Sitting down to type when one’s lip is literally still quivering with rage must surely be ill-advised, but how else to express sheer, undiluted incandescence? Here at AANP Towers we are generally loath to criticise the officials, since their job is jolly difficult, their mistakes are always honest and frankly I imagine that to a man the players make many more errors per game. And yet so many, high-profile and egregious were the faux pas of the officials today that I have little choice but to clear my throat and ask in the sternest tones, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes”?
Stoke – A Handy Rugby Side
My sentiments on our triumphant opponents are hardly more complimentary, although unlike their friends in black the Stoke players could not be labelled necessarily incompetent. Talentless, for sure, but at least skilled at the unique brand of non-football they purvey. Stoke’s tactics were not entirely dissimilar to those of our burly rugger-playing cousins, who exalt in blasting the ball towards the heavens and scuffling over the scraps as it falls to earth, their principal aim being to get the ball into touch. But goodness, didn’t they do it well?
Ill-Timed Narcolepsy
Our lot are hardly exempt from the quite terrifying wrath being meted out in this corner of the interweb. As AANP advances in years he holds ever greater regard for time spent sleeping, one of the most mysterious and wondrous gifts bestowed upon those with closable eyelids – but for goodness’ sake chaps, the first 25 minutes away to Stoke was hardly the time to indulge in a spot of shut-eye.
Alas, our heroes dozily trundled along in that opening quarter of the game, sleepily rubbing their eyes and adjusting their duvets as Crouch and his new chums watched the ball descending from the skies and duly sharpened their elbows. In truth the half-time deficit was deserved.
Second Half Improvement
Laudable proactivity from ‘Arry at half-time, and everyone (bar, perhaps, VDV) earned their weekly wage in that second period, with Modders notably contributing to the cause, and Bale and Walker adapting fairly comfortably to the mystical concept of “wing-back”, as the nature of the game gradually swung back from rugby to football.
‘Twas not to be however, such is life’s rich tapestry. The Adebayor disallowed goal, Shawcross handball, push on Kaboul and handball by Crouch were all fairly blatant; and on a particularly fortuitous day we might also have benefited from the push that floored Parker as we awaited a corner in the first half, and shot by Defoe that struck outstretched arms in the second.
A temporary blip then, one would imagine – but beware ye who tread the streets of North London tonight, for this particular irate fan will fix any passer-by with a glare of such vitriol that small children will howl in anguish and elderly women hurry to the other side of the road. Thoroughly, thoroughly exasperating stuff.
28 replies on “Stoke 2-1 Spurs: Rugby Tactics and Mind-Boggling Refereeing”
You obviously didn’t watch the game; stoke played most of their balls through midfield on the deck.
Quite right Gag… If you stand on your head and if the grass is in the sky. Kicking for the quarters in order to lop a line-out into the penalty area is hardly edifying stuff though is it.
When you watch Barcelona one night and Stoke the next it’s hard to believe they were playing the same game – why the Stoke fans put up with that brand of ‘football’ when they have some good players is beyond me.
As I said to a mate….Stoke dida job on us as did Foy the ref but whether it was successful today or not I am glad I’m not a stoke fan. Their brand of football is largely one dimensional and boring.
The referee gifted you a penalty and you should have played van Der vaart
What’s that? He was on the pitch??
The truth was we stopped you from playing and that frustrated bale and modric who spent the second half arguing between themselves
I do like tottenham and hope you win the league but today we were the better team
I didn’t think that I would be saying that when I woke up this morning
look. spurs started poorly. stoke did what they do well and scored two scrappy goals. spurs were simply not good enough in defence as both goals were only possible due to crap defensive play. but, hold on, spurs were robbed by a complete waste of a referee and so obviously spurs fans will feel bitter. should have been a draw.
We would of ripped them apart had Adebayors non goal been given, oh and the blatant handballs aswell as Crouchs handball for 1st goal and the bullshit Kaboul red card. Mr Foy you are a CUNT. Soz to whoever the Editor is on this blog but i am fuming.
Read my blog on Harry Hotspurs and my twitter account in the week and you will see what happened today is a recurring trend in the premiership. The fact a drug tester told me energy drug ephedrine is rife and other longer named drugs, She also told me they are just under the radar well not on my watch i see this every week blocks saves hand ball anything too stop a gaol Fulham who had played Thursday yet overrun us in a second half when science said tiredness should have entered there body’s. Stoke played the same way against Everton and Huth fouled Fellani at every corner .They also defended with eight players and used incredible energy too stop Everton having any shots on target. If you think Kolo Toure and Paddy Kenny are the only players caught cheating are the only ones ignore me because i no its desperate teams not one or two.
Please lets get over ourselves.Stoke are the kind of team I personally wish we were in the 70s-80-s ! Guts and willpower,they showed fire and passion.We have moved on as has the game,but I tip my hat to them.A true team,a true support and a rousing good game of football. Yes the ref was a true and complete cunt,but hey that’s fucking football chaps !
It wasn’t stoke’s fault that the ref was a complete incompetent so I won’t mock them. But the amount of crucial decisions that went against spurs today was truly astonishing. Stoke fans continually jeered modders for what was a blatant trip on him for the one penalty out of the four we should have received. I wonder how they would have reacted to foy had he had the temerity to do his f*cking job. Nothing will happen to foy. His errors will go unpunished. We, on the other hand get dragged backwards in the league. The constant protection of blatantly inept officiating is causing substandard performances week after week. Spurs aren’t always on the arse end, we’ve benefited from poor decisions but I’m damned sure we’ve not benefited to the extent stoke did today. With a fully competent refereeing performance we would have won that game. Foy f*cked us over big time.
It’s a cock and bull sotory. The ref was absolutely bull and I aint gettting no cock this evening, apparently. Now where did I put that….HHXX
Yes the ref was A TOTAL CUNT,but you can’t blame Stoke they did a job on us…simples
They should have both managers score the refs for each game and have a refs league, the bottom two get relegated and replaced by the top two from the championship.
Can someone tell me did Stoke make the pitch smaller for today’s game?
When are refs gonna punish Stoke for their constant wrestling in the penalty box? I’ve never seen anything like it. How they get away with it is unbelievable.
Stoke play smallest possible premiership size a pitch can b then have to make it bigger for the uefa.
The Stoke players, managers and fans are retarded thug wastes of oxygen. They are indefensible and the only thing they deserve is to go bankrupt. Spurs were by far the better team and only Chris Foy saved Stoke from a complete hammering.
‘Stoke can’t handle the truth’- a) we only have one manager: b) It would be ‘waste of oxygen’ as opposed to ‘wastes’ – but we really aren’t, we are quite good at this game, believe it or not: b) we arfe not going ot go bankrupt as we have a rich chairman ( peter Coates) ( so do one). c) We won fair and square – get over it. UTP.
Bedford Stokie.
The easiest person to deceive is yourself. You didn’t win fair and square. We should have had four penalties and you should have had Shawcross sent off. Also, if you are going to take the piss out of someone’s post for a spelling mistake don’t then go and make two yourself in the very next line. Dooh!
A draw would have been the fairest result. The Modric penalty was a penalty, but he should have been booked for the 2.5 tariff dive he took after the minor clip. There should have been a penalty for the Shawcross handball, but it looked accidental, so no sending off. If that penalty had been given, the Adebayoure ‘offside’ goal would not have happened. The first booking for the lad that got sent off would also not have happened and so we were robbed of a very exciting finish. On balance, 2-2 would have been fair.
I’d have to say this constant bashing of stoke is getting quite tiresome. Please allow me to address a few points. Any question that stoke players must be taking drugs because they work hard is completely rediculous. If you watched the game you would see many players absolutely knackered towards the end of the game because they gave it everything they had, its good to see a player earn his wages these days. Yes we don’t have the quality of spurs but we have a team that works for each other, the manager and the fans. To watch your team do that week in week out is a joy to watch. Win lose or draw they give it a damn good go week in week out. The ref…. Was poor but I don’t see how you could call the handball blatant when he made no movement towards the ball and it hit the back of his elbow (huth would have made the clearance with his head anyway but that’s besides the point) but I have seen them given. The sending off was really harsh but a bit silly of the player. As for rugby tactics, why doesn’t anyone remember crouch’s superb link up play nd one touch passing? Anyway spurs were brilliant the second half and should count themselves unlucky but these days happen. Made for a bloody good game though
Mojo
Ignore what DavSpur says about teams taking drugs. He’s a joke on spurs’ blogs. He posts the story all the time. It’s a load of rubbish. He’s the one on drugs. Good luck to stoke for the rest of the season. My step-father and step-brother are from stoke so I’ve had to put up with plenty of stick in the last 24hrs.
Stoney I like it lol. Anyway one further note, after the game a sat drinking away till the wee hours with a few of you’re lads who were down for the weekend and what a great bunch if pass they were full respect to you’re support and many of us down here in stoke are hoping you pinch the title (and not just because we have our on gripes with Arsenal and Arsene Wenger) seriously, good luck lads
I have no gripe at all with Stoke and the way they play. They get the maximum out of every player and make life very difficult for teams with more talented players. They play on the edge of the rules in terms of their ‘marking’ in the penalty areas, but it is up to the referee to punish that. Stoke should make no apologies for the way that they play. It’s about the opposing team making sure they match the aggression, contest the knock downs from the long balls and deal with the numerous long throw ins. I thought that after half time Spurs did all of that very well. Bassong coming on as a left sided 3rd centre half nullified Shotton’s physical threat and also meant that Spurs could get a player in front and behind of Crouch for the long throws. Spurs’ superior ball players were then given the platform to show that their brand of football was a better way of going about winning a game. IMO this would’ve then happened had it not been for some extremely incompetent officiating.
I have seen some poor refereeing performances over the years but I don’t think I have ever seen one that was as bad in terms of favouring one side as Foy’s on Sunday. The Crouch handball I can understand as it was difficult to see without the benefit of a replay but the handball on the line, the onside goal (admittedly the refs ‘assistant’) and the dragging down of Kaboul as he jumped for the corner having got himself ahead of the Stoke defender were all very easy to spot. Defoe’s goalbound shot that was handled near the end was 50-50. The player didn’t move his hand to the ball, but Foy signalled to Defoe that he didn’t give the pen because the players arms were down by his side, when this clearly was not the case. There were also two decisions where Stoke got goalkicks awarded when it was immediately clear that a corner should’ve been awarded. Then we come to the sending off, if Kaboul had to go for that foul then Woodgate also should’ve gone in the first half for his foul on Parker (when the ref played a poor advantage with Lennon in posession of the ball with 3 Stoke players around him) I think Foy did this as he knew it would spare him having to send Woodgate off for taking out Parker just outside the area.
I don’t think that Foy was ‘bent’ in any way, just incompetent and swayed by the crowd far too much. I think that after the first penalty he let the crowd’s booing of Modric get to him and decided that he wasn’t going to give anything else to Spurs for the rest of the game. This is incredibly weak officiating. Refs have to have faith in decisions they have made in a game and not let doubt about earlier decisions affect them for the rest of the match.
As an aside though – what a game it must’ve been to watch for the neutral, two totally different footballing philosophies coming together to make a hugely exciting game.
Kaboul’s sending off was for a second yellow and Woodgate did get a yellow for his offence in the first half.
“..bar, perhaps, VDV” is correct. Lazy blighter – leaving him on and taking off Lennon was a howler.
limey – Woodgate got a yellow for taking Defoe out. Thatt’s not the offence I was talking about. I was talking about the one not too long after when Woodgate escapted a second yellow card taking out Parker just outside the penalty area. Foy waved play on as the ball had broke to Lennon (even though Spurs had no advantage due to Lennon being on his own near the touchline with 3 Stoke players around him).
Also to those criticising Redknapp taking off Lennon and leaving on VDV. The reason Redknapp took Lennon off was because he wanted to switch to a 3-5-2 / 3/4/1/1 formation. Walker and Bale were used as wing backs and therefore I don’t think Harry wanted another wide player on the pitch to complicate things.
Gallas was awful in this game, I do not understand how he is picked above the fair superior Bassong. Seb is a quality player who gets bad press when he has not had a decent run in two years in the team.