OK, with this I think I’m caught up now, though I’m not looking forward to doing player rating articles during the busy festive fixture season. These are hard and take time! But thanks for your patience.
Tottenham Hotspur played a home football match in the Premier League and won! That’s exciting! The 2-0 win over Brentford was not only the first home win since week 1, it was also one of the best matches Spurs have played this season. This match had EVERYTHING: offensive nous! Goals from open play! A shutout! Goals from the Pigeon and Xavi! What more could you ask for?
The theme for this article came from a Carty Free reader but I confess while I thought it was a fantastic prompt I can’t remember who suggested it. Whoever you are, good job you. I took that ball and ran with it. If there’s one thing that footballers like to do aside from playing football, it’s writing an autobiograhy, or employing someone to write one for them. I won’t confess to reading any of the books on this list (most footballer autobiographies are bad) but as a Dad Joke Aficionado, I have a highly developed respect for the craft of punnery. So we’re ranking player performances this time to the theme of puns in footballer (auto)biography book titles. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do, or at least groan at the appropriate places.
Get it? Eh? Yeah? Get it? Masterful job, Johan.
Xavi Simons (Community — 4.5): I’m probably overrating Xavi’s match performance a little bit here, but who cares — he had a goal and an assist, and looked very comfortable in that advanced 10 role, especially with players to pass him the ball. Five star ratings have been rare this season, so I’m happy to fan-crush him a bit here.
I might not especially like the player (Le Tissier has been, um, extremely controversial on a variety of subjects over the past decade) but I do have to tip my hat on an impressive pun. He certainly has taken the piss on a variety of topics and on any occasion he can.
Micky van de Ven (Community — 4.0): Outstanding match defensively and wasn’t afraid to move forward with the ball either. Man, he’s so good.
McAteer retired from the game in 2007, the first year I became a Premier League football fan, so I never watched him play. I just think “Blood, Sweat & McAteer” is a great biography name, especially for a Republic of Ireland player.
Cuti Romero (Community — 4.0): Wild scissor tackle that earned him a yellow but otherwise pretty imperious at the back with a couple of lovely sliding challenges. Kept Igor Thiago quiet, which has been tough to do lately.
Djed Spence (Community — 4.0): Good on both sides of the ball. Forced a quality save from Kelleher going forward and got back repeatedly to make defensive stops. Solid match.
Pedro Porro (Community — 3.5): Just a solid match. Indefatigable with his movement and set up the first goal with a lovely ball from deep.
Randal Kolo Muani (Community — 3.5): Worked his tail off but didn’t get a ton of service. That said, you can see what he’s trying to do out there and it adds a lot to the team. I thought he was great.
Thomas Frank (Community — 4.0): Has he finally figured out his good team? Seems like he might, but let’s see if it continues.
Haven’t read the book so I can’t comment on whether this is an explosive tell-all about life between the sticks as a professional footballer. If it isn’t, well it should be.
Guglielmo Vicario (Community — 3.5): Blessedly didn’t have much to do, so fewer opportunities to screw up. (He was fine, honest, I’m just cranky.)
Rodrigo Bentancur (Community — 3.5): A little iffy to start but came into the match well. One of his better performances this season, I’d say.
Archie Gray (Community — 4.0): Arch continues to improve his game in midfield and Spurs looked a lot better with him in there. I don’t think he was exceptional in the role, but he played a relatively simple midfield game, and that’s enough to make Spurs’ offense look so much better just by him being in that role.
Mohammed Kudus (Community — 4.0): We got the full Mo Kudus Experience™ in this one — some nice moments and good balls in, forced a couple of saves, but still dribbled himself into trouble on numerous occasions.
Pretty good effort for the man once voted “the 17th hardest footballer of all time.”
Richarlison (Community — 4.0): Did well to be in the right place at the back post for Xavi’s cross, and smashed it home. Didn’t do a ton other than that, though.
Joao Palhinha (Community — 3.5): Came on as an impact sub and did the job.
The obvious choice for a Lamps book, and would also work for a Thomas Frank bio, though I think he should go with “Frankly My Dear…”
Wilson Odobert (Community — 3.0): Didn’t really get much of a chance to establish himself, and had at least one dumb/bad offside in buildup. Not a terrible match, but not his best outing either.
Yes, yes, we get it, you played for West Ham. Very clever. Were you also frequently drunk? (Probably)
No Tottenham players in this category.
I’m going to cut Jude some slack here since this is a biography, not an autobiography, but to Graeme Croser, who wrote it, come on buddy. You can do better than the most obvious pun of all time combined with a title convention that uses the word “rise” twice.
No Tottenham players were as bad as writing a biography about Jude Bellingham titled “Hey Jude.”
Tom Carroll Memorial Non-Rating
Pape Matar Sarr, Kevin Danso
Erik Lamela Memorial Shithouse Award
Cuti Romero — It was for that tackle. Definitely yellow worthy, but just on the edge of acceptability. A true shithouser’s tackle.
