Antonin Kinsky kept Tottenham’s first clean sheet in a win at Stamford Bridge since December 1986, and that should buy the goalkeeper something he has not had much of this season: time.
The 2-0 win at Chelsea will be remembered for Mike Penders punching a Mateus Fernandes corner into his own net and Mathys Tel’s solo goal in the 87th minute. But the man at the other end deserves a proper look too, because few Spurs players have had their place questioned more loudly in the opening weeks of the season.
My view is simple. Kinsky has made mistakes, some of them costly, but judging him now, in the middle of a tactical overhaul and behind a back line that keeps changing, would be the wrong call.
What did Antonin Kinsky do at Stamford Bridge?
The early stages were not pretty. Antonin Kinsky misplaced a few passes as Spurs tried to play out under pressure, and for a spell it looked like the old worries might surface again.
Then the game settled. Once Spurs worked out how Chelsea were pressing, they started to manipulate that press and play through it, and Kinsky’s distribution got steadily better. By the second half he was a calm part of the build-up rather than a nervous one.
He also did the basic job when it mattered. The pick of his saves was a sharp one-handed stop from a Cole Palmer effort early on, and there was a good double save later in the game. Clean sheet, three points, job done.
A touch of class with Mike Penders
One moment after the final whistle said plenty about him. Kinsky went over to Penders, who was making his full Premier League debut and had just punched the ball into his own net, to console the young Chelsea goalkeeper. Kinsky knows exactly what a bad day in goal at a big club feels like, and he made sure Penders did not walk off alone with it.
You can say that has nothing to do with his shot-stopping, and you would be right. But it tells you about the mentality of a goalkeeper who has battled back from a difficult spell in his Spurs career to become the number one.
Why has Antonin Kinsky been criticised?
The criticism has not come from nowhere. In three or four of the opening seven league games, Kinsky conceded a goal he probably should have kept out. Over a sample that small, that is too many soft goals, and it is fair to ask whether he is the long-term answer.
The Spurs fanbase has split roughly three ways on him. One camp wants to give him this season before making any decision. Another believes there are better goalkeepers out there and that the club should have invested in one. A third argues that a lot of the saves he makes come from problems he created himself by playing out from the back.
That last point is the one that keeps the debate going. When his kicking is poor, people point to the kicking. When he saves shots, people point to how the chance came about. The goalposts move whatever he does.
Distribution or shot-stopping?
Under Roberto De Zerbi, the goalkeeper is part of the build-up whether he likes it or not. Errors in possession are part of the process when a team is learning a philosophy like this, and they will not disappear overnight. The real test is whether the soft goals stop. On Saturday, they did.
Has Antonin Kinsky had a fair chance?
Not really, and this is where I think the harshest critics miss something. Kinsky has barely had a settled back four in front of him all season.
Destiny Udogie or Andy Robertson has played at left-back. Archie Gray has filled in at right-back for much of the campaign, and now Pedro Porro is back. Spurs played a back three against Coventry. Tosin Adarabioyo then got injured, and the centre-back pairings have rotated around Jan Paul van Hecke and Micky van de Ven.
Why the full-backs change Antonin Kinsky’s passing
Every one of those changes alters the passes available to a goalkeeper who is asked to start attacks. When Robertson plays, he hugs the touchline high up the pitch, close to the halfway line, which opens up a different option than when Udogie is there. A keeper cannot build those relationships if the faces in front of him keep changing every week.
That matters again this weekend. Udogie and Tosin are both doubts, as our latest Tottenham injury news before Crystal Palace explains, so the back line could shift once more when Spurs host Palace at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium at 17:30 GMT on Saturday.
Give Antonin Kinsky the season, then decide
For me, the answer is to give him the full season. There may well be better goalkeepers out there, and Spurs can look at that next summer if they need to. But a clean sheet at Stamford Bridge, in the kind of possession-heavy game De Zerbi wants every week, is exactly the sort of performance a young goalkeeper builds on. You can read how the whole night unfolded in our Chelsea 0-2 Tottenham match report.
Nobody is asking him never to make another mistake. The ask is that the errors stop arriving in game after game. Palace will be a different test, with Spurs expected to have the ball and Kinsky likely to be called on far more with his feet than his hands, as we argued in our piece on why Palace at home is a bigger test than Chelsea.
If he plays like he did at Chelsea more often than not, the debate will settle itself. N17 should let him prove it.
