Readers, forgive me for moving on to another thread so hastily after last night’s match – by all means, feel free to continue to vent your frustrations in that discussion here – but I wanted to move on from the inevitable (and very understandable) negativity the match has brought up within our fanbase. I want to move away from commentary deriding Antonio Conte and our midfield (issues we’ll revisit later, I’m sure), and maintain a more forensic, constructive approach to analysing our shortcomings, starting with right wing-backs.
Now, I dislike pinning collective failings on individuals, but last night, some players weren’t good enough. One player who I thought was good in some aspects against Sporting (but mostly not so good in others) was Emerson Royal, who nonetheless made fascinating viewing last night (offensively and defensively). Generally speaking, I do feel he has been improving his attacking presence of late – statistically, he has already equaled his entire total of assists from last season (the grand total of 1) – and he was a thorn in Sporting’s side at times yesterday.
Although the numbers can never truly give a wholly accurate account of proceedings, SofaScore demonstrates that last night, Emerson had three shots on target (including one big chance at the start of the second half), and attempted 4 crosses, only 1 of which was successful. Although this is nothing to write home about, for a player who doesn’t usually attempt to cross, this does represent an improvement on what we’re used to seeing from him.
Yet, once again, the last set of stats (and the final scoreline) particularly highlight how his final ball was nowhere near good enough, as has so often been the case in his Spurs career to date. Yesterday, he spurned several decent openings going forward, and defensively, he could (and should) have done better on both goals, more so the second. This was rather disappointing, given how defending is generally his strength.
Nevertheless, the blame for both goals cannot lie solely at his door – the entire defensive unit has to take a long hard long at themselves in that regard. The second goal had worrying shades of Mitrovic’s effort the other day vs Fulham – someone has to show him away from goal there, it was too easy for Gomes to dance through the Spurs defence.
Back to Emerson, however, and I do feel that when Kulusevski doesn’t start, Emerson feels more pressure to join in attacks, as we saw last night. While it’s all well and good seeing Emerson’s offensive confidence improve, it’s an approach that’s hardly been fruitful to the side, and I’ll expand on this now.
When he’s paired up with Kulusevski on the right, he tends to give it to the Swede and watch him go off bamboozling defenders with his left foot, letting him do all the attacking. This approach has generally been successful, given Kulusevski’s effectiveness in the final third – he boasted the highest number of goal contributions after Kane and Son last season, and of course, he only joined in January!).
However, nowadays, as he was last night, Emerson is figuring out how to play with Richarlison, who tends to drift in far more centrally than Kulusevski, almost playing like a striker at times. This inevitably gives him the license to bomb forward at will, something he’s generally very good at despite his conservative instincts. Given Emerson’s offensive limitations, however, I don’t feel as though this attacking license emerging from his combination with Richarlison will do him good – his conservative game and limited attacking output seem a more natural fit with Kulusevski, who’s always next to him, ready to receive the ball and shift onto his left foot to shoot or cross as he pleases.
If we are to see more of Richarlison on the right, I’d be interested to see how he compliments Doherty, who’s arguably more effective going forward than Emerson. With 2 goals and 4 assists in his little purple patch between February and April, I hope he recovers from his devastating injury at Villa Park and proves his fitness, and gets a trial run with Richarlison to add something different to our right-hand side.
I know this will not go down well with most supporters, but I don’t think Emerson was anywhere near as bad as some are making out last night, and I don’t think he’s as terrible as a player in general as is generally made out. There is a reason why he has started every game this season, even though we’ve got two capable right wing-backs sat on the bench.
His positioning at both ends of the pitch is excellent, and (last night) aside, his defensive contributions are hard to fault. It’s just his lack of (substantive) contributions going forward that are consistently letting him, and ultimately, the entire team, down.
While I would love Spence to come into the fold sooner rather than later, and would like to see Doherty at some point just to give us a different dimension going forward, it’s clear that Spence needs more time to come into our way of thinking (to paraphrase Paratici and Conte), and Doherty is still taking time to recover from last year’s injury.
In addition, although I think he definitely needs upgrading on, I don’t think Royal deserves as much berating as he’s been subjected to since joining the club last season. Last night’s failings – and some of the laboured displays we’ve been subjected to so far this season – are not his fault.
I will ultimately conclude by asking any reader willing to comment: of the three right wing-backs presently at our disposal, who would you like to see stake a claim on the right wing-back spot? Moreover, would you be happy to retain the current trio, or would you sell one or two and seek an upgrade, either in January or the summer?