When The Year Ends In One!

Is Champions League qualification possible?

2011-04-25T09:58:00.000+01:00

Ok so Ill admit that I have gone slightly AWOL with this blog of late - a hectic work schedule and a lot of preparation for my new career has led to this taking a back seat unfortunately. For those of you who do like to read this blog then apologies all round.

Anyway back to the question in hand. The last few weeks have been a mixture of elation, disappointment and frustration - just a day in the life of being a Spurs fan really. I last wrote in the build up to the Stoke game - this put an end to our winless streak as we done them 3-2, tight game but the result is what counts!

Next saw our exit from The Champions League at the hands of Real Madrid - a fantastic home performance only let down by Gomes' buttery fingers. As angry as I was at him for this we were always going out and as Harry said 'he has been fantastic for us this season' so I cant slag him off for it too much. This was obviously much different among the rest of you, Ive seen some pretty horrendous things said about him over the last couple of weeks but I wont go into that now.

We then saw 'the game of the season' against the filth at home. Firstly the atmosphere at The Lane was fantastic! I think I went through every emotion possible throughout the game - in the end we should have won but missed some easy chances towards the end of the game. These things happen though and Ill just remain happy that we all but ended their title chase this year!

West Brom at the weekend was bloody frustrating, its been the same story all year with these teams - dropping points left, right and center. Yes I know that Hodgson has done a bloody good job since taking over but we should still be beating them, comfortably as well. We looked tired and at times a little clueless. Again our strike force missed some golden opportunities to put the game to bed and we now find ourselves 1 point off of City in fifth, however they do have a game in hand.

So where does this leave us then? Fourth spot is definitely between ourselves and City, Ive been saying it would be this way for the last couple of months and as we are reaching the season's climax it has been proved true.
We now have a mere 5 games left to get that fourth spot; These are Chelsea away, Blackpool at home, City away, Liverpool away and Birmingham at home.
City on the other-hand have 6 games; These are Blackburn away, West Ham at home, Everton away, Ourselves at home, Stoke at home and Bolton away.

I think its safe to say that City will do very well in the games they have left. Blackburn and Bolton could be a couple of slip ups and our game will be pivotal however I would expect them to win the rest quite comfortably.
We on the other-hand have an extremely difficult run in, all our games are basically must win now, going to Stamford Bridge and Anfield are going to be the most difficult but we must go to these grounds with the best attitude! Can we win them? Yes. However the team needs to find some decent form and score the goals that we should be.

The West Brom result makes it bloody hard to get fourth. However its not over yet, we need full support behind the team and we just have to trust that they will get there. This means no booing the side for stupid things - those who have booed Charlie lately for doing his job then hang your heads in shame! We need to give them all the support we can, we can make a difference and the fair-weather supporters who are littering The Lane these days need to pull their fingers out and get involved instead of creating problems!

Together we can help the team. COYS!

Looking forward to Stoke

2011-04-09T09:38:00.000+01:00

The telly was getting a heavy volly of abuse at this moment

Hands up if you felt pretty dejected on Wednesday morning...Yup same here.

A game that promised so much fell apart pretty quickly and ended up 4-0 to 'Los Blancos', Crocuhies sending off on 14 minutes pretty much sealed it for us. We fought well but holding out for 75 minutes with 10 men away from home at The Bernabaeu was always going to be a bloody hard task.

We didn't deserve to lose 4-0 but football doesn't always give you what you deserve, after 80 minutes we were pretty shot and a couple more were always on the cards.
I could go into this in huge depth, there are clearly a number of talking points: What was the deal with Lennon? JENAS?? Why take off VdV at half time for Defoe when the aforementioned should have given way? What was Crouchie thinking? Where were the defenders for the second?

However I wont, simply because you all would have by now seen the game and made your own opinions, we all felt pretty shit on Wednesday and I don't want to prolong that anymore then I have to. The end result is that barring a pretty intense miracle, we are all but out of The Champions League. That being the case I just hope the squad come out all guns blazing at the home leg and get stuck into Real, sod all this defending lark, let's go and get a few goals - even if we go out lets beat them and give Europe something to think about!

I for one am an immensely proud Spurs fan at the moment, in our debut Champions League campaign we have done fantastically, not only that but we are now pretty well regarded around Europe! COYS!

Celebrating after scoring against Stoke last time round

So what about today then? Well its a return to the Premier League with an arguably more important match than next weeks match against Madrid. We today face Stoke at home and we will be crying out for a win, top four is a MUST and 3 points today is a necessity for that. I think dropping points today would test even my optimism!

Stoke have had a pretty up and down season so far, they currently sit 11th in the table and come to The Lane on the back of a 1-1 draw with Chelsea - morale will therefore be pretty good. However they have won just two of their last 9 games, losing 5 of them and drawing the other 2. Last time out we beat them 2-1 thanks to 2 goals from Bale - yes including THAT volly! However this was right at the beginning of the season and an awful lot has happened since then!

As we all know the Tottenham squad is rather fragile at the moment, with a number of first team players on the injury list. The good news is that Kaboul is back for selection after knee and thigh injuries, this is a godsend really as defensively we are pretty screwed at the moment! He may well even start depending on Corluka, who picked up a knock against Madrid. This would be a last resort however, I don't think Harry will want to throw him straight back into the mix.
Lennon is touch and go as well, personally I think he'll start but stranger things have happened - his exit before the Madrid game being one of them!

I do think that Harry will play about a bit with the team after midweek so expect a few changes, for example I have a sneaky feel that Hudd will make a welcome return. So what about a team then?? I'm going for:

   Gomes
   Corluka/Kaboul - Dawson - Gallas - BAE
   Lennon - Huddlestone - Modric - Bale
   VdV
   Defoe/Pav

This could even be changed and a 4-4-2 implemented, would be interesting and quite nice to see but we'll have to wait until later I guess! Either way a win today please Spurs, we all need something to smile about and its been a while since we last saw a Tottenham victory!

So what about our immediate rivals then?
Chelsea v Wigan (Sat) - After their defeat against United I see Chelsea winning this one comfortably.
Blackpool v Le Scum (Sun) - I'm actually going for a draw in this one
Liverpool v City (Mon) - A hard game to call, we all hope for a Liverpool win really to help us out however this depends on out own result really!

The biggies here are obviously the Chelsea and City games, with any luck we can win convincingly and the other two can cock up big time, we need some luck and this would be most welcome!

COYS!

A night out at The Bernabéu

2011-04-05T14:26:00.001+01:00

Another disappointing result at the weekend. More dropped points against the bottom clubs. Despite what many yido's are saying at the moment fourth spot is certainly not out of our grasp yet, we still have a game in hand on City and we have to play them soon.

However it does mean that we need to start pulling the finger out very soon, no more excuses and no more dropped points. The games we have left now are even more crucial than before and so we need to come together as a team and make it happen.

Tonight could be the very catalyst for that, in what has been described as the biggest game of our history (not sure about that but definitely of the last 20/30 years) we travel to The Estadio Santiago Bernabéu or The Bernabéu to you and I.

Real Madrid in the quarter finals of The Champions League is quite an occassion and so the boys must be on top form if we are to come out with a good result! The kind of performance against AC Milan away would be just the trick, however even with that its going to be a difficult one.

When we first got through to the group stages I said I just wanted us to qualify, after winning the group and after our displays against Milan I want more. Its true we have done ourselves proud as a club and even if it does go wrong in the quarters we can still hold our heads high, however I'm a positive Spurs fan and I want some success this year! I think this is echoed around most of Tottenham as well!

There has been a lot said about injuries of late, we have a list as long as Santa's at the moment of players out - Kranjcar appearing to be the latest one, however Real aren't completely unscathed either. Benzema, Gago and Leon are all out. With Marcelo and Di Maria big doubts. The big one is that Ronaldo has been included in the squad for the match, he has been injured for the last few weeks and is obviously not 100% but has been risked so we will see if he starts or not. Quite frankly I expect him to.

A good plus is that a large number of the Madrid squad have yellow cards which could be a huge boost for us in the second leg if they pick up a caution tonight! On the other hand we have none.

Madrid of course lost their first home game for an age at the weekend, a 0-1 defeat to Sporting Gijon. This was also Mourinho's first home defeat for over nine years - some record! However they do come to an end eventually and hopefully this is good news for us! In La Liga they are 8 points off of top placed Barcelona and although second in the table are getting a lot of stick from the Spanish press and fans alike...

We all know about our recent run of form, not great in The Premier League but like I said this provides the opportunity to kick start ourselves back into gear! Kranjcar and Pienaar are the latest two injury setbacks and they join the likes of Hutton, King, Woodgate and Kaboul on the growing list. Gallas is a doubt, however I have a sneaky feeling he will start tonight, Huddlestone has now returned and we will probably see him on the bench. Our big news is that Bale is fit and will start tonight as well - hopefully he'll be in a destructive mood and cause problems for Ramos as he did with Maicon!

So what about a team? I'm going for:

Gomes

Corluca - Dawson - Gallas - BAE

Lennon - Sandro - Modric - Bale

VdV

Crouch

I would be very surprised if there was any differences to this to be honest, the only maybe area being the striker but I think Crouchy will get the nod! So thats that, hopefully we will all be in dreamland later on tonight after a convincing win away...I only know this is going to be a very interesting night!

COYS!

By the way for your enjoyment, heres some piccies of the lads training in The Bernabéu:

Wigan away, a desperately needed three points!

2011-04-01T22:25:00.001+01:00

Well apparently no-one listened to my blog post yesterday as it has emerged today that Hutton has done his knee and will be out for around four weeks. Fantastic. Just what we need at the moment - yet another name on the injury list.

Well lets try and put that one behind us for the time being and look at Wigan tomorrow. This really is a 'must win' game! That phrase is said too often at the moment but we desperately need to get three points under our belt, we haven't won in our last three games so it is vital that we can pick up a win. Bloody vital.

We are quite lucky that the other teams around us haven't taken advantage of this too much and raced massively far ahead, in fact we are still very much in with a shout of fourth spot. We actually have a game in hand on Man City who are currently occupying that position plus we have to play them soon so a win is a necessity!

So what about Wigan then? Well they are currently rock bottom of the Premiership after winning just two of their last twelve games, one of these was their last match against Birmingham. In this sense you would hope that this game would be an easy win however the notion of 'easy wins' in The Premier League has all but gone now and this away tie will be a tough one.
They haven't got a single injury in the squad at the moment as well (lucky for some) which will give them an advantage however they have had a lot of players on international duty of late which could be a plus for the Spurs!

As we all know we are massively injury hit at the moment and will therefore be missing a number of key players, I'm not even going to go into the list again as its far too depressing! Still, we do have enough players left to see off the challenge of Wigan we just need to pull our fingers out and actually score some goals *Cough* strikers *cough*.
We are boosted by the fact that The Hudd is back in the squad, I would be surprised to see him start but it will be good to see him on he bench at least. Remember if needed he can slot into defence but again I doubt we'll see that tomorrow - step up Bassong. On that note I would guess the following as a line up:

   Gomes
   Corluka - Dawson - Bassong - BAE
   Lennon - Sandro - Modric - Pienaar
   VdV
   Defoe

Again I will stress that I would start Niko on the left however its becoming quite obvious that Harry is set on Pienaar, I really do hope I'm wrong we shall see. The rest of the line up pretty much picks itself really so hopefully we can do the business!

So what about a prediction? I'm going to be positive and say a 2-0 win, we are certainly due it!!

Wanted: Some fit players...please...

2011-03-31T21:56:00.001+01:00

Wow Ive been ignoring this blog lately like Charlie Sheen ignores his prescribed medicine!

Apologies to anyone waiting for another installment, am very busy at the moment so haven't really had the time of late to indulge myself in some blogging!

Anyway, enough of that! Whats been going on in Spurs-land during my short absence? Well not a lot match wise as we have had yet another break. This time for international duty. I actually missed most of the Wales game as I was getting drunk in Bratislava (which also meant I missed out on a Madrid ticket - very upsetting!) however what I did see was quite boring - as per usual really. The big plus for me is that Dawson seemed to do a lot to cement his starting place for England which is certainly something to be pleased with!

So other then that whats the big news? Well its probably injury related to be honest. Most stories that I have seen/ read lately talk about Tottenham players being injured which is quite a pain! Bale, Gallas, King, Lennon and Woodgate have all been in the injury threads lately but whats the score now?

Well Bale was ok, then he wasn't and now he might be. After tweaking a Hamstring while training with Wales there was a bit of a slagging match between Spurs and the Welsh - the bottom line is that Bale may well be fit for the Madrid game, however I doubt he'll be fit for Wigan at the weekend. Sigh.
Gallas is another will he - wont he? He seems to have picked up a knee injury which makes him a bit of a problem for Tuesday as well, I expect he'll play though to be honest however Wigan could be a doubt.
Lennon looks like he'll be fine after pulling out of the England game against Ghana - it looks more precautionary really, I have a hunch that he'll start at the weekend.
Unfortunately Woodgate hasn't managed to shake his calf injury, frankly I doubt we'll see him again this season, is a bloody shame as well as I really feel for him!

Bugger...

The big bad news is that it looks like King will be out for the rest of the season due to his groin injury, it was starting to look good after he made the subs bench for the Milan game however it seems that the injury gods are conspiring against us and it doesn't look like we'll see him on the pitch for a while...

After all that I'm sure you need a bit of a pick-me-up and I give you that with the good news that Huddlestone has returned to full training. Happy days. Should he walk straight back into the team though? Probably not, Sandro has done enough to keep that for the time being but I'm sure it won't be long until he is back in his spot! Either way its a massive boost for the club, especially as everyone else seems to be dropping like fly's at the moment!

The unexpected news that popped up the other day was that we have had a bit of a moan about The Olympic Stadium going to West Ham. It really didn't look good coming out that long after the decision was made - seems a bit like sour grapes from the guys in charge really. Instead of putting their attention back into this they should bloody well put it into sorting out The Northumberland Development Project! The OPLC obviously aren't going to change their minds now and give the stadium to us so get over it.

I'll leave that there as Im in danger of going on a random rant which may prove amusing to some but would look a tad stupid to others!

Pop back tomorrow for a Wigan preview - some Tottenham action at the weekend is certainly needed!

COYS!

A frustrating weekend but its not over yet!

2011-03-21T20:50:00.002Z

Frustrating.

There are a number of words that I would call our game against Wet Spam on Saturday but frustrating is the one that prevails the most. Both teams had very good chances to score but then again both teams cocked them up. Spurs however cocked up more than them which meant a rather disappointing draw and two points dropped at home, again.

It was one of those tense derby days, nerves were running high which was made worse for me by the amount of opposition fans in the pub. Never mind though, Spurs will come out on top in the end. However that was not to be.

Lets get it clear that Tottenham played some great football - Modric was particularly good and there was always the chance of a goal - 23 attempts shows this! So how didn't we score? Well many of you are calling for Defoe's head after a flurry of missed chances - however its not his fault. Yes he SHOULD have scored that rebound from Lennon's shot which hit the post but ill give him the benefit of the doubt in that case.

He should have scored from a variety of other positions as well, however he really didn't look sharp - or is that just the excuse?

Put simply it was just one of those days. As much as I hate to say it "hats off to West Ham", they done what they had to do on Saturday and will therefore be much happier with their point than we are. They defended very well and Rob Green in particular was very good.

When you hit the woodwork three times you know its going to be one of those days - Dawson, Lennon and Bale all 'nearly' scoring but not quite. As I said previously though the Spammers had their moments and should Carlton Cole should have buried - however he is pretty awful and a combination of this and a good Gomes save stopped this.

Apart form a brief spell at the end of the first half and the beginning of the second we really dominated, Wet Spam really did park the bus but can we really blame a team for doing that when they are away from home and in a relegation battle. No probably not.

Frustrating. However its not the end of the world.

I think the biggest cheer of the afternoon came when Bale had to replace his white undershorts (those lycra things) with blue ones. Obviously he had to take his shorts off to do this which prompted a lot of wolf whistling around the ground! Am sure many ladies (and men) were very pleased with this!

Its anyones guess what harry's thinking here while Bale strips to his pants!

The worst moment of the game came just before the beginning of the second half when the sky cameras picked up Sandro crouching on the touchline - and then promptly vomiting all over the place. Nice. I wont put a picture of that on here! Seeing VdV stomp down the tunnel wasn't good on the eyes either, hopefully Harry will sort that one!

The great news that came out after the game however is that Bale has signed a contract extension at Spurs that keep shim here until 2015. No doubt this includes a substantial pay rise and some clauses in case he leaves that will work in our favour. Either way it works in our benefit so happy days! Hopefully this will put an end to the constant transfer speculation now, however I somehow doubt it will.

Ive been reading some of the Tottenham forums/blogs and im surprised about how negative many of them are at the moment. Yes its a pain that we didn't get the 3 points at the weekend, not just in this game but also against Wolves, Blackpool etc. However even after all this we are still very much in the run for fourth, sod the title chat which seems to have resurfaced - its fourth we want.

Although we have missed an opportunity with these games its still all to play for, our run up is as follows:

Wigan (a)

Stoke (h)

Ars*nal (h)

West Brom (h)

Chelsea (a)

Blackpool (h)

Liverpool (a)

Birmingham (h)

Also we have Man city (a) whenever they decide to rearrange it

There are a lot of points still up for grab here and we more than have the ability to beat the bigger teams so calm down my fellow yids - its most certainly not over yet! We just need the same attitude as the back end of last year and we'll be fine!

Hooray for optimism!

COYS

The Spammers at home and a match up with Madrid!

2011-03-18T22:15:00.001Z

Wow. I think we can all agree that the prospect of Real Madrid in the quarter finals is somewhat awesome!

I was on the train today when the news came through to me and I couldn't help but laugh like a madman, this only continued when I found out that we could face Barca in the semi's. The woman sat opposite me must have thought I had lost the plot.

Maybe I have though because last week I said that if I had to chose then I would probably go for Real, yes Shakhtar would have been the 'easier' game but thats not what I want. I want to see the best teams in the world playing at The Lane and I want to see us beating them! What better way to win The Champions League than to beat literally the best in Europe on the way. Sod the easy route - Spurs don't work that way!

I'm not getting carried away though, this will not be an easy couple of games. Real really are a fantastic team, they are pretty outshone at the moment by Barca but this shouldn't disguise the class at Madrid by any means.

Cassilas. Carvalho. Marcelo. Pepe. Ramos. Alonso. Ronaldo. Kaka. Ozil. Benzema. Just to name a few!

However as Ive been saying for a while, at home I am confident we can beat anyone. We are lucky once again that we play our home tie in the second leg so if we can go to Madrid and show the same grit and determination that we displayed against Milan then who knows what can happen!

I for one am very excited!

But thats not all. Saturday see's a return to the Premier League with our home clash against the spammers. Last time round they somehow beat us 1-0 witch was pretty frustrating. They have actually hit a bit of good form lately - unbeaten in their last 3, winning two of these. They have now reached the dizzy heights of 18th.

Cheap and no-one really likes it

Realistically this should be a win. Sod all the 'London Derby' stuff, we should beat this lot at The Lane. Yes they seem to have hit a bit of good form but so what? They have spent most of the season rooted to the foot of the Premiership, something they have deserved really. Hey, at least they are creating good upper body strength, must be hard work holding everyone else up!

So what about our team news then?
Gallas is once again fit which is a plus. It looked like he may have done a hamstring earlier in the week but thankfully he's ok, would be surprised if he didn't start. Bale should also start tomorrow as well, after his brief appearances against Wolves and Milan I would expect him to retake his LM position. The really good news however is that Huddlestone has returned to full training, according to Spurs he should be back in 2 weeks. Happy days. Palacios, King, Woodgate and Kaboul are all still out.

Therefore tomorrow I would expect:

   Gomes
   Corluka - Dawson - Gallas - BAE
   Lennon - Sandro - Modric - Bale
   VdV
   Defoe

Yes Ive gone back to the 4-5-1 formation, cant see VdV sitting this one out and I think Defoe will get the nod after his goals against Wolves. Hopefully that was the boost he needed and he'll be away now!

This weekend is a big one for Tottenham, not just because of the game we're playing but also because of the teams around us. The big one being Chelsea v City on Sunday. A result either way would be of benefit to the yids, I guess it really depends who you think will cock up the most between now and the end of the season. Once again though it demonstrates how important 3 points are this weekend.

Elsewhere Liverpool are away to Sunderland - tricky one for the scousers this, I'm going to predict a draw which would be good for us.
The filth are away to West Brom and united have Bolton at home. No prizes for guessing the winners of those two games.

So it could be an interesting weekend, not just the football but also for the conclusion to this years 6 nations. A good weekend of sport on the horizon, this I like!

COYS!

Milan - a sort of great night!

2011-03-14T11:33:00.000Z

Well I can safely say its been a good week for Spurs!

Dawson at full time - says it all!

I intended to write a review of the AC Milan game the other day, however work and a busy weekend prevented me from doing it. However what a great night! I arrived for the game early and headed straight for The Bricklayers pub to meet a friend and my uncle, we quickly found out however that a large percentage of the attending crowd had this idea as well. Now its a busy pub anyway, lets get that straight but when you actually cant move then you know theres a problem!

Great atmosphere as always in there however which set up a great night! We then headed to The Bell and Hare in order to be closer to our seats in The Park Lane upper, again the party atmosphere was present and before we knew it it was that time to head to our seats.

As I entered the stadium there was a buzz that I hadn't felt for a long time, I missed the Inter Milan game but even though the Werder Bremen game provided a great night this was something else. The roar of the crowd really was something to behold, and not just from out own supporters, the Italians were in full voice as well which provided a real adrenaline rush for the game that was about to ensue.

I think most people were expecting a spectacle similar to the first leg - one of drama, incident, good football and of course a great result for the lillywhites. The game never really happened that way, the first half in particular we were on the back foot for large parts. Milan were going for it, as we all new they would - but really hoped they wouldn't.

The drama did present itself with Gallas' goal line clearance, I have never been present in a stadium when the noise suddenly vanished, as Gomes rushed from his goal and it became apparent that he wouldn't get back there was a gasp and then silence. It sort of went in slow motion before speeding up as Gallas remarkably got back and cleared the ball before the enormous Tottenham cheer.

It was certainly going to be one of those nights.

Gallas' great clearance!

A flurry of missed chances from both sides peppered the first half, the pick of the Spurs moments being a VdV free-kick that went oh so close! At the beginning of this half there was a shout for a Spurs penalty - none was given but it certainly looked like one from where I was sat.

The atmosphere was still present throughout the first half and into half time, there was however the feeling of nerves from all present that made sure that the second half would start a little quieter. We started much brighter and attempted to take the game to the Italians, however like the first half this pressure was not to be sustained as Milan went on attack after attack.

The reason none made it through? Sandro. I couldn't believe how well he played, he blocked every ball, made every tackle, stopped every attack. Not only this but his passing for the most part was spot on - he was just oozing confidence. If Milan did get past the Brazilan wall then they came across Dawson and Gallas who were in similar form themselves. The three of them would make it a memorable night for Spurs!

What a game from Sandro!

This was a defensive display to rival them all and it was great. i was disappointed with our attack however, this was in large part because the Italians done a great job of cutting us out. However in other areas it was because of poor decisions from our men. 3 players in particular I noted were quite poor. Modric for once had a bad game, he was constantly hassled on the ball and never really looked comfortable. Pienaar had a lot of the ball but rarely done much with it - far too hesitant at times and lacked the speed that he needed to get past the back line. BAE although doing a good job in defence, invited a large number of attacks as a result of his poor passing.

All eyes were on Bale when he returned to the pitch however he didn't have much of a chance to impress, very little service made it his way - despite him getting into fantastic positions. Both BAE and Pienaar responsible for missing some very easy and potentially great balls to him. Bale was obviously a little frustrated at this.

Despite the huge amount of Milan possession and pressure I was never really worried that they would score, I was nervous sure but their front line didn't really do enough to get overly close to goal and so the game finished 0-0. Que jubilant scenes at full time from the Tottenham fans. Not quite a glory glory night in the true sense but a big night in our history nonetheless! The quarter final draw is Friday, Ill be keeping a beady eye on that one!

The side were rewarded with a weekend rest once again, this time because of FA Cup weekend, one of the best sights of Wednesday night for me was seeing Ledley King back on the bench. This weekend rest will only be good news for him and the rest of the returning squad - bale included in this. Unfortunately Palacios is now out for three weeks after undergoing surgery on his knee, not good but with Sandro displaying his capabilities we should be ok.

It was nice to see the filth lose out to Manchester United in the cup as well, this see's them knocked out of three competitions in the space of 2 weeks - the crowd singing 'Are You watching Arsenal?' at full time against Milan was apparently just a precursor of things to come!

Next up are The Spammers at home. Incidently they were also knocked out of the cup at the weekend. Shame. I wont be able to make the game this time but will be glued to the telly, a win is a must and after our rest period and display against Milan you would hope that 3 more points will be added to our total.

COYS!

The Champions League - AC Milan at The Lane!

2011-03-08T22:42:00.004Z

Bale - will he start? Hopefully!

Ok so it's the big one!

Back in November I was crushed when Tottenham emailed me to say that the ticket I had brought for Inter Milan game was being refunded as my seat was in a 'security and operational area'. brilliant. Thanks for that one! However they did offer me compensation in the form a ticket for whatever home game I wanted - naturally I chose the next round of The Champions League.

4 months later I will be taking advantage of this and will be watching Spurs in one of the Biggest games at The Lane since...well, Inter!
We go into this second leg tie 1-0 up after our heroics in Milan. This gives us the huge advantage of an away goal, at The Lane you have to feel confident that we can produce not just a result but a win. Ive been confident of this since we first drew AC, the away win was just a huge Brucie bonus!

However this isn't to knock Milan, although they aren't quite the force they once were this will still be a tough tie! As I said before their starting line up is quite daunting, the good news in this respect is that they are missing three key players. In particular Andrea Pirlo but also Massimo Ambrossini. Genaro Gattuso will also be absent after his antics last time out.

Milan are on a great run of form at the moment, they sit top of Serie A - 5 points clear of Inter who are second. They haven't lost a league game since 18th December, since then they have won 7 and drew 4. In their last game they beat Juventus away 1-0.

So how about Tottenham team news then? Well the big news centers around Bale and VdV. Lets start with Bale, he came on against Wolves the other day and although only on for 20 minutes, looked fantastic, since then however he has been listed as a 'doubt', apparently he felt stiff during training which could mean he starts on the bench, whether this is a ploy from Harry remains to be seen but its fair to say that he'll feature at some point.

VdV announced via twitter that he will be in the squad for the match, I think its a certainty that he'll start:

rafvdvaart Rafael van der Vaart

Good news guys, will be in the Squad tomorrow and can’t wait to get back on the pitch. Tomorrow will be a special day for all of us here!

The other good news is that Charlie will be back in the frame after Flamini tried to remove his leg in the first match, Whether he'll start ahead of Hutton is a hard one, due to recent events I would guess that Charlie would get the nod however I think its anyones guess as to what Harry will do.

King, Huddlestone, Woodgate and Kaboul are all still out but its looking good that they should all be back shortly. Based on all this I would expect the following:

   Gomes
   Corluka - Dawson - Gallas - BAE
   Lennon - Sandro - Modric - Bale/Pienaar
   VdV
   Crouch

Defoe could get a start after scoring at the weekend however I think Harry will go with Crouch, especially because of his form in The Champions League thus far. I would personally start Kranjcar if Bale isn't ready but I suspect Harry will go with Pienaar instead.

It promises to be a fast and action packed game, to be honest I really don't know what to expect but I am certain that the Spurs will be on top of their game. As I already said I am quietly confident of progressing to the next round. The atmosphere is already promising to be electric, as I write this I am already buzzing with excitement! From what I heard the Inter game was amazing, well I think this could well top it, the club is encouraging a 'Lillywhite' night - asking all fans to wear a white Spurs shirt to add to the atmosphere. Ill certainly be wearing mine!

I could go on all night about this game however I'm sure I don't need to, If your reading this then your probably as excited as me for tomorrows encounter! One final note before I sign off - lol at Ars*nal! I don't think the term 'raped' even comes close to what they experienced at Camp Nou tonight, anyway enough of them.

Come On You Spurs!

Hmmmm what do we make of that?

2011-03-07T22:48:00.004Z

3-3.

Mixed feelings about this one really. Firstly I'm really quite frustrated, twice throwing away a lead and therefore losing 2 points is a bitter pill to swallow. On the other hand though we were quite lucky to get the draw, Wolves were well up for this one and as I predicted really did go all out for it.

The biggest plus we can take out of this is that both our starting strikers scored and in particular Defoe. Getting two great goals will do him the world of good, hopefully this will be enough to 'Spur' him on for the rest of the season!

The game didn't start in the best ways, the first 10 or 15 minutes were really quite boring if I'm honest. However the longer it went on the more it became apparent that we were probably going to concede and on 20 minutes the inevitable happened. It had to be Kevin Doyle as well, Ive slagged him off a bit this year so I guess he was always going to score! It has to be said that the defending was pretty poor, lack of concentration I'm afraid.

After this we seemed to wake up and the team pressed on really quite well, as I predicted Wolves were trying to use their strength to out-muscle us - in particular Elokobi who is HUGE! Pienaar done well on this side but never really had the confidence to have a go at the enormous defender.
Then on 30 we got our equaliser, Pav played the ball to who else but Defoe who spanked it into the top corner from outside the box, what a way to get your first of the season!

Five minutes later it was 2-1, Defoe picked up the ball just inside the Wolves half, ran all the way to the box, passed to Modric who had a scrappy pass/shot rebound back to Defoe who curled it into the top right one again! Lovely stuff!

Five minutes after this Hutton decided that we didn't deserve a lead and pulled back Milijas giving away a penalty. To be fair he was free on goal and probably would have scored, Hutton was lucky to stay on. The penalty was put away by Doyle. 2-2.

Thats how the half ended but very shortly after the restart it was 2-3. Jenas laid the ball off to Pav who put away a fantastic goal, deserved and I felt from here that we would go on and win, however we needed another goal.

The half dragged on and Wolves were really looking like the most likely to score, it looked like they had when Gomes fumbled a catch and the ball rolled through him into the net. Thankfully the ref eventually gave the foul and the goal was disallowed, after watching the replay this was probably the wrong decision. Defoe hit the post on the 84th however Unfortunately our resolve broke on the 87th minute when Fletcher put a header past Gomes. Awful marking by Dawson.

And that was that, Wolves will be much happier than us with that one but sometimes these things happen. As I said I take solace from the fact that Defoe got back on the score sheet, not only that but Bale made his return with a sub appearance on 69, he looked very very good and should have scored.
This gives me comfort for the rest of the season, we have a lot of other players on the way back so hopefully we'll have a full squad to choose from shortly which is only a good thing!

Bit of a pain though, especially with Chelsea beating Blackpool tonight. As I said previously its looking like a fight between ourselves and City for a place in the top four, we shall see though. We have The Spammers next in the league on the 19th - after another weekend off! This would have been a big game anyway but we need the 3 points!

Before that however there's the small matter of Milan...

Player ratings:

Gomes - 6.5 - Had one of his dodgy games, pulled off a couple of good saves but made a right hash with the 'goal that wasnt', didnt really look comfortable.
Hutton - 6 - Really poor game, gave away the penalty, lucky not to be sent off and was frequently beaten on the wing
Dawson - 7.5 - Mostly had a good game but was definitely at fault for Wolves third, marking should have been much better
Gallas - 7 - Like Dawson mostly had a good game but never really looked happy.
BAE - 7 - Not a great game really, defended well for the most part but still has a nasty habit of kicking the ball to the opposition.
Pienaar - 7.5 - Played well but looked a little out of his depth at times, still not convinced but did look lively.
Jenas - 7 - Usual Jenas performance except he assisted with Pavs goal
Sandro - 7.5 - Played really well, gave away a few silly fouls but looked good
Modric - 7 - Mostly had a quiet game but linked play well and involved with most of our attacks
Defoe - 8 - Workhorse in the first half, chased everything and didnt let a ball go. Scored 2 and should have had a hat-trick
Pav - 7.5 - Good game, great goal but was slightly missing for large parts

Subs
Bale - 7.5 - Looked very lively when he came on, the whole Wolves attack stopped for a while as they worried about the space left behind them! Glad to have him back!
Lennon - 7 - Looked good when he came on and his speed made a difference however he did fade a bit towards the end
Kranjcar - n/a - Not really on the pitch long enough to rate

Wolves away, back after our break!

2011-03-04T23:19:00.001Z

Forget AC Milan, that's not until Wednesday.

We've got more important things to worry about before then and thats the task of Wolves away.

And I'm telling you now it wont be as easy as some might think, Redknapp this week said that 'they will definitely stay up' and although I'm not inclined to agree with him I do think it would be good for them to stay up. Their style of play has been noted for being very physical, some would even say overly so. However I like this, for the same reasons that I like to watch non-league football. Because its the way football should be - no diving, feigning injury, just get on with it and get stuck in!

Its for this reason that Sunday will prove to be a difficult game, w're going to need all our strength and creativity to get past this team - and get past them we must. This is a very important game (aren't they all!?) in the sense that we have now dropped down to fifth and need to keep the pressure on the rest of the pack.

Maybe I'm giving Wolves too much credit though? At the end of the day they are sitting down in 18th and have only won 8 games all season - losing 16 in the process. We did beat them 3-1 at home (remember Pav's crazy flag celebration?) and the squad have had a nice break in Dubai.

However their last 4 wins have been against Blackburn (4-0), Man Utd (2-1), Chelsea (1-0) and Liverpool (0-1). So should we be worried? Bloody right, they will be in a good mood after turning over Blackburn and these results show that they aren't afraid to have a go at the big boys either.

After the mess at Blackpool the team really need to go out and secure 3 points and realistically we should, despite these results we have to go out there with the belief and determination that we have shown numerous times this year. If we do this then hopefully we will be looking better off come Sunday evening.

So whats the team news then? Well as we all know our team has been beset by injuries of late however the good news is they are NEARLY back...so not available for Sunday then. Included in the nearly list is VdV, Bale, King, Huddlestone, Woodgate and Kaboul. Charlie is still out after Flaminis attempt at taxing his leg in Milan.
Defoe actually appears on PhysioRoom as coming back to action on the 19th March, however he is fit and should play - this underlines what Ive been saying about Physioroom lately!
It looks like Hutton could make a return to the squad after being given a stern telling off by Harry and I would be surprised if Sandro didn't get a start. Especially with his strength which will be needed.

So what about a line up then? Ok, my squad would be:

   Gomes
   Hutton - Dawson - Gallas - BAE
   Lennon - Sandro - Modric - Kranjcar
   Defoe - Pav

I would expect Pav to get a start after scoring against Blackpool however he did miss a LOT of easy chances so I would equally expect Harry to drop him. You can never tell what Harry will do with him!
My guts telling me its going to be a draw but my heart is going for a 2-1 win - hopefully my hearts right!

So what are the teams around us doing this weekend?
Well, Ars*nal face Sunderland - expect a home win here but then again a draw could be on the cards as well.
City have Wigan - again home win, cant see Wigan getting anything - hopefully I'm wrong though!
Liverpool have United - always an interesting game, think United will edge it though, this would be a good result for us actually.
And on Monday Chelsea are away to Blackpool - usually I would say a Chelsea win but with Blackpool you never know!

Either way these fixtures illustrate the importance of 3 points this weekend, get the job done here and then we can all start looking forward to Milan on Wednesday.

One final note, Sunday will also see a dedication to Dean Richards taking place. Very fitting that this tie came at this time seeing as he played for both sides. Although he never really fulfilled his potential at Spurs it is still a great shame that a man so young should pass away under these circumstances, Ill certainly be standing silent for this one. RIP.

Another weekend without Spurs? However shall I cope?!?

2011-02-26T11:32:00.001Z

Wish I was in Dubai!

It was only last week that I wrote on here about coping with a Tottenham-less weekend, a week later and I'm doing the same.
This week, instead of playing The Filth at home we once again facing a rest - with a slight twist however as the squad are sunning themselves in Dubai! Whether this is actually about giving players some 'warm weather training' or Harry's plan to take over an unstable middle eastern country is anyones guess. Actually if its the latter then my advice is Harry gets some people in who can actually shoot - as Defoe, Pav and Crouch are having problems with this of late. Zing. (How many complaints will that get me).

So why have we got another weekend off then? Simply because our unholy neighbours decided to be rather inconsiderate and get through to The Carling Cup Final, I was looking forward to a NLD this weekend but now I have to wait until the 20th April for it, that could even be changed to the 19th depending on FA Cup ties etc.

Last week I justified our weekend off by getting some players back from injury and that we had a mid-week tie against Blackpool a few days later. Well this hasn't worked out well. We got an orange slap to the face - blowing our chances of going third in the process (at least for the time being). Our strike force proved their ability as is the norm this season and we came away from Blackpool without so much as a toffee apple.

Pain in the rear but it really was one of those days from the start. Put it behind us and move on!

So what can affect Tottenham this weekend? Well City play at home against Fulham, you would expect a City win but I have an inkling that The Cottagers could make a game out of it. The good thing is that we will once again have a game in hand on them and with both clubs games coming up it could be a bit of a Brucie bonus (see last blog entry). So what about Chelsea? They are currently two points behind us with a game in hand, its very important that they lose this game and I was quite excited to see that they play it on Tuesday against Man Utd, its an Stamford Bridge but this could well swing in our favour.

Chin up yids its not over yet!

Many of the other main Spurs blogs have been talking about the disappearance of Alan Hutton lately, he last featured in a 4-0 defeat to Fulham in the cup and has not been seen or heard of since, no mention by the club at all in fact. He even played 90 minutes for Scotland against Northern Ireland on February 9th which just leads to further speculation of his whereabouts. Well I can confirm today that he is in Dubai with the rest of the squad, so at least we know his location but that doesn't answer any of the other questions posed over the last few weeks.

I think we all guessed that something has happened and goal.com yesterday told of a huge back-room row between Harry and Hutton, this certainly seems plausible (even if it is on goal.com), the piece then goes on to say that Hutton will be on his way out of Spurs in the summer. Its a shame if this is the case but I hope Harry doesn't completely freeze him out for the rest of the season, we've enough problems with injuries without banishing one of the team!

So how am I going to cope without Spurs this weekend? The withdrawal is already setting in and I already have the shakes. There is no mid-week game this time to feed my habit and so like all other yids Ill have to wait until 6th March for my next fix.
Ill have to watch replays of the AC Milan game to keep me going I think, Ill also be cheering on Birmingham tomorrow in the CC Final, unfortunately Bentley is cup-tied for the game so theres no chance of him doing the business on our behalf.

Tottenham have asked the fans to wear white for our home tie against Milan in a couple of weeks, seems like a good idea to me! So if like me you are lucky enough to have a ticket then don your white Spurs shirt for the game and lets make the atmosphere as fantastic as I know it will be. The club do say something a little odd though:

If you were at the Lane for our first ever Champions League home fixture against Young Boys back in August and still have your flag from that night, bring it along again too.

Fair enough, the lane did look great with all the flags going. How many people who was at that game will be at Milan though? My bet is a fair number but it wont be an exact replica crowd, if the club really want the atmosphere then put out some new flags for the game! This one could put us in the quarter finals of The Champions League and providing something easy and simple like this could really make a difference - I'm sure the small investment to make flags would be worth the money generated from further Champions League competition!
Not a moan, just a suggestion.

Come on Birmingham!

A brief look forward...

2011-02-24T20:38:00.003Z

Well Tuesday was a bit of a shocker!

Sorry for my lack of posts this week, has been a busy one and simply haven't had the time!

Tuesday was a strange one, how on Earth we didn't win that game is a complete mystery to me. Its really quite frustrating as well, not for losing against Blackpool - they have proved themselves to be a tough team this year.
No im annoyed because we blew the chance to go third, that win would have really consolidated fourth place as well and put us in a commanding position at least for the time being!

However the 'Spurs of old' made an appearance in the sense that we have now decided to make things difficult for ourselves! This now places an even higher importance on our next four league games, they are:

Wolves away
West Ham at home
Wigan away
and Stoke at home

After these four games we play Man City away so you can see why these four fixtures have this degree of importance. Realistically as well we should win these four games, however our form against the lower half of the table has been less than fantastic, we lost against Wigan and West Ham in the reverse fixtures for example.

City's run up to our fixture is as follows:

Fulham at home
Wigan at home
Chelsea away
Sunderland at home
Liverpool away

You should expect them to win the home ties (Sunderland could be interesting though), however both Chelsea and Liverpool away would be tricky for them. Either way they haven't got the easiest of run ups to our clash and we definitely have the advantage in that respect!

In order to take advantage of this however our strike force needs to pull their finger out! The tally of 8 league goals between three strikers for the year is appalling! We were unlucky not to score the other night, goal line clearances and good saves saw to that but there were a number of open goals missed that Premier league forwards should put away!

Hopefully Harry will get his wife in to give them some lessons sometime soon as they bloody need it!

That weekend break didn't really do a lot for the Blackpool game however its still helpful to get some players back and fit again. This weekend see's yet another Spurs rest period due to the filth reaching The Carling Cup Final - if you hadn't seen yet this match has been re-scheduled for Wednesday 20th April, so we all have to wait ages for that one!

Our next tie is therefore the away clash at Wolves on Sunday 6th - this gives us a good length of time to get over Tuesdays's disappointed and to get going again, well at least we hope!

Oh one final note, to give the team its kick up the rear Harry has taken the squad to Dubai for some 'warm weather training' - isn't that nice!

A weekend without Spurs? Whatever next!?

2011-02-19T09:50:00.002Z

Spurs aren't playing? Whatever shall I do?

Well after the excitement of The Champions League on Tuesday we are back to the FA Cup this weekend, in our fifth round tie we are at home to Bolt.....oh thats right we went out of the cup. Well in that case this weekend see's Tottenham face a rest.

And quite frankly they deserve it. Its been all systems go on planet Tottenham for some time now so a weekend of R&R will actually be quite welcome, hopefully it will give the team a chance to get over some of the little niggles that every team gets at this time of the season!

So whats been going on then since my last blog entry?

Well quite a bit but at the same time not much. The fallout from the Milan game has mostly been revolving around Gattuso, if you hadn't noticed he's now been charged by UEFA and has his hearing on Monday, will be interesting to see what happens. Throw the book at him I say. However its frustrating to see that Flamini has got away with trying to take away Charlie's foot - because he got booked in the game UEFA cant do any more. Surely that rule's got to be sorted out!?

The good news here though is that he only sprained his ankle (his ankle joint to be specific) and although a bad sprain it could have been much worse. He should be out of his foot brace on Monday and will be brought slowly back to training, hopefully he'll be in full training in a few weeks....apparently.

The other injury news from the Milan game is poor old Woodgate...again. I really like Woody so it was great to see him make a comeback on Tuesday, however it was always slightly inevitable that he would get a knock of some sort after being out for so long. In this instance he has strained his left adductor muscle but will only be out for a couple of weeks, so another reason why this break is good for the team!

The other news is a lot worse I'm afraid, Ive been hoping for a return of The Hudd for some time now, his glorious comeback should have been around this time but he seems to have hit quite a big setback, as he described on twitter:

thuddz tom huddlestone

Few questions about a return date, not sure at the moment! Once I start running I'll have 3weeks left! But running not sure when start

So he's not even running yet!? Even when he does start running its going to be a 3 week wait!? I'm starting to think now that any impact he has on the team this season is going to be minimal from now on, a cameo here and there maybe but it could be ages before we see him in a Spurs shirt again!

A bit of good news is that Mr. Bale should be back soon, Physio room is stating that his return date is the 22nd February which would be nice, however I'm not one to trust everything Physio room says! Nevertheless the chat at the moment says that he'll be fit to play against Milan in the second leg at home, happy days!

Although good for the team a weekend without a Spurs game does strange things to me, I end up rocking in a corner dribbling and talking to myself. Sometimes I see babies crawling on the ceiling while I sweat in bed. Ok so maybe my withdrawal isn't that bad but there is always that feeling of something being missing from the weekend when this happens, it forces me to do more menial things like cleaning and ironing my pants for the following week. This weekend ill just have to be Crawley Town fan like the rest of the country!

The saving grace this weekend is that Spurs are back in action on Tuesday for their re-arranged fixture against Blackpool. At least I don't have to wait long for my fix! This got me wondering though. When this game was originally postponed back when we had a load of the white stuff on the ground it took both clubs a week or so to come back with a new date for the game.

WHAT is going on with the home tie against the filth? Seriously this has been dragging on for ages now and still no sniff of a date! I sat on the Spurs website for two hours to get tickets for this game and I want to know if i can make the new date, I do have other things going on in my life so I would like to know sooner rather than later as I may be able to sort things out so that I can make the game!

Hopefully fingers will be pulled out soon as I know I'm not the only one getting slightly peeved at waiting for this to be released!

Come on Crawley!

A real Glory Glory night!

2011-02-16T23:30:00.001Z

Crouchie gets the winner

Wow - What a night!

Before the game I said I would be happy with an away goal, I would even had taken a loss (depending on the score!) if we could get that away goal as I was very confident of beating them at home. Not only getting that away goal but winning AND keeping a clean sheet was quite frankly fantastic!

This season has seen some great Spurs moments, The Champions League has certainly seen to that and at the moment this doesn't look to be ending any time soon. Last night saw one of the best performances I've seen from a Tottenham team, at times it wasn't pretty and the second half saw AC Milan hold a huge amount of the ball but Spurs battled.
Two legged fixtures such as this have to be treated very carefully, going on an 'all out attack' although great to watch does have its drawbacks - the goals we've conceded in the competition thus far can support this. We needed to go to Milan, get an away goal and try to snatch the win and this is exactly what we did.

We actually started the game looking much better than Milan, we attacked well, had some great chances and were unlucky not to score. Crouch in particular had a couple of really great chances to put us in front.
Milan had their moments as well, Ibrahimovic was unlucky with a close shot which just went past the post. We were also very lucky that the ref waved away a definite free-kick just outside our area after Sandro bundled over Ibrahimovic.
After the first 25 minutes the game slowed somewhat - Don't get me wrong it wasn't boring but both teams cancelled each other out - however with the yids looking the better side.

Milan were always going to come out on the attacking foot in the second half and this is when Spurs really upped their game, the name of which was defence. And they done such a bloody good job at it as well! When Milan did get past the front line Gomes was always there. He really was in such great form and pulled of a string of fantastic saves - thankfully he was in his 'great keeper' mode and not 'crazy, unpredictable' mode!

Before the Gomes heroics however there was a sign of things to come. How Flamini stayed on the pitch is beyond me, on the 54th minute he performed what Harry described as a 'leg breaking' challenge. Literally sending Corluka flying with a two footed horror show. Absolutely disgraceful. He then had the audacity to shout at the lino as if he had done nothing wrong! I just hope that Charlie won't be too bad - seeing him limp around the ground with crutches though wasn't a pretty sight.

This was the spark though that set Milan off, our play and perseverance was obviously starting to get to their players and things really started to heat up from here on in. The man that would steal the headlines? Gennaro Gattuso.
He had spent the game getting into Crouchie, giving him little digs and kicks (the way the Italians do) and after a shove to the face of Crouch decided he would take his attentions elsewhere.Unfortunately for Gattuso he decided that Joe Jordon was the perfect man and shoved him in the face after an exchange on the sidelines. Gattuso SHOULD have been carded for this let alone for the events to come but the ref decided to leave his backbone at home and merely carried the game on.

He then went in on Pienaar with an awful challenge that he did get carded for - but only after rolling around on the floor, screaming, shouting and repeatedly thumping the pitch. Quite frankly it was embarrassing - he's the Milan captain for Christ sake! That yellow card see's him banned for the second leg at The Lane so at least he wont taint our ground with his presence!

Shortly after came the moment that we deserved. Sandro blocked a shot and passed out to Lennon who then burst half the length of the pitch - evading a last ditch attempt at a foul - before squaring to Crouch who coolly slotted into the corner. 1-0. And how sweet it was as well!

Gattuso making a tit of himself

Milan kept on coming but we saw out the last 10 minutes with such great professionalism. Milan nearly got an equaliser in the 94th when Ibrahimovic put it in the back of the net - thankfully the ref spotted a shove on Dawson and disallowed it.
When the final whistle went i really couldn't contain myself - what a night! Unfortunately Gattuso couldn't contain himself either and decided he wanted seconds with Joe Jordon. Quite frankly out of the two Jordon would scare me most but he tried anyway and then headbutted our number two, not a full blown whack i admit but a headbutts a headbutt. This kicked off a huge melee which really soured what was another awesome night in Europe for The Lillywhites.

Hopefully Uefa with do what they need to and give him a lengthy ban.

As i said this really was one of the best performances Ive ever seen from the team. They done what they had to do and they done it very well. One last mention is to the travelling Spurs support - well done guys, you done us all proud! The noise from the Spurs end was fantastic!

Cant wait for the second leg - The Lane's going to be electric!

Player ratings:

Gomes - 9 - At his best, pulled off a string of fantastic reflex saves which really saved the game for us. His distribution was top notch as well and he caught the balls that came his way as well, rather than just punching them away. Fantastic display!
Corluka - 7 - Done his job very well, really does lack pace at times but didn't lose his man when marking and was a strong presence on the right, forced off injured thanks to Flamini - hopefully its nothing too serious!
Dawson - 8 - A rock in defence! Another great display, dealt with everything that came his way for the entire game!
Gallas - 8 - Done the job as well as Dawson, used his strength to keep the Milan front line at bay very well!
BAE - 7.5 - Same story as normal really, defended fantastically but needs to sort out his distribution, wasted a number of opportunities through poor passing. Good game though on the whole
Lennon - 8 - Fantastic breakaway to set up Crouchie for the winner, did this all game though, always looked a threat and really proved himself throughout!
Sandro - 7.5 - Starting to show why we paid £8m for him, a rock in the middle and really played well, a tad rash at times which can cause us problems such as the 'foul' which wasn't given in the 23rd.
Palacios - 8 - Best appearance in a Spurs shirt all season. Constantly harassed the opposition and passed the ball very well, a bit more of this please!
Pienaar - 7.5 - A very good display and always looked lively, ran himself into trouble a bit too often but gave a good account of himself.
VdV - 7.5 - Very lively in the first half and was unlucky not to score, if I had to moan about anything though its that he should have passed a little more often, always tries to be the hero - not a bad thing but doesn't always work. Subbed as his temperament would have definitely got him booked!
Crouch - 8 - Really showed some character, got kicked and thrown around by the defence but shrugged it off and gave ti back as well. Unlucky nto to score in the first half but took his chance in the 80th!

Subs:
Woodgate - 7 - Great to see him back in a Spurs shirt! Came on for the injured Corluka and made some great blocks/interceptions. Unfortunately its been confirmed that he's strained his left adductor muscle so could be out again for a while, hope for his sake its not too serious!
Modric - 7 - Looked good when he got the ball but it was all about defence when he came on for VdV.
Kranjcar - 7 - Unlucky not to get a start after his recent performances, came on quite very late on so didn't have time to do much

A return to Champions League!

2011-02-14T22:06:00.002Z

Well firstly I hope you all like the new blog design - gave it a little face-lift as I think it needed it!

The San Siro could arguably be the venue for our season defining moment. 4-0 down at half time and then a second half resurgence spearheaded by Gareth Bale that culminated in a 4-3 defeat. Although a defeat it gave the team the belief it needed to play the biggest teams, from then on our play in The Champions League has been much more focused. Essentially they believe they can beat anyone which is a fantastic thing to have!

That night in Milan however was a long while back, much has happened since (both good and bad) but either way Spurs will go into this game feeling confident. When they first visited the San Siro they were probably quite over-awed by the occasion which is why they went into half time 4-0 down. That should have been put to bed however and although AC are arguably better than Inter (this year at least) the team will be confident of getting a positive result.

This doesn't necessarily mean a win though, quite frankly I would be happy with a draw - very happy! Especially with that away goal which is all important. I am confident that we will beat them at The Lane so an away goal would be huge! Obviously depending on the final score!

So whats the score with Milan? They are currently top of Serie A - 8 points ahead of Inter who are fourth. They won their last game against Parma 4-0 which will give them a lot of confidence. However before this their form has been a little sketchy. In their previous 8 games they won 3, drew 4 and lost 1. Not the best run really.
However this doesn't mean they should be underestimated.

Their team sheet reads like a who's who in football so it will certainly be a tough game, the good news is that a number of their first choice players will be out - either through injury or being cup tied.
Cassano, Van Bommel and Emanuelson are all cup tied with Pirlo and Ambrosini out through injury - I'm certainly not complaining!

Spurs will quite frankly be fielding a much depleted squad, Bale has been ruled out of the match which is a pain, on the sidelines with him are King, Hudd, Kaboul, Crouch and Jenas. Modric is a doubt but I am feeling quitre confident that he will start - especially after seeing the pictures of him training at the San Siro this evening - see pictures at the bottom.
Van der Vaart has been declared fit which is a relief and therefore will almost certainly start, as Harry said our only two fit center midfielders are Sandro and Palacios - I expect Sandro to start, Palacios depends on Modric's fitness though. My prediction for tomorrow:

   Gomes
   Corluka - Dawson - Gallas - BAE
   Lennon - Sandro - Modric/Palacios - Kranjcar
   Vdv
   Pav

I would be surprised to see Defoe start tomorrow, his confidence is really low at the moment and I think Pav will get the nod, his hold up play will be quite important!

This is usually the point where I make a prediction but I'm not going to this time - call me superstitious but i don't want to jinx anything!

One last little treat for you all, Spurs have released the following pictures on Twitter from tonights training session at the San Siro, for those of you that don't use Twitter here they all are! Note Modric looking rather fit - could be a good Omen! By the way - am loving Chelsea drawing tonight, makes it a great weekend for The Spurs!

2-1 and the yids go marching on!

2011-02-13T09:58:00.002Z

Another great win!

However what an awful game!

In the push for a top four finish though we can’t afford to be picky and with City losing to United and Liverpool only drawing at home to Wigan It was a bloody good day for us!

It's Niko time!

Before I start I must apologise, the internet decided to stop working which meant I missed out talking about The Olympic Stadium on Friday and doing a match preview yesterday – great timing!

Anyway back to Sunderland.

The big thing before the match was the line-up. To start with we were missing our entire usual starting midfield. Bale, Modric and VdV all out with Lennon starting on the bench. The good news is that Kranjcar got a much deserved start out on the left – only his second of the season! A good sight also was Sandro getting a start ahead of Palacios; he has looked good in his sub appearances lately so a start was definitely warranted.

Let’s not disguise the fact that this game was a shocker to watch - neither team was particularly smooth, the passing was quite scrappy at times and there seemed to be a lack of pace from both sides going forward. The start of the game however hinted at the opposite to this, quite a lively beginning resulted in a really well taken goal from Gyan on the 11^th minute to give the home side quite a deserved lead.

It happened it really quite strange circumstances though, Gallas disappeared from the field to change his boots (apparently he didn’t like his studs?) and after a lot of faffing about had to be pushed back on the field by our physio, not before Gyan got his goal though. Poor old Dawson was left to mark two attackers and so it was kind of inevitable really.

This seemed to make Tottenham heads drop somewhat and we rarely got forward, when we did it wasn’t particularly convincing. Sunderland luckily didn’t have much more luck going forward either with the defence doing a very good job throughout!

On the 44^th though it all changed when Dawson rose brilliantly to head in a Pienaar corner – not just that but he nutmegged the keeper in the process! Love a bit of style! So the half finished 1-1, not sure what Harry said at half time because the goal changed his team talk somewhat from a rant to a stern telling off.

NUTS!

Whatever was said we came out much better in the second half and we really took the game to Sunderland during the opening exchanges. Gallas should have scored with a simple toe poke but managed to fall over instead.

Then the game changing moment – Sandro broke away after a Sunderland attack and whipped in a cross from the right side, only partially cleared by Bramble it fell to who else but Mr. Kranjcar who fired a right footed volley past Gordon! Awesome!

After this the game went a little flat with both sides cancelling each other out, our only real attacking threat came from Kranjcar on the left. Defoe was busy thinking about his grocery shopping for most of the day and Pav was up to his usual tricks of refusing to run after the ball – you can moan all you want but this is why you don’t start to often!

Sandro was great in the middle, not just in the second half but in the first as well. He tackled well, showed great strength and was the presence in the middle that we have missed this season.

It's fair to say that we have coped well with the absence of some really key players, however I can only be thankful that these injuries have fallen at a time when we didnt have to play any of the bigger teams as I'm sure it wouldn't be quite so rosy.

This victory see’s us end the day back up in fourth, we are now 3 points ahead of Chelsea who play Fulham away on Monday, we’re also 2 points off of Man City who lost today against United. AND we’ve got a game in hand on them!

This was a BIG result, especially with other games going our way!

All in all it sets up Tuesdays return to The Champions League rather nicely!

COYS!

Player Ratings:

Gomes -6- Strange game today, was in one of his ‘mad moods’ and don’t some really odd things. Seemed to argue with the Sunderland fans, rolled around as if he had been shot after a tap to the belly then got booked for getting involved with the fans again...

Corluka-7.5- Actually had a good one today, got forward well and was pretty solid at right back. Good to see!

Dawson-8- Another great game today, wasn’t his fault for Sunderland’s goal and then scored one himself. Nearly got caught out a couple of times and gave away a silly free kick on the edge of the area but was great at the back!

Gallas-7- Started off quite poorly with the ‘boot issue’, seemed to re cover but never really looked comfortable today.

BAE-7- Defended very well most of the game but nearly always whacked the ball up-field and thus giving it away – needs to stop doing this!!

Pienaar-7- Provided the corner for Dawson’s goal but didn’t really add much more, quite an average game.

Jenas-6.5- Yawn.

Sandro-8- Produced a great display today in the centre, had a couple of wobbles but was otherwise solid, looks very promising!

Kranjcar-8- Could well start against AC Milan on Tuesday. Great, positive play. His reaction in the post match interview said it all – smiles all round!

Defoe-6- Could well lose his starting place soon, can let him off for not scoring but he looks a shadow of himself from last season. Lacking in pace, direction and confidence. Didn’t get a touch in the Sunderland penalty area all game, says it all really.

Pav-6- Nearly got a 6.5, started like he wanted to prove a point then got bored and minced around the pitch for the rest of the game – terrible attitude!

Subs:

Lennon (For Pienaar, 78) -6.5- Not really enough time to make an impact

Palacios (for Defoe, 87) -6- Even less time to make an impact, just on to shore on to shore up the defence

Wheres the drummer gone??

2011-02-09T20:41:00.001Z

Theres something that has been worrying me this season. Something that has never before been an issue to me but is slowly becoming more apparent when watching our beloved Spurs play at The Lane. This is going to be quite controversial and may really frustrate some people but I believe it has to be said.

Our support is not what it was.

I went to my first Tottenham game on 17th April 1993 against Oldham Athletic, we won the game 4-1. Since that day I've been to The Lane more times then I can remember and one thing thats always been a constant (the football certainly hasn't been) is the support. Ive said it time and time again that Tottenham have some of the best fans in the country and the atmosphere at The Lane is second to none. I still stand by this but this season its taken quite a noticeable dip.

A recent example was the morgue-like atmosphere for large parts of Saturdays win over Bolton, it wasn't great at times and Spurs really didn't do themselves justice. However the fans really didn't help. As always there were those in the Park Lane trying to get the songs going but they just didn't catch on and at times it was like going to the cinema for the evening.

I tried to get some songs/chants going with my friend and although a couple caught on the vast majority were ignored. The man sat next to me didn't so much as cough for the entire 90 minutes, using half time to have a conversation with his mate but other then that deathly silent. The man behind me continuously moaned to his kids that I was shouting and standing to proclaim my hatred for Ars*nal. Seriously when did this start??
I want to get it clear that many other were trying to get songs going but met similar problems.

And it wasn't just the Bolton game, I had the same issues for a number of games this year. Sunderland at home was the first time I noticed it, for this particular game I was in the East upper and those around once again made no attempt to get the team going but instead used their time to moan and groan - a few even repeatedly slagged off Bale because he wasn't terrorising down the left! Half and full time were both met by boo's from large portions of the crowd.

Fulham at home was the big one for me, barely a song was sung for 90 minutes. Fulham, yes FULHAM out-sung the stadium the entire game. I accept that this was on new years day and most people in attendance were probably worse for wear but its not an excuse, I even heard people coughing from the other side of the stadium!

Quite frankly it was embarrassing.

We all know that The Park Lane is the best for atmosphere and The Shelf also give a great account of themselves, The west stand has always been pants but this year The Paxton end has been terrible. Frankly I expect better from the north side of Tottenham - apart from joining in to 'Come on you Spurs' and occasionally 'Yid Army' you rarely hear a peep from them.

It never used to be like this though! So how has it come about?

I'm guessing a number of reasons. Since Harry came on the scene the football on show has gone up several levels, we are seen as one of the best in the league and also had the tag 'title challengers' for large parts of this season. Obviously our qualification to the Champions League has increased our profile at home and abroad a great deal as well and as such new and exciting players seem to be on there way (excuse the January transfer window!).

With all these great things happening at Spurs a lot more people want to come and watch a game, this brings out of the woodwork a number of different people. A) Those who support Spurs but haven't been for years B) Spurs supporters who make very infrequent visits and C) Neutral fans who want to watch a good game of football.

One of my theories is that this new influx of fans/spectators are simply not the loud singing type - Category 'A and B' - or to use a Cliché 'not the die hards'. This can be backed up by the large amount of foreign spectators at The Lane these days. Don't get me wrong I'm not moaning about them being at Spurs - many of them are Spurs fans and have every right to be there. I have many international readers who would all love to go to Spurs and I hope they all do!

However many of these spectators fall into the 'C' category and are simply there to watch a game of football, fair enough, but it does have an adverse affect on match atmosphere. This is part of gaining a broader reputation though and I suppose is to be expected. I just hope they start joining in with the songs!

My second theory is down to the opposition. Games against Chelsea, Ars*nal, United, Liverpool, West Ham etc. Are always going to have an extra buzz about them. Our recent Champions League games just add to that and the atmosphere at these games has been electric. I fear however that we are seeing games against Bolton, Fulham, West Brom etc as 'below us' and therefore the atmosphere dips. I know these games aren't going to have the same excitement as Inter Milan at home for example but they are still integral games and the team still need the full force of The Lane behind them.

Not only that but we have a reputation to maintain amongst rival clubs! Someone I recently spoke to (a Birmingham fan) said that White Hart Lane was her least favourite ground to go to because of the atmosphere - I tried to argue our case but someones opinion is their opinion.

I frequently talk to people on the 'Glory Glory Tottenham Hotspur' facebook group - at over 26000 members its a great way to talk to fellow yids, get the inside info, peoples opinions and to also get a broad idea on fan feeling at various issues. One thing I've noticed recently is that our fans are getting very angry very quickly these days - It seems that we've tasted success and want more of it, a fair enough request but one that causes some unwarranted bad feeling at times.

He would do the job!

However one thing i noticed on this group recently was a comment that asked what had happened to the Tottenham drummer. (Sorry if this was you but couldn't remember who posted it).

I had completely forgotten about him! For years he directed the various chants and songs. When things got slightly quiet the drum would ensure the crowd picked up voice.

But i haven't heard him there for ages and I am fairly certain this is what we miss! One lone man in The Park Lane can get some song started but not the stadium wide levels that the drum used to bring. So does anyone know where he went? Leave your comments below if you do!
One thing we need to sort though is this issue, if our own drummer isn't going to return for whatever reason then someone needs to take his place. I would do it in a heart beat but my lack of a season ticket means that i would be in varying locations every week - maybe this would be a good thing??

So if you want this illustrious job then please bring a large drum to the next home match!

As I said at the beginning I'm sure I will have a lot of angry fans saying that the atmosphere is always great - but is it? The answer is this season - no it hasn't been. When the big boys come to town it has been fantastic but all too often its been far too quiet.

I really appreciate you reading this and it would be great to hear any comments or views that you have on the issue as I know I'm not the only person with these concerns - just leave them below and ill try my best to reply.

COYS!

Would somebody shut her up?!?

2011-02-08T22:31:00.003Z

There Is one person at the moment who is rather rapidly shooting up 'My List', to the point that I don't think I would care If she met an 'untimely end'. Ok so maybe thats going a little far (or maybe not?) but you can't help but feel anything other than bitter hatred for Karren Brady.

Just when you think the Olympic Stadium debate is slowing down and might finally get out of the news for 10 minutes BAM along comes Karren Brady and makes a public arse of herself once again. She just craves It - right now I could make a joke about her cravings and working with porn barons but ill leave that one for now.

Seemingly not content with comparing our OS plans to demolishing children's schools, global terrorism and AIDS (ok scratch the last two) she has now used our failure at the World Cup as a reason for West Ham to get the vote! You tell me why this is relevant as I haven't got a clue!

Its getting to the point now that I'm starting to lean in favour of the OS just so that I can go to Upton Park and give her the finger! (No more porn baron jokes please). This does get in the may somewhat of my 'We Are N17' beliefs!

Anyway aside from her frankly ridiculous comments there have been a few developments that i'm sure you have all seen. As you may or may not know It is expected that a decision on the preferred bidder will be made this week at some point and as a result Levy has come out fighting, big time actually. I think a lot of it is to defend the Tottenham corner from Brady's verbal diarrhea so In that respect fair play.

He does talk his fair share of rubbish as well though - apparently the 'vast majority' of Spurs fans are in favour of moving to Stratford. Not sure where this has come from as he hasn't asked for my opinion.

The last couple of days have seen him come out with an interview with TalkSport and he gave an interview for the Evening Standard - handily put on the Tottenham website.
Both say the same sort of stuff we've seen before - that word viable is used quite a bit but he pretty much says that the NDP is dead, actually he uses the word currently which does scream conspiracy but ill leave that for other people.

Spurs also released the image below showing what our new stadium would look like In Stratford:

Click for a bigger view

Basically its the NDP with The City in the background and some boxers/people playing badminton (?) in the foreground. Oh and It appears that Thorpe Park are our new bidding partners as well.

This image does look very rushed though and even the cockerel looks slightly wonkey (go ahead zoom in).

Anyway I'm going to leave this for now, no doubt I'll return to this issue later in the week.

The news however that really excites me is that our own Ledley King is having surgery and should be training in two weeks - they don't specify what 'training' is but hopefully that will mean we will see him playing again soon!

Check back tomorrow for the entry that I promised on Sunday - a look at our match support! (unless the OPLC make an announcement!)

Kranjcar to the rescue!

2011-02-06T16:36:00.001Z

THAT is why I keep banging on about Niko! My regular readers will know that I do beat the 'Kranjcar drum' quite often and yesterday he justified that and bagged us 3 points in the process.
After that display he really should be given a starting place, especially when you consider the huge amount of injuries our squad has at the moment - unfortunately Van der Vaart becoming the latest casualty.

Niko scores the winner in the 92nd!

I predicted a 2-0 win yesterday, a lot of people thought it would be more than this and it could be a potential rout. Oh how they were wrong. Although I got the result right it was so nearly the fourth premier league draw of the season that I've seen at The Lane!

The game started off very well with a penalty in the 5th minute thanks to a handball by Kevin Davies, the spot kick was happily put away by Van der Vaart (see my rather grainy video). This was followed by another penalty 3 minuted later that was also put away by the Dutchman, unfortunately Palacios decided to run into the box - the retake was sent wide of the mark.

The penalty miss seemed to cause heads to drop a little and the next 20 minutes or so were lively but with Bolton having the better chances and most of the ball. Then Defoe scored a header! This doesn't happen very often and it didn't count this time either as the flag was raised for offside.

Crouch had several opportunities in this first half but failed to make the most of them, despite this he actually had a decent enough first half. Bolton were unlucky not to score in the first 45, as already said they had a lot of the ball and had some good chances on goal - hitting the bar in the 21st minute.

There was even time for a third penalty just before half time, however with the ball on the spot the decision was reversed as the lino had flagged Crouch for offside. So somehow the first half finished 1-0.

Van der Vaart was subbed at half time for Pienaar after suffering a calf injury, he has since dropped out of Holland's friendly against Austria - we all pray to the footballing Gods that its nothing too serious.

Van der Vaart after some tongue action

It didn't take long for another goal though, on 55 Sturridge equalised for Bolton after a quick breakaway which stemmed from Dawson giving the ball away. Gomes did make a meal of it but 1-1 it was.

The second half reminded me of the Fulham game game on new years day - Bolton had most of the ball and when we did get forward it was either defended well or we cocked it up - Pienaar in particular throwing away a number of chances.
Tottenham were trying to get back in front though but on 65 I thought to myself that its just going to be another one of those days. This mostly brought about after Jenas fired a well taken free kick against the post. The crowd had gone so flat it was embarrassing - the Bolton fans making more noise for large portions of the second half.
The biggest cheer of the afternoon when the jumbo-tron announced that the filth had thrown away a 4-0 lead against the barcodes. Always nice to see!
We were lucky not to give away a penalty on the 58th, Pienaar left a leg out and Cahill went down - Mark Clattenburg waved it away and booked Cahill for diving - after looking at replays they probably should have had the spot kick.

The afternoon was saved when Niko Kranjcar stepped up and drilled home a great effort form the edge of the box on the 92nd minute, thank Christ for that!

So we got the win which was the main thing but it was by no means a great display. We really need to get some of our players fit again - Modric in particular is a big loss to us at the moment and his absence really showed today, especially when VdV left the field on half time. Why Harry keeps starting Jenas is beyond me, the guy really adds nothing to the squad - his free-kick being the only real mention today, he has had his chances now please start someone else.

I'm not going to go into a big rant about this today as I'm aiming to write a piece on it later in the week but the crowd was poor today. We at Spurs pride ourselves on having some of the best support in the country, over the years we have made The Lane an intimidating place to come to but I'm not seeing this lately.
Bar the big games the atmosphere has been pretty pants - I put this down to the new influx of 'fans' following our recent success.

I was sat in block 36 of The Park Lane today, there were probably half a dozen of us making any sort of attempt at song throughout the game - this included the shirtless man at the front - yido! The guy I was sat next to didn't say a word for 90 minutes and the bloke behind me was moaning that I was singing!?! Come on guys, Bolton may not be as appealing as AC Milan but these games are still bloody important and the team needs our support!

Player Ratings:
Gomes - 7 - Should have done better with Bolton's goal but otherwise had a decent game
Corluka - 6.5 - Had a better game than last time but needs to sort out his ball control, really didn't look confident at times
Dawson - 7 - Didn't have a great game today, made some good blocks but gave the ball away for Bolton's breakaway before they equalised
Gallas - 7.5 - Needs to cut his toenails. Spooned a number of balls but was otherwise quite solid
BAE - 7 - Needs to stop whacking the ball upfield to no-one in particular, very good defensively again but needs to direct his passes a lot better
VdV - 8 - Only on for 45 but was great in that time, dropped his head a little after the second penalty but soon picked it up again
Palacios - 7.5 - Didn't actually have a bad game, gave away his usual array of balls but looked confident on the ball and going forward
Jenas - 6 - No balls in the middle. Very rarely made an attempt to get forward and bar his free kick he once again made no impact on the game! Getting very fed up with this every week.
Lennon - 7.5 - On the left again but had a good game, still a little predictable on that flank but always looked a threat - one us our second penalty
Crouch - 7 - Had a decent game but should have made more of his chances, got his legs in a tangle when he should have scored in the first half
Defoe - 6.5 - Forgot he was on the pitch for large parts of the game, needs to gain some confidence/form!

Subs
Pienaar (for Vdv, 45) - 7 - Showed his potential but wasted a number of opportunities to break away and score!
Pav (for Crouch, 73) - 6.5 - Laid the ball off well for Niko's goal in the 92nd but other than that didn't do much, has revealed today that he wants to leave in the summer so don't expect too much from him for the next few months
Kranjcar (for Palacios, 78) - 8.5 - Has to start the next game, only on for 10 minutes again but showed his class in that short amount of time! Scored the winner!

At home to Bolton

2011-02-04T21:45:00.002Z

Tomorrow could be an interesting day. For a number of reasons really. We are now definitely at the beginning of 'the business end' of the season, now that the transfer window is behind us all the speculation and unease can disappear also.
Talking of which the results of my latest poll (Are you happy with our January dealings?) was a resounding 85% to "where's my striker?" not too surprising really!
Unless its about David Beckham - already the speculation has started that we will sign him in November/December when his LA Galaxy contract expires - I'll leave that chat for another day though!

Our last outing saw a well deserved and well needed away win against Blackburn, Harry and the team will want to build on this going forward and a home tie against Bolton should be a guaranteed 3 points. Especially when you consider that our next two league games (potentially 3 depending when the Ars*nal game is rearranged for) are away from home.

Bolton had a promising start to the year, playing good football and starting to look a threat to the European places. They turned us over 4-2 back in November when they were at the peak of their form. This however has petered of big time of late.
They beat Wolves last time out 1-0 but this put to bed a 5 game run without a win - 4 of these losses. To add a little extra spice they haven't scored at The Lane in their last 3 visits (bet they score now I've said that!).

Following out win against Blackburn I might dare to think that the negative mood surrounding Spurs at the minute may have somewhat lifted as people start to realise that it is most definitely not the end of the world/season! We do have a multitude of talented players, fourth place is still up for grabs and we have the small matter of The Champions League to contend with!
Talking about our multitude of talented players - we do have a multitude of injuries!

The usual suspects are still out (King and Huddlestone) but we also have Bale, Kaboul, Modric and potentially Gallas out as well. The good news is that Dawson will be back following his suspension (surprising though as I thought it was 3 games - see even us bloggers cock things up!), also Pienaar will be back following a bump to the head in training.
I would be surprised to see huge changes from the game against Blackburn to be honest, I think the 4-4-2 is beneficial to us and Harry would like to try it again - but hey what do I know?!?
Woodgate was on the bench for the last game and there is potential he could start tomorrow, however I think now that Dawson is available Harry wont risk him. One thing though, please give Sandro a try! He has looked a lot better than Palacios lately so give him a chance!

Please start me Harry! I must be better than Palacios is at the moment!

Based on the team news and our last game I would do the following:

   Gomes
   Corluka - Dawson - Bassong - BAE
   Lennon - Sandro - VdV - Kranjcar
   Defoe - Crouch

Note how I gave Niko a start! If you read this blog regularly then you will know that I am a big fan of his and for the right reasons. Just because we signed Pienaar doesn't mean he should automatically start. Although Lennon didn't have a bad game on the left against Blackburn he was far too predictable, put him on the right, put VdV in the middle and give Jenas the bench. If you watch Jenas regularly I don't need to explain this.

Before you say it I know I slated Corluka against Blackburn but don't think Harry will drop him after one bad game - another shocker then expect Hutton in against Sunderland.

Prediction? 2-0 win, I don't think it will be a rout like some have said but we should win tomorrow.

COYS!

Back to winning ways

2011-02-02T23:48:00.003Z

Tottenham do know how to keep you on the edge of your seat! What's it called again? "Squeaky bum time?" Well It certainly applied here at times!
It was a strange game really, at times the play was fantastic - our distribution was at its best, the passing fluid and direct and the forward thinking top notch. Other times It was the opposite, the ball was given away far too easily throughout the game and lapses in concentration nearly cost us more than once.

However a win Is a win, especially away from home and its a much needed boost after the last weeks events on and off the field. Especially when you take into account the amount of injuries the squad has at the moment.

The game started off in great fashion - Crouch finally getting on the score-sheet after what feels like a lifetime off it, to add to the excitement It was a headed effort as well - he's obviously been practising. After that however It was a very touch and go first half, Blackburn were definitely up for this tonight and as you would expect were throwing everything at us - only a combination of poor shooting and good defending kept it at 1-0. Gomes however did try his best to cock It up (on a number of occasions), thankfully the defence were there to mop up.

It was about the 22nd minute when I thought to myself "you know, Palacios hasn't been too bad so far, he hasn't really given the ball away and is looking fairly confident". Oh God how that changed. Like the Gomes flap a game wouldn't be complete without Palacios trying to give the game away and he too was responsible for a terrible cock-up just outside the box. Thankfully for us my nan would have produced a better shot and Gomes comfortably saved.

After this he gave the ball away every other pass and didn't look happy at all, when you notice that someone completes a routine pass you know there's a problem. Hopefully Thudd won't be away for too much longer!

The Second half for the most part was much better, the passing was great and we really did dominate passages of play, Van der Vaart in particular was fantastic. Not just in the second half but the first as well, out of everyone he was the stand out player. He just didn't stop, chasing every loose ball, making challenges, helping at the back and then surging forward. To top it off he produced the cross for Crouchies goal. He's had a few quiet games lately so it was nice to see him back at his best!

Crouch back on the score sheet

Defoe SHOULD have scored on the 59th minute, a typical break away from Lennon saw him surging up the field into a huge amount of space and laying it off for the forward who had his shot saved by Robbo - to be fair to the ex-spur it was a really good save but nevertheless it was disappointing.

As I said at the beginning the last 10 minutes or so was pretty much all Blackburn, we didn't really attack, seemingly content to get behind the ball and see off the game. To their credit this was achieved but It so nearly wasn't.
Gomes has 3 sides to him: a) He's fantastic and is unbeatable b) Is completely awful and looks like he's got banana skins as gloves with a thick layer of oil over the top c) Somewhere between the two - usually ends in a draw.

I think we saw a and c tonight. the majority of the game was c. He was really quite poor, flapping at balls and not looking happy. The last 20 minutes or so he went into a and pulled off 4 or 5 fantastic saves. Without that we would have been lucky to come home with a point but credit to Gomes, he proved why he's our number one.

All in all a great result away from home under the circumstances, City also threw away 2 points which adds another Brucie bonus to proceedings! We now find ourselves in fifth - 3 points off Chelsea in fourth and 5 points from City in third and we've got a game In hand!
Hopefully this result brings back some optimism from the fans, we may be out of the title race but fourth spot is most definitely still available! Not to mention the Champions League is back soon!

Player ratings
Gomes - 7.5 - I nearly gave him an 8 based on his end of game heroics but remembered he was quite poor at the beginning of the game, well played though overall and a clean sheet to boot.
Corluka - 6.5 - Maybe a little harsh with 6.5 but he really wasn't great tonight, continually beaten and gave away a lot of unnecessary fouls
Gallas - 8 - Great game tonight, a couple of wobbles but was otherwise solid at the back!
Bassong - 7 - Got back well when needed and on the whole had a good night
BAE - 7.5 - I've been very critical in the past of him but he really is turning into a solid left back, another great performance - should just be a little more aware of opposition players around him
VdV - 8.5 - Just awesome, played his heart out! Got an assist and really inspired the team at times
Palacios - 6 - Started well but then reverted to his normal self, gave the ball away far far too much, needs to sort out his ball control.
Jenas - 7 - How do you rate a player who doesn't really do a lot? Didn't make too many mistakes but apart from his goal line clearance towards the end didn't really add a lot. Typical Jenas in that respect.
Lennon - 7.5 - Always a threat and continually caused problems for Blackburn, needs to work on his final ball but is unstoppable on the breakaway, should be out on the right though as he is too predictable on the left
Defoe - 6.5 - Much like Jenas he didn't really add much to the game, should have scored but messed up his lines, hopefully will get back on form soon. Subbed on 76 for Sandro.
Crouch - 7.5 - Nice to see him back on the score sheet, hopefully not just a one off!

Subs
Sandro (for Defoe) - 7 - Only on for 15 minutes, looked much more capable than Palacios

Back to the football then!

2011-02-02T17:40:00.002Z

Today brings with it a return to The Premier League, Its been a mixed week for us Spurs fans but one that seems to have left most ultimately disappointed.
Sundays 4-0 thumping In the cup was followed by rumours of big money transfers that culminated In bids for Phil Neville and Charlie Adam. No striker materialised and to make matters worse Chelsea, City and Liverpool all strengthened their front lines. (Yes I know 'pool did sell Torres but they replaced him with two quality strikers).

So following all this tonight's game has an added importance on our season, results last night didn't go our way with wins for Utd, Chelsea and the filth just adding to the importance of three points. Also City are away to Birmingham and Liverpool have Stoke at home tonight - this adds even more to tonight's fixture as you can expect wins from the both of them.

Just to add to the doom and gloom that seems to be swirling around Tottenham fans at the moment our player of the season so far, Luka Modric, has had his appendix removed which leaves him out for two weeks. It was also revealed that Ledley needs groin surgery so your guess when he'll be back. Great.

Anyway let's take a look at tonight!

Blackburn have had a pretty good run of form of late. They have won three of their last 5 league games, one of these a 3-1 triumph over Liverpool. They are currently 8th In the table and will be confident of getting a result of some degree tonight.
On the contrast we haven't won for three league games, our last victory being the 1-0 triumph over Fulham on new years day! Since then we have drawn two (Utd and the barcodes) and lost against Everton. A return to winning ways Is certainly needed then!

Our last meeting at The Lane finished 4-2 In our favour and Harry will be going all out for the win to try and restore a little bit of confidence to the spurs cause. As already mentioned we will be without Modric tonight and he joins the injury list of King, Huddlestone, Kaboul, Gallas and Bale. We're also without Dawson because of his sending off which could well mean a first start In 14 months for Woodgate! Personally It would be great to see him playing again, I just hope he doesn't break down during or after the game which will be a concern for Harry, nevertheless this is my prediction for the line up:

   Gomes
   Corluka - Woodgate - Bassong - BAE
   Lennon - Palacios - VdV - Kranjcar
   Defoe - Crouch

Nb. That Is how I would do It tonight, I have a cheeky feeling that Pienaar will for some reason start ahead of Niko though and that Harry will go for a 4-4-1-1 again with Jenas In the middle and and VdV behind Defoe with Crouch on the bench. We'll see though!

I'm going to go against the pessimism that seems to be going around at the moment and predict a 2-0 win, we're due a good result and I think the team (strikers in particular) will want to try and prove something to the masses.

COYS!

Deadline day round-up

2011-02-01T09:31:00.003Z

Well that's the transfers finished now until the summer and as usual it was a pretty crazy Monday. In total during the January transfer window a total of £218,525,000 was spent - far more than both the last January window and even the summer window!

As we all know our beloved Tottenham needed a striker, really really needed a striker. Things were looking very positive in this respect with the breaking news on Sunday night that we had had a number of bids for top striker in La Liga rejected. This list included:
Sergio Aguero (apparently £38.5m rejected!)
Alvaro Negrado
Fernando Llorente
and Giuseppe Rossi

All these bids were rejected but It did create a lot of excitement In spurs circles and everyone dared to hope that another last minute buy could be on the cards. Even after Aguero signed a new contract at Atletico Madrid there was intense rumour from all sorts of ITKs that we were once again going after Rossi.
Unfortunately, like Sol Campbells masculinity, a striker failed to materialise. Tottenham were however busy on deadline day - no doubt trying to do a deal for a striker but also looking in other directions.

Harry confirmed early on that we had bid for the one...the only...Phil Neville.......Really? Is Phil Neville really that great that we had to put precious minutes on deadline day into making a poultry bid of £1.5m (Edit. Apparently now saying it was £500,000) for him. Everton were never going to accept It and they were never going to accept that much.
Neville probably isn't worth much more these days but it was always going to take a lot of money for them to sell their captain, there really was no point bidding for him. I'm actually kinda relieved, I'm sure he would have done a good job but he doesn't exactly scream "MOVING FORWARD" hence why he's playing at Everton.

As usual we were involved at the death but once again not for a star striker but for Charlie Adam. I'm not really sure where that came from, It was more surprising than a Taiwanese ladyboy who had 'promised she was the real McCoy'. Once again I have to ask questions here. Yes he Is a very good player, this Is further backed up due to the fact that both Liverpool and Man Utd were interested.

But do we really need yet another midfield option? He is primarily a central midfielder so lets take a look at that. Modric wouldn't lose his place so we are looking at a midfield partner for him - In that position we currently have Huddlestone, Palacios, Jenas, Sandro and not to forget VdV. I would quite happily have Adam in place of Jenas, I certainly wouldn't shed a tear if he left the club but would you put him ahead of Hudd? No not really, I know he's injured but that's not the point. If your going to spend £10m on a player you should have better ambitions for them rather than them being an expensive bench warmer.

And that was It, deadline day brought us bids for Phil Neville and Charlie Adam. Both rejected and myself personally feeling a little dejected when I went to bed. Not just because we didn't sign anyone and not just because those we tried to sign don't exactly get the blood pumping. No, mostly because of the business done elsewhere.

Notably by Chelsea and Liverpool. Chelsea spending over £70m on Fernando Torres and David Luiz Is a massive signal of intent - they have been pretty awful of late and this throws them straight back into the title race.
Liverpool spent in excess of £50m on Andy Carrol and Luis Suarez, again another huge signal of intent and they now find themselves firmly back into the race for fourth spot. I won't go into the fact that Liverpool must have someone slightly deranged at the club (Ahem. Comolli?) to spent £36m on Carroll - well over the top In my opinion.

This worries me because of our own ambitions, I think we can all agree that any dreams of a Premiership title are well and truly over and following our FA Cup exit we will now find ourselves focused on fourth spot (keeping the Champions league separate before you say). This was always going to be hard but Its made even harder because we have sent out Keane, Bentley, Dos Santos and Jamie O'Hara on loan and not really got anyone In to replace them. Most notably Keane. He was always going to go to some extent and I'm not opposed to that but as a strike force we are now limited to Defoe, Pav and Crouch who have 6 league goals between them this season.

During the window we brought In Pienaar and khumalo. I won't say too much on Khumalo as I don't know much about him but as I'm sure you well know by now I think Pienaar Is just a lesser Kranjcar - one plus Is that Niko is still a Spurs player, hopefully he can get himself back into the team!

Poll results! The latest poll was 'Who would you prefer us to sign?' (check out the new one at the top right of the page), the results were:
Hulk - 40%
Suarez - 20%
Someone else - 20%
Forlan - 10%
Fabiano - 10%

Interestingly no-one voted for Andy Carroll.

Where Do I Start?

2011-01-30T22:25:00.000Z

I purposely waited for a while before I wrote today's match review, simply because I was In such a bad mood earlier It would have probably consisted mainly of swear words and I don't expect much of it would have made sense. Nevertheless I expect this will possibly have one of my lowest 'read counts' to date - and I'm not really surprised!

Where do I Start? I guess the one positive we can take out of the shambolic display today Is that as usual the crowd was fantastic! As I said In yesterdays preview the atmosphere at The Lane on new years day was pretty pants, well today was the complete opposite. Apart from a few token efforts the Fulham support was woeful, even at 4-0 the yids were still making all the noise! Good job!

However when your one positive Is the crowd making a lot of noise you know you have problems! The first 10 minutes looked promising but then there was an implosion of epic proportions, with Dawson the one to pull the trigger! It was a harsh sending off, In fact I would go as far as to say that Phil Dowd got it plain wrong but Its not the point. This was the moment our game died, we could have got back into It, even at 2-0. Our confidence was shot though and our game just fell to pieces.

I could go into a huge amount of detail about how and what each player done wrong but there really Is no point, not one of them played with any passion, energy, care and confidence. It was simply appalling.
I have to say fair play to Fulham though, Its easy to say that we were simply terrible (which we were) but the other team has to take advantage of that - Fulham to their credit seized their opportunity and we were lucky in the end for it to be only 4.

As such I'm not going to bother rating the players today as they simply don't deserve It.

So that's the FA Cup gone for another year and with It our chances of domestic silverware. Again we have to focus now on getting that fourth spot, It could end up being a blessing in disguise but I would have much preferred us to go on a cup run! There is the silver lining though of The Champions League so Its not all doom and gloom, we have a hard tie against AC but I remain quietly confident that we can progress further In the competition.

So what have we learned today? These are my thoughts:

1. We need a striker. Badly. I've been saying It for a while but as every game goes by it becomes more apparent, hopefully this result doesn't deter any of the big names and with any luck Harry can do something before the window closes.
2. Niko is much better than Pienaar. Yes the South African has only played two games but we have watched him In the Premiership for a while now. I said It when we signed him and I stand by It that Niko should be ahead of Pienaar In the squad.
3. We are still a work In progress. Yes the club is most certainly on the up, both In stature and the style of play but results like this prove that some of 'the old Tottenham' Is still present. Its easy to get carried away but hopefully this Is just 'one of those games'.
4. The majority of Spurs fans really are anti-Stratford. Hopefully Levy will realise that It Isn't just a 'very small number' of people who are opposed to it, especially after the chanting and banners today. This may have been detrimental to the game today but It got the point across.
5.Going out in The Cup really hurts. Anyone who says The FA Cup doesn't matter any more Is talking rubbish and deserves a slap!

Bring on Blackburn.