Cartilage Free Captain

Good news for all #AngeIn supporters — David Ornstein, considered the gold standard for Premier League news and transfer reports, was just on NBC Sports’ broadcast coverage giving an update on Tottenham Hotspur, where he said that embattled head coach Ange Postecoglou is “100% safe in his job.”

The video is posted in the header of this article, and it’s worth a full watch. There’s a good amount of info about Tottenham’s transfer business, including today’s signing of keeper Antonin Kinsky and what it means for the goalkeeper situation at Spurs. If you want to skip past the transfter stuff and just get to the stuff about Ange, move forward to 2:19” in the video. Here’s a transcript from that point:

“Ange Postecoglou is 100% safe in his job, I’m told. There is no uncertainty over his future, despite the pressure he appears to be feeling in some of his public comments. They’re backing him to lead this project forward and they’ll hope he delivers.

“They have a chance of a League Cup trophy and a Europa League trophy. They’re focusing on that, and they’re also fighting to get into the top four, although realistic about their chances on that too.”

Good. This is quite clearly the club briefing that Ange is is no danger of being sacked anytime soon and that Spurs are taking a long view towards rejuvenation and development of the squad in the upcoming transfer windows. There’s no better source to brief on this than Ornstein, who has a gravitas that makes a statement like “100% safe in his job” settle with a real weight of authority.

The goalkeeper you never knew you wanted is here!

Tottenham Hotspur have officially announced the signing of Czech goalkeeper Antonin Kinsky:

Spurs’ goalkeeping cadre is obviously in dire straits right now, with Guglielmo Vicario out with a long-term injury, Fraser Forster suffering with illness and a poor fit stylistically, and Brandon Austin extremely inexperienced at the top level outside of stints in checks notes MLS and the Danish Superliga.

Kinsky, however, has come through the ranks at Slavia Prague, with multiple loans across the Czech footballing pyramid before securing the starting berth at the Red and Whites this season. He’s made an immediate impact there, keeping 13 clean sheets in 19 matches and even getting a taste of European football with Slavia Prague turning out in the Europa League.

He is young, and still relatively inexperienced, but stylistically possibly the best fit for Ange-ball on Spurs’ books - and that’s including Guglielmo Vicario - though I make that judgement solely on a number of highlights packages displaying his Chiriches-like boldness with the ball at his feet. In fact, some rumors floating around have stated that the intent is that Kinsky compete with Vicario for the starting role; how much of that is true and how much of it was a story sold to Kinsky’s agents remains to be seen.

Kinsky will wear #31 and could make his first start against Liverpool in the League Cup in midweek; although the work permit and registration processes can take some time, so his availability for that fixture is not guaranteed.

Let the gif party commence!

Ange Postecoglou was not a happy camper in the immediate wake of Tottenham Hotspur’s 1-2 loss to Newcastle today at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Ange cut a very angry figure on the sidelines at points during the match, seemingly taking issue with match official Andy Madley’s decisions (or lack of decisions) during the game.

Speaking to the press just after the match, Ange was raging, choosing his words carefully but clearly incensed about a “fair and even playing ground” after a match where Spurs deserved at least a point.

“Brilliant, outstanding, it was a game we deserved to win and any other day we would have won. On a fair and even playing ground we would have won the game. I know what my opinion is... if that was different day and an even and fair playing ground, we would have won.”

It’s not clear exactly what Ange was referring to, and that’s almost certainly by design — Ange has been doing this a long time and knows how to give criticism without directly implicating match officials. But the clear inference was that he was unhappy with Madley’s refereeing in this match. And he has a point! One particular moment noted was after Pedro Porro was fouled by Joelinton, who was fully deploying the Dark Arts during the match, and with Madley declining to call a foul; Ange was especially incensed on the sidelines after that incident. Joelinton also stopped a Spurs counterattack with his hand that ended up being a hockey assist for Newcastle’s equalizing first half goal, which was also not called.

We haven’t heard anything about the official post-match presser, and that might be an opportunity for Big Ange to either clarify his comments or expound upon them. But I can’t remember Ange getting that hot in the immediate aftermath of a match. It’s not necessarily a good look — complaining about refs and injuries never is, even when you’re right — but also, yeah he’s got a real point in this one. He’s probably still under significant pressure and even though there’s a lot of good will coming from supporters after that performance even with a loss, this one has to sting.

Tottenham Hotspur deserved at least a point today against Newcastle United in today’s match at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Dominic Solanke scored off a header in the fourth minute, but Anthony Gordon controversially leveled two minutes later thanks to a handball in the buildup that match official Andy Madley declined to call and VAR declined to overturn.

Spurs had a number of chances to level the score — Solanke had numerous headed opportunities saved by Dubravka, Pape Sarr had a good shot saved, Deki put a ball off the post. But the real story is how much this Tottenham team fought against the in-form team in the Premier League. There were some very good performances in that match, including a quite competent display by third keeper Brandon Austin making his full Spurs debut at age 25. This was a good performance by a team playing with a defense that had Djed Spence and Archie Gray as central defenders for the entire second half.

I’m immensely proud of this team. COYS.

Lots to talk about. It’s time to rate the players.

Rate the players from 1⁄2 to 5 stars. If the player doesn’t deserve a rating due to minutes played, DO NOT RANK. I will round the stars up/down to the nearest half-star for the player ratings later this week.

It was a day that most of the Tottenham Hotspur squad would likely have rather spent in bed eating chicken soup. Instead, it was Newcastle United who dined on cockerel, as Spurs fell at home 1-2 to the Magpies.

This match was always going to be a battle for Spurs, with a laundry list of players missing and suffering from illness. The Lilywhites were down to their third-choice goalkeeper with Brandon Austin making his first senior start, as well as three additional changes: captain Son Heung-min, Yves Bissouma (both rested), and Rodrigo Bentancur (suspended) all made way for Timo Werner, Lucas Bergvall, and Pape Matar Sarr.

Morale was low, but there was an instant of hope as Spurs struck first and early through Dominic Solanke. It started with a driving run from deep by Lucas Bergvall to get Spurs on the front foot, before Pedro Porro curled in an excellent cross between the Newcastle backline and goalkeeper that a diving Solanke headed into the bottom corner.

Unfortunately, Newcastle struck back immediately, with Bergvall involved on the other side of the ledger. The young Swede was put under pressure by a poor Pape Matar Sarr pass, and stretched to toe the ball on with Joelinton swiftly closing down the angle. Bergvall couldn’t get it past the Newcastle midfielder, and the Magpies were immediately on the front foot, with Anthony Gordon sweeping the ball into the net as the Spurs defense struggled to recover. There were strong protestations from the Tottenham players though, as Joelinton clearly handled the ball; an action VAR bizarrely ignored as the officials declared the goal stood.

Alarm bells would have been ringing later in the half, as Djed Spence was asleep to a ball threaded through to Jacob Murphy, who squared first time to Alexander Isak. The Swedish striker arguably should have done better, scuffing his shot narrowly past Spurs’ right-hand upright. Minutes later, Isak had the result he was after: the ball in the net, with the same players involved. Spence was unable to shut down Murphy, with Radu Dragusin also failing to clear, as Isak put himself in a position to knock the ricochet off the Spurs center back home as Newcastle took a 2-1 lead into the half.

A somewhat bizarre half-time change saw Sergio Reguilon make a rare appearance at left back as Radu Dragusin failed to make his way out of the changing rooms after the break. The Romanian likely succumbed to his struggles with sickness, and that meant a makeshift backline with Spence shifting into the middle, becoming the seventh player used in that position this season.

Following a number of half-chances for either side, Ange Postecoglou utilized a break in play thanks to a possible broken nose for Anthony Gordon and made a triple change with Spurs in search of goals: Son, Bissouma, and James Maddison entered the fray for Werner, Sarr, and Bergvall. The young Swede, one of Spurs’ better performers, was applauded off the pitch by the home crowd who initially booed when they realized he was being removed.

Spurs toiled hard, with a number of half-chances and some bright moments of play; while Newcastle looked to run down the clock. Though the effort was there and laudable from Spurs, the quality in the final third was not, and Tottenham were unable to find an elusive equalizer.

Reactions

If Fabrizio Romano (siiiiiiigh) is correct, Tottenham Hotspur are very close to making their first signing of the January transfer window. According to Romano, Spurs are set to finalize a £10m move for 21-year-old Slavia Prague keeper Antonin Kinsky.

I no longer love using Romano as a primary source (there are lots of reasons for this) but he does tend to be right with his info when he reports stuff like this. It’s an interesting choice — I really expected that if Spurs signed a backup keeper they’d look for a domestic option due to the Europa League squad restrictions.

I don’t have a lot to say about Kinsky. He’s a young keeper, and a quick examination makes him look like a high sweeping, ball playing keeper who’s quick off his line. That should serve him well in Ange-Ball, and certainly makes him a more attractive option, at least on paper, than Fraser Forster.

Here’s a highlights video that gives you an idea of what he can do.

If Spurs do sign Kinsky, I do wonder what it means for Big Fras — does he drop to third keeper? Does he stay as primary backup until the end of the season when his contract expires? But if this rumor is true, it does appear that Spurs and Postecoglou both want something different behind Guglielmo Vicario than what Forster offers, and Kinsky looks like a young keeper who not only better fits the system but could perhaps challenge Vicario down the road.

I don’t hate it! Let’s see what happens.

Let’s get 2025 started off right - with a Tottenham Hotspur match with no Tottenham Hotspur players available! Oh, and let’s make it against a side well above Spurs on the table, with Newcastle United sitting in fifth.

I’ve said previously it’s not a fun time to be a Tottenham fan; it’s now not a fun time to be a player either, with half of the team reportedly ill to add to all the fun that Ange Postecoglou already had to deal with, with injuries and suspensions galore.

And against a high-flying Newcastle side, it’s hard to see how Spurs get anything out of this match. But maybe Dr. Tottenham will visit in a different way for once?

COYS!

Lineups

Lineups will be posted closer to kick-off.

Live Blog

How to Watch

Tottenham Hotspur vs. Newcastle United

Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London, UK

Saturday, January 4, 2024

Time: 7:30 a.m. ET, 12:30 p.m. UK

TV: USA Network, TNT Sports 1 (UK). Check international listings at livesoccertv.com

Streaming: nbcsports.com

Match thread rules

The match thread rules are the same as always. To any visitors coming here for the first time, welcome! We’re glad you’re here! Wipe your feet, mind the gap, and be sure to check out the other pages at this outstanding site. While you’re here, though, we have a few rules and regulations:

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Have fun, and COYS!

fEarlier today we reported on Ange Postecoglou’s press conference comments where he said an unreported number of Tottenham Hotspur players did not train due to a virus circulating through the team. Predictably, there’s been tons of unsourced speculation about who those players are and whether they’d be fit to play tomorrow in Tottenham’s match against Newcastle.

Now it looks like we know the status of one player, at least. talkSPORT is reporting that Fraser Forster is one of the ill players and is not fit to start the match, meaning third-string keeper Brandon Austin is set to (finally?) make his club debut in goal.

talkSPORT isn’t a GOOD source, but it is a media source, and that’s better than the glorified ITK accounts that have been chattering on social media about this. We can hope that talkSPORT is wrong, but at this point that doesn’t seem very likely — there’s a ton of smoke in the air even if we haven’t (yet) heard from the likes of Dan Kilpatrick or Alasdair Gold.

Austin is a 25-year old academy graduate, and he’s mostly known as the guy who competed with Alfie Whiteman, Spurs’ fourth keeper, in Tottenham’s reserves. Austin has yet to play a competitive match for Spurs, but the club gifted him a new five year contract through 2029 this summer, which caused a few scratched heads as it appears he’s not particularly highly regarded at the club. Regardless, it’s not great when any club has to resort to their third keeper to play in a match — most of the time they’re third keepers for a reason.

At any rate, Spurs’ hands are tied — there’s no one else aside from Whiteman or an academy keeper who can play tomorrow, so Austin will get his shot. He looked decent when I watched him play in preseason and there’s an argument that he’d be at least a push with Forster due to his increased mobility, but this is also a player who has been on loan in Denmark and MLS with neither team taking up an option to purchase him. I get the sense that both Austin and Whiteman are still in the squad as much or more for their homegrown/club trained status as for their keeping ability.

There are reportedly other players suffering illness, but no reports as to who they are or if they’ll be fit enough to play even part of the match. But with Spurs’ squad already stretched so thin you can see daylight through it, losing any more players for whatever reason is terrifying. This is a disaster.

Were you hoping for some positive Tottenham Hotspur injury news ahead of this Saturday’s early match against Newcastle? Oh, you sweet summer child. There is no good news. Ange Postecoglou held his pre-match press conference before the game against the in-form and high-flying Toon and confirmed that not only is Destiny Udogie expected to miss six weeks of action (down from the eight previously hinted), but that the team’s been dealing with a virus that’s been sweeping through the squad this week.

“Destiny — his hamstring. Looks around six weeks for him. We lose Bentancur suspended. None of the injured ones are back yet. We’ve had a bit of an illness bug with a few not training.

“At this stage [Richarlison] and Mikey Moore are the next cabs off the rank, we’re hoping next week. Ben [Davies], Micky [van de Ven] and [Cuti] Romero all kind of around the same time, back end of January.”

So I guess that’s kinda good news in that we have a firm timeline for return of a few players this month. But that’s not going to help Ange with Newcastle, a team on a four game winning streak and that has scored 13 goals, conceding none, within that same span. Ange didn’t specify which players were afected by the virus or whether those players will be playing on Saturday, but it doesn’t look great, does it?

Postecoglou acknowledged that the team is going through a rough patch where everything seems to be going against them, but in true Ange form he didn’t moan about it, addressing the spate of injuries and the compressed fixture schedule as challenges that are “temporary.”

“Look, some of it, but some of it’s just circumstances, some of it’s just, and I know we always want a head on a stick and we want somebody to blame, and there’s always somebody at fault, but some of it’s just life, mate, you know, football is like life and you know how sometimes in life you get one thing go wrong and you get another thing later on, and you’re doing nothing different, you’re just going ‘why is it always me at the moment?’.

“And you know what, it’s all temporary, you get through it, and for us, some of it we understand is a consequence of the situation we’re in in terms of fixtures, the way we play, but some of it’s just the way...you know. We lost Djed with a red card and he was supposed to start over Destiny. Destiny starts doesn’t get the rest, and then...it’s like that’s just life and sometimes no one’s at blame, no-one’s at fault, you know, it’s just, we’re going through a bad trot, but it is temporary, we’ll get through it. We’ll analyse areas we can improve in and move forward from there.”

The January transfer window is now open with the expectation that Spurs will be bringing in some players to help bolster the squad. There have already been rumors that Spurs are looking at potential options at backup keeper and left back, two areas of need this winter. Ange wasn’t drawn in to explaining or expounding on the team’s transfer plans, but again noted that the club has a transfer and recruitment plan in place, and that the club will not be drawn into “panic buys” just to patch holes in the boat.

“It’s not a matter of pushing but the club are working hard to get help for the playing group. It’s no secret we need to bolster numbers. January is not an easy month, we understand. At same time want to make sure we do the best thing for us rather than panic and bring in people who aren’t going to be a suitable fit.”

When asked about new arrival Yang Min-hyeok, Ange was very careful to lower expectations on his ability to contribute to the first team right away. In short, we shouldn’t expect Yang to feature for Spurs anytime soon.

“There’s real plan or timeline [for Yang]. Let him settle. He’s still very young and he’s coming from the other side of the world where the level is nowhere near what he’ll face here. He’s got [Son Heung-Min] here which is a big help for him.”

Tottenham kick off against Newcastle at 7:30 a.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. in the early fixture at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday.

It really felt like the Jose Mourinho–Nuno Espirito Santo–Antonio Conte stretch was rock bottom for Tottenham Hotspur, but apparently, we are still hanging out in that valley. 2024 was a historically bad year for Spurs, and avoiding another dismal stretch in 2025 will require a massive turnaround. Ange Postecoglou is not in a good place right now, and a visit from fifth-place Newcastle United does not seem likely to improve the mood.

I continue to believe that prioritizing non-Premier League competitions is the way forward at this point, especially with Wednesday’s League Cup semifinal first leg increasing in importance. However, Postecoglou cannot afford to punt on this weekend’s match with Spurs’ entering the new year down in 11th. While a top-four finish is a distant dream, Tottenham must do something to fix this unacceptable table position.

Tottenham Hotspur (t-11th, 24pts) vs. Newcastle United (5th, 32pts)

Date: Saturday, January 4

Time: 7:30 am ET, 12:30 pm UK

Location: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London

TV: USA Network (US), TNT Sports 1 (UK)

Newcastle enters this match in excellent form, just three points off fourth place after four consecutive victories in which they outscored opponents 13-0. This stretch includes quality wins over Villa and United and raises the defense to fourth-best in the league in terms of goals allowed. For Tottenham’s inconsistent attack, this is an ominous prospect.

With the calendar turning to January, this is the first opponent Tottenham has faced twice in the league this season. Newcastle won the reverse fixture at St. James’ Park back in Matchweek 3; that match saw Spurs equalize through a comical Dan Burn own goal, only for Alexander Isak to punish the high line with a clinical finish to secure all three points for the Magpies.

Resolving to be resolute

Tottenham’s biggest issue continues to be the defense. Even if many losses have been narrow rather than blowouts, Spurs concede far too frequently — and at the worst possible moments. Early goals, late collapses, and individual errors have plagued this team, and there is no quick fix, even with full health. Postecoglou’s aggressive system requires a solid defensive foundation to work, and figuring this out must be a top priority in the new year.

Newcastle seems primed to exploit these weaknesses. Isak (12 league goals) is a constant threat, while Joelinton, Anthony Gordon, and Jacob Murphy have been contributors in recent weeks as well. Look for the fullbacks to stretch Tottenham’s back line, and set pieces will remain a significant danger. It might only take a single defensive breakdown or two to compromise the outcome.

Whose terms?

Spurs have scored the second-most goals in the league this season, but their output against top defensive sides (Arsenal, Bournemouth, Newcastle, etc.) has been limited. The exception was a chaotic three-goal display against Liverpool, but the big deficit and opponent’s style make it an outlier. With Toon not conceding a league goal in a month, this is a bad situation.

If this becomes a low-scoring affair, the odds favor Newcastle. Eddie Howe’s side is compact and organized, forcing opponents to break them down. The creative burden will fall once again on Dejan Kulusevski, but Tottenham desperately needs James Maddison to step up in 2025 as the player who can unlock defenses. Spurs would benefit from chaos and a high-tempo match, but Newcastle will likely make this a grind and look to capitalize on any defensive mistakes.