Tottenham goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario says he won’t be asking for clarification on set piece rules from referees after numerous incidents last campaign.
Spurs’ Italian shot stopper enjoyed a successful first season in England after moving from Italian side Empoli last summer, securing a place in Italy’s Euro 2024 squad in the process.
However, the 27-year-old was subject to numerous incidents when rival teams started targeting him from set pieces, something that led Spurs to ask the PGMOL for clarification on what was and was not a foul on the goalkeeper.
When asked about what surprised him about his time in the Premier League so far, Vicario believed all the issues he occurred were down to adapting to new surroundings:
“There are some situations you have to face where maybe it takes a bit more time for you to adapt,” Vicario said. “I can say the set pieces, maybe also the strength of the players and the speed of some of the attacking play.
“Of course, it is all about the process. So you have to remain confident in yourself, have to believe in your process, just that of course, and then you have to train a lot, you have to train hard and then get better and better.
“You have to give yourself that time to adapt. You know, life is like this. Sometimes you want to learn something new and you have to give time to yourself to adapt.”
“It’s a part of the process. Maybe sometimes you don’t understand why [there’s a problem] and you don’t want to give yourself enough time to adapt, because you want to be ready as soon as you can.
“But I just can say that with a lot of work and, not just personally, but with the team, we can overcome these problems, but these are not problems. It’s about football and we just need to adapt to be ready for the season.”
Vicario added that he will be better prepared for the upcoming campaign to deal with the struggles he faced in 2023/24, rather than relying on the referee’s intervention.
“I don’t care. I don’t care. It’s about trying to find the best way to deal with that,” he said. “So I will be ready this season much more than the last one.
“I don’t want to find excuses and speak about referees. They do their work, I do my work the best way I can.”
