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TOPSPURS |
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The thoughts and views on THFC
updated daily from Jim Duggan - Shelfside season ticket holder, White Hart
Lane resident & supporter since the early 1970s |
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15th May – 1st June 2002 – Daily Round up Zidane & where it all went wrong: While we can all have a good moan about ENIC and their progress or lack of over the last 15 months – Zidane’s goal in the European Cup tonight was just another reminder that our decline has been going on for a while – as lest we forget, old Mullethead turned down Zidane as he was “too wooden” –and he was probably right as he would have been pushed to match Dozy in the Spurs midfield of the time. I’m not going soft on ENIC – but this just serves to remind everyone that the decline has been going on for a while and it is unlikely that there will be a miracle “quick” way out. This is not of course an excuse for no action & lets hope the 93 days until the start of next season have plenty of world class signings for Tottenham in them. No updates: The
site will not be updated between now and the world cup as I will be away, but
take time to have a good look around the site – all the history stuff and I’m
sure the message board will be as lively as ever & the newsnow updates
will of course still be available. Hope the Carr thing is sorted out one way
or the other & that we sign a net of two new forwards and a midfielder
with balls by the time I come back, but somehow I think not. |
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14th May 2002 – TOPSPURS EXLUSIVE1 – Carr & the Arsenal Scarf & Carr to Arsenal for £15m The Carr Story: A Spurs website with a Carr to Arsenal story is not new – but this info comes from my snout, who has provided countless examples of top quality information from Redknapp signing last December to the Cup Final yellow Shirts etc. Got a call at 745am this morning & my Snout was furious at seeing a picture of our very own Steve Carr, pictured with an Arsenal scarf around his neck. The picture is recent and the snout is adamant that the picture has not been doctored. I’d love to get the evidence on here to support the statement, it has not been possible as the Gooner who owns the picture does not want to pass it on – which is fair enough – so you can make your own minds up on this one – but it is from the snout – and I believe him. If True, this is disgusting behaviour for someone who is a Tottenham Hotspur player – and it would be good if the club could act to investigate these claims, and if as seems likely, discipline the player appropriately. A precedent has been set by Sunderland in the Lee Clark t-shirt incident. They might not need to bother – as another piece of information to reach me, again from my Snout, is that Carr is to be sold to Arsenal for £15m subject to the obvious medical before the World Cup. The source of this information is from the players lounge after Donkey Adams testimonial, and although related by a Gooner, it is from a relatively normal one who has the mutual respect of another whole hearted football supporter at heart when he broke the news to the Snout. There is also some circumstantial stuff to go with it – Dixon finally jacking it in, Lauren being offloaded to Spain and at our end Davies finally getting his contract. Apparently nothing will happen before we have a “good news” story to temper the blow. Regular readers will know that Carr featured in the “unsellables” mentioned only last week on this very page, and I went back to my different but nonetheless a 100% reliable source. They obtained confirmation that there was no offer for Carr on the table, but the impression I got was that if £15m was offered, they would be forcing Carr’s swollen head thro the door down to Scumbury. Again make your own minds up & as ever in these situations its best to not get too excited either way until the press conference is announced. So where does this leave us – uncertain, as we have been with Carr for more than a year now – but this is the first time I have actually taken any Carr to Scumbury rumours seriously. Or should that read Carr back to Scumbury, as back in the days long ago when joining Tottenham was infinitely more attractive than staying with the Scum, Carr signed on as a junior with Spurs after starting out with Arsenal. Although I had done my best to remember the old Carr this season – the player of the season 99/00, the unsung hero of a modest team – it is difficult to get away from the personality transplant he received with his new contract in Autumn 2000. Since then – as well as being almost constantly injured – his comments have been far from a player trying his best to get back to play for his employers & I understand that even Pleaty has criticised his off the field behaviour at the recent trust Q&A. Carr to Arsenal is not good, but Carr as he is now for £15m to anyone could represent good business – AS LONG AS THE MONEY RAISED IS SPENT ON THE FIRST TEAM! – this is the crux of it all and why I am even contemplating the sale. See the Ziege comment below, we have too many freeloaders and people who do not care at the club – the aftermath of the Leicester debacle should result in a few of the long term underachievers on fat contracts being given the elbow for some new, hungry faces – people, who like the fans, want Spurs to do well above all else. The negatives of the sale to Arsenal are obvious – he has gone to them, further undermining our position in the scheme of things. Seen as a feeder club just as West Ham are the retirement home for clapped out old goons. But £15m is £15m (esp. when we have Walker at £2.5m as one of our best ever player sales) & it is not like Rsol’s move – where THFC got nothing for him. Fans from other clubs rate Carr at between £5-£7m & while I know they don’t know him like we do, they are also free to make a judgement not affected by emotion & while I am usually the first to wheel out the old phrase about knowing “the price of everything and the value of nothing”, this time I think we should take the money and move swiftly away – again as long as it, all of it, is spent on improving the first team. 14th May 2002 – TOPSPURS EXLUSIVE2 – BATIGOL TO TOTTENHAM? A top-notch source
close to the club has revealed that over the weekend, the Gooner slaying Angel Gabriel
Omar Batistuta “has been offered to Tottenham” and the decision whether we
take up the offer is down to Glennda. This may not be as mad as it
seems and after I spoke to the snout to see if he had any info on this he told
me that Batistuta was offered “midway thro the season”. Leaving aside what
the introduction of Batigol in December could and probably would have done to
our season – just picture him one on one with Friedel in the first half of
the League Cup final - with Roma in financial problems akin to all Serie A
clubs, Batistuta on a massive contract signed at the height of the football
money bubble, but now only a sub behind Montella, Delvecchio and Totti – Roma
could be looking for a way to get him off the wage bill. With the Premiership
the richest league in the world, and London the only place to be, and Arsenal
and Chelsea full to the brim with strikers – Tottenham seems the obvious
place, unless he really wants to take it easy and has a liking for jellied eels.
From what I can gather he is
only 33 (I use the word only in context of the other jurassics up
front) – and less than a year ago was firing Roma to La Scudetto. The only
issue is whether he would have the hunger to be a success at Spurs and this
is something that needs to be reviewed carefully – but assuming he is coming
over for the right reasons – he would be a great signing. Please god let it
be true – from Mbent to Batigol in 24 hours, the pre-season is already
messing with our minds. It appears that the decision lies with Hoddle & I hope and pray that Hoddle snaps him up – it could be another Klinsmann effect – scoring a hatful of goals and raising the profile of the club. 14th May 2002 – Davies for another 5 years at the old people’s hospice Some great news was posted on the official site yesterday, that Young welsh hero Simon Davies has put pen to paper to keep him here for another 5 seasons – or 2007 if that seems further away. I hope he continues to progress and that he gets a good run in the attacking midfielder role kept warm for him this season by Poyet. I’ll have a pint of what Ziege is drinking: After disappearing for the last half a dozen matches of the season when all hope of silverware or respectability had gone – not unexpectedly, Ziege has risen off his sick bed in a movement made famous by Lazarus Anderton when a big tournament is coming close – and has emerged in a German Shirt in Cardiff for a poxy friendly. I’m tired of all the old shit – the club need to conduct an investigation into this as it looks like he is taking the piss. If we ever to pull ourselves out of the Premiership crap – we need to ditch the freeloaders living off their names – (and Ziege is not alone in this). When we sign players we should be stronger in the contracts they agree to - as there is a fair bit of evidence that Sheringham, Anderton and possibly Poyet have contracts where they are guaranteed to play all the matches they possibly can so they can get in their respective National sides. I have no proof of this – but we have a history of such contracts with Klinsmann when we were in a similarly bad bargaining position. We certainly cannot afford more of the same next season, but somehow, you can’t see them busting a gut to be involved in the same way. Anderton, staying fit from August to October next season – about as likely as us winning the title. 14th May 2002 – New season ticket holder Something or somebody called Ian Duncan Smith, who is the leader of something called the Tories has purchased as season ticket at Spurs. No doubt he is taking his family or he has been on the waiting list for ages – as these were the people who were to be given priority with the season tickets – surely you can’t just go up and wave a big load of notes about and expect a ticket – that would be against the Ticket Charter, our clubs very own cones hotline. Naturally we wish the slap head an enjoyable time at the Lane and assume he is in what you would assume to be his natural home of the West Stand (with thanks to Goat & Crackers from the message board
for the info) |
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13th May 2002 – Belated Congratulations to Topspurs Prediction League Winner… Daniel Wynne:
After a close couple of weeks at the start of the season, Daniel ran away with
the TOPSPURS prediction league. My father as Ballymoss gave valiant chase in
second, but the rest of us were well behind, although I managed to get
revenge over South Africa’s Liverpool supporting Prashunt Lutchman for my
defeat last season as we finished 3rd and 4th, with
TOPSPURS cup winner & number 1 Norwegian Topspur Oystein Haugen in 5th
with John (Meatloaf) Stevens propping up the league. |
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12th May 2002 – … and Leicester Rubbish: The most dismal defeat of the season – which now means we have lost away against all the relegated teams – cost Tottenham two places and £880,000. Disgusting. A good proportion of the money that they have robbed from the fans with the increased ticket prices has been lost by these lazy tossers who could not be bothered against a dismal Leicester team. Perhaps if we did no pay Poyet £40,000, and Anderton’s £30000 a week and some of the other ineffective luxuries for a few weeks we could recoup some of this money – but we all know who will end up paying for it – us the fans. We are not in Europe again & what part of “ENIC’s determination to get Spurs back to the top” is reflected by not entering the InterToto? Even the scumbags up at Leeds would have been forced to enter the competition if they had not qualified by the league. That is determination to put the club first – bollocks to the players, if they have underperformed in the league, the punishment should be the InterToto. Its not as if we are on a money making tour to the Far East or USA to increase the profile of the club - we are wasting time playing a load of nonsense preseason matches at lower league teams in the South East, while other teams will be having a chance to get into the UEFA cup. It is arrogance that we cannot afford – its not as if many of these has-beens are even involved in the World Cup – and it should be part of our stated ambition for the start of the 2002/03 season. Something to concentrate the players minds. Yesterday was shit – really dreadful shit, right from the old bill reception at the Station to getting back to St Pancreas to see a lot of rabid Gooners celebrating – but we should not lose sight of the fact that this season was a failure primarily because of 90 minutes of missed chance after missed chance in the League Cup final. 9th, FA Cup Q/F and winning a trophy and getting into Europe is not the height of our ambitions, but it is something & a lot better than what we are left with. Our current misery is compounded by the joy down the road. As you all know, Hoddle has my unqualified support but he deserves a bollocking for taking Davies and Clemence off yesterday as they were the two liveliest players on the pitch. While most things he has done this season have been correct – a worrying trait is that he will remove young players who are at least trying, rather than over paid under achievers with lofty reputations achieved long ago, if at all. The only excuse for not removing Poyet in front of Davies was that he forgot Poyet was playing, and if a wing back had to go, why not the out of form Taricco? And then – it was for Etherington – the only “winger” I have ever seen that refuses to go outside his full back – the new Galvin he aint! And in central midfield, Anderton was not playing as well as Clemence. This was a simple fact – so why did Clem get the elbow? Judging by his post match comments, at least it appears he has the arse about it all, although I hope his “fuming” is aimed at the right players – old over paid lazy ones and not the ones he removed. This needs to be addressed for next season, we cannot have a team stuffed full of old players with no pace, stamina or desire – as it will be more of the same. We are being forced to pay massive price increases in our tickets to watch Spurs – so why not be fair and link the prices to our league positions, and then link the players wages to the deficit or surplus achieved by the league position and then watch those bastards run their asses off. Annoyed as I am at Hoddle’s removal of Davies and Clemence – he remains the man for Spurs and with a bit of support from ENIC in terms of real money – I’m sure he can make the transition from Premiership crap to contender and you never know even Champions again. Even if things don’t work out for him, there really is nowhere else to go – we will not get a person more dedicated and talented that wants Tottenham to get back to the top than Hoddle. Whether we might want another change of board is another matter – but after paying 80p per share which are now worth 28p in a market where the football money bubble has burst – they cannot afford to sell and only a fool would want to waste his money chasing a dream. In saying that ENIC owner Joe Lewis is worth £2,200m and 13% owner of THFC Suagrlump is worth £596m. While I know not all of this is “liquid” assets – even if they donated the interest of a 1/8th of their combined wealth – we would have over £17m to invest each year. Arseholes to stock exchange rules – this can be given in the form of a non interest bearing loan repayable in 2525 or something and would at least give us a chance. They cannot take it with them and it would make it less painful having mega rich people fleecing us for more and more money for the same old crap year on year. ENIC, like Sugarlump before them, appear to believe that you can achieve Premier League status year in year out on a Wimbledon style budget of developing young players and freebies. If we want to finish 10th every year, this is probably the case, but you cannot charge the highest prices to watch below the best players year on year. Something will have to give. Arsenal have achieved top 3 positions for each of the last five seasons – they have a 38,000 stadium, a similar sized fan base to us. It is about ambition from the management with executive power. Dein at Scumbury has chased his Goon dream by getting the manager he wanted and then backing that manager’s judgement with money. He has been rewarded both on and off the pitch with reasonable results and being able to sell players - two for £20m+ (even before Vieira) - much more than the combined outgoing for all the transfer fees they have paid. When they purchased Beavis in 1994 – Sugar said it was madness, and then after losing some of his star names the following summer paid a club record for Armo – who bless him did his best but is being released on a free this summer. ENIC cannot be blamed for Sugar’s modest ability as a Football club chairman in the 1990’s – but they must not repeat his mistakes by always being a couple of years behind – but what evidence are they showing of being better than Sugar? Ok they appointed the best manager – but why make him shop at poundstretcher on “buy one oap get one free” day? 9th is about right. Premiership crap is losing more games than we win – something we have not achieved since 95/96, which was also the last time we managed to lose less than 10 matches in a 38 game season. These two goals should be our target for next season - win more games than we lose in the league and not lose more than 10. This is not the end of our ambitions, but the next step and surely its not hoping too much is it? If it is, you have to wonder why we all bother and if we don’t get back soon we will join the likes of Everton, Man City, Wolves, Huddersfield etc as former giants. For the Match report –
which will feature more moany old crap, please click here.
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9th May 2002 – Daily round up England Call ups: Congratulations to Teddy Sheringham for getting his England call up & to Ledley King for his U21 call up,(along with Tottenham rejects Young and Crouch) but its bad news for Anderton who misses out this time. Lets hope the first two do their country proud and that Shaggy has a good long rest over the summer, getting rid of the injury which has disrupted him since before the League Cup final. Season Tickets: After all my anger at ENIC for taking the piss out of the season ticket holders, I managed to last two weeks before renewing both my home and away season tickets, a couple of days before this season has even ended! What chance have we got again ENIC whacking the prices up and taking the piss year on year – not a lot! Porkies?: In another interview about Redknapp on the Official site - the more they tell us the more we will believe it – little Piggy Barmby was wheeled out to sing Mr Louise’s praises & while he said nothing of interest as in the style which footballers have made an art form, the use of the word “here” is interesting, when you consider he is a Liverpool player, who you would think would use the word for Liverpool FC or Merseyside. Maybe nothing, but you never know: "..he's a very nice man first and foremost. As a player he
is just in the Tottenham tradition, he's a great footballer who'll do very
well here. "He is a great passer. The fans here, I know more than
most, appreciate good football and Jamie will bring that." |
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7th May 2002 – Midweek Updates at last & daily round up Snout Stuff - Barmby Update: It appears that Barmby IS very keen to be reunited with his old mates Hoddle, Anderton & Sheringham and Hoddle wants him back – but as ever Mrs B is the one in the way. As the snout put it so wonderfully “…its not as if she is up to much and there comes a time where he has to stand up and put his career first”. I hope this can be resolved as I believe with Hoddle as his manager, like TV before him, we will see the best from a good player. Snout Stuff - Bunje – Every time I speak to the snout he cannot speak too highly of Bunje. Not only is he a friendly and humorous bloke he really wants to play and do well for Spurs & has been driven mad by his injury this season that has restricted him to only 5 league starts. Hopefully next season, the injury will be well behind him and we can at least see the best from the former Red Star Captain. Bunje was also very positive about the qualities of Acimovic – saying he was a top quality player and we are very lucky to have him. Snout Stuff - New Kit for Saturday – Spurs are trying to use the new Kappa/Thomson kit for the last match of the season at Leicester. This has still to be confirmed, but the red letters and annoying smiley could have their first outing.
Acimovic & Davies – Interesting to hear Hoddle describe Acimovic as a Brooking type player (given that Anderton is Brooking-esque, notably when it comes to heading the ball). From the little I know about Acimovic I saw him as a replacement for the Poyet attacking midfield role – for which we also have Davies, and although I don’t really care who plays as long as Spurs win, it would be a shame for Davies if he does not get a good run as the attacking midfield role at the start of next season to make the position his own. Better news on Davies is that he is close to signing an improved contract – which is great news for Spurs. Snout Stuff - Etherington – It is looking increasingly likely that the other half of the Posh duo could be on his way over the summer assuming we get an appropriate offer for him. Easier said than done, with the lack of money in the lower leagues – but he does n’t seem to be developing as expected at the Lane. The Doc: Sad news today concerning the Doc missing out on the Republic of Ireland squad. It is difficult to think of 22 better fit players that are qualified to play for the Republic, esp. after coming off the bench to score the winning goal in the last international – and our thoughts go out to the Doc who must be gutted, and a bit pissed off at McCarthy. Some have suggested that it will be good as he will be fit for next season etc – don’t think this out weighs the experience of playing on the biggest stage with the best players cannot do anything but good and it would have been another Spurs representative at the final. Some game last weekend: It has been revealed that the viewing figures for the cup final were the lowest ever (probably since TV was invented) for the second and third teams in London last weekend. This means that more people watched the League Cup final this season than both Goon FA cup finals this year and last. Just shows we are still more attractive to the footballing public than them and strip away all the crap and you have to ask if more people tuned in to watch it, is it really the Worthless Cup? 4-0 and you won f**k all! Songs: After trying to get ideas for “Song for Davies” (I personally don’t think we can top Delilah), the other old chestnut of a song for Anderton has cropped up – and a glace at the official site has given us a song based on the Robin Hood tune – and the thought of the Robin Hood as a football chant for Anderton has had me chuckling all day – so how about Anderton Anderton running down the wing |
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6th May 2002 – TOPSPURS player and goal of the season Player of the Year and Goal of the season: Click on the links at the top of the page to have your say on the TOPSPURS player of the season and TOPSPURS goal of the season. You can only vote once and you have my word on the integrity of the poll (even though Perry already has 8 votes! for player of the year). The poll is a web freebie and as such has the usual irritating advertising but also restricts me to 10 selections for each Poll, which is why the likes of Rebrov and Freund did not make it on the selection list. Return of Ricky – no the other one: After over a year of sensible decisions and good signings at management level (Richards apart and while he ain’t worth half of his fee, he ain’t that bad), news has broken over the weekend that former “favourite” Justin Edinburgh is to return to the Lane in a coaching role. Sometimes you see a signing and after the initial shock and disbelief you can work your way round to seeing what the signing was all about – but this one still has me scratching my head. I appreciate that some saw him as misunderstood and not that bad, but the first action of successive managers throughout the 1990’s was to drop Edinburgh only to replace him with worse (a very old Clive Wilson and truly the worst player ever to play for Spurs Paulo Tramenzanni) which allowed Ricky to worm his way back. In 276 matches (including winners medals at Wembley in 1991 and despite getting sent off in 1999), he only managed one goal, a few sendings off and countless reckless challenges were responsible for penalties which Walker bless him, never usually even got near. Just what Basildon’s Roberto Carlos can bring to Tottenham as a coach is anyone’s guess (in Hughton, don’t we already have the best full back since Knowles on the coaching staff?) – but like anyone joining or rejoining, I would like to wish him all the best at Spurs and hope he is very successful in his second spell at the lane & have resurrected his old page at topspurs http://www.topspurs.com/xjedinburgh.htm Summer Money: Our friends at thespursweb have put together an interesting poll about how much the club will spend on players net of any sale proceeds. The results are very interesting and suggest that the give us your money now for “promises” of jam tomorrow of ENIC are working.
It is possible that we will sell Sully over the summer as the unrest surrounding his situation has not been resolved but for these calculations I will assume he will be staying & I understand that Carr is definitely staying and anyway it is unlikely that anyone would buy him before he proves his fitness again which leaves around £10m coming in from Transfer fees. I cannot see much more than this going out!
But just where is the evidence that we are going to actually spend money? Richards is excluded from the analysis above as much of the funds used to buy him were money put aside for the Rsol contract (two years of Rsol on £80k a week plus resigning on fee pays for Richards). If we get Phillips as is likely it will be for what we sold Rebrov for – but with two of our three other strikers 35 & 36 years old – we need more, at least two possibly three as we are losing Armo as well to go alongside Phillips and Iversen. Recent events have somewhat polarised our distance behind the top teams. We need to go and win at Leicester to definitely finish top of the crap in 7th – our joint highest Premiership finish – a decent first year (plus a cup final) for Hoddle, but at least 10 points off 6th place and 30 points off the top. The table does not lie but to some extent we have not had much luck this season (record number of hit the woodworks) and more importantly have been let down by not converting our chances in matches. We have let in a quarter (13) of our league goals in three matches, with 6 of the goals when we were down to 10 men away from home. We have had the usual injuries, notably Carr & Doherty. We are not that far away – we just need that touch of class in key areas – building on this season. Redknapp, Acimovic – and possibly Phillips is a good start – but there needs to be more, much more before can clamber out of the swamp of shit in the middle to lower reaches of the Premiership and join the elite at the top of the table. I am well aware that if players are that good – why on earth would they come to Tottenham Hotspur circa 2002? and this is the bit of magic the board need to demonstrate over the summer. Believe me, there is nothing more I would like to be able to say is that ENIC have been the masterminds behind getting Spurs back to the top – and if and when they provide evidence of even intent let alone success – I will be up there championing their cause and singing their praises. But for the moment, my judgement is based upon what they have done. TOPSPURS prediction League Cup: Congratulations to Oystein “4 Jack Daniels” Haugen for deservedly lifting the TOPSPURS prediction League Cup ‘01/02 after defeating the webmaster in the final. Although languishing 5th in the Main Prediction League (which is all over bar the shouting for Daniel Wynne), Oystein has some silverware to shout about this season despite his long disappointing distance trip to Cardiff from Norway. And finally………….
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