Even though it took in the non-league delights of a plastic pitch in the East Midlands, Antonin Kinsky enjoyed his Spurs honeymoon.
After all, a Liverpool side who did not look overly motivated by the Carabao Cup and part-timers from football’s fifth tier were fairly welcoming to the 21-year-old Czech. And then along came a North London derby, along came a fired-up Arsenal, along came Tottenham’s Premier League vulnerability.
Honeymoon over.
In case he had been misled by the opening two games of his career in England, Kinsky found out what goalkeeping life under Ange Postecoglou is really like.
Testing, to say the least. It’s who they are, mate.
With the job in his DNA – dad and granddad lived their sporting lives in goal – Kinsky cuts a confident figure. But when the ten men in front of you concede as many chances as this Spurs team do, confidence will soon be tested.
But for over half an hour of this contest, Kinsky had a bit of a swagger about him. He was not always tidy with his distribution – far, far from it – and was not always totally convincing in dealing with the infamous set-piece threat.
But there was a nice degree of positivity about his approach before he was amongst a few Spurs players culpable ahead of the Dominic Solanke own goal that cancelled out Son Heung-min’s opener.
And even though Leandro Trossard’s strike was sweet enough, there was no doubt Kinsky was at fault for Arsenal’s second. But the chance for Trossard only came about because of some schoolboy stuff from Yves Bissouma in the middle of the park.
And that is the problem for whoever has the gloves in a Postecoglou team – Spurs’ persistent mistakes in playing out of their own territory will regularly take a toll.
That is why this Spurs side had conceded 11 goals in their previous four Premier League matches. After Kinsky’s first couple of appearances, there was a feeling Spurs might have found a gem.
The truth is that this is the start of a very steep learning curve for a clearly-talented keeper.
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