January 2015 – All Action, No Plot

Admittedly I am preaching to the converted here, but we Spurs fans have not become such peerless peddlers of doom overnight. Our unique brand of pessimism has been carefully nurtured over years and years, and accordingly ever since the final whistle last Wednesday night, every conceivable nightmare scenario had been carefully played out in the AANP mind. Thusly do we roll.

On top of which, the home crowd barked and hollered expectantly, and snow snowed. A celebrity chef could not have chopped, diced and mixed a better conglomeration of ingredients for an upset.

Serenity Ruled

But for seventy or so pretty serene minutes it seemed that our heroes were treating us to that most rarely seen beast, a performance of consummate professionalism. Admittedly their wingers always looked a threat, but that aside we were well in control. The defending was solid, Stambouli was having one of his better days in front of the back-four, Mason was happy to bomb forward, Vorm was largely spectating and our counter-attacking was bursting at the seams with potency.

Even Dembele was showing glimpses of the all-conquering behemoth of his first few months in a lilywhite shirt – charging forward forty yards with the ball rather than the slightly tired stop-pivot-pass-sideways routine that has drearily become his norm over the last couple of seasons.

Serenity Rather Pointedly Brought To A Halt

Inevitably, this being our lot, what should have been a gentle, incident-free cakewalk to Wembley as smooth as the skin of Venus herself, suddenly materialised into a path beset by cracked ice, broken glass and unhatched eggs from the Alien films, through which we had to navigate a path with heart-stopping caution. Not that it was our fault to be honest – I rather thought our mob had ticked every conceivable box in the manual labelled ‘How To Do This Dashed Thing Sensibly’, only for an errant two-minute burst, including a massive deflection dash it. Mercifully however, while I stormed the corridors of AANP Towers in a huff, at the injustice of the thing (a deflection! Nobody mentions the deflection, do they? It practically turned the ball a right angle for heaven’s sake), the quick-thinking chaps out on the pitch promptly tore down the pitch and righted the wrongs.

Man-Love

Ah, young Master Kane, every inch the antithesis of wayward wastrel Adebayor. Where last week Adebayor spent the game doing his best impression of an errant schoolboy gazing distantly out of the classroom window and wishing for a sneaky fag behind the bike shed, Kane last night rolled up his sleeves and set about working his socks off. Before delivering a peach of a pass for the winner and then celebrating the goal like a loon.

Within the first half hour he had skinned half the United defence three or four times, and thumped half a dozen shots netwards. Admittedly on at least two of those occasions a thorough SWOT analysis of the situation might have made an incontrovertible case for a pass, but one must not quibble. The boy fights the good fight as if the fate of humanity depends upon it, and scares the dickens out of opposition defenders in so-doing.

But the dreamiest of them all last night was Eriksen. The free-kick spent the middle 70% of its trajectory defying physics, before hitting an absolute postage stamp of a spot where post and crossbar meet in happy union; the second goal was an absurd triumph for ‘90s Grolsch drinkers the world over, as he wisely opted not to rush these things, but took two or three extra strides before wrong-footing the ‘keeper. Insanely good finishing, the sort that makes me want to sire a daughter pronto just so that I can offer her hand to him in marriage pronto.

And what do you know – Spurs are on their way to Wembley!

Melchett: ‘It’s a barren, featureless wasteland out there, isn’t it?’
Darling: ‘The other side, sir…’

I suppose we can comfort ourselves with the knowledge that even if we had established a three or four goal advantage tonight, this being Spurs we would probably be two down within ten minutes in the second leg anyway. Nevertheless, even by our standards, this was particularly head-against-wall-bangingly frustrating. Our heroes inevitably spent the first half pausing to deliberate for a good seven or eight seconds over every touch, and duly registering not a sniff of goal.

Mercifully, bang on half-time our visitors decided to run out of steam, so we did at least get to set up camp in their half thereafter. Not that it prompted any particular injection of creativity, our passing notably remaining multi-touch, but such is life.

In this world of dreary slow build-up play, the two little moments of skill that created the penalty shone out in the gloom like beacons of light from heaven itself, serenaded by choirs of angels for good measure. Where on earth Vertonghen’s delicate chipped pass has been living all these years is anyone’s guess, but it was a thing of daintiness, the sort that would not have been out of place at one of the dolls’ tea-parties that my five year-old niece occasionally invites me to spectate.

Similarly, Soldado’s control with his right clog, of a ball coming over his head at something around chest-height, was enough to prompt the Sheff Utd defender into planting a hand on the ball and almost bursting into tears.

There was not much else to prompt the pulse into life, let alone set it racing. Young Kyle Walker’s recent profession that he is trying to be more Lahm than Alves continues to look an awful career choice, and the mentality typified things. Adebayor reacted to not being given a sniff of the ball by pointedly deciding that he was not going to look for it either, so there.

Just when I started to wonder if the introduction of Paulinho was actually some sort of anti-mirage brought on by the cold, up he popped, to take umpteen touches before passing backwards. This was later followed up by a burst into the box and a mishit shot so weak it almost slowed to a stop and started to reverse.

The entire dirge was accompanied by the sound of thousands of palms slapping foreheads in frustration, and just like that, next week’s task was made infinitely more difficult. A victory is always lovely, and 1-0 in these circumstances is infinitely better than conceding away goals and whatnot – but this seems like a masterclass in doing it the hard way.