Sunday 24th March 2002, 4.00pm

FA Premiership, Craven Cottage

FULHAM 0

Van der Sar, Finnan, Goma, Ouaddou, Harley (Brevett 58), Malbranque, Legwinski, Davis, Hayles, Marlet, Saha.
Subs Not Used: Taylor, Melville, Collins, Boa Morte

Sheringham

Iversen

Ziege

Sherwood

Poyet

Anderton (Davies 75)

Thatcher

Gardner

Perry

King

Sullivan

Subs not used: Keller, Rebrov, Etherington, Thelwell

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 2 (Sheringham 28, Poyet 32)

Referee: - Durkin

Attendance: - 18,885

Shite Ground No Fans! Shite Ground No points. Spurs record against Fulham is that you would expect against a two bob load of sloane ranger no nothing new football ponces P46, Won 24, Drew 18, Lost 4, and even in the low of the past few weeks Spurs won comfortably with goals from the written off last week “pensioner strikers” to give Hoddle another victory in his 50th match at the helm.

Fulham are a long way from the nice little club of Tommy Trinder and Jimmy Hill that fought a great battle to resist the developers and keep Craven Cottage as their ground. With the El Fugger’s money they are jumped up and arrogant – ideas above their station and where they get off giving Spurs fans only allocations of 1600 in the cup and 750 today in a half empty ground is beyond me. “Where were you when you were shit? or more accurately “where were you when you were shit in Division 3 a few years ago?”. Good riddance to them if they go, but they are welcome to stay up and add another 6 points to next season’s championship challenge.

 

Despite looking crocked on Friday, Spurs lined up with Sheringham up front with Iversen, and reorganised things in behind with a 4-4-2 formation. Thatcher came in at left back and King reverted to right back with Gardner coming into the middle to partner Mr Ed.

Sherwood played the deep man in midfield, with Poyet given his usual licence to roam, with Anderton and Ziege wide in midfield.  

I think everyone would have liked to have seen Davies keep his place in the starting line up, but there are only so many places and I think everyone was pretty happy with the selection and the formation. Fulham had the usual combination of past it’s and not good enoughs, all kept together by the likeable Tigana.

After one or two incidents with Plastic ponchos and Gooner rejects in the cup game, the old Bill restricted the Spurs allocation to 750. The turn out elsewhere in the Fulham end was shocking with gaping holes in the stands all around the ground – glory hunters staying away after a couple of defeats but no doubt the press will not mention this and try and find another way to slag Spurs. The few Fulham who did manage a song, were pathetic enough to have a song that contained favourable references to their chairman and had QPR in it! Just why they need a 30,000 stadium is beyond me and hopefully they will get similar allocations to what they have given us the next time we play they in the top flight, which will probably be in another 35 years time.

Spurs kicked off attacking the end with a roof, and while we may not have had home advantage there was plenty of noise coming from the Spurs contingent and there was an excellent playing service that suited our passing game. The game was played at arms length in the first 20 minutes or so with either team coming off the back of a bad run not wanting to give anything away. In saying that Spurs made most of the incisive moves in the last third, the best of which saw Iversen head over and Sheringham head tamely at the keeper when he should have done better, before another Iversen header forced a good save from Van Der Saar with the aid of the post which went for a corner.

Durkin, more cherub like than ever managed to ignore a number of tackles from behind on Spurs players, before getting Gardner in the book for a similar foul, and it took the Lino’s flag to spot Iversen getting clonked on the head just outside the box. Ziege lined up the free kick and hit a hard shot that deflected off the end of the wall and into Sheringham’s face before going in with Van Der Saar wrong footed.

Spurs fans celebrated what was the first goal for over 4 matches and the first away goal in the league since January. 

Every team moans about the lack of luck when things are not going right – but recent weeks have gone beyond a joke with woodwork being rattled and decisions going against us without any going for us. Today we got a couple, not enough to make up for the rest of the season, but certainly some to be going on with and the ricochet from Ted’s head was certainly most welcome and it was good to hear him getting a round of “Oh Teddy Teddy”

Soon after it was 2 and all over for Fulham. Ziege was released on the left running in on goal and he hit a fine shot, which Van Der Saar could only parry to the on coming Poyet, who calmly side footed home. You never know with Tottenham, but 2-0 against this lot seemed enough. They had their first real chance of the half in stoppage time when Hayles headed wide after they finally got thro Mr Ed and his men.

Match compare, Diddy Hamilton is about the only good thing left at Fulham, and it should be noted that top celebrity Spur Neil Pearson was also at the match, even though it was away and live on TV – justifying his billing as number one celeb fan.

Half time was good and it could have been a whole lot better minutes after the break when Ant Gardner sent Iversen away clear, one on one with Van Der Saar.

This time there was no “Sir Les” special of trying to take it around the keeper but he found another way of missing by shooting wide with loads of the goal to aim at.

A horrendous miss.

This should have sealed the game up properly but just as importantly won Lynford some money as he had a spread bet on the time of the first Iversen goal. Plank! 

The miss seemed to give Fulham an extra lease of life and they had a couple of chances. Marlet, who started to get the upper hand with Thatcher in the second half sent over a decent cross which took out Sully, but some Fulham play blasted over.

This was a better performance overall by Tottenham – not great but more solid than recent ones where Sherwood acted as decent cover to the defence and we had a good balance thoughout the team, although we still lack pace up front. The thing that let this down from being a better than average to a good performance was the accuracy and sometimes the direction of the passing, as all too often we gave the ball away when there was no pressure on or put someone under pressure with an underhit pass. But at least they were trying to play the right way.

Some of the fans who were looking for things to blame for our recent form slide have suggested that we go back to 4-4-2, conveniently forgetting that all but one of our early season wins were gained with 3-5-2. While 4-4-2 is somehow more comforting and re-assuring, whichever system and I trust that the great one will sort us out a good one, it needs balance throughout the team and Sherwood in his role just in front of the defence gave that balance today.

You could tell it was our day when Marlet rose well at the far post and a good header hit the post and went across the goal line before being hooked away by Thatcher. Close, but we deserve a bit of this type of luck. Sully had to be alert to pull off a good save from a looping shot and the nearest they came after this was a suicidal back pass from Sheringham which put Sully in all sorts of trouble, but fortunately he hooked clear.

We had other chances at the other end, and Davies again looked a fine talent when he came on for Anderton near the end.

And that was that. Little fatty Durkin blew and we headed off for the first time for what seems ages with an away win.

Just a word on Lynford, who belted down from Haverhill at short notice to have my spare ticket – quality bloke and a true TOPSPUR.

Back up to Hammersmif for a quick pint with Lynford, Lee, Steve and Rosie, where the latter talked non-stop nonsense in a way only Rosie can for 90 minutes as we savoured the re-assuring glow of a Spurs win away.

 

 

No corners turned today and nothing new learnt – but three valuable points and from now on our eyes should be looking upwards at where we can finish rather than over our shoulder at the ragbag of crap below us in the relegation struggle. 

ps – Big thank you to Daniel Wynne getting a plug for TOPSPURS in on his Sky Fanzone commentary.

The Word of Hod

to follow

 

Sherwood: "If we can beat our "neighbours" we can still have a big say in where the title goes. That would be good for the fans".

Sullivan (6/10) – Did a couple of good saves near the end and generally did ok

King (7/10) – The star man. Playing out of position, Ledders dealt with everything Fulham came at us with in the second half with calm assurance, and was excellent going forward with the ball. lets hope he has a similarly good match against Italy in the week on his England debut

Thatcher (6/10) – Got caught out a couple of times, but put the effort in which is all you can ask of a player and was generally good.

Gardner (7/10) – Just gets better and better. Did all his defensive stuff with assurance, and used the ball really well when in possession. The back three should be King, Gardner and … (the Doc)

Perry (6/10) – Solid, no fuss. Just the man you need to deal with Fulham coming at you and had another decent unsung match at the back

Sherwood (6/10) – The tragedy of Sherwood was summed up during the second half where he beat three people with neat bits of skill before falling over the ball as he was about to pass it on. A fine player and no doubt he has a great footballing brain, but the ability of his aging body to turn his thoughts into action is not always there – creating frustration for everyone. Had his best game for a while today as the deep man in a diamond midfield, giving the defenders proper cover for a change from midfield, as well as using the ball well when in possession.

Ziege (6/10) – With Thatcher behind him, he was allowed to concentrate on causing damage to Fulham and chipped in with his 10th and 11th assists of the season in a solid display.

Anderton (6/10) – Whatever the injury Anderton got before the England match in early Feb, it has been a real pain to Spurs season as he has not looked fully fit in any of his appearances since, and he again struggled to day, despite giving his all.

Poyet (7/10) – Poyet scored – so by definition it was a good performance, and as well as scoring he did his work elsewhere on the pitch and it was one of his better matches for the club. Is now joint leading scorer in the league with 9 and has 13 overall in 35 matches – another terrible old player signing by Hoddle!

Sheringham (6/10) – Scored and did some good stuff, but is still in a bit of a dip in form which resulted in too many passes going astray and did the worst back pass ever to Sully late in the second half.

Iversen (6/10) – Looked ok for most of the match, not brilliant but ok for him, but crucially missed an easy chance at the start of the second half which would have made it a real stroll, and therein lies the frustration of Iversen

Subs:

Davies (7/10) – Only had 15 minutes, but showed all his immense quality in that time and hopefully room can be found for him in the starting line up very soon. 

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