Saturday 20th April 2002, 3.00pm

FA Premiership, Reebok Stadium

BOLTON WANDERERS 1  (Holdsworth 71)

Jaaskelainen, N'Gotty, Bergsson, Whitlow, Charlton, Southall, Frandsen, Nolan, Djorkaeff; Wallace (Ricketts, 56), Bobic (Holdsworth, 56) Subs not used:- Poole; Barness, Espartero

Sheringham

Iversen (Rebrov 46, Doherty 83)

Ziege

Anderton

Poyet

Davies

Taricco

Thatcher

Gardner

Perry

Keller

Subs not used: Sullivan, Clemence, Etherington

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 1 (Iversen 9)

Referee: - Matt Messias

Attendance: - 25,817

This story is old – but I’ll do it hopefully just for the last time. Spurs go one up, Spurs decided to play mostly on the break, Spurs miss chances, Sherwood starts pointing before giving hospital balls, Spurs make one mistake and are denied a win – this time against just about the worst team in the Premiership. Painful, and on top of what has been a bad week in terms of club supporter relations, a further downer.

Hoddle has it just about right – might quibble with one or two things, but basically he is the man and what he needs now are players to carry out his orders. Strikers that score goals, midfielders that run with the ball or run at all for some of them for that matter and most importantly younger players which will be around for at least a few seasons. The summer and the transfer activity is crucial – and we need to hope and pray that we get the top draw players to match the top draw prices we will be paying next season.

John (Meatloaf) Stevens offered the awayday Jonah (yeah he was there again – 9 matches, two points away from home now) and me a place to stay over the weekend and this trip has been something that we have been looking forward to for quite a while & despite the disappointment of the result we had a great time and were wonderfully looked after by John and his charming wife Allison.

On the morning of the match while we were waiting to be picked up by the Cumbrian Spurs coach at the Tickled Trout, we received news that Rosie had broken down and was now stranded somewhere on the M6 by Birmingham – an event that momentarily cheered us all up J (only kidding Rosie) . The Cumbrian Spurs Coach was full of Spurs and it makes you proud that there was a 70-seater coach comprised of fans from the far North West of England. The coach took us the long way round and were held up in Chorley by what looked like Morris Dancers all togged up doing some strange dance in the street holding up all the traffic. One disappointing thing was that I did not manage to see anyone wearing clogs up here.

Bolton, if you ignore Manchester to the South is set in a nice area of the country and the Reebok stadium looks like something from War of the World plonked on a “Matchstick men and Matchstick cats and dogs” setting – and I have to comment that it was a fine stadium.

A bit queasy from the coach journey I started on a mineral water and spent 15 minutes having the piss ripped out of me before moving onto a more suitable pre-match bevy. Topspurs regulars we in abundance at the match – Lynford, Garry and Chris from Haverhill as well as Hazardman and the alternative awayday Jonah Jacob Goldberg who is also pretty short on away success with Spurs this season. Rosie to made it to the match – you just knew he would but it was nice while it lasted!

I have this theory – at any ground where the players sponsored by a local business in the programme, Spurs should win. Sure enough Bolton had this and in amongst the many adverts I did notice that Spurs have conceded 18 of our 40 goals in the last 15 minutes – three times what you could randomly expect. Age related? Dunno cos most of our defenders are young, but worrying nonetheless, esp. as it was 19 from 41 after the match.

Spurs kicked off attacking the other end and the first Spurs possession was a magic Mr Ed moment. Ball back to him with no pressure – he just lumped it up to the inside right position, a good 15 yards from the nearest Spurs player.

A sad moment followed when Sheringham was put through, but he was dreadfully slow and eventually a defender got back to dispossess him. Ted has been in good goalscoring form recently and has had a good season overall but one or two moments like this are painful to watch when you think of him in his prime (and I know he was n’t that quick then).

The game was an incredibly niggly and dirty affair. Sam Allerdyce had obviously used their 3-2, 6-0 and 4-0 pastings at the Lane as motivation before the match and all sorts was going on off and on the ball. Thatcher did Bobic a beauty and Sherwood, after going off to receive attention after a kick in the head from Djorkaeff ran straight back on the pitch and did him back. A quality moment.

Spurs took the lead in unusual circumstances. Poyet played a fine ball through and Iversen sprang the offside trap. A Spurs player one on one with the keeper usually means agony for the fans and indeed Iversen’s last such one on one at Fulham was even worse than the one he had down the road at Blackburn at the start of the season. This time he did it all correct, took it round the keeper and slotted home. He two and a half years without an away goal and now it is two in his last two away starts!

Spurs fans sang some song I have forgotten the exact words to about 14 goals and it was all good fun as Spurs bossed the match against a really really poor though spirited Bolton as the tackles and stuff went flying in.

Time for my usual gripe with referees. Messias was one of the liberals – talk rather than cards. Not interested – he should just apply the law – when an offence such as cheating to win a penalty occurs he should book the bastard (as long as it is one of theirs!). It is quite clear – give the penalty if it is a foul or book the player for cheating. He waved play on every time Wallace did this, “spoke to” Djorkaeff – a player who has been playing for years knows what he is up to and the only language he will understand is a card not a word from the ref and did nothing when Iversen received his usual head injuries before the first half.

Bolton huffed and puffed, won a few corners but were crap. Just how this bunch of crap was any better or worse than the under strength teams they put out at the Lane is hard to fathom. The only way we were going to lose this was by giving it away. Mike Whitlow provided us with some good fun by kicking the ball out of play every time he tried to kick it up the touchline and while it is a little cruel to laugh a championship winning player (who on a recent Football focus did a lot of good charity for the Bolton community), he made Perry look like Bobby Moore and Beckenbauer rolled into one.

Spurs had good chances towards the end of the first half  - Poyet, Iversen, Sheringham and Davies – but they all came to nothing, when at least one should have been converted.

Half time came and went and we were treated to an unusual second half treat when a Bolton Steward emerged with a tray of around 50 unsold pies which they handed out amongst the grateful Spurs fans – a fine gesture and much appreciated.

Iversen – who had a good match in the first period picked up a broken jaw and was replaced by Rebrov. Ridgeley did his usual array of getting brushed off the ball, disappearing from the middle and along with an over zealous tackle all in the first 5 minutes before disappearing.

The game rumbled on – more interesting than last week but still a pretty ordinary end of season affair. Sherwood has been generally ok since his Jan return, but in recent weeks he has started doing his pointing again, which pisses me off something rotten, esp. as it usually ends up with a hospital ball to Mr Ed.  Another thing that pisses me off even more is our over-elaboration in front of goal. It is fine to play the ball around an number of times before working an opening – but not every time – this like everything else needs to be used as part of a balanced attack where for every multi pass move there is a shot from distance or an early cross.

In my opinion, the best way to defend a 1-0 lead is to score again to make it a 2-0 lead, but Spurs seemed content to soak up the modest and unsophisticated efforts from Bolton, rather than going all out for a second which would have won the game. Fair play to Hoddle, I understand why he is doing this and it has nearly come off a number of times, but all bar West Ham, we have needed a second to win away from home this season.

Bolton brought on Ricketts and Holdsworth about 5 minutes before the 60 seconds that changed the match. A good move saw Poyet released running in on goal. He had one defender to beat at the edge of the box and while he was within his rights to shoot, he laid it square to Rebrov, 8 yards out with only the keeper to beat – he could not miss – surely! Unfortunately the so called World Class striker miscontrolled but even then he still had time to make up for it and slot it home, but he produced some crap effort which bobbled wide. Fuck it – you knew, just knew we were going to pay for that – but probably not so quickly. I still had my hands on my head calling Rebrov a c**t when a nothing ball into our box was missed by the otherwise excellent Thatcher and Holdsworth stole in to poke past Keller. Bollox. While Thatcher was at fault, he was excellent for most of the match, and like many other matches this season, Spurs did not win because a defender cocked up, but because we failed to score at the other end.

With the wind in their sails – Bolton pressed for a winner. Djorkaeff (who produced the moment of the match when a neat turn in the centre circle sent three Spurs players the wrong way) hit the bar with a free kick, Ricketts had a goal disallowed and Ted & Thatcher cleared off the line. But don’t get me wrong – if Spurs would have scored a second, they could have coasted the match.

The ref put us out of our misery and I did not stay to see if the players made the usual token effort to acknowledge the fans from the halfway line. This was a real gutting defeat - as its not the first time it has happened and while you can let a couple go, when it becomes regular and predictable it hurts a bit more. Still 100% behind Hoddle and the long term plan, but he needed better players to carry out his vision.

The Word of Hod

Keller (6/10) – Did well, no chance with the goal

Taricco (5/10) – Not get into the game enough and needs to vary what he does with the ball as its always a 15 yard run, before coming in on his right foot

Gardner (6/10) – Decent match at the back

Thatcher (6/10) – At fault for the goal but good otherwise and should not shoulder all the blame for us not wining

Perry (6/10) – Solid as ever

Anderton (6/10) – Better but not brilliant

Sherwood (6/10) – Ok, some good passes, but too many backward or square

Poyet (6/10) – Did ok and was involved in most of our good stuff

Davies (6/10) – Out of position again, and while he did ok, he did not make much of having a crap defender against him

Sheringham (6/10) – Important clearance off the line, but not one of his better matches

Iversen (7/10) – Had a good match, scored and looked lively before succumbing to injury which I hope is not too bad

Subs:

Rebrov (3/10) – Crap, his miss cost us the game. Hoddle’s striker policy has proved correct – just hope we get our money back on him

Doherty (6/10) – Just a few minutes at the end

 

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