Tottenham Hotspur played out a 2-2 draw against Everton in the Premier League yesterday.
The North London club will feel that they should have won the game and they will be disappointed with the result in the end.
The Toffees scored through a set piece right at the end and former Arsenal star Martin Keown believes that Guglielmo Vicario cost his side valuable points with his ineffective handling of set pieces.
The Italian goalkeeper has been criticised this season for his way of dealing with set pieces and teams are now starting to exploit that weakness in his game. Manchester City recently tried to put pressure on the Tottenham goalkeeper during the cup clash and it resulted in a goal for Nathan Ake.
Keown said on MOTD: “The goalkeeper for Spurs, he’s costing them goals lately from set pieces, never looked comfortable from any of those set pieces and at the end there perhaps should have done a little bit better.”
To which, Jason Mohammad responded: “Well we ran some analysis last week and Manchester City targeted Vicario in the cup game which led to Nathan Ake’s goal and you looked at it and there were six or seven times where Ruben Dias was standing on Vicario, clearly he’s weak from set plays.“
There is no doubt that the 27-year-old has been a quality signing for Tottenham so far and he pulled off important saves in the game against Everton as well. However, his weakness from set pieces could be a major problem in the Premier League.
It will be interesting to see if the Italian international can cut it out of his game and improve in the coming months.
Tottenham will be hoping to secure Champions League qualification at the end of the season and they cannot afford to drop points from winning positions.
Vicario will be fully aware of his shortcomings and the 27-year-old will look to bounce back strongly in the upcoming matches. He has shown his quality since moving to the Premier League and if he can address his set piece issue, he could develop into a top class goalkeeper.
