to the deal as well. He’s a good player, but it’s about getting him in the right frame of mind, that’s the only worry.

“I would have thought £26m isn’t a bad amount to spend on a player of his quality.”

Yes, Rashford has only assisted once since then and hasn’t scored, but that’s hardly enough of a reason for the view to change so drastically in just a few games.

Having got back to being a big success, Rashford would surely thrive in most top-flight teams, no matter what country they are in.

So all Thomas Frank had to do to rediscover himself and settle into his new place was invite his ex round for a little chat.

Brentford have long since moved on with someone they’d known for years, but even though Frank forced the end of a near decade-long happy marriage, it was he who had struggled most to adjust and acclimatise.

Perhaps simply seeing up close and personal how well Brentford seemed to be doing triggered something in the minds of Spurs and Frank, who produced arguably their best performance of the season and certainly their strongest at home this year to end a damaging winless run.

Anything less than victory at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium against one of the weakest away teams in the division would have been absurdly difficult for the manager to overcome, even before adding the context of this specific opponent making the short trip.

Brentford sitting level on points with Spurs in the table before kick off was embarrassing enough for the vultures who had swooped to pick at what seemed increasingly like a doomed carcass in the summer; letting them double the amount of sides from whom they have taken points on their travels this season would have been humiliating and very possibly sack-inducing.

This response, then, was stirring. Spurs were direct in attack, solid in defence and purposeful everywhere in between.

Their first 13 shots elicited just one in kind from the visitors, who were overwhelmed by the sort of energy, thrust and conviction which Frank had summarily failed to manifest in this squad across his last six months on the sidelines.

And Spurs wholly earned only a fifth clean sheet of the campaign. Every outfield starter bar Micky van de Ven and Djed Spence made at least one tackle – much like every other outfield starter bar Pedro Porro and Archie Gray had at least one shot – while 59 ball recoveries is their most in a Premier League match since last September.

As The Narrative dictates, that was obviously in a win over Frank’s Brentford.

“We struggled with their intensity and pressure,” the Dane said that day of his beaten Bees, adding: “But they have a stand that’s bigger than our stadium, and that needs to be put into perspective.”

It certainly would have had Spurs not won here. His position would have felt untenable, with Ramon Vega’s weird demand that Frank resigns “if they lose at home to Brentford” because “that would show me he has balls” hanging over a manager patently promoted well above his station.

These 90 minutes suggested he can make this work, that Xavi Simons was worth the £52m hassle, that Richarlison can score without immediately whipping his top off.

The goals alone were ample evidence: the first was created by one phenomenal ball over the top and a simple centre to finish as Spurs scored within two touches of entering the opposition half; the second somehow morphed out of a heavy Simons touch when facing his own goal in the centre circle, which prompted two tackles, a searing run and a pinpoint finish, all from the previously floundering Dutchman.

A reunion which could have backfired miserably and evoked a far quicker and less clean divorce has at least bought Frank more time to figure out the myriad matrimonial problems.

Tottenham Hotspur are the ‘frontrunner’ in the race to sign a Real Madrid star, but they face a repeat of a £51m flop in a deal that’s bound to fail…

Head coach Thomas Frank has had an incredibly troubling few weeks as he has swiftly become one of the favourites to be the next Premier League manager sacked ahead of Liverpool’s Arne Slot.

Initially, Frank oversaw an improvement as he unsurprisingly made Spurs tougher to beat, but he has clashed with supporters as his side has produced several nothing performances en route to slumping into the bottom half of the Premier League table.

Among Tottenham’s many problems is their toothless attack, so they are likely to try to add some firepower to their squad in next month’s transfer window.

And they could have an opportunity to sign Real Madrid star Rodrygo in the winter as the versatile attacker has reportedly been made available for a transfer.

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Every Big Six club has been linked with Rodrygo at some point over the past year as he his form and game time have massively declined following the arrival of Kylian Mbappe. Embarrassingly, he is currently without a goal in 30 games for Real Madrid.

Still, the 24-year-old has shown enough in previous years at Real Madrid to seemingly attract interest from Spurs and others, with a new report from Spanish outlet Fichajes claiming his valuation is set at 80 million euros (around £70m) ahead of the New Year.

The same report claims Arsenal, Chelsea, Man City and Man Utd are ‘monitoring his situation’, but Spurs are ‘the frontrunner’ to secure his services.

The report claims:

‘Rodrygo is currently at the centre of a tangle of interest. Tottenham leads the race, Manchester City and Chelsea are closely monitoring the situation, while Manchester United and Arsenal are watching from the sidelines.

‘The bidding war for his signature could intensify in the coming weeks. His next move will have repercussions for England’s giants, and the winter transfer window is shaping up to be one of the busiest in recent years.’

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Now, this deal could prove to be a coup for Spurs, but it is hard to see this being the case and they could have another Xavi Simons on their hands.

£51m Simons, like Rodrygo, is an attacking player with a great pedigree from playing in Europe, but the Premier League is an entirely different animal, and it would not be surprising if the Real Madrid wantaway also struggles to adapt.

His limited physicality is a concern following the Premier League’s recent evolution, while it is also a worry that no other club has bitten Real Madrid’s hands off to sign him over the past year.

This may be mainly due to Real Madrid’s lofty valuation, but it could also be related to clubs being unwilling to make such a commitment to a player who would be a risky purchase for a Premier League club.

Also, Real Madrid rarely make poor decisions when selling a player, as they typically cash in at the right time when their player is on a decline.

Man Utd learned that the hard way with Raphael Varane and Casemiro, so Spurs could face the same issue with Rodrygo in another costly transfer mistake.

Tottenham head coach Thomas Frank is not in immediate danger of losing his job but has been given a timeline to improve Spurs’ form, according to reports.

Spurs have been going through a poor run of form with Frank’s side winning just one in eight matches in all competitions following their draw against Newcastle United on Tuesday night.

Cristian Romero scored twice as Tottenham came from behind on two occasions to rescue a draw – but that’s only the second point Spurs have taken out of a possible 15 over their last five Premier League fixtures.

The result against Newcastle has left them in 11th position in the Premier League table but they could fall another place if Brentford get anything from Arsenal on Wednesday.

When asked whether he thought the club’s owners would be patient with him amid Spurs’ current poor form, Frank said: “Yeah, I’m very confident.

“I think the ownership – of course I’m just starting to know them, but it seems like they’re good guys, intelligent people – know how to run businesses and learning about football, learning more now they’ve become owners.

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“I think when we’re dealing with intelligent people, they can see every successful dynasty, every successful club has taken time.

“Yeah you have one where you maybe win one year or the second year, but you can’t sustain it if you don’t build something sustainable. Impossible.”

Football Insider transfer correspondent Pete O’Rourke insists that Frank is under ‘no immediate pressure’ over losing his job with sources indicating to him ‘that the Spurs board remain entirely behind Frank heading into the festive period’.

Despite many Tottenham fans hoping to see the back of Frank already, the former Brentford head coach ‘retains the backing of the Tottenham board, and he is set to be given until at least the New Year in order to turn their recent form around.’.

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Transfer expert Fabrizio Romano insists Frank’s position is “being monitored closely but nothing else at the moment”.

Romano told GiveMeSport: “Of course they [the board] can’t be happy with recent results, with higher expectations in the next games to change the situation. His job is being monitored closely but nothing else at the moment.”

Destiny Udogie insists all the Tottenham players are sticking together behind Frank after they held Newcastle at St James’ Park.

Udogie said: “As a group we are always together.

“Every day we go to the training ground and we train together with the staff. We just have to stick together and keep going.”

Apparently, Tottenham Hotspur, Aston Villa or Newcastle United are ‘highly likely’ to sign Igor Thiago from Brentford in January. Hmm, we’re not sure…

There is perhaps no finer example than Thiago of a Premier League footballer being ‘like a new signing’ this season.

Last year, Brentford paid a club-record fee to sign Thiago for around £30m to replace Ivan Toney, but he missed most of his debut campaign due to injury.

Thiago came with plenty of fanfare after scoring goals for fun at Ludogorets and Club Brugge, but his prolonged lay-off last season meant he exited most football fans’ minds ahead of this season, in which he has been a revelation for Brentford.

The 24-year-old is a key reason why Brentford have been completely fine without Thomas Frank, Bryan Mbeumo, Yoane Wissa and Christian Norgaard and have even thrived under Keith Andrews, who has the pre-season relegation favourites on the verge of the Premier League top-half.

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Record-breaking Erling Haaland is already running away with this season’s Golden Boot award, but Thiago is his closest rival with eleven goals in 13 matches for Brentford this term.

Naturally, Thiago’s immense start to this campaign is fuelling reports linking the striker with a transfer, which could reportedly come as soon as the winter transfer window.

According to Caught Offside, Spurs, Aston Villa and Newcastle are all ‘eyeing’ Thiago ahead of January as they are ‘very interested’ in signing the in-form striker.

It is also claimed that the Bees are ‘not feeling too optimistic about keeping him beyond January’.

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A source for the outlet claimed: “Newcastle, Spurs and Villa are strongly interested after closely scouting Igor Thiago.

“Even Brentford know now that they’re highly likely to receive tempting offers for him when the transfer window opens again.”

Another source added: “Unai Emery is a big fan and sees Thiago as ideal to be the long-term replacement for Ollie Watkins.”

Yeah, right…

These sources can’t have been paying attention to how Brentford have operated in recent years when providing this information, because their past work proves that they will not let Thiago leave easily.

The outlet also claims that Thiago’s valuation is around £35m, and this is surely an underselling of the forward, who would more realistically set clubs back at least £50m in January.

This is partly because it would take an outrageous offer for Brentford to sell their prized asset in January and leave them short in attack for the remainder of the season, with a suitable replacement unlikely to be sourced in the same month. Also, he is deserving of a bigger fee due to his stellar form.

Newcastle are certainly the least likely of the three sides to eventually sign Thiago, as they are well-stocked in attack with Wissa and Nick Woltemade, while Spurs and Aston Villa are lacking in forward areas.

But they will likely have to wait until the summer to get their man, because Brentford could easily price clubs out of a move until they have a replacement in place, and this is far more achievable at the end of this season than in January.

The agent of Tottenham goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario ‘knows that this could be his last agonising season in the Premier League’, according to reports.

Spurs lost 2-1 at home to Fulham over the weekend as they slipped down the table with a 2-2 draw against Newcastle United on Tuesday night meaning they are now 11th in the Premier League.

It is now one win in eight matches in all competitions for Thomas Frank’s side and Tottenham fans took their anger out on Vicario against Fulham, booing the goalkeeper during the defeat.

Vicario made a costly error but his team-mates and Frank called out the Tottenham fans over the unecessary jeering of their own player.

In a message on social media, Spurs team-mate Pedro Porro wrote: ‘Football is emotions. In football, as in life, there can always be mistakes, what I will not tolerate is hearing disrespect from the fan to my team-mates – hence my frustration at the end of the game. And we will get up, we remind you six months ago, everything was so bad, and in the end it is not how it begins but how it ends. To the true Spurs fan, I love you.’

Thomas Frank reacted on Sky Sports: “I didn’t like that our fans booed at him [Vicario] straight after and a few times he touched the ball. They can’t be true Tottenham fans because everyone supports each other when you are on the pitch.

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“And we do everything we can to perform. After, fair enough, boo, no problem. But not during. That’s unacceptable in my opinion.”

Reports in Italy claim that there is interest from Inter Milan in the former Empoli man and Gazzetta dello Sport insists that Vicario has let his agents know ‘this could be his last agonising season’ at Tottenham in the Premier League.

In full, the report said: ‘Vicario is tired of experiencing yet another psycho-dramatic season and has let his representatives know that this could be his last agonising season in the Premier League. The yearning for home prevails, the desire to return to Serie A for good.’

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On being booed by the Tottenham fans, Vicario told Sky Sports: “It’s part of football. I’m a big man and older.

“We can’t be influenced by the situation in the stands. The fans have the right to do what they think. It’s on us to stay calm.

“We have to focus on ourselves

“We are lacking in a little bit of composure and calmness at the moment. Today is a bad defeat and tough to accept.”

After another few days of widespread nonsense throughout the Spurs Universe (the only universe that matters) we find ourselves wondering if there isn’t a broader fable, a more general cautionary tale to be found among their slapstick shenanigans.

To be very, very clear from the outset here; we’re not saying winning trophies is bad. Winning trophies is a very good thing to do. It is nice and fun and good and teams should definitely be trying to do it.

But you can’t make it your whole identity. We’re all guilty here, of course. We all fed into the pot-dodging narrative around Spurs. We all said, lads, look, you’re just going to have to go and win something now, it’s absurd.

Yet for normal, healthy, sane football clubs winning trophies is a product of doing all the other stuff right that gets you into position to win trophies. Spurs did none of that to finally end their trophy drought, preferring instead to burn everything else to the ground in the single-minded pursuit of a particularly winnable Europa League campaign that came during a Premier League season with a particularly woeful bottom three.

Ange Postecoglou wasn’t wrong to prioritise as he did once it was clear how the season was panning out. By mid-February it was clear that Spurs a) could definitely win the Europa League, b) had f*cked their league season into the sun but crucially c) were in absolutely no danger of relegation thanks to the sheer incompetence of the bottom three.

From a football and business sense, the only rational option to take at that point was to pour everything into that Europa League campaign with its twin prizes of Actual Trophy and Champions League football.

But let’s not pretend that this is how normal big clubs go about things. Thomas Frank has acknowledged this when talking about competing on multiple fronts. He’s not been right about everything or even perhaps very much at all in recent weeks, but he was right about this despite the Daily Mail pretending not to understand his very obvious meaning for comic effect.

Spurs haven’t competed on multiple fronts since the days of Mauricio Pochettino. It’s worth remembering that even as his downward-curve team bantered their way to the 2019 Champions League final, they also still finished fourth in the league.

Winning the Europa League got a monkey off Spurs’ back. It gave Spurs fans a magnificent night and a huge celebration, as well as rattling all manner of rival fans. That’s tremendous. That’s a huge part of what football is about.

But what was it all for? What was it meant to achieve? There is no sense whatsoever that they will kick on from that success. They couldn’t even enjoy it for more than a fortnight before the manager who had orchestrated their best night for a generation was sacked. By the end of the summer the man who sacked him had also been sacked.

Six months on from That Night In Bilbao and the wildly cathartic open-bus celebration that followed, the fans and players hate each other, supporters are booing their own goalkeeper six minutes into matches and senior players are bollocking teenagers just for having the temerity to applaud the fans they now despise.

We cannot think of a starker representation of ‘trophies are great but they aren’t everything’ than the idea supporting Tottenham 2020-2025 has been better than supporting Tottenham 2015-2019 was.

That might be the most important lesson of all from winning the Europa League. That, yes, it was a great night. But it was only one night. For several years under Pochettino, Spurs fans were actually able to enjoy most of their matches. To look forward to them, even. To actually enjoy the whole idea of being a Spurs fan for an extended period of time rather than just for one (brilliant) night.

And while the way Spurs and Postecoglou went about achieving their Europa League success was perfectly correct in the unusual circumstances in which they found themselves, something was broken in the process. This is now a group of players used to losing, and more than that used to losing without consequence.

Standards have been allowed to fall to ludicrously low levels, where even such a catastrophically self-inflicted home defeat to a Fulham side who had lost five straight away games is no longer deemed unacceptable.

Where the response of players and manager to the boiling anger and frustrations of fans, many of them with season tickets currently working out at over £700 per Premier League win over the last 12 months, is to conclude it must be the fans that are wrong.

No, it isn’t ideal for your own fans to be booing their own goalkeeper after six minutes of a game. But you know what else is sub-optimal? Being 2-0 down against a team with no away win all season six minutes into a game after managing to win three home games out of your last 20.

Another thought that occurs here is that one of Daniel Levy’s most vital yet under-appreciated tasks over the last 20 years or more has been to act as lightning rod for all that fan anger that bubbles up from time to time.

It was quite literally a thankless task, but we do find ourselves wondering whether the Fulham scenes would have panned out differently with Levy in the house in his oft-performed role of pantomime villain.

For nearly a quarter of a century, when Spurs fans have been pissed off, they have known instinctively where to aim their ire and displeasure. Without that swiftly identifiable cartoon baddie, it’s all far less certain, far less focused, and before you know where you are you’re six minutes into a game and you’re booing the absolute f*ck out of your own goalkeeper.

We’ve seen it argued that Spurs players channelled their frustration into an improved performance to grab a rare point at Newcastle from a 2-2 draw. It’s an appealing argument, especially given the way the away fans – who have, it should be noted, seen most of Spurs’ better work over recent months – rallied round Vicario and the sheer main character energy of Cristian Romero’s refusal to accept either objective reality or his own limitations.

But while it was without doubt an improved result, was the performance any better? Not really. There was still a desperate lack of creativity and cohesion to their attacking play, and they still relied on a centre-back scoring twice to get them something from a game in which they were conspicuously second best pretty much throughout.

Newcastle will wonder quite how they didn’t emerge from three points in a game they dominated and were even handed the added bonus of being given the first – and probably last – penalty from the big Clampdown On Holding, in which we discovered that getting your much smaller opponent in a headlock so they physically can’t look at the ball is in fact a very clever way of winning a spot-kick.

Because Spurs are Spurs, they salvaged a point from this game with goals either side of the penalty nonsense via a diving header and overhead kick – although contact any higher up Romero’s leg and we’d have to call it an overhead dick – from their centre-back.

That only widened the existing gulf between the quality of Spurs’ general play (arse-achingly, teeth-grindingly dull and ineffective) and the quality of the goals they somehow end up scoring despite themselves (Richarlison’s two Premier League goal-of-the-season contenders, Micky van de Ven’s Son Heung-min Puskas recreation, even the intricately worked opening goal against PSG).

It’s all just such powerfully Spurs content, but the nagging question remains as to what, precisely, winning a trophy has actually done for them in the grand scheme. There is arguably even less purpose and direction to them now that one, overriding obsession of the last few years has been achieved.

The only real subsequent positive impact has been its utility as a shield against the barbs and jibes about all the other Spursy sh*t they’ve got up to since. Can you imagine just how wretched Spurs fans would feel now if they had all the rest of this and no actual trophy? Unbelievably grim.

Which isn’t nothing, but is it an all-conquering something? We’re really not sure it is.

We’re more convinced than ever that Spurs were happier, healthier and better in their Worra Trophy Era than their Actual Trophy Era.

Tottenham Hotspur have been gift-wrapped a perfect £27m transfer after a Manchester City mistake, with a ‘green light’ given for a January deal…

It has been a damaging few weeks for Thomas Frank, who has been given an insight into how rough a gig it can be managing Spurs.

Frank has only had 21 games in charge across all competitions, but he has lost seven of these matches, he has already clashed with supporters and there are calls for him to be sacked.

The former Brentford boss is currently the second favourite to be the next Premier League manager sacked and it could get really ugly if/when Spurs lose against Newcastle United on Tuesday night.

One of Frank’s several issues is the goalkeeping situation as supporters lost patience with Guglielmo Vicario, as he had a shocker in the weekend’s defeat to Fulham after also struggling against Arsenal and Manchester United.

These showings have seen Vicario fall in our ranking of the best goalkeepers in the Premier League this season, and Spurs should be looking for a new goalkeeper in January or next summer to at least provide strong competition for the erratic shot-stopper, who is among the ten players who are no longer untouchable.

READ: Did Thomas Frank really just ‘infuriate’ Spurs fans by telling them they’re sh*t and ‘can’t compete’?

And Spurs should look no further than Trafford to fix this situation.

£27m Trafford was one of Man City’s marquee signings in the summer, but his decision to re-join Pep Guardiola’s side over moving to Newcastle United quickly proved a major mistake.

This is because Man City opting to take advantage of the market by signing Gianluigi Donnarumma saw Trafford take and lose the No.1 jersey in the same transfer window.

In recent months, Trafford has firmly been the No.2 at Man City, has only had limited game time and has seen his chances of playing for England at next summer’s World Cup reduce significantly.

So it is hardly surprising that The Daily Mail are reporting that he ‘wants out’, while journalist Fraser Fletcher for our pals at TEAMtalk says Spurs are working on a deal to sign him.

MORE SPURS COVERAGE ON F365…

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The report from TEAMtalk adds:

‘Sources close to the club reveal that Tottenham have greenlit exploratory talks [with Man City about Trafford], viewing the 23-year-old Englishman as a long-term successor [for Vicario] who could inject youth and Premier League pedigree into Thomas Frank’s side.’

This would really be the perfect deal for all parties.

Spurs would gain a goalkeeper with a far higher ceiling than Vicario as an upgrade on their current No.1 for a respectable fee, Man City would recoup most if not all of their fee for the former Burnley man and would still have Donnarumma, while Trafford would land a move to a Big Six club and have a lot more chances of playing consistently in the Premier League ahead of the World Cup and beyond.