Month: December 2008

Categories
Spurs news, rants

I jest ye not – Jenas made the difference: Watford 1-2 Spurs

Hmm – I honestly think that we owed our win last night in large part to the presence of Jermaine Jenas.

Alright, alright – I’ve clearly gone mad. Too many booze-fuelled late nights, not enough sleep, not enough oxygen to the brain – these have all contributed to some severe form of dementia. I’m obviously crazy. I’m obviously talking the gibberish of a lunatic. No team on the planet can benefit from the presence in its ranks of Jermaine Jenas.

However, continuing the crazy-talk theme – I began to appreciate him once he was absent, injured. As mentioned previously on these pages, in his absence our central midfield comprised two deep-lying types, in Thudd and Zokora. Last night, Jenas was back and the midfield seemed to have a better balance. Unlike Thudd and Zokora, Jenas is happy to assume a position some 10-20 yards in advance of the halfway line, with his midfield partner sitting deeper. As such, whenever we won position we tended to have an attacking option in addition to the strikers, and this helped to drag the oppo around a bit.

Returning to sanity, Jenas’ return to the team did also remind us all of why he is so reviled by his own. Bless him, he works his socks off, makes lung-bursting runs, occasionally dribbles past midfielders, generally does the difficult part – and then always, always messes up the finish. This would also be why he doesn’t have his own song (http://www.allactionnoplot.com/?p=65). There was one notable jinking run in the first half yesterday which ended in a shot so tame you wanted to feed it berries from your hand. Then in the second half he caused panic in the oppo ranks by picking up the ball from 20 yards and determinedly burrowing towards goal – only to scuff his effort into a pathetic dribble that barely had sufficient momentum to make it into the arms of the goalkeeper. Honestly, to paraphrase from Bruce Willis’ wife in the first (and best) Die Hard, only Jermaine Jenas can make you that angry. Bizarrely, the only time he’s complemented the effort and determination of the build-up with a suitably successful end-product was away to l’arse earlier this season, when he scored an absolute peach. Any other time, that shot would have been so mis-hit and weak it would have stopped rolling out of embarrassment.

However, his presence and positioning improved the shape of the team. I assume that ‘Arry hastily read my last blog posting just prior to kick-off, because as well as addressing my concerns about the midfield balance he also addressed my point about resting key personnel, by picking a pretty darned strong starting XI.

They began with all the energy and verve of a moribund sloth, and the nightmare scenario of conceding early and away from home to a lower league team duly materialised. (The goal encapsulated our early sluggishness in a microcosm – Lennon beaten to the ball by a far hungrier opponent, Jenas and Woody wrong-footed and lumbering with the turning speed of a pleasure cruiser while the oppo striker swivelled and buried it). However, this had the pleasing side-effect of sparking us into life, and also prompted Watford to give us possession on halfway and sit back in their own half. We duly attacked, Lennon in particular looking good, O’ Hara not so, and the goals duly came. Pav, Bent, yadiyadayada, job done.

Categories
Spurs preview

Please don’t blow this opportunity… Watford – Spurs Carling Cup preview

I’ve got a bad feeling about tonight’s game away to Watford. At stake is a place in the semi-finals, alongside such luminaries as Derby and Burnley, and in our way today stand a team near the bottom of the Championship, who have just sacked their manager. It’s a cracking opportunity to progress, and the route to winning some silverware and securing European qualification is as well-lit and sign-posted as any competition will ever be, with the likes of Chelsea, Liverpool, l’arse and even Villa, Man City and Everton all having fallen by the wayside. There’s no doubt we’re good enough in theory to beat Watford away, and either of Derby or Burnley should we draw them in the semi. (The other quarter-final, tonight features Blackburn and the under-strength Man Utd). However, I’m already resigned to the fact that Watford will raise their game, while we’ll trot out one of those perfunctory, sloppy, mind-elsewhere performances. That would be one hell of an opportunity blown, especially having done the hard work of beating a couple of Premiership teams to get this far. With the chances of European qualification via the league table still looking a long shot, I’m already seething at the thought that we’re going to blow it tonight.

In particular the lack of energy from our central midfield is a cause for concern. Who’d have thunk it, but I actually lament the absence of Jenas at the moment. Zokora and Huddlestone simply aren’t good enough to boss a game as a central midfield pairing, certainly at Premiership level. As a pair they seem to possess neither action nor plot – both sit deep, neither supplementing attack and neither forming a particularly strong shield for the defence. They seem to need the presence of a third body alongside them in central midfield, and with Modric and Jenas likely to be out injured this looks like a luxury we won’t be able to afford. (nb, while he’s got the right attitude I broadly stick O’ Hara in the same “needs-two-people-alongside-him” category). Thudd in particular seems to need a couple of minders – or a two-goal lead – in order to be at his best, and while his passing, long and short, can be superb when he’s on song and the team is on top, too often he’s a slightly lumbering passenger when the chips are down. In a cup-tie away to a lower-league team I fear we won’t show stomach for the fight, but instead be out-muscled and out-bustled.

The other worry tonight is ‘Arry’s attitude towards any game that isn’t in the Premiership. He keeps banging on about how we’re in a relegation fight, and last week suggested that he rued our progress in the Uefa as it meant more games. I hope beyond hope that this is just the line he’s feeding the media, and that in the privacy of his own twitchy head he appreciates quite what a good chance this is for silverware. I appreciate that avoiding relegation is our priority, but I really don’t see that as a reason to surrender our places in the Uefa and Carling cups – especially with the draw for the latter looking so inviting. Besides, there are mantras such as “Winning breeds confidence” to be trotted out at moments like this.

Redknapp’s team selection tonight will speak volumes. As mentioned, without Jenas and Modric the midfield already has a dubious look to it. At the back Ledley is likely to be rested, understandably enough. Beyond that I hope to see Woodgate, Corluka, Bale (despite his current poor form) and Lennon involved from the start. What I’d be rather wary of is half a dozen or more changes, with the likes of O’ Hara, Gilberto, Taraabt, Rocha and Bostock all flung together. Even if the players brought in are of a half-decent standard, changing more than half the personnel is inevitably going to result in an unsettled and unsure starting line-up. Presumably the reality will be somewhere in between – ie maybe four or five changes, with the core of players all members of our Premiership squad, and a couple of kids on the bench. It still fills me with pessimism. The Carling Cup might be the smallest of the trophies, but a lot of teams (not least l’arse) would trip over themselves to win two trophies in two years. It’s a cracking opportunity – Arry, please don’t blow it through your team selection.

Categories
Spurs news

Silencing the sycophants? Burnley 2-0 Arsenal

Schadenfreude is a terrible thing, but I’ve never been one to pass on an opportunity to snigger at l’arse. The fact that they lost last night is no disgrace per se; but pride precedes a fall, and after all the increasingly excited bleating the rest of the world has had to put up with after each display of Wenger’s kids, I hope that last night’s defeat will bring them back down to earth and tie a nice tight gag around the mouths of those sycophants – partisan and neutral alike – who’ve got rather carried away. A talented group of youngsters no doubt, but the hyperbole was reaching ridiculous proportions after the defeats of Wigan and Sheff Utd in previous rounds of the Carling Cup. Away from home, and even though supplemented by a couple of older heads (although by all accounts Bendtner was a hindrance rather than a help – pink boots strike me as a bad idea if you can’t walk the walk) they went down 2-0 to a lower league team, and the “Young Gunners” drum can now hopefully be silenced. Until next season…

Categories
Spurs news, rants

Is this really a "revival"? Spurs 0-1 Everton

Curses. Two steps forward and one step back is a painfully slow way of progressing, but it appears to be the route of choice for Harry’s Hotspurs. (Incidentally, the name “Tottenham Hotspur” was, partially, derived from the character “Harry Hotspur” in Henry V.)

With the Premiership table so tightly packed, a string of wins would have had us perched on the the ledge of the European places. Instead, two defeats in three leave us level on points with the relegation zone wretches. The game was not televised, but the frustratingly amateurish BBC London radio commentators generally gave the impression that, aside from our desperate final 15 minute barrage, we were pretty insipid. This bothers me somewhat.

Even allowing for a wide margin of error, given that I’ve only seen one of ‘Arry’s games at the stadium, and most of the rest only on TV, it seems to me that we’ve rarely played particularly well or looked particularly comfortable during our revival. Draw vs l’arse – dead lucky. Win vs Liverpool (league) – dead lucky. Win vs Man City – generous amount of luck. Win vs Blackburn – uninspiring . Add to those the insipid defeats vs Fulham and Everton, and the so-called “revival” begins to look a tad misleading. Now the media in particular seem happy to indulge in a Harry Redknapp love-in, and we’ve definitely improved since the Ramos era. However – whisper it – I’m not convinced that we’ve been playing particularly well, despite some good results. The only impressive performances were 4-0 vs a poor Dinamo Kiev and the Carling Cup win vs Liverpool’s reserves.

Losing while having played well is undoubtedly galling, but it at least gives hope of better things to come. We, by contrast, seem to have been picking up wins without playing particularly well, and therefore perhaps papering over cracks. Results have been good under the new boss, but performances have only sporadically sparkled. I still don’t doubt we’ll avoid relegation with ease, but with the tightness of the league table allowing us to force our way back into European reckoning on the back of a few consecutive wins, we ought to be aiming higher. If Harry really is the right man for us he’ll have us playing an attractive, effective brand of football fairly sharpish – if he does this results will take care of themselves. As yet there has been the odd sign of this, but we’ve more often been sloppy. Performances need to improve in order to push up the table, as we won’t win luckily every week.

The absences of Jenas and Modric, our supposed creative sparks in central midfield, haven’t really helped the cause, but there remain enough flair players in the squad for us to cope with this. In the first half hour vs Blackburn our attacking quartet of Lennon, Bentley, Pav and Bent looked particularly impressive – but 30 slick minutes in three games isn’t good enough. With West Ham away and Man Utd at home next in the league, it’s time for Harry to prove his worth as manager and turn up the performances a couple of notches.

An abridged version of this badboy can also be found on the letters page of football365.com:
http://www.football365.com/mailbox/story/0,17033,8744_4579281,00.html