James Maddison hails Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo for his ‘fantastic’ strike that left he and his Tottenham team-mates in ‘shellshock’ before they overcame early setback to win 3-1
James Maddison was full of admiration for the blistering volley by Bryan Mbeumo, his fourth goal of the season and the second time in successive Premier League outings Brentford had struck within seconds of the kick-off.
‘When they score that early there’s shellshock around the stadium,’ said Maddison.
‘We’re all looking at each other, ‘what do we do now’ kind of thing, because you don’t plan for that in a gameplan.’
Brentford do plan for it, though. It might be coincidence that Mbeumo hit the net after 22 seconds, precisely as Yoane Wissa had done in a defeat at Manchester City a week earlier, but Thomas Frank treats the kick-off like a set-piece and at the start of a game as a chance to catch opponents cold.
‘Of course, it’s one of the more difficult to score from but we see it as a set-play situation we can set up and control as much as possible,’ said Frank.
‘We work on the kick-offs. Some of it is the ball forward but also what you do on the second balls and where you position yourselves after that.’
This one went back to goalkeeper Mark Flekken who fired it towards towering wing-back Kristoffer Ajer and they pounced on the scraps in midfield, worked the ball left to Keane Lewis-Potter and his cross was fired into the net by Mbeumo.
‘To be fair, it was a fantastic finish by Mbeumo, it’ll be up there for Goal of the Month,’ said Maddison, who scored Tottenham’s third in the 85th minute to complete the comeback win. Dominic Solanke and Brennan Johnson were also on target for Spurs
Ange Postecoglou points out that Guglielmo Vicario’s handball incident should not be considered a big turning point as it was not the denial of an obvious goalscoring opportunity.
Vicario’s moment of madness
While Vicario pulled off a couple of fantastic saves against Brentford, he also had a couple of poor lapses in concentration that almost cost his side.
One of those came in the second half with his side 2-1 up, with the goalkeeper coming out to intercept a long ball at the edge of the box.
His momentum then carried him outside the box, with the 27-year-old panicking and appearing to touch the ball with his hands just outside the area to take it away from a Brentford player.
VAR did not intervene and it has since been explained that they couldn’t do so since the incident was not considered a clear and obvious error leading to a red card (The Sun).
When quizzed about whether the decision was a turning point, Postecoglou has sarcastically joked that his side were lucky to get the win against the Bees.
When asked what he made of the handball incident, the Tottenham boss said (via Fox Sports): “I saw exactly what you saw.
“If it wasn’t an obvious goalscoring opportunity which means even if he’d been penalised it would’ve been a free kick and that’s a big turning point? I guess we were lucky to get the result.”
