It was easy to get caught up in the moment near the end of Tottenham Hotspur’s 1-1 home draw against Wolves. After all that was a lovely guided shot by Joao Palhinha to earn a last-gasp point against the team currently winless and at the bottom of the table, and the celebration was so… exuberant. That, plus the obvious BEEFCAKE, meant a lot of last minute celebrations. And celebrations are fun! We should do that more often!
But let’s not pretend like this was a good match of football. It was not. Tottenham were set up poorly, played even worse, and needed a last second goal from the most unlikely of goal-scorers on the team to avoid a hugely humiliating loss. In fact, the draw itself is still pretty embarrassing. You can kinda understand the smattering of boos that rained down from the home crowd at full time.
But on the bright side, a draw is better than a loss, right? And Spurs are still looking like a team that should be in the mix for a 5-7 finish in the Premier League, and that’s before their stars like Dejan Kulusevski and James Maddison come back. So are these the dog days one must endure in order to get to the part where the team figures out Thomas Frank’s tactics, and Frank learns what his best team actually is? Let’s hope so.
Today’s theme is a look-back. I’ve been doing these articles since I took over as blog manager in October, 2014. With a few exceptions (most notably “Ratings to the Theme of Managers to Replace Jose Mourinho” which I did at least twice times mostly as a troll), they’ve been unique. And that’s hard! Sometimes these pieces are fun, sometimes they’re weird, and sometimes they’re controversial. We’re focusing on the latter today — player ratings that sparked so much conversation that they completely eclipsed the actual match we were supposed to be discussing. I couldn’t find the source articles for a couple of them, but the old-heads in the chat will remember, as does the streets.
Here are your Tottenham Hotspur player ratings to the theme of controversial player ratings themes. Time to get meta.
Shout out to the time, more than a decade ago, when I did a player rating article to the theme of Pets, and put cats at 5 stars. The comments are, alas, lost to the mists of time (and Coral) but the number eclipsed 2000, most of them yelling at me for hating dogs. Well guess what: I was right, cats rule. Suck it, haters.
No Tottenham players in this category.
I can’t find the original article, nor can I recall offhand what I put at the top (knowing me probably Kansas City because it is legit the best, fight me) but I distinctly recall having to shut the comments down at one point. I probably should’ve known better. I, a fledgling blog manager newly at the top spot of the masthead, naïvely thought this community at that time could handle some robust discussion. I got the robust discussion part right at least.
No Tottenham players in this category, either.
At the time I wrote this article, rating IPA at 3 stars was super controversial, as this was 2015, the height of the IPA craze when everyone was trying to cram the dankest pine trees into every bottle. Nowadays I feel like these ratings might be closer to modern sensibilities and less controversial, but at the time I got yelled at a LOT for not ranking IPAs higher, or every beer style, actually.
Mohammed Kudus (Community — 3.0): Tried a bunch of stuff. Scored from an offside position and later had a header tipped off the bar and out. But frequently tried one or two too many dribbles when actually passing to a dude would’ve been the better choice. I appreciate his dribbling. I would like him to pick his head up a little more sometimes.
Pineapple on pizza: it’s fine! - the greatest thread in the history of forums, locked by a moderator after 12,239 pages of heated debate
Guglielmo Vicario (Community — 3.0): I don’t think there was a ton he could do to avoid the goal considering his save deflected off of Palhinha and to an open Wolves player point blank. That said, he was shaky playing out of the back again as well.
Djed Spence (Community — 3.0): Not terrible, but I don’t think he’ll be putting anything on social media about his defense after this week. Utterly bizarre that he’s seemingly better not on his natural side.
Cuti Romero (Community — 3.0): He was fine.
Micky van de Ven (Community — 3.5): He was probably a little better than fine, but this was WOLVES, ferchrissake, so he’s was just fine.
Destiny Udogie (Community — 3.0): Took a step backwards from Wednesday against Doncaster, which makes sense since Wolves are better than Doncaster. Wasteful going forward, but decent defensively.
Lucas Bergvall (Community — 3.0): A real uneven performance. Ineffective when playing as an 8, tried a bunch of stuff that sometimes came off and sometimes didn’t as a 10. Showed a nice relationship building with Kudus at times, faded badly in the second half.
Why this theme? It was Monday, I was stuck, and I had two young kids. But seriously, why? Dude, you try writing this theme weekly for over a decade without repeating yourself. Sometimes you end up writing about My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic characters, and at the end of the day you still feel good about yourself.
Rodrigo Bentancur (Community — 2.5): Whoof. Honestly, if we’re going to rate that Spurs midfield, I think the bulk of the criticism should go to Lolo, who looked a mess, doing all of the busywork defensive stuff that Palhinha does and none of the ball progression that Palhinha also doesn’t do, just without the rad goal to go with it.
Xavi Simons (Community — 2.5): He was trying stuff and I appreciate that. Unfortunately, the stuff he was trying just wasn’t very good stuff.
Pedro Porro (Community — 2.5): Glad he got a bit of a rest, but wish he’d have had more of an impact when he came on.
There was one week where, after yet another player ratings thread with 500+ comments arguing about the stupidest shit, I made the comment that ‘Y’all would argue about igneous rocks.“ The week after, I tested that theory. To this community’s credit, you definitely tried.
Richarlison (Community — 2.5): Might have been the worst player out there, though he was in pretty good company, especially in the second half. Almost completely absent, though it should be noted he also wasn’t getting service from the midfield.
Brennan Johnson (Community — 2.0): Did he even touch the ball? He probably did, I just don’t remember it.
Thomas Frank (Community — 2.5): While I realize his hands were somewhat tied due to injury and rotation concerns, playing a Palhinha-Bentancur midfield with Xavi left against Wolves instead of an extra attacker showed the limitations of trying to play for a 1-0 win instead of actually going for it. His subs were questionable, and too late to be impactful. He needs to find some offense somewhere or I’m going to gouge my eyes out watching this team.
Yep, I phoned this one in, and nope, I regret nothing.
No Tottenham players were as bad as phoning in a player ratings theme after a bad loss.
Tom Carroll Memorial Non-Rating
Pape Matar Sarr, Wilson Odobert, Mathys Tel
Nacer Chadli Memorial Thirst Trap Award
Joao Palhinha (Community — 4.0): What the hell do I do with this guy? Definitely part of the problem in midfield today, but more endemic to the midfield problem rather than the catalyst of it since it’s just a bad idea to play him alongside Bentancur. Was he worse than Bentancur? Maybe. Certainly, at times. Was he better? Well, he scored so yes, but BOY was that midfield bad. Does what limited things he does pretty well, has a goal ricochet off his ass to an open Wolves player, then pops up for one of the raddest guided shots you’ll see in injury time. The guy can do THAT, and score awesome overhead kicks, but can’t pass the ball forward five yards. How do I rate that? I have no idea, so I’m punting, because he unquestionably looks HAWT without a shirt on. Is that worth 4 stars? Y’all think so.
