Last night was, to put it mildly, a disaster for everyone involved at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. With its 5-2 away defeat to Atletico Madrid at the Wanda last night, Spurs have now lost its last six matches in all competitions, the first time that’s happened in the Premier League era. Keeper Antonin Kinsky, handed his first start since last October, had a catastrophic debut, slipping twice and conceding three goals inside 15 minutes, and was hooked by interim manager Igor Tudor for Guglielmo
Vicario at the 17 minute mark. While Spurs clawed back two goals, it’s not hard to think that a three goal deficit will be too much to overcome at home in the return match next week. Oh, and Spurs have to travel to Anfield to play away at Liverpool this weekend while in a real relegation battle.
Micky van de Ven didn’t have the best of matches either, conceding an Atleti goal himself after slipping on the turf and losing possession. Van de Ven was also somewhat loose with his tackling, and showed more of the obvious frustration he’s had over the past few months. After the match, Micky gave an interview to Dutch outlet Ziggo Sports where he let some of his frustration out verbally. The interview is in Dutch, but thankfully Sportwitness has the translations.
“[It’s] terrible, to be honest, a doomsday scenario. Everything that could go wrong in the first twenty minutes went wrong. Everyone slips, including me. Those are moments you simply can’t do anything about. I can’t just stand here and start blaming the pitch. It’s terrible for [Kinsky] too, he’s making his debut. You wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
“Yeah, it’s really hard to say. I could give the standard speech here that we all need to stick together and work hard, but we’re just getting blow after blow after blow right now. So it’s really difficult. And this weekend we also play an important match where I can’t be there myself because I’m suspended. So yeah… it’s a terrible period, I can tell you that. It’s really, really awful.
“We have an important match this weekend that I can’t be at, because I’m suspended, of course. But it’s a truly terrible time. How am I feeling mentally? It’s tough, I can tell you. Really tough. So like I said, I just have to keep going. It’s part of it — part of life. And we’ll see what happens. I’m not on my phone anymore; I’m completely done with it. Only family and stuff.“
He’s not wrong, but weirdly these quotes don’t read like a player who’s actively pushing for the exit door. It reads like a very good player who is on a team that is struggling, has been incredibly unlucky, and has also not played particularly well recently himself. I have no doubt that Micky has any number of verbal offers to join another club this summer (even though he’s under contract until 2029), but he’s also a professional footballer and probably knows that his club getting relegated is bad for everyone, even the best players who might potentially have escape hatches.
There’s not much good you can take out of last night’s match. There’s now every possibility that Spurs won’t pick up any points at all until the upcoming home relegation six-pointer against Nottingham Forest on March 22. While Spurs’ players have mostly held the line in media relations, talking about unity and sticking together and working hard, these “doomsday scenarios” from Micky almost feel like a breath of fresh air. Someone gets it, and is willing to say it — things just suck right now in North London.
