1^st March 2010 - Another Sad Day for Football The League Cup Final specifically. I’m not particularly fond of Villa; they’re a naturally defensive team who seem reluctant to shed their underdog status, and, much like Spurs teams of the recent past, seem to believe that playing a contingent of young Englishmen somehow makes their deficiencies unique from those of other unremarkable sides. Prouder fans of each club will argue that, for way of one triviality or another, their team is a superior proposition to the others, but in reality ourselves, Villa and Everton are uneasy but undeniable bed fellows. Villa have perhaps being going through the motions a bit longer but all three clubs have developed an unenviable cycle where they build to the point of the seemingly impossible top four penetration (always on the precondition that Arsenal or Liverpool have one of their occasional off years), before their best players are poached in tabloid fuelling sagas that ultimately destabilize and lead to a season or two of toiling it out with Fulham and Sunderland (there’s few things sadder come April than the old war cry of ‘playing for pride’). From here they begin again. And so my heart went not only to Villa fans yesterday, but to the majority of football supporters. Villa were an interchangeable component; it could have been us, or Everton, Sunderland, Wigan, and so on and so forth. It began badly. Fair enough, Villa were awarded a penalty but Utd were blessed with one of those remarkable refereeing decisions only they seem to get. Football is awash with innocent bad decisions, a lot of this down to the increased tempo of the game and exposure by forensic television analysis (how often do you see a commentator (in the studio or the pub) howling incredulously that the referee has made a terrible mistake after viewing seven slow mo replays from all different angles?). But there is no explanation for Vidic remaining on the pitch other than that the official could not stomach reducing Fergusen’s side to ten men after a matter of minutes. Even so the match progressed on fairly evenly until the introduction of Wayne Rooney. Recently Harry Redknapp suggested that it is less a matter of how many good players a team has than the number of great players. Yesterday’s game would support this theory. Two teams of good players battled it out fairly evenly until the one undisputable world beater took to the pitch. From there on in it seemed so much a formality that Utd looked bored by it all; once the deciding goal had gone in Villa were sweating blood to get any hold on the game while their opposition nonchalantly broke up the field at will. There was an assortment of indications that the winners were (perhaps, sadly, justifiably) complacent about the whole thing. When Rooney hit the post with a header he wore the look of a man mildly irritated that mere millimetres had denied him a gem of a goal, and not the drop to the knees anguish one might expect a player to feel having come so close to putting a cup final beyond doubt. Berbatov too could only manage a wry unconcerned smile having ballooned a similar opportunity. Later in the game no one seemed to even notice the reluctance of their players to make a run up the pitch when Valencia made a break or, even more bizarrely, when Rooney was taking a corner (at a complete loss as who to pass to, understandably). After winning the game the Utd players gave a bit of a cheer, giggled amongst themselves and gave smiling, composed and coherent interviews. Their demeanour was less cup final euphoria than last day before school holiday giddiness. The Villa men gave sweat soaked panting interviews, pale complexions and wandering eyes leaving no doubt that disappointment was too small a word. Martin O’Neil, looking as though he had aged thirty years in two hours, was so despondent when talking afterwards that it was uncomfortable to watch. The indifference on the pitch was matched off it. A result for Villa, you get the feeling, would have led to a week of sore heads and days scived off work in Birmingham. In stark contrast it was hard to shake off the impression that the Utd fans were celebrating because they felt they ought to, the sort of pretend fun that adults feel obliged to demonstrate at a child’s birthday party or irritating family holiday. Of course this is only logical. A celebrated mountaineer will only get so much of a kick out of hill walking. One last finger raised in the face of the midlanders was the number of seats reserved for corporate clients. Although in theory this was an affront to both sets of supporters, in truth many of the champion’s fans would probably have exchanged their ticket for any one of a half dozen league fixtures. For Villa fans, who had been waiting a decade for such an occasion, it must have hurt to see so many empty seats go unoccupied as the well to do and connected refused to let a mundane football game hurry them from their half time beer. Why such a big rant about a Villa match on a Spurs site? Because it could have been us, it has been us, and it will be again. As a small endnote, if the League Cup Final was a poor advertisement of how predictable and top heavy the game has become, the Chelsea / City game the day before demonstrated how a boneheaded nasty streak still remained from the eighties. It was only to be expected that Chelsea crowd would stand by their man (despite him hankering for a pay rise on top of his already mountainous salary against a back drop of enquiries from Man City only last summer, despite him accepting relatively miniscule amounts of cash to betray the trust he had been given as captain of club and country by allowing unauthorized access to both institutions. The rest I won’t even attempt). You would also expect a minority of the crowd to jeer Bridge, regardless that he was a good servant to the club. Usually when you hear about headless nonsense coming from the stands it is the voices of the few that the media swell into the voices of the whole. But on Saturday it was the majority of Chelsea fans who came together to spit bile at the wronged player, whose only public retaliation to date came in the form, devastatingly, of a dodged handshake. I find it hard to concede that if they were in Michael Bridge’s position that they would accept a handshake from their estranged friend and shrug their shoulders, perhaps sharing a joke; ‘women, eh?’. In fact I find it hard to concede that they wouldn’t take a shovel (or some equally effective object) to his head. It makes you wonder why you bother.

Want to bet on the spurs? Check out the latest betting odds online with our partners at bwin.com

..

TOPSPURS COLUMNISTS

Mark Rose	David Hayes	Martin Cloake	Greg Meyer	Sean Morley	Logan Holmes	Jim Duggan	Colin Ashby	Mike King	Slabber	Guest Column
Guy Edema	Clive Francis	Laurence Coss	Chris Dean	Il Falcone	Robby Boy Sumner	JimmyG2	1Danny Thomas	Richard Pymont	Dan Wetzels	JoeyBill
Columnists Homepage		The index and archive page of the TOPSPURS columnists

20^th January 2010 - World Class Players

Yet another poor home result. But I’m not too disappointed. I suppose it’s because I don’t believe we’ll make the Champion’s League and as such see these things as bum notes in an otherwise enjoyable season rather than missed opportunities. I’m too long in the tooth for it all (Lasagnegate was the nail in the coffin) and frankly I am too busy enjoying Spurs’ not being rubbish. You don’t have to go back too far in history to find similar home results where these score lines actually reflected the game. Sunderland is the only performance where we have plumbed those depths of late. And ironically we won.

Teams are now increasingly approaching fixtures at White Hart Lane with a siege mentality. This is separate from simply playing for a draw, a game plan we would traditionally bring to, say, Villa Park (proceeding cautiously but open to suggestion). In contrast a fixture at Old Trafford would be a survivalist affair with the midfield playing as deep lying defenders and the defenders all but playing in goal. Now we are on the receiving end of such tactics and we are not enjoying it.

The good form (particularly that of Lennon and Defoe), the media savvy of Redknapp, and perhaps the Wigan result have combined to lodge us somewhere between the big four and the fodder in popular consciousness. Perhaps I am blinkered but it seems to me this stasis is a genuine disadvantage that only Man City share (and in truth it may be even harder for them as their prestige is still rooted mostly in money and headlines, though it is a hurdle they will inevitably overcome).

Of course Utd, Arsenal, Liverpool and Chelsea have for years been presented with the same challenges of playing teams who’ve their backs to the wall from the off and are composed of good dogged performances from otherwise average or lazy players who have suddenly upped their game for the occasion. But they get the pros as well. For every team who produce heroics at Stamford Bridge there are plenty of others who are beaten before they get there. For every player who has the game of his life at the Emirates there are many more who inexplicably freeze and gift a goal. And for every questionable decision awarded to United at Old Trafford…

At present we seem to be taking the pitfalls of our elevation with less of the perks. Put plainly we instil enough fear in the opposition for them to employ extreme caution, but we do not yet induce them (or the officials) with the sort of terror that gives rise to gifted goals. ‘Bottling it’, so to speak.

This is only half the story though. Less in fact. A third of the story perhaps. The overriding truth is we that we fail to beat such teams because we have yet to find the ruthless ability to win that has made the top four just that. Also, rather simply, we just aren’t as good as them yet. But we are not far off. Redknapp recently alluded to the fact that it is less a matter of how many good players a team has as how many top players. Arsenal, he figured, had two, in Fabregas and van Persie, whilst we had Modric.

In reality we probably have none but come close to having four. Modric is almost certainly world class but was injured just before it became a given (the same could be said of van Persie (annually) and barring one of those tragic cases of ‘wasn’t the same since the injury’ both should comfortably achieve these standards). Defoe and Lennon are half way there. King too is world class but even his greatest supporters must sheepishly admit that this is sadly academic so much of the time.

Liverpool, in contrast, have two unambiguously world class players; quite possibly the two best players in the Premiership. And they are injured. What’s left looks distinctly average. Counting Alonso they had three top players when they finished within a whisker of winning the league last year (Carragher was already slipping).

I find it too difficult to extrapolate these facts to the conclusion that Spurs are perhaps mere players (or maturation of existing players) away from being a real football team. That would be on par with the disproving of Newtonian physics, one of those fundamental principles that shapes a man’s understanding of how the world works. Instead I will draw the conclusion that we have a good chance tomorrow.

And if we are in the same position come May only to draw against Bolton or Burnley you will find a lot of what I wrote in the first paragraph was pure crud.

12^th January 2010 - Ten Years Gone

This is very much a companion piece to the articles of Sean Morley and Robby Sumner in review of the previous decade, where I position myself somewhere in the middle. Like a successful but ultimately useless politician I suppose…

It was a mediocre decade, poor even, but in an alluring way. Put frankly, it was never boring, comparable to seeing a band murder song after song because they’re half cut, under rehearsed, and clearly can’t stand the sight of one another. ‘Car crash’, I believe, is the term used. We had heroes (Campbell, Carrick, Berbatov, Keane), villains (Campbell, Carrick, Berbatov, Keane), comedy relief (Ramos, Santini, Gomes,) redemption (Gomes, Lennon, Defoe) and what was intended to be redemption but never really worked out that way (Pleat, Bentley, Keane). Throw in the bloodied corpses of Jol and Hoddle and some shadowy shots of Comolli, Pleat, Arnesen and Levy lurking menacingly and it all adds up to a messy pot boiler which you can’t quite distinguish between being so bad it’s good or just plain bad.

It was quite literally a decade of pure transition which only ended with the appointment of Redknapp. To turn a Tottenham fan’s pint sour you need only say the name Arnesen, Comolli, Ramos, Pleat or Santini (never mind Dean Richards or Gary Docherty). But for me the lowest point was Hoddle’s reign, which felt like a continuation of the nineties; a bleaching away of any colour from the club, a process which began with Francis signing Chris Armstrong (noted by Sean Morley) many years previously. Which brings me smoothly along.

A great myth is that fans want stability. Sometimes we believe this ourselves (almost always in the midst of a relegation battle) but in truth the only fans who enjoy one season being the same as the last support Manchester United. For eight years we had stability in the form of Francis, Gross, Graham and Hoddle; four managers perhaps, but all seamlessly steered forgettable players to forgettable positions whilst playing best forgotten football. There was the constant caveat that the bilge on show was merely the first tentative steps in a long term strategy, the manure on the flower bed so to speak. Those flowers never did bud though and we were left to swoon over the odd dandelion that sprouted from the stinking brown sludge. It was numbing. And this is why, for all that it was an underachieving, shambolic, laughable (even to us), mostly mediocre mess of a decade, I enjoyed the noughties. It was nice to feel something again.

But at the same time I do agree with Sean. Not so much about Spurs, but about football in general. The game has become static, turgid and exclusive. Success usually breeds success; in modern football, success breeds success and then sends it to the sort of school where the general public are not only unwelcome but their existence is seen as sort of a vulgar but amusing joke. If you are to exclude the big four and compare the achievements of every other club to pass through the top flight you will find it is a quite miserable pissing contest. The winner is probably Portsmouth, with a FA Cup win, though Middlesboro are worth a shout with a UEFA Cup Final defeat, and Everton loitered on the sunny side of mid-table long enough to be given credit, even if they have no medals to show for it.

For English football it was a miserable decade. The seeds of elitism and monopoly were sown and sprouted in the nineties, but came fully into bloom in the last decade. The Champions League has bloated into a lavish high society party where the guests swoon down the red carpet avoiding eye contact with the rest of us as we struggle behind the velvet ropes in the hope of slipping in should the doorman become momentarily distracted (Everton once achieved this but were hauled back out in a chicken wing). There was a time we could angle for an invite to such parties if we were charming enough in the fashionable UEFA Lounge, but that became a tawdry run down establishment and was eventually replaced by a Wetherspoons.

Sadly, fewer and fewer teams have any pretence of ambition. Every year it seems another club acknowledges there is just no possibility of success and accept themselves as fodder. It has recently happened at Middlesboro and Charlton and currently seems to be taking hold at West Ham and Portsmouth. Not including City, whose fabrication makes Chelsea seem practically new age earth mother organic, this leaves Spurs, Villa and Everton chasing the pack (though even David Moyes seems to think the latter are finally on the ropes having spent so long punching above their weight). All aim for fourth, as noted again by Sean. Nothing wrong with this per say; progress is progress; Rome wasn’t built in a day, and so on and so forth. What is more alarming is that none of us can contemplate anything beyond it.

Enter in the Champions League and then look to win it? Well, steady on there... Use our new status to build a side capable of winning the league? Now let’s not get carried away here…

It is frankly impossible to imagine Spurs winning something significant without a sea change in the game. Sadly, more and more of us seek this change from the financial predicaments ongoing at other clubs, such as the latest upheaval at Liverpool, in the hope our balance sheet can beat the opposition’s. It’s as though we support the football division of capital markets.

But, I will end this article on a positive note, simply because the decade has. There is presently a good feeling about the club. The manager has brought sense, stability and personality where there was waste, division and faceless bureaucracy. The squad is young, compact and exciting while a shiny new stadium is promised to replace our much loved but uncomfortably ‘small club’ home.

Despite the insistence on focusing on material from the new Celtic/jazz fusion album which charted only in Germany and Japan, despite the endless, pointless inebriated guitar and drum solos, despite the bass player walking off half way through, despite the singer threatening members of the audience with physical violence, despite being an hour and a half late on stage in the first place, the band has come on for an undeserved encore and for fifteen minutes, with whatever it is that keeps them going fresh in their veins, are actually pretty. So everybody goes home happy, humming the hits, what went before almost forgotten. But not quite.

27^th November 2009 - Wigan Weren’t All That Bad

I genuinely mean it.

Though I think I’m pretty much alone in this opinion. The Times gave their entire defence a performance rating of one out of ten, and even then there was a grumble that this flattered our somewhat less than alumni Edman. Their players took note and have subsequently refunded fans from their own pockets. If Spurs had adopted the same approach through the years many players would probably now be living on the Seven Sisters Road (there’s the old Tottenham in me – impose a defeat so severe it approaches a war crime and I still cannot resist a snide remark).

As per the title, I actually don’t believe they were so awful as the score line and subsequent reaction would have people think. They more or less held their own in the first half and perhaps even had the better of the game for 20 minutes or so (with only halftime breaking their momentum). Their midfield was happy to scrap and their forwards, even if somewhat agricultural, looked as though they might have bludgeoned their way through our rearguard eventually.

This is academic really though as drubbings rarely begin from the first minute and last the full 90, but instead usually hinge on a point of no return when heads fall and legs wonder what the point is. For Wigan this was Defoe’s third and the end to their briefest of comebacks. From here on in they were on the wrong side of mediocre and drifted into poor. But only, perhaps, the third weakest team we’ve played this season.

Now I am not blinkered. Recently after the Burnley game I was left explaining to friends that Robbie Keane had not played as particularly blindingly as a four goal tally would have them imagine (and I am fan of the man). All of the goals were not only sitters, I explained, but the sort of sitter where the player on the ball looks rather bewildered by the opportunity afforded him, like he is almost certain he has missed a whistle or a flag or a bomb warning and feels he should probably stop and see why the opposition defenders are simply standing still, staring into the distance with glazed expressions.

None of the goals against Wigan were like this. Three, Crouch’s opener, Defoe’s first goal and later his volley, were the sort of strike were the forward gets the better of his man; well constructed goals where the defence are culpable but not incompetent. The rest of Defoe’s tally (and also Bentley’s free kick) were goals you can’t do all that much about; simply of the class that you generally won’t concede because the opposition won’t score them. I don’t think even Klinsmann could have produced so clinical a set of finishes.

We have been the other end of such goals ourselves. Palacios and King’s keystone cops routine for Fabregas’ goal at the Emirates is an example of defending that, though dismally poor, would generally go unpunished because so few players would be capable of scoring as he did.

Though not exactly helping their own cause, Wigan had the misfortune to be on the end of four such efforts and another three quality goals. Only Krnajcer and Lennon were helped along by truly poor defending from a team who were already being wheeled to the morgue, and even these were scored with imagination, verve and skill. A look through all nine shows not one was from a criminally free header or a tap in that was harder to miss.

It could be argued that even if the goals were good the opportunities, marginal as they were, should never have arisen. But once again the build up play was of the sort that a team will rarely have to defend against because it so often encountered; so many of the scores came from assists that were as perfect as they could have been. In stark contrast, against Hull even the most academic of through balls was likely to find a man in a white shirt with a mild bout of agoraphobia.

Wigan were unlucky in meeting Spurs in that particular mood. It is not uncommon for Utd, Arsenal or Chelsea to find themselves in an unassailable lead with half an hour to go and proceed to play the game out in an disinterested saunter. On that particular day Spurs smelt blood, and the three most ravenous performers all felt they had something to prove.

If Wigan were not so bad, is possible we were so good? Or more accurately, are we so good? I’m too long in the tooth to think so, but nonetheless must admit to fantasises having formed in the deeper shadowy corners of my mind, the sort of place where thoughts form before you can censor them; in this instance images of Lennon, Modric, and Kranjcar streaming effortlessly through the park, all in an unspoken competition to see who can create the most beautiful goal.

We will probably lose to Villa.

But maybe that’s the Tottenham in me again.

1^st November 2009 - We’ve Got Our Tottenham Back

‘You never give me your money, you only give me your funny paper…’

Well they say domestic bliss makes for terrible art. So if you want to be, say, a great songwriter, you’re best neglecting the love child(ren) you’ve no memory conceiving whilst sabotaging every adult relationship you have amidst a cloud of alcohol and substance abuse. Or you could try supporting Spurs. But perhaps that would suit you better if comedy was your calling. It worked for Peter Cook.

We definitely have the comic timing. Our seasonal declaration of Top Four intention was a while coming this year but it was of course followed by a home loss at the hands of Stoke days later. The annual humbling. There could of course be only one response to defeat at the hands of this supposed fodder; declare in the press we’re better than Arsenal.

Oh no were bloody not. It hurts me to say it but our squad is the polar opposite of theirs. Where they seem to have a plethora of intimidatingly talented teenagers an opportunity away from storming the Premier League, we have tens of millions of pounds worth of lethargic complacency who shirk away from every challenge presented. I’ve heard more about Pavlyuchenko’s agent than I have him this season.

I’ll try not to be knee jerk. We have lost Defoe, Woodgate and Lennon. Arguably three of five best players. We have also lost Modric. Inarguably our best player and a man who gives a sheen of class to an otherwise unspectacular team (no harm in having a talisman; apparent Real can’t buy a win since Ronaldo was injured, and they are a team extremely fond of buying). What alarms me is that with a squad as expensively assembled as ours you would hope that these absences would detract from the team rather than pull it apart completely. It was much more palatable when a few injuries resulted in David Kerslake or Stuart Nethercott staring in a depressingly unconvincing defeat. But when the Spurs bench is the most expensive real estate in Haringey it’s hard to stomach.

We have more dead wood than the average bog.

Alan Hutton; fair enough he didn’t buy himself for nine million, but when you spend that sort of money on a full back you really anticipate some special things. Is it unreasonable that defending was one of them?

Gareth Bale; I actually like Gareth and while he can’t be let anywhere near the defence and the responsibilities that come with it, I would like to see him given a few run outs as a left winger. But he’s endemic of a Spurs problem. If he were at United or Arsenal he would be a teen idol maturing nicely into a full on superstar. At Spurs he’s talked about like a friend who recently suffered a sensitive illness (‘how did Gareth play?’ ‘He played well. Considering’ ‘Bless’).

Dos Santos; He might be very good. I’ve rarely known less about a Spurs player.

Pavyluchenko; I don’t understand the patience granted to him from otherwise fickle fans (not a stab at Spurs supporters but football crowds in general. Compared to some we’re actually quite patient). He doesn’t play well, he looks bored when he does, and to back up his lack of performances is an agent who makes veiled treats in the press every three weeks or so. Is it incomprehensible his client would state his case by, I don’t know, playing the sort of football that would legitimise his lobbying for first team action. The ultimate Carlos Kickaballski in my humble opinion.

David Bentley; we paid well over the odds and I think everyone deep down had a bad feeling. He was the archetype custard pie faith likes to fling at Spurs fans. What’s this? A player casually jettisoned by Arsenal only for him to become a national hero for their arch rivals? No actually, turns out they were right all along. A couple of years running club nights in the Balearics and wrapping the odd Porsche around a lamppost before being flogged to Everton for an undisclosed figure. Because no wants to disclose we recouped a half a dozen footballs and three fluorescent bibs from our original outlay of fifteen million.

Jermaine Jenas; the ‘Where’s Wally’ of Tottenham. I still haven’t found him.

Tom Huddlestone; the only player I truly hate (as a player. I’m not the sort to start yelling, or believing, a footballer is a c*nt because of inadequate performances. Though it is hard, and in many cases I’m sure I’d be proved right if I did). He defines the soft underbelly, pretty passes when comfortable, anonymous when up against it, he’ll come good eventually, dross forgiven for some flimsy flash, that has held Tottenham Hotspur back for decades. I really see Tom being one of those players whose undoubted skills one manager after another invests faith in before conceding he’s a lazy sod. You know the sort, might go from Spurs to Villa, start well there, everyone says ‘why did we sell him?’ then he fades away and is eventually sold to Fulham, where he starts well and Villa fans say ‘why did we sell him?’ and then he fades away again and is sold to Stoke, where he starts well…repeat until he’s in his mid thirties.

Robbie Keane; I’m a big fan of Robbie who at once forgave him for his lost weekend up North. But my patience is waning now. Though not scoring much, his form at the start of the season was perhaps the best I’ve seen from him, producing genuinely visceral midfield performances. Since then he’s reverted back to being a striker. And a bloody poor one at that. He currently looks like a youth player failing to grasp the tempo of top level football and not really looking like he’s going to make it. Something must give.

The entire defence; as Martin O’Neil proved with Richard Dunne and some fella from West Ham no one had heard of, decent players playing together week in week out make a better defence than great players on rotation. Strong decisions needed.

Sorry if I went on a bit there.

To bend the knee back into place I will finish on this note. The Spurs team I saw at the start of this season were the best I have ever seen. But that’s not difficult considering the insulting rubbish we have been exposed to over the years. The bad smell still lingers. It’s going to take Harry some time to air it out.

22^nd Sept 2009 - Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till Its Gone

Does anyone remember Unlucky Alf from the Fast Show? Poor old Alf would begin every scene waiting for his inevitable bad luck to come in. But then when nothing ill occurred he would briefly be lulled into a false sense of security, managing a nervous smile, almost bemused to have experienced no poor fortune. And then a signpost would drop on his head. Or a cat would knaw his crotch. Or a freak gust would blow him into a hole. Or the roof would fall in on top of him. ‘Bugger’ would be his conclusion.

There are teams I hate worse than Manchester Utd, but there is no one I hate losing to more. This is partly because we never beat them ever. It’s partly as well because they still have a hex over us. In recent seasons we’ve gone someway towards making a dent in our woeful records against the rest of the big four, and turned out some positive performances to boot, but at the mere sight of a Utd shirt and we revert to the pluckless wanderers of the Sugar years.

Another reason though is that it is hard to shirk the feeling you are losing to a media entity. In Britain and Ireland certainly, very possibly in all Europe, and perhaps even in all Western society, no sporting institution has had so many players that have crossed over to become mainstream media stars, be it Sharpe, Keane, Cantona, Rooney or Ronaldo. Beckham of course is peerless and Alex Ferguson himself feels like the Severn Bridge or the Irish Sea; something that’s just always been there. As a result losing to Utd feels akin to defeat at the hands of Kerry Katona, Jordan or Simon Cowell; those figures that are so much a part of everyday life that you feel as if you know them regardless of whether you want to or not.

They played us off the park too. Some have correctly cited that the officiating was less than impartial but in truth we could have had the referee from ‘Escape to Freedom’ on our side and it wouldn’t have made all that much of a difference. Sad to say, but at our place with a man up and it still felt as though had they been bothered they could have notched a couple more and made a comprehensive defeat a humiliating one. Only Assou Ekotto seemed in control, the rest was an assembly of below par or poor performances. Some players can give valid excuses; Keane likes to wander out left but not remain there and he never adapted to being out of position; his easy nullification left Lennon as the only creative outlet and as such he was easily marked out of the game; Crouch looked clumsy but in reality his unique gait gave a farcical appearance to what would otherwise be considered a fairly standard performance for a forward having hopeful balls lobbed listlessly at him; the static displays around him opened none of the cracks that Defoe needs so few of to be deadly. Palacios, despite being jetlagged, looked like the little boy with his finger in dyke, all alone against the looming currents.

Which brings us to Huddlestone. We needn’t rehash the old debate as to whether he is a genius stroker of the ball on the verge of blossoming or a light weight luxury only a competitive opponent away from exposure. Those such as myself who argue the latter will feel a certain disappointment at being handed additional weight to our claims; it’s always nice to proved wrong on such matters. Hutton too was poor. Though not at sixes and sevens he is becoming liable to one crucial error per game and much like Bale and Dawson before him needs urgent rehabilitation.

Tactically Harry probably got it wrong and acknowledged as much after. Keane out wide was an experiment that would not be repeated. But then how tactically right can any manager be in resolving a problem such as losing Luka Modric. Perhaps it is because he was a slow starter and a gradual improver; perhaps it is because his game is subtle rather than spectacular; perhaps it is because he has yet to have the headline making moment that would officially declare him amongst Premiership elite; but I have chronically underrated the man. In a Paul Daniels’ style ‘now you see it now you don’t’ moment, only after his injury did it became apparent to me what we have lost.

Expecting, as I have done of late, to be treated to some Michelin Star Spurs, I was rather less than pleased to find the helpings to be more of the Little Chef variety. Defoe can be lethal, Lennon on form is relentless while Palacios and Keane are passionate and resourceful. But Modric has that something else. It’s there in his movement, his vision, his passing; his class. Watching Robbie cringe in confusion as the game passed him by it became apparent how Modric has made an art of influencing a game from the left without overtly sacrificing width. Watching Huddlestone knock the ball forward because he was in the opposition’s half and it seemed like the logical thing to do made me miss the purposeful intelligence that Luka graces us with.

Redknapp commented when the injury occurred that it was like Liverpool losing Gerrard. Initially this made me smile, Harry once again letting the media know what he was up against (some of you may not know this but last season when he took over we had only achieved two points from eights games. I promise you this is true, it’s on Wikipedia and everything). Now I think there may be less hyperbole in this than I first accepted. Restoring Keane to the centre should restore some purpose to our play (though I know many would prefer he be restored to Tallaght) but only with Luka’s return will we feast again on Marco Pierre White football.

When he does come back hopefully we can improve along with him but with his current exponential rate of development it seems unlikely. As mentioned the headline making appearance has yet to materialise but this is only a matter of time for a player of his abilities. When it does expect the media incredulity that such a player should ply his trade at Tottenham and their subsequent demands we guarantee his passage to Old Trafford.

I was going to leave the final word to Dear Mr Levy who downplayed some of the overreaction (verging on existential crisis) that accompanied the defeat; ‘Spurs lose, deal with it.’

I think instead though I’ll go with Unlucky Alf.

Bugger.

26^th August 2009 - The Barefaced Audacity of Hope

I think everybody has at some point known at least one person who drops the words ‘no offence but’ into a sentence and then proceeds to say something completely offensive (‘I’ve just met your wife…no offence but…I presume it’s one of those convenience marriages I keep reading about? No? Oh really? I see, I see’). It’s with no little regret that I admit to been his only slightly less despised first cousin, the one who says ‘I’m not being negative but…’ And is then completely, utterly, sappingly negative.

So, without further a due; I am not being negative but I think it is time to open a window and take a deep breath. Success to a Spurs fan is like female flesh to a Victorian gentleman; we need only see an inch of an extremity and we become red in the face, teetering between ecstasy and guilt as long suppressed emotions come pouring light headedly out. How do I deal with this plight? I do what any proper sort should do; try to pretend nothing has happened and find comfort in making underhanded criticisms.

And, regardless of everything, I do have criticisms. We have won three, but only truly bossed the Liverpool game. We’ve had luck; Carlton Cole missed an open goal before allowing us back in the game with a through ball that will be shown on blooper reels for years to come. Of the two penalty claims against Liverpool one possibly was, the other possibly wasn’t, but both could have been given without much controversy. And against Hull the makeshift central defence always looked liable to concede with the home team hit by sucker punches each time they seemed on the brink of breaking us down.

I look forward to Woodgate returning. Despite deserved praise for the quickly settled Bassong and the medical miracle that is Ledley King, our defence has yet to achieve the satisfyingly boring composure of last season. There is just a little too much action back there with last ditch tackles, pivotal headers and balletic blocks.

Huddlestone has been praised for his contributions but I am still unconvinced. A great passer yes but he still seems an anomaly, or a weak link if I’m to be cruel, in a team that is increasingly characterised by the grit ‘n’ glamour players Modric, Defoe, Keane, Lennon and Palacios. Those who say he seems to have added aggression and drive to his game are correct, but by his own standards rather than those of Palacios, or even, say, Lennon.

But there’s the rub. In my VoxPop I reminisced to a time when it seemed one or two players could really make a difference. Creeping in, without anyone noticing, that time seems to have returned. Like the Victorian gentleman behind a carefully locked closed door, I remove my stiff upper lip and, against everything I stand for, can think of nothing but the hint of titillation I’ve been exposed to.

And there has been a lot to salivate over. Defoe has raised his game a level and currently looks one of those rare strikers who, if given any chance whatsoever, will score. People should no longer question whether he and Keane can play together upfront because in reality, and regardless of how BBC graphics present the line-up, they don’t. This season Keane has been sitting so deep he surely must be considered an attacking midfielder, with far more in common with Fabregas or Gerrard than Owen or Anelka. Those who acknowledge this adjustment agree Robbie played some of his best stuff against Liverpool and Hull (those who don’t grumble about the chances Defoe would have scored). With fear of raising suspicion I work for his P.R. firm, there is another element of Robbie’s game this season that draws optimism; he is a true captain. He works hard, makes decisions, influences the tempo of the game and barks a constant stream of orders (the famous pointing and shouting). Since I’ve followed the club I struggle to think of such a natural leader having the captaincy, with the honour having gone to likeable but passive men like King or Redknapp, or players too far from their prime to influence a game the way a skipper should (Sheringham or Mabbutt, in his second captaincy, and Redkanpp once again). Robbie, I feel, fits the mould.

Another player I feel slightly misunderstood is Wilson Palacios. Alongside Keane he is the heartbeat of the team, constantly moving, tackling, finding space, covering back, offering a constant channel between defence and attack. But he is not a defensive midfielder (though he still shields more than his predecessor Zokora who in theory was one). It is the intelligence and intensity of these two players coupled with the brimming quality of those they are feeding which has so far defined this side and this season. I have repeatedly stated the hope Modric would be played centrally but having seen this team come together I now totally retract this. Rather, like a spoilt child, I now want a defensive midfielder, the uncomplicated Makelele inspired sort, who will release Palacios, release Keane, release Modric and Lennon, and let them do as they will.

But this is a minor and immature quibble. What truly matters and what cannot be bought or sold, loaned in or traded, is belief. I have never seen it before. Not at Spurs. But belief, or something awfully like it, appeared to be there against Liverpool when they equalised and, ignoring our cue to hand them the game, we simply pressed on; against Hull when we resisted a trade mark capitulation at 2- 1; and above all against West Ham when, after equalizing, we had the audacity to chase a win when surely being happy with our lot was the proper order. Maybe it is a false dawn, and we will lie down as Birmingham dole out an inexplicable thumping, at which point regular service will commence. But, and if this article were spoken I would be whispering, this may just be the embryo of a proper Spurs team.

Perhaps, on reflection, I do want to be negative. It’s safe, you never look like a fool and keeping your distance you can never be hurt when it comes crashing down. Yes, I would prefer to be negative. It’s just quite difficult at the moment.

13^th August 2009 - Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before

There seems a minimalist approach at White Hart Lane this summer, almost as if apologetic for the bombast of the past; it’s like the soft acoustic introspective album a stadium rock band releases when their last one flopped.

Selling Bent and Zokora went someway towards exorcising the ghost of big money mistakes past. Twittering aside both seemed nice sorts but for me they represent, alongside perhaps Kaboul, our worst signings since the Premiership began (without actually being all that bad). There were worse footballers, (far, far worse) but they came during a very small window in our recent history when finding the right player could truly have made a difference. Though only two years past that seems like an eon ago now and the new benchmark is Villa or Everton rather than Liverpool or Arsenal.

But by and large I’m quite happy with this transfer window. There’s been no aimless glamour signing (unless you count Abi Clancey) and no one has been bought for exuberant money simply because they are young and English. There were of course some of our old habits; we signed two young players, Naughton and Walker, seemingly so no one else could. Funnily enough both were right backs, another commodity we simply can’t appear to get enough of (although being fair three of the current four are as much utility players). We even signed a young foreign defender no one really knows all that much about, (despite, or perhaps because of, playing for Newcastle) whom we will no doubt throw in the deep end and refuse to fish out until life signs are minimal. That said what’s different this year is that the coach knows who they are.

And still we refuse to sign a left winger and I’m quite confident Modric will start there now (though I would rather him centre midfield a previous comment that would we should play him in the middle or sell him is the only thing I’ve written on Topspurs that makes me feel a bit ,well, silly). A midfielder, whether it be left or centre, is the still the prerogative as far as I’m concerned. O’Hara is not the part, not yet anyhow, Jenas is a classic ‘jack of all trades, master of none’, while Huddlestone I can only see as an impact player, used to pick holes in tired or disorderly opposition (for all the criticism of Jenas, his worst is considerably better than that of Tom’s, who, when confronted with even only average but organised opposition such as, say, Fulham, carries the helpless look of a schoolboy sitting an exam he never opened a book for). Whether the like of Parrett, Bostock or Taarabt are ready for such a role is really only speculation.

At the same time, while trying not to contradict myself, I think the success of the season lies with the central defence. The midfield (and forwards) are relatively known quantities, their strengths and weaknesses are apparent. But the defence could perhaps go either way. It is easier to imagine Dawson and Bassong having to put in a combined 60+ league games than it is King and Woodgate playing a similar number. With the marshalling of the later, the like of Corluka, Hutton, Ekotto and Gomes could combine stingily whereas the uncertainty of the younger players could spread malignantly. But then there’s a possibility Dawson or Bassong, or both, could be a revelation, or even just quite good, as last season hinted.

I don’t think we will come anywhere near the desolation of last season, nor do I think we will approach the giddy possibilities of the Jol years. At worst it will be the sort of expensive wavering mediocrity endured by Man City fans last season, at best it will be the eurphoicless high of Everton’s distant fifth.

My prediction; between fifth and tenth depending on our centre backs and also whether another midfield, new or existing, steps up to the plate and fills the hole in between Lennon, Palacios and Modric. Between our four forwards some winning combination should be found but I imagine at least one will quickly find himself frozen out and deteriorating.

A cup run may be likely, seeing as we have no grey European obligations to worry about, but I could imagine a lot of clubs having the same ambition seeing as there will be perhaps more good mid-table teams looking for something realistic to win than there has been in many years.

And my saddest predictions of all, Chelsea to win the league while the good old ‘Big 4’ huddle together for one last season before Arsenal’s eviction.

4^th June 2009 - The Cynic’s Guide to Surviving the Summer

As with Jim, probably my last piece until August when I’ll be posting a prediction that we should finish somewhere between fifth and seventh even though I’m not entirely enamoured with the signings.

During these months the internet becomes a bit insufferable for the tabloid rot, rot which within hours of being made up down the Dog & Oak is regurgitated all over the web. I’m sure clubs tolerate it, if not actively encourage it; being linked to Samuel Eto or David Villa does little harm, except, that is, to the fans who are left with Kevin Prince Boateng.

What has pushed the phenomenon from irritating to plain daft is the wide eyed eagerness of many fan sites to join in the fun. No sooner has the Daily Load of Old Trousers declared that we are ‘linked with’, say, Van der Vaart (in ‘what would be’ a sensational masterstroke nonetheless) than a fifteen hundred word article will appear on NewsNow analysing his ability to play in the Premiership, questioning how he would line up with Modric, his expected gaol tally, before finally finishing up by congratulating Harry on the coup.

You also get the Championship Managers coming out from the woodwork, interested again now the inconvenience of the actual football season is out of the way (that’s not written smarmily – its an inconvenience for me too). They come in all sorts.

For instance you have the Wish Listers, who propose a squad with eight or nine international class additions with tactical outlines of how they will play (“Bastos can then switch with Muntari during attacking play, feeding the ball to Chamakh. Alternatively Aiden McGeady or Cissoko or Babel could come off the bench…”). You have the amateur scouts too, who (perhaps wisely) cut out the academics of waiting for a newspaper to link us with a player and decide themselves who we should sign, often sharing with us pearls of wisdoms on obscure players they have noticed on TV who they believe would dovetail perfectly; as though the club’s policy for signing players is to check a site with a name such as AbsoluteSpurs to consult the opinion of Yids4Eva or NewFoundLandSpur. Though now I think of it, it would explain some of Comolli’s more dubious purchases. Or perhaps some of his better ones.

Another worth a mention are the youth vote who declare without hesitation that it is time for Taarabt, Bosock, Parrett, Mason, Rose, Obika and friends to take their place in the team. This is a very noble cause but the truth is the number of fans who are so involved they regularly attend academy and reserve matches, and as such have some insight into a young player’s development, can be measured in the hundreds while it is likely only a portion of these people again express their view in blogs and suchlike. As such it hard to totally dispel the suspicion there is absolutely no weight in these opinions. For instance I consider myself a quite up to date supporter but honestly I have no idea how a player such as Bostock is developing. He might be completely off the rails for all I know. There is rarely a straight safe road between potential and its realisation. To be totally cynical I expect most the players mentioned, if not all, to go the Spurs way sooner or later; a quiet note on the website, thanking them for their few token first team minutes. The club seems to view young players, funnily enough, as antiques. Buy them before anyone else realises their value, store them away safely for a few years and hope their price soars. To be thrown in the neighbours skip on the sly if it doesn’t.

But my favourite are the ‘player like’ crowd. Every summer articles are uploaded, blogs posted and message boards crammed with the view we should sign a ‘player like such.’ The player ‘to be like’ in question will doubtless be of the vintage somewhere between confirmed great and possible legend. For example, ever since Jenas has played for Spurs there have been calls that he is not good enough and we should instead sign “a player like Gerrard, Lampard or Essien”. I guarantee that you will be able to read this line, or something similar (“we need a player more like Rooney upfront and a player like Terry to replace King”) on every other Spurs site any day now. It’s as though Gerrard, Rooney, Terry and their ilk are merely brand name products and there are plenty of equally good buys to be had if we go for a generic brand. Unfortunately this is not true; they are they best players in the world, thus they are few and far between and almost universally play for the best clubs in the world which means every other club is looking for the sparse few who have temporarily fallen under the radar. I imagine the ‘player like’ fans are those who are caught somewhere between ambition and realism, aware it is impossible we will sign Frank Ribery but finding it too depressing to accept Stewart Downing.

My own aspirations? As stated repeatedly and miserably I don’t think it matters all that much. We could spend our way into bankruptcy from transfer deals or turn a tidy profit and still we would have roughly the same outcome. We are competing against a closed shop. Still I would like to see a top forward bought, one who can find it in him to score a second goal against Blackburn or West Ham and, not the most popular opinion I’m sure, Modric penned in for central midfield where he can play his natural game, or sold. As long as he sold, that is, in the manner Fergusen sold Ince and not the in the manner Levy sold Berbatov or Graham sold Ginola. There. I said it.

I would just like to finish this season by apologising should there be anyone reading who goes under the pseudonym Yids4Eva or NewFoundLandSpur. These names where randomly contrived and I have never read an article by either on the topic of transfer speculation, though I am sure if there were such pieces they would be very insightful and well written.

Here’s to a June and July of not caring!

Disclaimer: Please note the words on this page are the opinion of the topspurs columnist and are just that, opinions, not facts and are nothing to do with Tottenham Hotspur Football club PLC. Just a supporter having his say nothing more nothing less. Any commentary on betting is meant for discussion purposes only and does not constitute any form of advice or recommendation.