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Carling Cup Final Preview: Spurs – Man Utd

Well if we continue to display that peculiar trend for producing performances directly correlating to the qualitiy of the opposition, we’ll have a ruddy good chance. Draws against Chelski, l’Arse twice, Liverpool and Man Utd themselves suggest that we’ve got it in us, somewhere.On paper, by the form-book and according to the general laws of physics that keep life ticking over across the planet, we really ought to get thrashed on Sunday. European (and, for what it’s worth, World) champions, and runaway league leaders; against our lot, who apparently only had two points when ‘Arry took over. And that’s as much negativity as you’ll prise out of me this time. The spirit of blithe optimism which has been at me like a fever all week is set to last until about 2.59 on Sunday, at which point, as is customary, frantic agitation shall make itself at home within my skinny frame.

On the team news front, we’re without Cudicini, Chimbonda, Palacios, Keane and Campbell (ineligible). Ledley, as ever, is being pieced together with blu-tac and sticky tape, Woody’s got stitches but that won’t stop him, and Pav has a groin strain, which might stop him, as he’s got a lot of fairy in him.

All of which is likely to leave us with Gomes; Corluka, Ledley, Woody, BAE; Lennon, Jenas, Zokora, Modric (or maybe a reshuffle with Bentley instead of do-do-do Didier?); Bent and Pav. With Dawson, Hudd, Gunter, Bale, Three-Touch, Bentley/Zokora, Giovanni and Obika amongst the subs.

Brazil 1970 it might not be, but as mentioned, nothing brings out the best in us like a game against one of the better teams around. A seeming lack of motivation to complement the obvious talent has irked me on and off all season, but it won’t be problem in a Wembley cup final. It’s been a slightly tortuous seven months of blind allegiance so far this season, but frankly that would make victory on Sunday that much sweeter.

Some Thoughts on Our Opponents

Man Utd are quite possibly going to field an understrengthed team. That doesn’t fool me. While it would be nice to imagine that they’ll be trotting out a team of Fraizer Campbells, I don’t doubt that they’ll still be pretty darned strong. Tevez, Scholes, Nani, O’ Shea – that sort of “understrengthed”. And they will also have the world’s most expensive and talented substitutes’ bench as a safety net, so few favours will be forthcoming. It matters not. We’ll match them, and better them.

I have to admit I enjoy watching Man Utd. Don’t like them as a team, find their arrogance face-slappingly obnoxious, can barely restrain the urge to kick the telly whenever their boss appears, and would happily lock that publicity-addict Bobby Charlton in a retirement home with no windows – but I enjoy watching them. You see, they play the Tottenham way.

I’ll just pause a moment to let the laughter subside.

It’s that one touch, defence-into-attack style. It first caught my eye in ’99, when the Beckham-Keane-Scholes-Giggs midfield supported the telepathically-linked Cole and Yorke upfront (with Solsjkaer and Teddy on the bench). Some team. The only other side to win a trophy that season was Tottenham. The key seems to be more off-the-ball movement than you can shake a stick at. When they attack at pace it’s all so fluid that commentators have given up trying to pin a label upon the formation. It’s no longer 4-4-2 or 4-3-3. Ronaldo pops up in the centre, and Berba drops deep, and Rooney goes wide left, and Giggs drifts into the middle, and they bring on Tevez wide right; then five minutes later they all swap anyway and it’s just football in liquid form.

It’s football the way it’s meant to be played – the Tottenham way – and it tends to contain an end-product, unlike that other lot, up the road.

A couple of years ago, the halcyon days of Martin Jol (blessed be his name) only Spurs compared to Man Utd for entertainment and flair. The pace and movement of Lennon, Steed, Berba and Keane had everyone drooling. Our problem was generally defence, or perhaps protecting the defence. Hence, we’d ship in almost as many as we conceded, and 4-4 draws ceased to be anomalous. It was all action, no plot.

Man Utd, irritatingly, seem to have married the Tottenham way of attacking with an impressively solid defence. That would probably explain the slight but crucial disparity in league positioning and European pedigree. All action, but they stick to the plot too. Still, the speed of Lennon, and touch and vision of Modric keeps us in touch with our tradition of champagne football, and fingers are crossed all over the better half of North London that the signing of Palacios will give us the backbone to complement the fancy frills further forward.

I won’t notice at the time, I’ll be a bundle of nerves, but given the playing styles of both teams it could be one of the better Cup Finals of recent years. That said, I’ll most happily abandon the glory football ethos and settle for a long-ball, any-which-way war of attrition if it ends with Ledley lifting the trophy once again. Deep breath, calm the nerves – here’s hoping for a long night of celebrations and the world’s happiest hangover on Monday…

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Spurs – Shakhtar Second Leg Preview: What’s The Worst That Can Happen?

Given that this season I’ve needed so little encouragement to bow my head in despair and slip into a straitjacket of pessimism whenever the Tottenham circus rolls back into town, it is strange and vaguely ironic that today’s most hopeless of situations finds me at my most optimistic. A two-goal deficit would be tricky enough for us to negotiate at the best of times. Throw into that a polyglot mix of overweight (Hudd), comically inept (Jenas) and internally-loathed (Gilberto) reserves, alongside a bunch of kids so young that they need parental permission to stay up for kick-off, and the tricky task ought to become Herculean in its magnitude.And yet somehow, I genuinely do feel upbeat. With the tie just about over already, the burdensome dread that I normally carry on my shoulders as kick-off approaches is strangely absent today. We’re two down, and sending out our kids and deadbeats – what’s the worst that can happen?

Actually, that might be a rather dangerous rhetorical question to bandy around. I close my eyes and the worst-case scenario unfolds… Start listlessly, concede a couple of early goals and the floodgates open. The heaviest aggregate defeat in our European history, or some such statistic. If it really does all go spectacularly wrong it could have catastrophic effects upon the careers of Obika and Townsend and the rest of our “triffic” kids. ‘Arry, and any other watching scouts summarily pass judgement upon them and their one chance at the big-time dissipates in 90 minutes of ignominy. They’ll go back to their academies battered shells of their former selves, psychologically scarred for life, and without a cat in hell’s chance of making the grade at the Lane, destined instead for a lifetime of ignominy in the footballing no-man’s-land that is Leyton Orient. (Not that any of this will have the slightest impact upon Spurs’ long-term future, as we never ease home-grown talent into our first team if we have the option of splashing out £14 mil on someone from a struggling Premiership side instead).

However, I really do remain optimistic that no such nightmare will unfold, and that, instead, we’ll put on a ruddy good, fearless, attacking performance tonight. Admittedly I can’t really see us winning the tie, as concession of one goal would leave us needing to score four. Nevertheless, after a season in which our underachieving first-choice rabble have been epitomised by Darren Bent – plenty of huffing and puffing without ever displaying real class – it would just be a typically illogical Tottenham thing to see our second-string of wastrels and street urchins produce a dazzling, energetic, motivated performance tonight. Before disappearing back to the substitutes’ bench, reserve team and youth league, rarely to be seen again.

Moreover, the whole attitude of the camp is a little different. Last week the game was lost before a ball had been kicked, so belligerently did ‘Arry insist that the match did not matter. The actual starting eleven selected last week, while weaker than normal, really was not the selection of inbreds and pre-pubescents many had anticipated. Gomes, Dawson, Zokora, Hudd, Jenas, Bentley – there ought to have been enough there to keep the tie alive. Rather than the choice of personnel it seemed to be the defeatist attitude that cost us. This week, inevitably, soundbites have been trotted out by the likes of Gomes and Giovanni about how determined the players are to fight their way back into the tie and so on. Vacuous untruths for sure, but, if repeated sufficiently frequently, I faithfully believe that the players might just lack the intelligence to realise that it’s all a lie, and instead go out there all guns blazing tonight.

There is no pressure upon the team to deliver. Young Three-Touch O’ Hara is likely to return, which should inject a bit of life into proceedings. And should we grab the first goal, the atmosphere will bubble up, and pressure will most certainly mount upon our Ukrainian guests…

While tonight is a chance for the youngsters to shine – aside, annoyingly, from Taraabt, inexplicably omitted from the Uefa list by Wendy Ramos – spare a thought for any older heads called into action. With Carling Cup final just three days away, 90 minutes tonight would pretty much guarantee omission from the side that trots out at Wembley on Sunday.  Gunter, Jenas, Hudd and especially Dawson are amongst the likely candidates for selection tonight – and disappointment at the weekend.

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Hull – Spurs Preview: Part Two of ‘Arry’s Masterplan

Finally, I look forward to a Spurs game imbued with a spirit of sunny optimism! Huzzah – the good times are about to roll once more. Like a shallow secular kid the night before Christmas I can barely wait for the superficial short-term joys which tomorrow will bring!Anyone who has found themselves entangled within my web of doleful pessimism in recent weeks will know that AANP Towers has generally become a pretty sobering venue in recent weeks. Brows have been furrowed. Sotto voce curses have been muttered. The usual guaranteed spirit-raisers – l’Arse-directed Schadenfreude, surreptitiously kicking the shins of annoying toddlers, repeated viewings of captured bears dancing on hot coals – have failed to work their magic. Spurs have been rubbish, and no number of excuses, protestations or £14 million signings have been able to hide the fact.

Finally however, Spurs fans the world over have something to celebrate. For part two of ’Arry’s inter-domestic-European masterplan is now about to come to fruition. At first the idea was pretty difficult to stomach. Part one involved committing to defeat, in last week’s Uefa game vs Shakhtar, before a ball had been kicked. Impatient, short-sighted, pseudo-fan that I am, I foolishly failed at the time to appreciate the holistic strategy. Instead, disgracefully, I accused our intrepid heroes – and our intellectual behemoth of a leader – of betraying the club’s proud heritage. Shame on me. A thousand whip lashes across my scrawny back.

When a terrorist is angry he blows himself up. When an American is angry he pulls out a gun. But when an Englishman is angry he sits down and writes something – and by golly did my literary juices flow in the aftermath of Thursday’s debacle. Upper lips of Spurs fans across the land literally quivered with incandescence at the limp capitulation in Ukraine. It was not so much the decision to rest key players (Woodgate, Palacios, Modric and Lennon will, admittedly, be integral to our survival), as the quite public and premeditated decision to enter the game with a spirit of indifference. Shame on me. Shame on all of us who criticised this masterstroke.

For it was, to quote from the magnificent Ving Rhames in Con Air, a means to end, my hillbilly friend. The whole purpose of Thursday’s insipid cowardice was to save our energies for the Premiership! Starting with Hull away on Monday night!

So prepare to pop a few corks, kick your heels in the air and free the shackles from the wrists of Barrabas – because ‘Arry and the players are going to deliver the mother of all performances tomorrow! It will be a Rolls-Royce in footballing form, one-touch stuff ordained by the gods. Expect pretty triangles, defence-splitting balls and more movement than a swarm of mosquitoes on Ecstasy. Expect a return to the mesmeric all-action performances of years gone by. Expect a return of those players who are just too special to risk in Europe. The spirits of Ginola, Gascoigne, Hoddle, Ardiles and Greaves will be invoked tomorrow. Tackles will be won in wince-inducing fashion. The defence will be impenetrable. The attack will be irresistible. The opposition will sit down and steady themselves after 30 minutes, so dizzied will they be by the brand of meta-football that has been rehearsed by our first-choice team over the last week or two.

Frankly I can’t wait. I have the urge to find a meadow of daisies and skip through it. I want to discover a small cute unicorn, rear it, care for it and finally slaughter and eat it. I want to rob from the rich and give to the poor; help old women cross busy roads; and with a cheeky smile offer sweets to small children. Thanks to the genius of ‘Arry’s masterplan, tomorrow we’ll all finally have something to celebrate. Isn’t life just peachy?

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Shakhtar – Spurs Preview: Another Game We’re Trying to Lose

Outwitted by a footballer. Not really the sort of thing to proclaim from the rooftops and highlight on my CV – for footballing folk are hardly regarded as the great intellectual giants of our time, no matter what David James and Tony Adams would have you believe. However, whichever way you look at it, ‘Arry Redknapp laid the simplest of traps, and with astonishing naivety I fell for it hook, line and sinker.The occasion was the build-up to the cup game with Man Utd. With a twitch of his head and a moan about his squad size, ‘Arry fed me the line that he would play his weakest possible team. I – still reeling from the news that  the word “gullible” had been removed from the dictionary – lapped this up a little too zealously and indulged in a typically tedious diatribe about the ignominy of it all, laying into ‘Arry, invoking the club’s 126-year tradition, the full works. Come kick-off and the “weakest possible team” did not materialise. While Woodgate was rested, the team sent out was of general, moderate-to-strong capability, boasting Modric and Pav, with not a Rocha in sight.
Fast forward a couple of weeks, and ‘Arry is making similar noises prior to our Uefa cup game. He’s bleating on again about how he’s stuffed the team bus with kids from the Acadmey squad – but I’m not buying it this time. As Dubya put it, fool me once, shame on – shame on you. Fool me, you can’t get fooled again. ‘Arry reckons Corluka, Pav and Keane are all cup-tied – a likely story. He’s claiming that Lennon, Ledley and Three-Touch O’ Hara are all out injured – pull the other one. Jermain Defoe is apparently both ineligible and injured – the lady doth protest too much, methinks. And Woodgate, Cudicini, Palacios and Modric are all being rested tonight – oh you tease ‘Arry, you mischievous scamp. Not only have you played that ruse before, but to omit our ten best players against a team whose last competitive result was a win against Barcelona – well that would be the most suicidal plan since Bruce Willis did the honourable thing in Armageddon (or perhaps Deep Impact).

Alas…

Alas, it’s actually true. It could be Alfie Patten and friends – and his kids – lining up in lilywhite tonight. There will probably be some recognisable faces on show (Dawson, Jenas, Hudd, Chimbonda, Zokora, Gomes etc) and it will be nice to see Dos Santos finally get a game, and reacquaint ourselves with Bent’s look of disbelief as he shins wide, but let’s not kid ourselves. Although Shakhtar are just returning from a winter break, our sub-strength team will struggle. Over two legs, we’re heading out. We’re doomed (which might well become the new subtitle of this increasingly morbid forum of woe). I know, I know – we have bigger fish to fry, with Premiership games mounting up (Hull away on Monday) and the Carling Cup final to come (a week on Sunday). Logic was never my forte in scholarly days, but even I see the sense in omitting key players tonight and next Thursday, in a Uefa Cup competition we’re miles away from winning.

But still. For years and years I’ve enviously watched as other teams – not least l’Arse – have gone on their merry midweek European jaunts, and yearned for the day when we could do the same. And when we finally made it into Europe, it was amazing. European nights at the Lane are awesome, they absolutely rock, and I shall happily slap in the face with a wet fish anyway who suggests otherwise. Successive seasons of it has me addicted. And now we’re just going to throw it all away? (If ever there was a time to become sufficiently tech-savvy to insert an audio clip of an anguished howl, this is it.)

Yes, yes, yes, YES – I know, it’s far more important that we stay in the Premiership, stop yelling that at me. But the all-action-no-plot devil on my shoulder continues to poke me with a stick and repeat to me – “What’s the point if we’re not striving to climb the table and get into Europe?” I’m aware that I’m displaying the all too familiar Spurs Fan’s Irrational Impatience™, far more harmful than good to the team, a wretched curse of generations up and down the High Road and many miles beyond. I’m aware that this all a means to an end, and that the Uefa is being sacrificed so that we can come back stronger next season – but here and now, in the build-up to Shakhtar away, it doesn’t soften the blow. Shakhtar over two legs is not insurmountable; I just hope that if we do lose we at least go out with a fight.

This season we’ll scramble free of the drop, lose the Carling Cup final and finish like all the rest of them – mid-table, no trophies. Why retain our Premiership status if that means existing in a dull rut, alongside Middlesborough and Fulham and all of the other most boring and soulless sides in the universe? What’s the point of surviving, if we then go on to live our lives in a dull void of unfeasible blandness and nihilism. We’re in danger of becoming Middlesborough I tell you. Middlesborough! Is there a more depressing thought in football?

The odds of us winning the Uefa this season were always a tad long, but at least we were in it. Who knows when we’ll next have the chance? By next Thursday night we’ll be out of the Uefa. Next Sunday we face the best team on the planet, in the best form in their history, in the Carling Cup final. After that we could well have become Middlesborough.

I feel like Ray Liotta at the very end of Goodfellas.

“And now it’s all over. That’s the hardest part. Today everything is different. There’s no action. I have to wait around like everyone else. Can’t even get decent food. After I got here I ordered spaghetti with marinara sauce…and I got egg noodles with ketchup. I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook.”

 

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Spurs – Arsenal Preview Mk II: Ominous Signs as Spurs Fan is Peed Upon

A Spurs fan is p*ssed on, barely 24 hours before the Norf London derby. It’s an omen I tell ye. Cracks will appear in the sky, four apocalyptic jockeys will saddle up and all hell will break loose at the Lane today, so run for the hills, God help you all. I sneer in the face of those who suggest I’m overreacting to the fact that my four month-old nephew urinated on me as I held him yesterday.And baby-related trauma is not the only portent of momentous significance to have emerged in the build-up to this one. All-action-no-plot etchings of Spurs cockerels have been mysteriously appearing across the sandy beaches of Perth. Alright, that’s not really so mysterious, given that I’m frequently to be found next to said etchings, with sand-encrusted finger. And while it may all be a bit tenuous, as the clock ticks down towards kick-off – and the search for a bar that will show the game out here in Oz becomes increasingly frantic* – I find myself preparing as if I’m in some way involved. Admittedly my preparations tend to comprise little more than retreat into a shell of pessimism, but it’s the same before every game, and exacerbated before a game against that lot. The fact remains that we fans do prepare, as if we can make a difference, even when on the side of the world. (Insert tedious comment about the contrasting attitude of the players around here).

Like anything I do will have the slightest bearing upon events at the Lane today. There’s some sort of mentalist theory that if a butterfly flaps its wings in London it causes a hurricane in South America. Personally I find that as believable as a profession of loyalty from a Premiership footballer, but nevertheless, the fact that I’ve been weed upon for the first time in my life, just a day before a North London derby – well, it must be some sort of prognostication of doom, no?

Possibly more relevant to the outcome of the game is the second debut of Robbie Keane. Penalty miss ’07 aside, he’s been something of a bête noire to the other lot, and the odds must be short on a roly-poly and badge-kiss celebration at some point today. For all the rights and wrongs of his departure and return I’m glad to have someone of his mentality in the team for a game like this. In other areas, headline-writers will be disappointed to note that ex-Gooner David Bentley will be viewing things from his beauty-parlour back home rather than the pitch, due to a one-game suspension; while lack of match-fitness may deprive l’Arse newbie Arshavin from crossing scimitars with national striking partner, but categorical non-friend, Roman Pav.

Should we triumph today, on the back of my urinary dousing, a new pre-match ritual may be born…

 

* = A more positive omen is that I might have found a place that’s showing the game live here in Subiaco, Perth, one of the sunniest, but least all-action places on earth. Fingers crossed.

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Spurs – Arsenal Preview: Idle Musings on ‘Arry’s Reign

This feels almost like the build-up to a cup match. Providing respite from the usual painful and laborious business of scraps against fellow relegation strugglers, we can all sit back on Sunday and marvel as our wondrous heroes miraculously forget how average they’ve been all season and suddenly improve their game ten-fold against l’Arse. The other lot are by no means invincible, or especially pretty these days, so we may indeed be able to secure the delusory yet priceless bragging rights for the rest of the season.The derby at the Emirates earlier this season was ‘Arry’s first official game in charge of us, so it would be tempting to view this return fixture at the Lane as a barometer of progress. However, a disclaimer is in order: win, lose or draw there’s not a lot that can be read into a game vs l’Arse. Should we win, or draw playing well, we’ll need to remember that l’Arse at home is never a true indication of our quality. Should we lose or draw luckily we’ll have to admit that there are still new faces in the team ‘Arry’s rebuilding. Any game vs that ‘orrible lot is something of an anomaly – much like a cup game.

However, as we face again his first opponents why not indulge in a spot of nostalgia, and hark back to that grainy black and white era when Ramos was jettisoned, ‘Arry was first installed and we skipped up to the Emirates for the start of a brave new ear. The bare statistics of ‘Arry’s reign to date do not look especially encouraging, as we’re still only a point of the drop zone. Tempting though it is to do the Spurs thing and leap to the nearest wildly inappropriate conclusion (in this case “’Arry’s useless, let’s sack him”, rather than “’Arry’s our saviour, give him the job for life”) it would be more useful – albeit rather dull – to adopt a measured approach.

On a general level, ‘Arry’s arrival has brought us a run of good luck and decent form in patches, but there have been enough insipid displays to serve as a warning that this season may yet end in disaster.

Credit where it’s due, one of the key problems appears to have been solved: goalkeeper. Let’s not forget quite how horrendous an issue this had become – once upon a time there was weeping and gnashing of teeth whenever we conceded a corner, so poorly judged and executed were Gomes’ forays off his line. He deserves enormous credit for his improvement, and ‘Arry probably merits a pat on the back here too, if only for brining in Tony Parks to work with the eternally wincing Brazilian. Meanwhile Cudicini has turned the position into arguably our strongest, an astute signing, even though it may, ironically, signal the end of Gomes’ Spurs career.

Other areas have been addressed rather less well. Amidst accolades of ‘Arry’s unique man-management technique, Bentley’s wonder-goal at the Emirates was supposed to catalyse the pretty-boy’s transformation into some sort of footballing deity, heir apparent to David Beckham as a fixture in the England team and terroriser of defences across the land. Fast forward three months, and for all the fancy flicks and brylcreem he’s put on display, we’ve yet to see the best of Bentley. A cross duly marked against ‘Arry.

Our esteemed manager continues to switch between 4-4-2 and 4-5-1, suggesting possible uncertainty about the approach he wants to adopt. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I guess he’ll settle upon a formation once he has his favoured personnel in place and raring to go. However, while he may blame the squad he inherited, I still think a good enough manager would by now have found a formation that works…

Sorry, I almost slipped back into “Sack-the-manager” mode. What I meant to say was that it’s still early days, an excuse we’ll probably have to accept until the summer, when ‘Arry really gets to shape the squad in his own image (ie ugly and with a twitch). Some of the problems having already been deemed insurmountable, he’s made a beeline for the transfer market, rather than try to use the players already at his disposal. Wafer thin midfield? Transfer market. No idea how to get Pav and Bent working together upfront? Transfer market.

While I think they’re all shrewd signings, it irks me a little that he couldn’t have squeezed more out of the crop of multi-million pound internationals he had at his disposal when he took over. Maybe that would have been asking too much of a full-time manager with several decades of experience in the English game.

However, these are just idle musings. It remains too early to pass judgement on the man’s time as Spurs manager, and one home game against the other lot should not colour opinions too much one way or t’other.

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Bolton – Spurs Preview: A Total Lack of Perspective

A criticism often levelled at Spurs (and indeed England) fans is that life is always either a triumph or a crisis, without any middle ground or hint of perspective. It takes an impressive strength of character to accept criticism, and luckily I possess such humility in abundance (modesty is one of my many attributes). Therefore I can detect an element of truth in this charge. Indeed, I suspect that most Spurs fans would appreciate this line of argument. Win, and we’re world-beaters, on course for European qualification and en route towards the Champions League within two years (that’s winning the whole thing, as opposed to just qualifying), whilst playing the vintage brand that would have Jairzinho et al glancing enviously over their shoulders.The alternative to this blistering optimism is doleful, morbid pessimism, of the brand I’ve been perfecting in recent weeks. Lose a couple of games and the only possible solution seems to be wholesale changes. The players – whom we’ve never rated in the first place – aren’t fit to wear the shirt, they don’t care, they’re not good enough. The tactics are wrong, the management is clueless, the best thing for us would be relegation so that we can start from scratch.

Results and performances this season have naturally given us a good excuse to adopt the latter approach and become prophets of doom. Few players are exempt from criticism, second-chances are rare and “perspective” is a curious word from a bygone era, whose meaning no-one really remembers. Hence, despite the fact that Bent is often played in a formation badly suited to his style, he is now subject to rather wildly disproportionate abuse whenever he misses. Elsewhere on the pitch it is conveniently ignored that Hudd requires movement around him to strut his stuff. Instead, following the Burnley and Man Utd losses, queues have been forming of those keen to banish him to the bench or reserves.

I’m amongst the worst culprits here, all too easily and willingly swept up on a wave of short-term sentiment. It could be argued that in this multi-million pound industry there is little scope for the “patience” necessary to allow players to settle, squads to gel, formations to be tinkered with. It could also be argued that the club has had twenty-plus years to get out of the transitional period, so anyone lecturing me about patience ought to have DVDs of the miserable mid-1990s seasons shoved into every available orifice. However, this ignores the fact that, however we got here we are now, again, rebuilding, and the process will take time. And even as I type those words, I pointedly eject them from my mind, to make room for more completely unrealistic, short-term analysis.

In the build-up to the game against Bolton, the scales inevitably tip towards the side of buoyant optimism. Five consecutive away defeats, in all competitions, can be conveniently glossed over, because we have, finally, produced the champagne football of which our players’ CVs suggest they are so capable. It may be six months late, but our push towards European qualification has begun. Having done it once this week, there is no reason why we can’t continue in the same vein on Saturday, and twice a week every week thereafter.

Even Spurs fans claiming to have a sense of perspective will calmly insist on the back of four points from our last two games, and within such a tightly-congested table, that we’ll probably maintain this form and be pushing for the top six by May. What do you mean it was only 45 good minutes out of our last five games? What do you mean it was only Stoke at home? Are you blind, or mad, or a complete footballing imbecile? Was the evidence of that first half not enough to convince you that we are quite patently one of the biggest teams in the country?

The truth, inevitably and rather unglamorously, is somewhere in between. By all accounts the first half versus Stoke was indeed extremely impressive. Replicate this consistently, and we will steadily progress up the table towards the neon lights of the top six – as would any team which regularly played well.

A degree of perspective with regard to the players similarly throws up some rather unspectacular truths. Irrespective of the formation, Darren Bent’s finishing has frequently been hurried and inaccurate. While the limitations of his team-mates have done him no favours, Huddlestone needs to develop other aspects of his game (fitness, off-the-ball movement, tackling) in order to complement his passing ability and fulfil his potential. And so on.

Frankly I feel unclean to ponder Spurs’ situation in such a grounded and sensible way. The All-Action-No-Plot mentality is about the mindless pursuit of glory on the pitch, and the complete absence of perspective from the stands. Therefore, a draw away to Bolton would not be an acceptable step towards stability and security of Premiership status; it would be an opportunity for me to sharpen my knife and lay into Zokora/Bent/Bentley/Ass-Ek/Arry/all of the above (delete as appropriate).

(nb a vastly more reasonable assessment of our current plight, and the lack of perspective at the club, can be found at “The Game is About Glory” – The Core Problem With Spurs?)

 

 

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Spurs – Stoke Preview: 4-4-2 or 4-5-1?

This post was written prior to kick-off vs Stoke, at several thousand feet in the air…Having spent much of last week proving that we are not, in fact, much of a Cup team, we now return to the bread and butter of making a mess of league games. As ever, it’s a game we ought to win on paper, against a team in a similar league position, and in a situation whereby a win would practically push us up into the top half of the table. The pessimism I’ve been carefully nurturing all season is threatening to hijack yet another pre-match post, so I’ll abandon a prediction, and instead mull over the ongoing formation conundrum. At the risk of sounding like Carol Vorderman (or the blonde lass who’s replaced her): 4-5-1 or 4-4-2?

Seasoned all-action-no-plotters will know I regularly attend protest marches around Westminster waving a placard that says “4-4-2 – it gives us more up-front, dagnabbit”. It’s by no means a rock-solid argument, but I consider that we’re marginally more potent – or at least less toothless – in attack when we’re fielding two strikers. Cast your minds back to the laboured 1-0 win vs Blackbrun. Lennon robbed their left-back, and started whizzing forward on the counter-attack. Looking up he already had two strikers supporting him (Bent and Pav that day, I think) – as a result the Blackburn defence was a little stretched, and we scored. Compare with the night of a thousand 4-5-1’s, when we’ve managed to swing in a cross, or more typically punted a hopeful long-ball from deep, to see our lone striker jump with two (or more) defenders and possession conceded. Even when counter-attacking we find the oppo defenders outnumbering our attackers when it’s 4-5-1.

4-5-1 definitely works when wide midfielders become auxiliary strikers in a 4-3-3, a la Little Miss Ronaldo at Man Utd, but ours rarely tend to get that far forward or that central. 4-5-1 does tend to give Modric a bit of licence to get forward and cause mischief in dangerous areas, freeing him from defensive duties, but he’s hardly a second striker either.

I suspect 4-5-1 would work a lot better given more capable personnel in the central midfield positions, but between them Hudd, Zokora and Jenas do not seem capable of bossing a scrappy game. Against particularly generous opponents, such as Dinamo Zagreb, they’ll look like Brazil 1970, but when pitted against the might of Burnley it seemed we could have had all 11 in central midfield and we’d still have spent the evening chasing shadows. In a Premiership dog-fight, when up against relegation scrappers, increasing the numbers in midfeild seems to make little difference – we tend not to receive the time and space to play as against Zagreb.

While the early Redknapp days of 4-5-1 brought some good results, several of these were rather fortunate to say the least (last-minute goals vs l’Arse and Liverpool, benefiting from sending-off vs Man City). Admittedly our central midfield hardly bosses games when we play 4-4-2 either, but at least then we’ve got a bit more bite in attack.  

I repeat – my arguments are hardly rock-solid, and while I go on my pro-4-4-2 protest marches I’m often heckled by students of the School of 4-5-1, many of whom make very valid points. There is no right or wrong answer to this, and if the personnel were good enough I suspect the formation would not matter too much. Perhaps the soluton is about £14 million of Honduran – a midfielder who can allegedly pass and tackle. Until then, fingers crossed for an improved performance against Stoke tonight.

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Man United – Spurs Preview: The Game We’re Trying To Lose

Man Utd away, a hard task at the best of times, has now assumed difficulty of Herculean magnitude thanks to ‘Arry’s managerial masterstroke of slating all his players before they’ve even been selected, and announcing to the world and his wife that he intends to ensure defeat today. It’s a stance guaranteed to polarise opinion amongst fans, so what better way to see out a Saturday morning hangover than with an All-Action-No-Plot guide to the Pros and Cons of Giving Up a Football Match Before Even Taking To The Field?Prioritising the League: Hard to argue with the logic of this. Never mind how we ended up in this position, never mind the inflated wallets and egos of the players, never mind the fact that with our squad we ought to beat every other team in the bottom half of the table – the fact is we’re only out of the relegation zone on goal difference. All season I have shared the complacency of the players all season that we’re bound to avoid relegation, but it won’t take care of itself – the players need to do it. This task will become far more difficult if, say, Modric and Lennon were to pick up injuries in the Cup today. Elimination from the FA Cup would be bearable, relegation would be catastrophic. Rest the key players. It makes sense.

Our Cup Tradition: The counter-arguments, however, are plentiful. Not least, that this is the most glamorous cup competition in the world. We have a magnificent tradition in the FA Cup, from winning it as a non-league team in ’01, to the double-winners of ’61, the centenary winners in ’82 and the Gazza-inspired run of ’91. The FA Cup is a core part of the illustrious history of Tottenham Hotspur. Are we really going to give up on it this year? Is that not some sort of betrayal of our identity? It’s a romantic view, which doesn’t really hold logical weight against the spectre of relegation, and yet it’s a compelling argument.

A Novel Means of Coping With Fixture Congestion and The Relegation Threat: A whacky idea this, but how about we deal with the relegation threat by taking the left-field approach of actually winning games, rather than forfeiting Cup ties? This ludicrous notion would involve outfighting and outplaying opponents, on a regular basis, typically for a full 90 minutes. Madness I know. It’ll never catch on.

Disband The Team: If a team no longer strives to win, and admits even before taking to the pitch that it doesn’t want to win, it ceases to be sport. The team in question ought not to be there. The attitude towards the UEFA Cup is similarly odd, in that having strived so hard to get there for years, we’re now encouraged to view it as an unwanted extra burden, one we’d be better off without. If we don’t want to win any of the cups, why bother staying in the Premiership? We’re certainly not going to win that any time soon, so why bother? It’s just one fixture after another. We don’t want to qualify for Europe, as that creates too many games, so let’s avoid the problem by dropping down a division. In fact, let’s just avoid the entire problem of playing every week and disband the team. Let the players become full-time celebrities, without the hassle of this 90-minute malarkey. (Depressingly, I can think of a couple of players who might be genuinely taken with the idea…)

’Arry The Great Motivator: ’Arry, whose arm-round-the-shoulder confidence-building techniques were so highly spoken of when he joined, has been employing rather questionable motivational tactics of late. Publicly stripping Jenas of the vice-captaincy, publicly deriding reserve goalkeeper Sanchez (not even remembering his name), publicly laying into Bent after that miss, and now announcing that the players he picks v Man Utd will be those he considers the most rubbish at the club. Public criticisms of players are not necessarily bad things, they can often have galvanising effects, but this latest stunt prior to the Man Utd game seems poorly-judged.

The Mugs In The Stands: Last, and evidently least amongst the considerations – the poor mugs who shell out an arm and a leg for the tickets, and trek across the country and back to provide ill-deserved support. There is no question of Spurs doing them the courtesy of trying their damnedest in this game. At times, all to often this season, it seems the team should be paying us for our support.

I’d imagine the “mish-mash” weakened team of reserves today will put in a lot more effort than the prima donnas of Wednesday night at Burnley. It will be good to see the likes of Taraabt and Giovanni get a run-out, while Bale and Alnwick can pick up more experience, but I struggle to see us winning this one.

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Burnely – Spurs Preview: Qualifying the Hard Way

Unknown territory tonight – a three-goal lead with 90 minutes remaining is a thing unheard of at N17, where we’re more used to desperate attempts to retrieve a one-goal deficit with 20 mins (or indeed just injury-time) to go.A 4-1 lead from the first leg against lower-league opposition means that we could do things the simple way – adopt a professional attitude, match Burnley’s work-rate and aggression, and score once or twice before half-time to breeze through. Yes, this would be a delightful means of securing a route to Wembley, and would be adopted by most teams with a modicum of common sense, the merest concept of sanity and any inclination to inject plot as well as action into its doings.

However, this is my beloved Tottenham. This is the team that lost an FA Cup Final through an own-goal the first time I ever watched them; the team that began a season with a  5-0-5 formation; that went 3-0 up against ten-men at half-time and lost 4-3; that sacked big scary Martin Jol (blessed be his name) and that paid £16 mil for Darren Bent. Common sense and sanity renewed their passports and left the premises long ago. No plot here, just action.

So, I apologise, but the penchant for under-achievement and self-destruction displayed so far this season (and indeed, on a general basis over the last two decades), have left me fearing a nail-biting, cardiac-arresting drama tonight. Whereas our normally reticent and unemotional American cousins have not stopped babbling on about hope and optimism for the future, I foresee only a lethargic and complacent performance, until, perhaps, shaken out of ineptitude by the concession of goals.

Across the pond, the newly-canonised one has been recommending that I adopt a more positive attitude towards tonight’s game: “On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.” Evidently St Obama did not catch the first 45 minutes of our first leg vs Burnely.

We’ll qualify, probably, but we’ll do it the hard way. I can certainly see us scraping through on aggregate by losing 3-1 or 4-2 on the night – it would be the Tottenham way. Burnley showed in the first half of the first leg that they can produce a decent performance, and in front of their own crowd, an early goal or two would be a nightmare. You can barter for a mortgage and then bet the whole lot on the fact that Spurs will need to concede at least once before they wake up and start playing.

The injury front is also a cause for concern. No Ledley is par for the course, but the absence of the increasingly-dependable Gomes and Corluka leaves the defence looking vulnerable, while Lennon, one of our likeliest match-winners on current form, is also out. Crikey, I’m even ruing the absence of Jenas.

However, once we’ve conceded two goals, woken from our reverie and the contest actually begins in earnest, there will be grounds for optimism. The injury to Lennon means a start for Bentley on the right, his natural home – this after a highly encouraging cameo at the weekend. Three-Touch O’Hara on the left will provide balance and graft, having produced arguably his finest performance in a Spurs shirt in the first leg against these same opponents. Unbelievably I find myself welcoming the return of the absurdly-coiffured Assou-Ekotto at left-back, on the grounds that human-simian hybrid Bale was run ragged last time out by Burnely winger Eagles. Indeed, even the absence of Corluka is likely to shunt Zokora into the right-back berth, a position in which he excelled vs Man Utd a few weeks back.

Fingers crossed that debutant Alnwick can cut it in goal, and that Hudd, if restored to central midfield, has discovered hitherto unknown capacities for tackling, sprinting and generally beavering away like a man possessed, because otherwise Burnely will swamp us in midfield.

I doubt that even we could implode to the extent of letting slip a 4-1 semi-final lead, but equally, I’d be amazed if we make light work of this.