da dobrowin： Paulo Gazzaniga’s passing accuracy is letting him down at Tottenham Hotspur.
On the chalkboard
da dobrowin： The former Southampton goalkeeper was deputising for Hugo Lloris, who has been out with an elbow injury.
A constant bugbear for Spurs has been the inability of the France international to kick the ball accurately. A Football.London article written by Alasdair Gold after their 2-1 defeat to Liverpool drew attention to his “woeful” distribution, while also claiming that Gazzaniga is better at kicking the ball.
The statistics have not borne this out, however.
This season, Lloris has a passing accuracy of 74.7% in the Premier League across seven games. Gazzaniga has an accuracy of 58.8% from 17 outings.
Indeed, he last had an accuracy of over 75% in November in a 1-1 draw with Sheffield United, Mauricio Pochettino’s last game as manager.
Against Watford, it was a mere 63.2% but even that was an improvement over the 1-0 defeat to Liverpool, in which he had an accuracy of just 47.8%.
Lloris, in his return against Norwich City, had an accuracy of 71.4%.
The big fat Tottenham quiz of 2019 – how much do you remember about the last year at Spurs?
Lloris’ perfect return
The return of Lloris against Norwich has come at the perfect time.
Gazzaniga’s output, as outlined above, simply hasn’t been good enough to help the side play out from the back and rack up important victories.
It is perhaps telling that since his arrival into the side, with 16 starts, Spurs have won just five games. They have kept two clean sheets.
Of course, his shot-stopping and his kicking are not linked but the latter was often cited as the reason why he should be in the XI over Lloris. It has not been backed up.
As Spurs attempt to get back into the fight to qualify for the Champions League, Lloris’ return has solved a huge issue for Mourinho.
He will be delighted to have the Frenchman back.
Meanwhile, Spurs continue to rue one costly mistake…