Antonín Kinsky’s Redemption Arc Could Be Key to Tottenham’s Survival and Stay No.1

Antonín Kinsky produced his best Tottenham performance in the draw with Leeds on Monday night, staking his claim to keep hold of the number one jersey despite the club’s stated preference for established first-choice goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario. The performance represented an astonishing turnaround for a goalkeeper who, just weeks earlier, seemed destined to fade into obscurity at the club after a catastrophic Champions League appearance. His emergence as a crucial player in Tottenham’s desperate survival quest has been nothing short of extraordinary.

If there was going to be a hero in Tottenham’s battle to avoid relegation, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone suggesting it could be Antonín Kinsky. And it is not as if there are many obvious other candidates to step up in the team’s hour of greatest need.

Micky van de Ven is a leader and a potential match-winner at both ends of the pitch, but he has not been at his best in considerable time. Richarlison is their top scorer, but he is about as unreliable as centre-forwards come, both in terms of his goal supply and availability. There is a huge amount of hope pinned on James Maddison, who made his return to action on Monday night, but realistically, he will need time to get back up to speed after nine months out of action. Most of Tottenham’s best players are out injured, leaving the squad desperately depleted.

The Unexpected Path to Redemption

One of those absent players is first-choice goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario, who underwent hernia surgery in March. Spurs timed his operation to take place at the beginning of the international break to reduce the number of games he would miss, with the hope at the time being that he would only miss a single match. In truth, it proved to be more than just hope at the time. Kinsky was Spurs’ second-choice goalkeeper, but he was nowhere near Vicario in terms of perceived quality. There was no realistic chance of Kinsky challenging for the number one spot, and everyone would have been desperate to get Vicario back after that solitary scheduled match.

That perception existed because Kinsky’s Tottenham career had been rather mixed up to that point. He made a promising start following his £12.5 million move from Slavia Prague in January 2025, arriving when Spurs were desperately missing Vicario, who was out with an ankle injury. A 37-year-old Fraser Forster had played 10 consecutive games and looked completely ill-equipped to play Ange Postecoglou’s possession-based football. So, when Kinsky made his debut against Liverpool in the EFL Cup semi-final, he wowed fans with his confidence with the ball at his feet.

However, the narrative quickly changed. The following week, he was beaten too easily by a Leandro Trossard shot in a painful North London Derby defeat at the Emirates. Shortly after, he misjudged a low cross in a 2-1 home loss to soon-to-be-relegated Leicester City. In his final game before Vicario’s return, he allowed Morgan Rogers’ very saveable shot to slip through his grasp as Spurs crashed out of the FA Cup at Aston Villa.

That was to be his final appearance in a meaningful game for the remainder of the previous season. He did play in two Premier League games as Spurs prepared for the Europa League final, but they had long given up on their domestic campaign. He barely featured at all in the early stages of this season, facing Doncaster in the League Cup in September. When he got a chance against top-tier opposition in the next round against Newcastle, he squandered it, weakly attempting to punch a cross clear and beaten to it by Nick Woltemade. Those were Kinsky’s only two competitive appearances in Spurs’ first 42 games of the season.

The Madrid Catastrophe

All of that made it astonishing that stand-in manager Igor Tudor threw Kinsky into the starting lineup for the away first leg of Spurs’ Champions League round-of-16 tie against Atlético Madrid. You will likely need no reminding of how dire it was, but just in case: Kinsky conceded three goals, two of which were attributable to his own errors. He was hauled off after just 17 minutes – a devastating blow to his already fragile confidence.

If it already seemed unlikely that Kinsky had a future at Spurs, it then seemed impossible. Vicario came on, steadied the ship somewhat – though he also conceded two goals – and he was back in the starting lineup for each of the next three games. Then came his surgery, necessitating time away from the team.

And so, Kinsky was thrust back into the team. He had not earned his chance through outstanding performances; he got it because Vicario was unable to play due to his recovery. After the embarrassment of Madrid, there was natural and justifiable trepidation about his return to action. Many questioned whether he possessed the mental resilience to bounce back from such a humiliating experience.

But it has turned out to be a huge – albeit completely unexpected – success.

Tactical Advantages and Redemption Under De Zerbi

Kinsky is incredibly capable with the ball at his feet, and in that sense, he is more suited to Roberto De Zerbi’s football philosophy than Vicario. He can play off either foot, and the fact his defenders can trust him on the ball breeds confidence further forward and allows the team to play out from the back in a manner they sometimes struggle with when Vicario is between the sticks.

The concerns, however, had rested on his shot-stopping reliability and his confidence levels, which would have been understandably low after Atlético Madrid. There has been no need for worries, though, with Kinsky transformed under De Zerbi into a more than adequate Premier League goalkeeper. On Monday night against Leeds, he was absolutely Tottenham’s match-winning hero.

The team’s performance in drawing 1-1 was a harsh reality check, when they desperately needed to win to put some breathing space between themselves and the relegation zone. Going forward, Spurs lacked ideas, cohesion and quality, and they could not kill the game off after going a goal up early in the second half through Mathys Tel. For that goal, they again relied on a set-piece – their 17th goal from a corner in the Premier League this season, meaning they, along with Arsenal, have broken the record for goals from corners in a Premier League season.

Spurs have been too reliant on dead balls all season, with league-highs for the proportion of their goals (39.1%) and expected goals (36.1%) coming from set-pieces. They have also been absolutely dreadful at home all season, winning just two of their 18 league games at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, with none secured since early December. With no fit and available attacking alternatives to their front three of Tel, Richarlison and Randal Kolo Muani, and inspiration lacking, Spurs needed others to step up. Kinsky proved the man for the defining moment.

The Crucial Moment Against Leeds

Leeds looked the far likelier team to find a winner, and they came very, very close when Sean Longstaff raced through in the eighth minute of second-half stoppage time and powered an effort towards the top corner from point-blank range. Unbelievably, Kinsky threw out his right hand and tipped the ball onto the crossbar and away to safety.

That individual moment saved Spurs. It preserved the point that took them two clear of West Ham in the relegation zone. But even before considering the colossal ramifications for their survival hopes, that save was also one of the best made by any goalkeeper in the Premier League this season. It followed another in the first half from a Joe Rodon header – low down to his left, right on the goalline – which any goalkeeper would have been proud of. However, the quality of his stop from Longstaff meant that first save was quickly forgotten.

Kinsky was beaten on the night, but only via an expertly converted Dominic Calvert-Lewin penalty. The other shots on target he faced were worth 1.61 expected goals on target, which means that in normal circumstances, those shots would have resulted in 1.6 goals – or, more simply, either one or two goals. In other words, Kinsky’s saves alone denied Leeds between one and two more goals. According to expected goals on-target models, only 14 goalkeepers have prevented more goals in a Premier League game this season than Kinsky did against Leeds, and half of them either conceded at least two goals or lost the match. Kinsky’s heroics, meanwhile, earned his team a crucial point.

Composure and Form Beyond Individual Saves

Beyond his eye-catching saves, there was a composure in possession that Spurs desperately need at the current moment. They need to improve significantly with the ball across the pitch, and Kinsky is providing a strong foundation to build from. The performance was in keeping with his form over the last several weeks, during which time there have been several other noteworthy saves. These include low stops at the feet of Brian Brobbey in the defeat at Sunderland and from João Gomes’ free-kick right at the end of the 1-0 win at Wolves.

He has also demonstrated good command of his penalty area with a few particularly impressive high claims and punches when under pressure, including one in the 93rd minute against Brighton, when Spurs were still 2-1 up and desperately clinging on. Each performance has incrementally built his case as a reliable goalkeeper at this level.

Kinsky’s Performance Statistics and Record

The Number One Debate

Ahead of the Leeds game, De Zerbi insisted that Vicario will remain his number one. “Vicario is still the first goalkeeper at Tottenham,” he stated. “Because what Vicario showed this season is enough to consider him a top player for us.”

But after Kinsky’s showing on Monday night, there is good reason to consider the Czech goalkeeper worthy of an extended stint in goal, at least for the remainder of the season. His case is significantly strengthened by Vicario’s wildly disappointing numbers. The Italian ranks bottom of the entire Premier League this season for goals prevented, recording -5.5 goals prevented, having conceded 50 goals (excluding own goals) from 44.5 expected goals on target.

Vicario is not solely to blame for those numbers, of course. Nobody at Tottenham can claim to have had a genuinely good season, and he has not been given adequate protection defensively, while Kinsky has been able to play in a much more positive environment. But Vicario has also clearly underwhelmed, and his numbers suggest that in the one area he is supposed to stand out from Kinsky – his shot-stopping ability – he has failed dramatically.

The Road Ahead

After missing out on the opportunity to go four points clear of West Ham, Spurs need at least one and quite possibly two positive results in their final two games: away to Chelsea next Tuesday and at home to Everton on the final day of the season. They need every bit of help they can get from each member of the team. On current viewing, it appears that, quite unbelievably, Kinsky could be the man to provide them with that crucial little bit more between the sticks.

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