Never mind Saturday’s match, the games I find myself looking ruefully back upon are those at home to Stoke, Wolves and Hull, way back in the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Oh for those eight points now…Back to the Sunderland game, and something of a whimper with which to finish the five-game winning streak. With Sergeant Wilson passed fit and Defoe back in the squad, history will probably suggest that we ought to have fared a little better, but the first-minute goal completely befuddled our heroes, who appeared to spend the following 44 minutes just trying to stagger through to half-time. That first half was not far short of total gubbins, our lot trundling round with lead in their boots and a vacuum between the ears. While the Sunderland brigade were all over us like a rash every time we had possession, when roles were reversed we carefully kept a five-yard distance from them whenever the ball was at the feet of one of their number. Ignominy duly ensued.
The second half at least saw the Urgency and Inventiveness dials turned up a few notches, but let’s face it, clawing back two-goal deficits has never really been our forte. We can certainly throw away a two-goal advantage in some style, but I’m not sure anyone believed there was any way back at 2-0 down. All the more frustrating then that, having survived numerous Darren Bent penalties, Kenwyne Jones’ quite spectacular air-kick and the disallowed Ferdinand goal, we pulled one back and looked to have the momentum for an unlikely comeback. Hopes thus raised, they were duly dashed by the concession of that third goal, from straight out of the Van Basten scrapbook.
A Brief AANP Analysis of the Spot-Kicks
First penalty – A little unfortunate for the boy Walker, given that the ball flew at him at around 100 miles per hour, but his arm was away from his body, and as such the decision was understandable.
Second penalty – Ill-advised of Modders to leave his leg a-dangling like that in the area, but by jiminy Fraizer Campbell threw himself over it with some gusto.
Thrid penalty – Again, ill-advised of Sergeant Wilson to dive in thus, for any sliding challenge inside the area has to be pretty immaculately timed – but there really did not appear to be much in the challenge.
That said, Crouch’s hands appeared to be on the defender’s shoulders when he leapt for our goal. No complaint from the Sunderland mob, but I’ve certainly seen our beanpole penalised for that sort of leverage technique in the past.
Elsewhere On The Pitch
All things told it was a pretty miserable day’s work. Curses. Five wins and a defeat from our last six games remains a decent record, but it’s not really about past form any more is it? Six games remain, and this is turning into a straight shoot-out with Man City, whose thrashing of Burnley smeared salt into the wound by denting our goal difference advantage. For added flavour it now looks increasingly like we need to win at least one of the games against l’Arse and Chelski. If we do make fourth we will have ruddy well earned it.
Gary Mabbutt will be signing copies of Spurs’ Cult Heroes for the masses this Thursday (8th April), from 12.30pm, at Waterstones Leadenhall Market, City of London.(If you can’t make this, fret ye not – further signings by Mabbutt will take place:
Waterstones Stevenage – Saturday 24 April, 12 noon;
Waterstones Walthamstow – Saturday 8 May, 1pm)
Spurs’ Cult Heroes, is now available in the Spurs shop, all good bookshops and online (at Tottenhamhotspur.com, as well as WHSmith, Amazon , Tesco, Waterstones and Play).
You can become a Facebook fan of Spurs’ Cult Heroes and AANP here, follow on Twitter here
18 replies on “Sunderland 3-1 Spurs: Ruing The Stoke/Wolves/Hull Games”
Oh for goodness sake ENOUGH WITH STOKE/WOLVES/HULL
Both Liverpool and Man City have dropped points in games they should have won and we cannot focus solely on the points we dropped!
We beat Wolves & Hull City at home, i think you mean Wigan & Fulham.
just realised its a spurs topic not a sunderland one ha! my mistake!
I remember last week several Spurs fans suggesting young Walker should get a run in the side over Charlie. Like I said last week, what an idiotic suggestion. Walker didn’t just get himself into a muddle a few times, he was atrocious in defence. Against struggling sides like Porsmouth, players like Walker look half decent, but against a side like Sunderland, what a different story. Hopefully we see Charlie back for the rest of the season.
Typical Spurs – A season is 38 games – If you aint good enough, you aint good enough – you should be used to being Arsenal’s poor neighbours by now.
Know your place top eight, not top four is generally your level.
Dean – I rememeber having a dicussion with you over young Mr. Walker last week 😉
Admittedly Walker did have an off game but so did everyone else in the side. To single out a young lad playing in only his second Premier League game is a little harsh. Add to that he was playing alongside our 4th and 5th choice centre backs in an unfamiliar back line I think it would be a bit unfair to read too much into his performance as an individual.
I look forward to getting Charlie back in defence but currently Dawson is a bigger miss for us. Our defence badly lacks any sort of leader or authority without him
This is the first sensible Spurs article I have read regarding the Sunderland game. Such a shame that so many of the others have focussed on Darren Bent. I do wish that Harry would stop the wheeler dealer crap in interviews as well. “Newcastle are in for Hutton etc…” Give it a rest Arry!
FFs quit the incessant whining
Time to forget and move forward as one of the most intense remaining schedules lies ahead of us.
what the fucking hell is wrong with my Fellow supporters do i have to show you the fucking evidence how come you single out a young lad when the whole of Sunderland where shite at ANFIELD. You must be blind the only thing i failed to do was right this before a ball was kicked because i could have told you how this game would pan out .The problem i was in Yorkshire and my lap top wouldn’t work when i seen them against the Bunnies at Anfield and Bolo Zenden came on i new Wunderland would be a lt faster Bolo would be twenty one again and would score don’ forget he played for the Duracells. I then turned my attentions to the Referee Mr Mason and i discovered he spent four Years at Liverpool university and is still a member of its football club he must have friends because he could have wiped our goal difference out in one week.I cant keep banging the drum on my own unless i take the same shite that turns Sunderland from a slow team one week into a high Tempo one the following week. This is what Bobby Gould the commentator on talk sport said in all the years i have never seen a team chase the ball like Sunderland and whatever they have had i want some well Bobby you would not survive the day if you did it would kill you . If no other voices question this high Tempo then Pompy will be just has fired up or should i say energized up on Sundays for this one of game from a team on death row.
We played poorly ; they played very well.
They scored very early and we couldn’t get back into the game against their lively midfield.
The back four have never played together and had a average age of 22.
Walker is certainly a decent prospect but youngsters need to be part of an experienced and confident team and can’t be expected to make up for the deficiences of their more experienced team-mates.
Sorry that Livermore did not come on to replace the struggling Palacios.
Everybody loses points. City drew about ten in a row earlier in the season. Pool have dropped enough for half a dozen seasons. We dropped points against Wolves. etc
The trick is not to get your knickers twisted by wins or defeats but to see the wider picture – which is that Spurs are in the mix for a CL place at Easter and the last 4 of the cup.
None of these things will be decided by one game.
Davspurs, you could never be anonymous.
I knew it was him!
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