Just Captain Things

After such a disappointing result mid-week we were all hoping for an emphatic response from the squad against Burnley—and we got it!

In this issue: Burnley Recap | Transfer Talk | News From Around the Lane

PL Matchday 4 recap | Burnley 2 - 5 Tottenham

Foster 4', Brownhill 90+4' | Son 16' • 63' • 66', Romero 45+2', Maddison 54'

Of course, there are still defensive weaknesses to work on—as we knew there would be just a few games into Ange Postecoglou's tenure as manager—but there's no denying the vast improvement in the attack over last season's desultory efforts. As many have noted, it's almost easy to forget that Harry Kane left the club this summer. We certainly haven't been hurting for goals in his absence.

Starting XI:

Going into the match, we knew Richarlison had a knock, so it wasn't surprising to see Son Heung-min line up at the striker position. Manor Solomon replaced Sonny on the left wing to make his first Premier League start with Spurs. After a somewhat shaky start, he marked the occasion with a brace of assists—both for Son. This is a budding partnership to keep an eye on.

There are quite a few Premier League clubs that must hate the sight of Son on the opposing teamsheet and Burnley is definitely one of them. Sonny made the most of playing in a more central role and broke his goal drought with a cheeky hat trick, the three goals coming in the space of an hour of play. The first goal was the cheekiest of them all, a deft chip over Burnley's new keeper, 20-year-old James Trafford. Side note: It's quite bold of Burnley to take a chance on such a young keeper considering their newly promoted status in the PL. He was really thrown into the deep end in this match.

If you think about it, the entire Spurs squad has been thrown into the deep end of "Angeball" and allowed to sink or swim, and so far they have proven rather decent swimmers. I was particularly delighted that both fullbacks (Destiny Udogie and Pedro Porro) registered assists in this game. They're both looking like they'll have more productive seasons than Conte's wingbacks ever did. We had seen glimpses of Porro's through-ball abilities last season, but Udogie was a relatively unknown quantity (especially to those of us who don't make a habit of watching Serie A).

The other major talking point from the scoreline, besides Sonny's hat trick, was the fact that all three members of the captaincy trio scored. For a brief moment before and after halftime, Cristian Romero was the club's leading scorer for the season. Yes, centerback Cuti! He was then tied for top scorer with his fellow co-captain James Maddison before both were surpassed by Son with the last two goals of his hat track. Romero and Maddison's goals were both of the "bangers only" variety.

The only slight downer of the match was the loss of the clean sheet, but once again I thought Guglielmo Vicario comported himself well in goal and wasn't primarily to blame for either of the goals conceded. He nearly got a foot on Lyle Foster's close-range shot for the first goal. On the second, I think all of us—Micky and Venom included—thought that Van de Ven had successfully completed his tackle, and it was a surprise when the ball ended up in the net via Josh Brownhill (who walked off limping for his efforts). As it is, Vicario is still tied for most clean sheets in the league so far with Manchester City's Ederson.

Besides Maddison, the midfield wasn't quite as lively as it has been, and Kulusevski is still struggling to adjust to the new system, but overall it was a strong team performance to claim the comeback win and a great way to head into the international break. Now let's just hope all of our players come injury-free from their national team duties. The club shared a list of all the players in international action over the next week or so.

SAtP Player of the Match: Son Heung-min

As if I was going to pick anyone else!

Seriously though, Sonny needed this hat trick. I know we said that last season after his second-half hat trick in the Leicester game and it didn't really pan out, but that was in his hernia era. I think playing from the striker position really suited him and if he gets significant minutes there this season, we can expect to see more consistent scoring from Son again. Even if he's back on the wing soon, he'll find a way to adapt his game with Ange's help. The most important thing is that it looks like he's actually having fun out on the pitch again and it's reflecting in his performances.

Notable and quotable:

• Look, if this post from Guglielmo Vicario doesn't melt your heart, you might not have one.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Guglielmo Vicario (@guglielmovicario)

I hope he knows he's made it fun for us, too!

• Micky Van de Ven spoke about his time at Tottenham so far:

At my age it is important that you get a lot of playing time. I spoke about this in detail with the Tottenham coach. He said I am bringing you in to play. And that may not go well right away, but then I know you have the quality.

It is so much fun playing football at Tottenham. The assignment is play from the back and if things go wrong, it is the responsibility of the trainer. The manager literally said you can make a mistake. Better that than shooting the ball outside the stadium three times in a row.

A report from Michael Bridge has indicated that Ange is similarly prepared to trust Ashley Phillips to make an impact this season at an even younger age, so Micky's positive experience should provide some reassurance to the youngster. Phillips made the bench for the first time for this fixture.

• Sonny surpassed Cristiano Ronaldo's Premier League goals tally with his first goal of the match. A triumph of good over evil.

• If you're new here, I keep my own spreadsheet of Spurs stats that I like to track over the season and often share them in the form of "random Spurs facts" over on Twitter. Here was this season's first edition (WSL stats will also be included when Spurs Women's season starts):

Transfer talk: Surprise moves

I didn't see any of the latest transfer moves coming, for multiple reasons.

1) All of the Men's team transfers took place outside of the PL transfer window

2) They were players I thought were either unlikely or impossible to move (cough Ndombele)

3) Well, I'll get into it in more detail with the Women's team transfer cuz it's a doozie—even more so with the latest injury update from the team.

Let's start with the Academy-centric transfers:

• Harvey White moved on a permanent contract to Stevenage in League One. At 21 years old, he was unlikely to break into the senior time at this point. Best of luck to Harvey, who had been with Spurs for fifteen years.

• Maksim Paskotši has also moved on permanently to Grasshopper Club Zurich in the Swiss Super League. I feel like we'd heard/seen even less of him recently than White, so this made sense.

Now for the Men's senior team:

• Tanguy Ndombele is on a season-long loan to Galatasaray in the Turkish Süper Lig. Will we ever find a permanent home for him? Not that I blame his loan clubs for being hesitant to commit. At least he isn't our problem for another season in terms of getting him game time, but he'll still have another year left on his contract in the summer and Spurs will want to get some sort of fee to avoid a total loss.

• Davison Sánchez is leaving the club after six years at Tottenham on a permanent move to Galatasaray. It had seemed like he was going to be the primary backup to Cristian Romero this season, so this transfer was a bit shocking to me. But at the same time, you cannot blame Sánchez for wanting a change of environment after a difficult few seasons at Spurs. I wish him the best in his new challenge and will always remember that brace against Everton in the cup, my personal favorite Big Dav moment. Like many of my favorite moments of Spurs players past, it's a favorite despite the relevant fixture ending in a loss. See also: Lamela's NLD Rabona.

And finally, the Women's senior team:

• Nikola Karczewska is going on a season-long loan to Bayer Leverkusen in the Frauen Bundesliga. Readers, I literally gasped when I saw this news. Not just because Niki is one of the young players I would have expected to get a lot of developmental focus from Vicky Jepson and new manager Robert Vilahamn, but because we don't have a ton of depth at striker right now with Ellie Brazil still yet to return from her ACL injury. And then we got the devastating (no other way to put it) news that Bethany England underwent a "minor surgical procedure on her hip" and would be out for an unspecified length of time. Beth herself admitted that she would be missing the beginning of the season while she recovers.

I don't like to curse in this newsletter as a rule, but there's no other adequate response here than wtf, Tottenham? It sounds like Grace Clinton was featuring as striker in the recent friendlies so presumably she can do a job in that role until Beth returns, but there's simply no realistic way that she can replace Beth's consistent level of goal-scoring. If we don't have a new striker signing incoming before the end of the window I'm going to be extremely concerned about the start of the WSL campaign.

News from around the Lane

• We have one nominee each for the Premier League's player, save, and manager of the month for August with James Maddison, Guglielmo Vicario, and Ange Postecoglou, respectively. Get voting!

• Lenna Gunning-Williams scored two goals on her debut for Ipswich Town. The loan is already going well!

• Speaking of loan debuts, Alfie Devine rocked up to Port Vale and only went and won Player of the Match! I loved getting these updates from FotMob:

Not bad for just over twenty minutes of play! This performance surely factored into the decision to shift Alfie over from the England U20 team to training with the senior team this international break.

• If you haven't seen this video of John Stones gushing about Sonny yet, you must:

Methinks it's time for Son to start flexing his recruitment muscles. A homegrown centerback who is just as comfortable playing in the defensive midfield? I'm just saying is all.

• Finally, our beloved club celebrated its 141st birthday on Tuesday. Sure, it's caused us untold hours of anguish and distress, but it's also brought us many moments of pure joy, not to mention the camaraderie of our global fanbase. So happy belated birthday, Tottenham, and here's to many more years of glory in lilywhite.

Since we have such a lengthy gap between the Burnley game and the next fixture (finally back at home to Sheffield United), I'll hold off on previewing that match just yet. Expect an issue sometime late next week after the WSL transfer window has closed (hopefully with some good news!).

In closing, Madders is all of us:

COYS

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