Categories
Spurs match reports

Sunderland 1-1 Spurs: Unknown Territory

Confusion reigns amongst the great and good of Tottenham after yesterday’s draw, with no-one quite sure how to react. Typically, reactions at the Lane must be of massively unrealistic expectation or miserable pessimism and criticism, as previously articulated. There is never any middle ground.The draw at Sunderland has therefore baffled everyone.  A one-one draw, in a gentle, early-March, mid-table encounter simply does not incite any passion. It leaves us 5 points off both relegation and Europe. Neither here nor there. Confused middle-aged men have been forced to stifle their foul-mouthed tirades, because it really wasn’t such a bad result. Earnestly schoolboys have opted against delivering their deluded predictions of glory, because a serene draw with Sunderland does little to suggest we’ve evolved into world-beaters. Instead, worried children turn beseechingly to their parents for guidance, for there is no obvious wild over-reaction to give to yesterday’s result. This is unknown territory for a Spurs fan.

I’m as clueless as everyone else. I have season tickets on both the We’re-Doomed and the We’ve-Turned-The-Corner bandwagons, and am happy to alight one and hop onto the other with shameless fickleness. This time though I find myself stranded, in the middle of the road. On days like this it does not even feel right to lay into Jenas.

Whatever the expectations prior to kick-off, the team deserves credit for salvaging a draw away from home, having conceded such an early goal. The frustrating use of Modric on the left continued, with the presence of Steed in the opposition ranks heightening the irritation. Aaron Lennon maintained his record of drawing a yellow card from his opposing left-back, without producing any final product of particular menace. The incongruous combination of the lumbering Corluka and the fleet-footed Lennon on the right has me eagerly checking Alan Hutton’s rehabilitation programme. Gomes invoked the ghost of autumn 2008 with a good old-fashioned flap. Keane’s second goal in a week  continues to eradicate memories of that whole Merseyside foray, while dredging up again the issue of how he and Defoe will fit together.

Interesting to observe that so much of Sunderland’s creativity emanated from ex-lilywhites Steed Malbranque and the rotund Andy Reid, who appeared to have ambled onto the pitch directly from his seat at an all-you-can-eat buffet. In fact, Andy Reid struck me as what would happen if Steed ate someone whole. Kenwyne Jones, a Tottenham target past and, presumably, future was solid, aerially adept and generally unspectacular. In fact the whole game was rather unspectacular, but nevertheless left us all with smiles on our faces, the last-minute equaliser naturally feeling loosely like a victory.

In keeping with the peculiar gentleness of yesterday’s game, there now follows a brief lull until our next fixture. No midweek cup games, no ineligible players, no moaning from ‘Arry about how unfair it all is (although one suspects he’ll find a way). Ten games left, and with it still not obvious whether we’re moving into a European chase or relegation fight, the season continues to simmer away nicely.

Categories
Spurs preview

Sunderland – Spurs Preview: Not Good Enough for MoTD

A bit of a bonus game this. Somehow, amidst the hurly-burly of all those cup excursions, we’ve earned ourselves a game in hand – and the opportunity to haemorrhage blood from the nose by hitting the dizzy heights of tenth, within five points of West Ham in the likely Uefa spot of seventh. Even more excitingly, with ours being the only Premiership fixture tomorrow, does this mean that we get an entire Match of the Day to ourselves? Crumbs, they can show the entire game! Sunderland-Spurs would normally be tossed out to Tony Gubba to paint a tedious shade of grey, but if we’re the only game we’ll get the brilliant Steve Wilson, and his impeccable combo of excitement and reason!Alas, it’s not to be. They’re not giving us Steve Wilson. They’re not even giving us Gubba. There will be no MoTD at all this Saturday. They don’t deem our game sufficient to keep the programme on air this week. The ignominy.

More mundanely, the match itself – nigh on impossible to predict. This season, and indeed just the last few weeks, has seen on display every one of the multiple personalities of that strange schizophrenic beast that is Tottenham Hotspur 2008-09. Woeful defeats to Burnley and Shakhtar; creditable draws against l’Arse and Man Utd; impressive wins against Stoke, Hull and Boro. Gazing into my crystal ball the only words that appear are “confused.com”.

The trip to the north-east will throw up some friends past, present and quite possibly future. I personally vetoed the summer sale of Steed, but unbelievably it went ahead anyway, and he might well offer a pointed reminder of what we’re lacking on the left. Teemu Tainio I expect to make less of an impact, if he’s even fit, while Chimbonda is unlikely to be the most popular man in the stadium come kick-off. Nothing new there, then. The most interesting sub-plot will be about eight foot ten and playing up-front for Sunderland. A good chance for all of us to get 90 minutes of Kenwyne Jones and make some snap-judgements about whether he’ll be worth the £14 million odd we’ll probably bid for him in the summer. Don’t’ strive too hard to impress us, will you Kenwyne?

And Now For Something Completely Different… 

Little Miss Ronaldo (to Taylor): “You’re rubbish.”
[Pretty subjective, but if anyone is entitled to make that call it’s probably the World Football of the Year]

Taylor: “Yeah? Well you’re ugly.”
[Genius! Talk about touching a nerve. Take a bow son]

Little Miss Ronaldo: “You’re still rubbish.”

Taylor: “And you’re still ugly.”

Impossible to read that without smiling. I can’t help thinking Ronaldo went home and cried all night into his pillow after that. Heart-warming stuff.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 4-0 Middlesbrough: Humble Pie – Mmmm, Tasty…

I write this with crumbs on my lips and a napkin gently dabbing around my mouth, having merrily lunched upon several large helpings of humble pie. As I clicked my heels all bonny, blithe and gay, and playfully pinched the cheeks of bewildered small children like a modern-day Scrooge (post-enlightenment), I also began the quest for an edible hat – for Mystic Meg I clearly ain’t: 

Should a performance of similar quality [to the Carling Cup final] be produced against Boro tonight I’ll go buy a hat and eat it… While it would be lovely to see us produce one of those opening-20-minute-blitzes which occur at the Lane every few months, a dour, scrappy affair strikes me as far likelier… 

 – Me, yesterday.That screeching of tyres you hear is my credibility leaving the building and driving away at pace, never to return. Whilst pondering how best to digest a beenie I have taken time out to ponder how on earth was every other Spurs fan I know (and many I don’t) so sure that we’d follow up the Wembley performance with such an emphatic win? Admittedly it made a fair amount of logical sense – combining the confidence from an excellent display and the wrath of an unlucky penalty defeat, and taking that into a home game against one of the division’s more insipid outfits. But Spurs have never done it the logical way, and this season in particular we’ve failed to follow up strong performances against the top four with similar quality against the weaker sides.

It reminds me of a time about ten years ago when I sat watching l’Arse in a Uefa cup final, or perhaps semi, which had gone to pens. As Viera stepped up all the gooners in the room immediately flung up their hands in despair, conceded any hope of him scoring and assured us most confidently that he would hit the crossbar. A rather specific, and somewhat unlikely claim, I thought, as there were vast amounts of space into which to fire the ball – but sure enough he cracked it against the bar.

Yesterday, again, somehow everyone else knew. Most crucially, the players were also privy to this inside knowledge. Take that attitude, that fiery combination of smarting injustice and confidence in their ability, into the rest of their games and the relegation mix will be so far away we’ll be sending postcards and adjusting watches to a different time-zone.

It would be wonderfully typical of a Spurs supporter now to swing from the doleful pessimism of just 24 hours ago to a wildly over-optimistic assurance that seventh, and the Uefa (Europa? Whatever) cup is now within reach. I shall strive to resist quite such fantastical predictions, tempting though it is to get carried away after last night (allow me to indulge dreamily for just a moment though – did you see how many passes were strung together before the third goal? Champagne football, baby!)

Whilst mathematically possible, excited ramblings about European qualification probably ought to be stifled. We’re still a long way off, and while there is now clear evidence in black and white that consecutive league wins is good for your health, 8 points in 11 games is a big gap to close. Moreover, there’s no guarantee that we will avoid returning to the inconsistency of days recently gone by.  To be honest though, I’m not sure how long I can keep my lips sealed on the issue of making Europe. The more I look at the league table…

For now I think we should all just be happy to bask in the glory of last night. A 4-0 without actually hitting our highest standard. Thirteenth in the table, consecutive league wins and a goal difference that is no longer negative. As Sarah Connor so concisely put it at the end of Terminator 2 – “The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it, for the first time, with a sense of hope…”

It was a bit of a return to the all-action-no-plot days of yore. Slightly shaky defence, but some lovely bits and pieces going forward, with Modric, Keane and Lennon to the fore. Palacios continues to improve the team. Three-Touch O’ Hara got a grand old ovation. All was right with the world. Plus, a special pat on the back too for ‘Arry, who, admirably, once again managed to slip his own personal catchphrase into the post-match interview – “We only ‘ad two points when I took over…”

Happy days. Humble pie has never tasted so good.

Categories
Spurs preview

Spurs – Middlesbrough Preview: Not a Cup Final, Not a Cup Final Performance

Up and down the better half of North London the deluded are insisting that our Carling Cup performance will prove something of a turning-point for the rest of our season. Earnestly they point out that we matched, and at times outdid the European Champions, or some version thereof – for 120 minutes no less. Replicate this and we’ll storm up the table. Times are a-changing. It’s even been mentioned, by the clinically insane, that we’re only eight points off a Uefa cup spot.Tut tut, come now – you ought to know better. Of course we played well on Sunday. We always play well in such games, that’s part of our infuriating, ingrained way. It’s the Tottenham way. Raising our game for a cup final, or a game against Man Utd, has never been our problem – so raising our game for a cup final against Man Utd was absolutely guaranteed to unleash the full fury of Jenas’ one good game of the season. Zokora and Ass-Ek similarly read the script and each made a jolly good fist of it too.

Should a performance of similar quality be produced against Boro tonight I’ll go buy a hat and eat it. Boro are the most soulless, unexciting and bland team I’ve ever known. It’s not that they’re outstandingly bad, dirty, comical or anything else. They’re none of the above. That’s their problem – there is simply nothing noteworthy in their identity. Their manager is soulless, unexciting and bland, they have no history and their star-player is One-Trick Downing for goodness sake. They’re not even offensive or in any way loathe-worthy. They incite no passion of any sort. They just subsist to make up the numbers and throw up the occasional completely incongruous result, like beating Liverpool at the weekend.

As such, they’re exactly the sort of team to whom we’ve been capitulating all season. In fact, we duly did precisely this in the very first game of the season, a standard which we’ve maintained throughout. Except when we play the top four of course, at which point capes are donned and crime prepares to be vanquished, as the entire team suddenly become superheroes and play out of their skin.

While it would be lovely to see us produce one of those opening-20-minute-blitzes which occur at the Lane every few months, a dour, scrappy affair strikes me as far likelier, and would be the perfect antidote to the optimism engendered by the spirited performance of Sunday. The game will also mark one of the last times this season that ‘Arry gets to moan about congestion caused by cup games. Sad times indeed. The laboured crawl away from the relegation zone continues.

Categories
Spurs rants

A Final Word On The Lottery of Penalty Shoot-Outs

Tossing a coin is a lottery. Russian roulette is a lottery. The National Lottery is a blinking lottery. A penalty shoot-out is not a lottery, you hear me?Get a penalty during 90 minutes (or indeed extra-time) and hands are slapped and little jigs danced. Admittedly such joy is promptly replaced with unbearable tension and biting of nails in the build-up to the kick itself, but the point remains that during the course of a game, a penalty is seen as a cracking opportunity to score. There ought not to be any reason why the same twelve-yard pot-shot suddenly becomes a moment of doom-laden hopelessness during a shoot-out, prompting managers to concede defeat and reducing arrogant bling-toting players to spinless, mal-coordinated naysayers.

Nor is the actual taking of a penalty a complete lottery. Admittedly, the nervous tension of a 90,000-bodied stadium, and millions upon millions of TV spectators cannot possibly be replicated on a training ground. However, practise 50 spot-kicks in the week leading up to a Wembley final, and if called upon you would at least be comfortable with the technique, run-up, spot you’re aiming for etc. Heaven forbid however that the players actually dedicate themselves thus.

This isn’t a complaint about the outcome on Sunday. I actually thought that with Gomes in goal we stood a pretty good chance in the shoot-out. And I give credit to Bentley and O’ Hara for having the cojones to step up. I’m just disappointed still. Actually, make that gut-wrenchingly devastated, and absolutely livid, but with what I know not. Dagnabbit that should have been our cup. And now on top of it all I have to listen to every man and his dog tut sympathetically and tell me that it’s ok because it was all a lottery anyway? SOD OFF AND LET ME STEW IN MY OWN MISERY.

It’s a futile, and mildly pathetic rant, but I either slam it down here in literary form, or burn with red-hot pokers the eyes of the next person to inform me sagely that penalties are a lottery.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Carling Cup Final – Spurs 0-0 Man Utd aet (1-4 on pens): Depressed, But Philosophical

First things first – credit to Three-Touch O’ Hara and Brylcreem Bentley for volunteering for the first and third pens. The execution from each was hopeless, but the sentiment was noble. Conspiracy theorists dredging up “ex-gooner” rants can go boil their heads.Second things second – the outcome was fair, and I emphasise that I have no ground for dissent, but I’ll maintain to my dying day that John O’ Shea should have been sent off in the second half of normal time. Irritatingly I was wearing my thoroughly partisan Spurs hat when the heinous offence occurred, so I really could not quote the minute, manner or general spatio-temporal area. However, having been cautioned in the first half he merrily scythed down Modric ( I think), and got away with little more than a moody glare from referee, and bottler-in-chief, Chris Hoy. Had he not been cautioned earlier O’ Shea most certainly would have been cautioned for the particular offence. Tottenham, being Tottenham, would undoubtedly have failed to break down ten men, so I won’t suggest that as an excuse/reason for our eventual failure to draw a bank against eleven men, but I nevertheless cantankerously grumble at Mr Hoy.

Third things third – I reckon the ref actually got the Ronaldo penalty claim right, albeit on a technicality. The first offence was Ronaldo executing the first part of a dive. The second offence was Ledley clipping him. I doubt that bottle-job Foy saw it that way – I presume he saw it as a dive from start to finish – but in the strictest sense I consider that Foy stumbled upon the correct decision, albeit by accident rather than design. The first offence was a dive. If Little Miss Ronaldo had stayed on his feet rather than looking for the dive then he ought to have been awarded a pen.

Fourth things fourth – did Woody really turn an ankle by falling down the stairs of the team hotel?

Those are moot points. Frankly, it struck me as a fair enough result. My gripe, again, tediously, is the damned insistence upon 4-5-fricking-1. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHY??? With no strikers on the bench it was always a slightly tough call, and Pav did not exactly have a blinder, but withdrawing him after 70, with extra-time looming, was madness on a par with David Icke’s push for celestial pre-eminence. The game-plan was working relatively well, following an excessively wobbly opening 25 mins, so why take off a striker? Switching from 4-4-2 to 4-5-1 simply removed any hope we might have had of bludgeoning down the fantastically-marshalled Man Utd rearguard.

Any attack we mounted thereafter left Bent on his own against three or more defenders. No logic to that one – Bent would struggle against a single defender with one leg and no eyes. Even when we were gifted possession and able to counter-attack we were nowhere near a numerical advantage. I’m blessed with a small forehead and a thick head of hair, and as such I’m unlikely ever to go bald. This allowed me to pull my hair out without any concern for long-term aesthetic devaluation, so I was able to yank out great big clumps without any obvious effect upon my unkempt mop. Mind you, several vital organs – including, notably, the heart – suffered considerable damage as one aimless ball after another was lofted hopelessly towards big, bad, misfiring Dazza, on his own, practising that Darren Bent look. You know the one – confused, hurt, hands half-raised towards the head.

I suppose it would have made little difference to a game that had “draw” tattooed across ever spare inch of it. Lennon and Modric, as expected, were the source of everything good in lilywhite. Bent had a half-chance of glory, but being Bent it simply was not ordained by the gods. Their ‘keeper, that Foster lad, played a blinder, irritatingly. Little Miss Ronaldo almost broke our hearts in the cruellest possible fashion after 92-and-a-half of the 93 minutes. But all told, it was pretty even.

A final point. Apparently, as the teams prepared for pens, United keeper Foster had a quick peek at an iPod showing Spurs players’ previous pens. The first of which was Three-Touch O’Hara thwacking one to the right – now there’s a coincidence. No idea what Gomes was up to at that point. Probably practising that stand-on-the-spot-and-stick-out-an-arm dance routine. Nothing wrong with a full-stretch dive, Heurelho. Maybe those are the margins.

Categories
Spurs preview

Carling Cup Final Preview Mk II

That’s right. So excited, I’m writing a second preview.24 hours until kick-off, and naturally enough I’m bouncing off the walls. Yep, after the carefully-rehearsed exit from Europe, and the laboured operation to escape the relegation mire, over the last couple of days we’ve been able to devote ourselves to altogether cheerier fare.

My chat is generally inane at the best of times, but around the drinking-holes of London in recent nights I’ve become a kid on Christmas Eve, tactlessly steering every conversation towards the same topic. Any poor sod who has fallen into my field of vision duly has been pinned down and force-fed garbled cup final hysteria, delivered with ever-increasing rapidity and the wild-eyed stare of the unhinged. It is not an approach that has automatically endeared me to my fellow man. Nonplussed seemed to be the expression of choice on the faces of the unlucky souls subjected to this ranting. Nonplussed, merging into desperate glances for an escape route.

Still, a cup final is a rare treat, and as the clock ticks down towards kick-off, Spurs fans the world over are entitled to eschew the common rules of social propriety, and go a little nuts. Some appear reluctant to enter into the spirit of the occasion, seemingly unimpressed by the pedigree of the competition and more concerned about our league position. Be that as it may, but for the next few hours at AANP Towers, nervy excitement approacheth fever-pitch. Finger-nails are being shredded, chewing-gum annihilated, heart-rates gently nudged towards dangerously unsustainable levels.

No-one ought to begrudge us our day out at Wembley, and a few evenings of over-excited babbling beforehand. We long-suffering mugs have been shelling out all season, murmuring in disbelief, screaming in frustration, gawping in incredulity – and still going back each following week for more punishment. Football sure as hell owes us the occasional crack at glory, for toying with us thus, all year round. Football owes us, for the staggeringly atrocious Gomes blunders, the astonishingly mal-coordinated Bent misses and every infuriating mistake in between. No-one ought to begrudge us, and we ourselves ought to cherish these moments – it may be some time before the opportunity rolls around again.

Less of an occasion for the Man Utd lot I’d imagine. Just another day out in London for them, which really is underwhelming as most of them live in London anyway. And with eighteen other trophies on the go, and the Premiership title wrapped up in February, one suspects that tomorrow will rank alongside mowing the lawn and popping to the parents’ for a Sunday roast, in terms of excitement factor for their lot.

Massive day for us though. Win a big game and I can hold my head high in the office the next day. Win a trophy and I’m happy for a whole year. A trophy is like some sort of uber-penicillin for football, a cure for all ills. Rubbish result against Stoke or someone? I don’t care, we’ve got a trophy. Best players leaving for the Champs League sides? I don’t care, we’ve got a trophy. Season of optimism degenerating into a relegation scrap? We’ve got a trophy. House on fire, girlfriend left you, four horsemen saddling up? Who the hell cares, because we’ve got a trophy!

Winning that trophy has made it all seem worthwhile over the last 12 months – by hook or by crook or by penalties we need to get our mitts on it all over again today.

Categories
Spurs preview

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…

Categories
Spurs news

Cry God for Harry, England and St George

Our glorious leader has been quoted as saying that he’d rather fancy a crack at that England malarkey once he’s finished his business with Spurs. He sees Fabio as upping and leaving “sooner rather than later” – which presumably means that he’d be happy to exit N17 along a similar time-frame.

 

Some quotes, for your delectation: 

For sure I would love to be England manager one day. It depends if I’m doing a good enough job at Spurs and I plan to do a good job here.
I didn’t really see myself getting that job anyway. I thought that after what happened to Steve McClaren the FA would go for a big-name foreign manager. It was inevitable.
They hired Fabio Capello and that was the right choice. Everyone can see that he has done a fantastic job.
There is no doubt Capello will move on, probably sooner rather than later. I don’t see him here forever. But I am 61 and once my job is done here I would have time left to be England manager.
If that opportunity should ever arrive – fantastic. It would mean I had taken this club forward. 

First thing to point out is that this is probably just another sensationalist product of the 24-7 media machine, which is now obliged to over-analyse every throwaway comment, and dedicate time to turning molehills into steaming great big mountains. It strikes me as a bit of a non-story.  I don’t know the context of ‘Arry’s words, but I presume he was given a few dozen questions after last night’s Shakhtar game, and one way or another the topic wound round to the England team. “Would you still fancy the England job?” “Does the Pope sh*t in the woods? By heck I would, you betcha.” And bingo, we have a back-page exclusive.Presumably this will incur the wrath of the more hot-blooded down at the Lane, chuntering about “loyalty” and “contracts” and other such phrases completely alien to footballers. Personally I can do little more than raise an amused eyebrow. It’s a cynical sport, in which the only obvious loyalty is to number one. Having merrily urinated over Southampton and Pompey a couple of times, it would be no major shock if ‘Arry dumped our lot at the prospect of a bigger gig. And really, could any football fan begrudge any football manager a crack at the England job?

The only surprising element of this is the mild lack of tact. I would imagine the PR suits generally instruct football folk not to make the sort of comments that could be interpreted by the crazed masses as disloyalty to the team. Somehow, Salomon Kalou has been quoted this week as saying that it’s his dream to end up at l’Arse. No idea what he actually said, or even what language he was speaking when he said it, but it’s presumably been tweaked a little and another back-page exclusive is born.

So it’s no big shock to learn that ‘Arry still covets the England job, but he might do his prospects a world of good by knuckling down with his present employers. Before I even finish typing that sentence I can hear him bleating in my ear “We only had two points when I took over…” Yes ‘Arry, bravo. Now get us playing some snappy one-touch stuff, get us winning games against the likes of Sunderland and ‘Boro – traits we proudly exhibited just a couple of years ago – and then maybe the England job will be a bit more than fanciful paper-talk on a quiet Friday morning.

Categories
Spurs match reports

Spurs 1 – 1 Shakhtar: Still A Bitter Pill

Dammit.

One would think this sort of thing would become easier to swallow, after over two decades, but it’s just as bitter a bill as ever. This, presumably, is how a man feels when jilted on the altar. Or a four year-old receiving a fluffy, wide-eyed rabbit for his birthday, only to see it savaged by a Rottweiler as soon as the hutch is opened.I should be used to this. Should have known better than to dare to dream. For goodness sake, the very first time I ever watched Spurs, as a whippersnapper who still had his hair cut by his Dad, they lost a Cup final through an own-goal of all things. That should have taught me. It should have taught me that sport, football, Tottenham lifts you up, gives you a glimmer and then callously crushes you with four minutes remaining. And yet yesterday, just like everyone else, I let myself get far too carried away as Giovanni let rip, and the ball grew to love its new home in the Shakhtar net. For thirty minutes thereafter, as I became inappropriately excited at the possibility of what might unfold, I thought that maybe, just maybe…

As an aside, while there’s a certain amount of pride to be derived in glorious failure, it’s a dangerous sentiment to cultivate. No sportsman ought to settle for defeat, and console themselves that, given the circumstance, it is acceptable. The world’s best – Federer, Woods et al – certainly don’t subscribe to this mentality. As an England supporter I’ve spent too long revelling in our status as a nation that goes down in a blaze of glory (and woefully-directed penalty kicks), complete with unjust refereeing decisions and conveniently foreign pantomime villains at whom to whinge. Our boys then receive heroes’ welcomes on their return, and we all congratulate ourselves, and revel in glorious failure.

The notion that it’s the taking part that counts stopped holding water at AANP Towers shortly after my sixth birthday, when I realised that Mabbutt and co would not get to hold aloft the big shiny thing after that wretched ’87 cup final. Who the hell wants to be remembered as a glorious loser? Which aspiring sportsman grows up wanting that? Which schoolboy daydreams in his classroom, which distracted employee wastes company time sitting in front of a pc, thinking about watching his heroes climb the Wembley steps to collect their loser medals, all glum faces and insincere handshakes?

And despite it all, with the bitterest disappointment, I can’t help but feel proud of the team. They showed a bit of passion, pride in the badge – it was a glorious failure, complete with near misses and infuriating, crucial refereeing decisions. That Obika, though understandably rough around the edges, is a brick outhouse of potential (although I worry that, finding himself behind Keane, Defoe, Pav, Bent and Campbell his next professional appearance will be in something other than lilywhite). The much-maligned Gilberto turned in a performance which, although by no means flawless, few would have thought him capable of. Giovanni showed glimpses to suggest that he may be worth a run of games on the left. And so on.

In truth we did not get knocked out of the Uefa Cup last night. We were knocked out back in August when stumbling to defeats against Boro and Sunderland; and later when Gomes gifted points to Villa and Fulham; and when Jenas ducked out of a header to allow Wigan the late points in January. Tally up those points. They have been blithely haemorrhaged, leaving us scrambling for survival in late February. They’ve left us sacrificing a first-choice eleven, in a two-legged tie we could realistically have won. Moreover, with Milan and Villa tumbling out last night, the entire competition remains one at which we could have had a jolly good stab, had we been free from survival concerns and devoted all energies accordingly.

(There’s a strong argument to the effect that, whatever our league position, top-six chasing, mid-table or our current status bringing up the rear, ‘Arry would have dumped the Uefa cup firmly at the bottom of his priorities list, and fielded a weakened team anyway. C’est possible, but my word, had he sacrificed the Uefa Cup for anything but Premiership survival he’d have incited a riot amongst the better half of North London, with baseball bats and knuckle-dusters freely distributed at AANP Towers).

So no more Uefa cup – possibly for a while yet. It’s not just been fun this campaign, it’s been a three-year adventure. Beginning way back with Slavia Prague on Channel Five, and then, gloriously, back at the Lane and under the floodlights in September 2006; through the various, mental legions of foreign fans and their songs, to words I didn’t understand and tunes I didn’t recognise; via the emotionally draining exit at the hands of Sevilla, the memory of which still quickens my pulse even now; taking in Berba’s ridiculous impudence in front of goal; the Jenas penalty saved by some lanky ‘keeper called Gomes; a Bent hat-trick that still had us singing Defoe’s name; and finally the second-string last night, and that most horrendous but apt phrase, glorious failure.

Who knows how long it will be until we sip that continental elixir once more? With a bit of luck and a psyched-up, leash-straining performance at Wembley our passports could be sent for renewal as soon as Sunday. Or, if that all too familiar spirit of under-achievement seeps back into the club, it could be several years, and quite possibly as many managers. Dammit, I should be used to it by now, but it’s no easier to take.