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16th June 2008 - Is Modric the new Carrick? Let battle commence on the electronic highways and byways of Spurs' supporters. Not only has Modric been compared to Carrick in style and role but he looks likely to split us in much the same way as he did .(and Jenas for that matter though he probably has more detractors than fans) Now it is very difficult to compare players precisely. Modric
in the two How lovely that phrase sounds 'he will play for us'. I will come clean immediately I am a Modric admirer. He has that indefinable Tottenham quality. Something involving style and skill and clear evidence of a football brain. Now I tend to think the best of our new signings, want us to welcome them and pray that they will take us to greater glories. I am very defensive of our players and probably go on supporting them after their sell-by date. The only recent signing I struggled with in these terms was Bent,but we can't all be Berbatov. I have not yet given up on Boateng, Kaboul, or Tarrabt, but think that loan spells might benefit them. Dawson and Huddleston can be trained up by Ramos into effective players and Zokora can also make a useful contribution when his role has been more clearly defined. Jenas in my opinion is a quality player who will partner Modric as a fast and skilful attacking midfield pair. But Tottenham fans are not so sure. Is he too frail for
the Premiership, allegedly the toughest and most physical in the world. You
don't need to watch much Spanish and Italian football to know that this is
not a claim that it is easy to maintain. Didn't he slip out of the game
against Ever the optimist I agree. Now it doesn't pay to make too much of a case on limited evidence. Searching for a midfield defensive general which clearly Modric is not, Spurs' fans alighted on Frings of Germany and Engelaar of Holland. Both were innocuous or worse in the second matches, Engelaar was substituted and their names disappeared from the transfer wish lists. Both these judgements could well be premature. However I am confident of the class of Modric, as I was about Carrick and as I am about Jenas. Of course players who desert us as, Carrick did and Berbatov might, immediately incur the wrath of the fans who, in their anguish, deny that they were any good in the first place. A difficult case to maintain in both these cases I would have thought. And in their perverse way that fans have they adopt players of lesser abilities who play with spirit and energy. Michael Brown and Steffen Freund come to mind. Zokora is a better player than either of these and like Freund has never scored for Spurs' and looks unlikely to. He plays with great energy but has never been taken to our collective bosoms as Freud was. |
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So I come back to the original question. Is Modric the new Carrick? There are signs that his quality
is doubted, worries
about his capacity to survive the Premiership and doubts that he will be able
to perform his defensive duties effectively. All these have surfaced on the
fan sites. I think that he will become a Spurs legend very quickly. However
there is the next Jimmy G2 |
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THE LATEST TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR NEWS
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9th June 2008 - Fans, followers and throwbacks I have been accused of being out of date, a throwback, old fashioned, behind the times, ,obsolete, past it and virtually extinct (with thanks to Collins 'Essential English Thesaurus') Of course I have been accused of many other things but these are the ones relevant to articles and the Blog that appears under my JimmyG2 by-line.
To all these charges I proudly plead guilty. I am a member of that perhaps diminishing minority that call themselves fans who can be found in almost every club who cling to a vision of their team as being more than a corporate entity whose trade happens to be football. I believe that the football comes first, before success. I believe that the club has duty of care to its players and its supporters. I am loyal to all the players at the club and want to see their full development and find it hard to accept that a player such as Defoe is no longer a Tottenham player. I don't want to see Huddleston, Lennon, Dawson, Kaboul or even Robinson transferred, unless they want to go, before all avenues of improvement have been explored. Now all these things make good business sense as well as being the right thing to do. You don't need to throw things away if they can be repaired or reconditioned or recycled. But the throwaway culture we live in now applies in football to the players as well as the single match shirts. It may be the modern way but it isn't right and it doesn't help build a club with any sense of continuity. I still like to think of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club as a family with a history and a tradition going back down the years. A tradition of a playing ethic and style which can be discerned despite the efforts of individual players and managers to short cut the road to success. The club is bigger than any one team or manager and the success of the club is not to be found in any one season but in a story that goes back down the years. Now I know all about resale value, maximising income,
rotating the stock and so on and no-one can ignore the rules of commerce, You can argue about the good cause but cannot deny that Premiership players are ridiculously overpaid for what they do. Tottenham have tried to hold the line on wages as have Arsenal but Canute had more chance on the beach. All that kissing of the badge when they score is mostly a nod to the Gods of corporate finance as their next contract negotiation looms rather than a heart felt pledge to the club they profess to love. I like to imagine that Tottenham are different but I don't really need abusive fans telling me to hitch a ride into the 21st. Century. I nearly wrote the 20th. Century just to confirm your point 'Dreamer' is another accusation I readily accept. I don't buy replica shirts, signed memorabilia or Opuses and to be honest I am not, nor ever have been, a season ticket holder. When I was working I didn't have the time and now I'm retired I don’t have the money. Finance and geography have conspired to make me a follower from afar, a fan rather than a true supporter and ticket holder. . However my most prized possession at the moment is the birthday card sent to me by the club as a member, signed by Juande Ramos, Ledley King and Dimitar Berbatov. Pathetic at my age but there you are. How did I reach this sorry state of affairs? I have followed Spurs since childhood. After my mother re-married after the War (No, not the Great War, the Second World War) I had a decision to make. My mother's family came from Highbury Corner and were all Arsenal fans. I used to go with my Uncle Ted to the Arsenal mainly to reserve matches. But my stepfather's family were all Tottenham supporters and one or two, including my stepfather were season ticket holders at various times. It became increasingly clear that regular visits to top class football would require a slight shift in allegiance .So I made the switch and have never regretted it. Perhaps that is why I find the visceral hatred of Arsenal fans so uncomfortable when I encounter it, mainly it must be said on websites rather than in real life. We all come across them and basically they are just like us, they just, by some accident of geography or family tradition, support the wrong team. We lived at the Archway in Since then I have followed the club as a fan and follower of its fortunes. But I acknowledge that the real supporters are the ones that watch the team regularly in the flesh. I always bow to their right to be the most opinionated and the most avid. Not that they are always correct but they have earned the right to be wrong and to be listened to. And they are wrong sometimes. They were wrong about
Carrick and are only just waking up to their mistake. I think that they are
wrong about Jenas, a classy player who has been an ever present under two
managers and three Is this attitude applicable in this world of corporate ownership, foreign billionaires, ridiculous transfer fees, and even more ridiculous wages? We come back to throwbacks, and being out of date. I can see why you would accuse me of this, but it's not me that's wrong, it's the modern game. I cling to the belief that Tottenham are different and that they can triumph the old-fashioned way. If they can't then I fear that the prize is not worth winning. If you have to buy, clog or cheat your way to success what sort of success is that? If we are going to do it, let’s do it right. If not then watch and enjoy. 30 May 2008 - Pantomime season opens early What’s with the Widow Twanky socks? Now I realise that there are only a limited number of changes you can make to a blue and white strip but hooped socks? I don't think so. We would be better off borrowing the magic lamp and getting three wishes. I'd blow all three on keeping Berbatov but I expect the world will go on without him. A Limited number of changes that is unless you can come up
with some marketing wheeze to allow you to dip into the fan's pockets without
the Old Bill feeling your collar. You know, like the 125th.anniversary strip,
only worn once mate, good as new. Who ever heard of a 125th anniversary in
any case? Or the final season at the old stadium strip which our Personally I like the all white strip: single colours are
very flattering for the fuller figure, Huddlestone looks positively sylph like
in all white, and if its good enough for Real I think there aught to be a vote amongst the fans as to which kit is their all-time favourite and then we go with that for a minimum of three years and then vote whether we want to change it. I’ve already cast mine for all white. Away kit would be dark blue shirts,white shorts and white(not hooped)socks. Of course we have had a bit of a pantomime season so this might be Levy's little joke to amuse the lads and show the fans that he’s not just a calculating revenue machine but a warm human being. Somebody after all has got to try to cheer up Joe Lewis after the financial disasters he has endured on the U.S.stock market. Hooped socks might just be the thing. 19 May 2008 - Not with a bang Now he died in 1965,and wasn't
even a Spurs fan, but accurately summed up the end of our season. How did he
do that? I missed the So what is the final judgement on the season? We won
silverware; upgraded our manager; bought two excellent players in January and
another before the end of the season; we beat Arsenal in some style; beat 8th May 2008 - The gloves are off Now then let me see. A few facts. All the players who
usually wear gloves were absent from the team on Saturday against Now Lennon and Berbatov were injured and Gilberto is fit
and filling the position he was bought for ,left
back. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story as they say on But to return to the real world and for the first time for several games I managed to watch the game on an excellent stream from Sopcast and was delighted with an away win and a clean sheet. The linesman ruled a good second goal out for offside; Darren Bent had a better game and was unlucky not to score. Everyone except perhaps Huddleston played well and for an hour we dominated the match and played some excellent football. The goal ,set up by the strength of Bent and his delicate final ball to Keane, who had recovered from being fouled and floored in midfield, and who glided past two defenders and scored with a deft touch into the corner was as good as any I’ve seen this season. We faded a little in the last half hour and Cerny made two good saves to secure the victory. In my new end of season relaxed mode I have given up berating
the team and worrying about Berbatov and in truth we played well without him
though against poor opposition. And so its on to the
last game of the season at home to Before you know it, it will be pre-season and it all begins again. I can’t wait. 29th April 2008 – More Spurs
musings from JimmyG2 Modric to Spurs-oh and we played another game tooIt was just before half time, I couldn't get an internet thread and was
listening to the match on Radio London, an irritating experience in itself,
when I realised I couldn’t really care less. Now this is a very unusual
situation for me. They went ahead through a poor Dawson 50yd bullet ball
which comes off about once in five attempts , then he failed to cut out the
near post ball, Cerny dives over it and we are one
down. But I don't care, I shrug instead of howling and walking round the
garden to cool off and five minutes later we are on level terms. The match is
easy to summarise: total domination; at least six good chances; more corners;
more shots in a ratio of ten to one; unmissable
chance for Berbatov right at the end, which he misses and its another 1-1
draw. Jimmy G2
21st April 2008 - Groundhog
day Its a nightmare, its an episode of Star Trek ,were caught
in a time loop, we cant stop taking the lead, playing half an hour of decent
football and then in true sporting spirit letting the other side have a go.
Our away record is pathetic and the number of points conceded after taking
the lead would be hilarious if it was happening to some other team. I repent
now in taking so much pleasure in the misfortunes at
Wednesday, 2 April 2008 - More Spurs musings from JimmyG2
I’m not arguing against the benefits of having
a lucky manager just that Lady Luck is
a fickle mistress who can soon depart us for another. Against They obviously don’t believe that they are playing
for their places…a worrying response. I don’t buy the 'bad day at
the office' excuse though I have used it myself after some dreadful games. We
have a Big Match mentality and this year it won us the Carling Cup and
produced better performances in the league against the top four, but in a
thirty eight game season this is a recipe for at worst disaster and at best
mid table mediocrity and Ramos has big job on his hands to address it and our
appalling away record Wednesday, 19
March 2008 - Spurs musings from JimmyG2 - Another frustrating week Ok so we lost the war but as
I predicted we won the battle. Not that it helps. To take the positives we beat
a champions league side away from home, played some good football and were
within one kick of going through. The downside was that Jenas
who has yet to convince Spurs fans had the chance to be the hero and misread
the script. I have argued his case for some time but hey fella
give us a hand. His side kick in the little playlet
was Chimbonda who also has his detractors and
missed his penalty in some style. Zokora and Bent
did their case some good with well taken kicks and O’Hara showed
character in stepping up when more experienced colleagues did not. Anyway we lost and so on to Man.City who usually donate three points even away from
home. I assume that Ramos knows exactly what he is doing and that all will
come right in the end.Is he not playing Tainio and O’Hara because their fates are sealed.
Is Gilberto injured, does he keep subbing Keane because he has a funny sense
of humour, does he keep Berbatov on even when he is
playing poorly because he hates to see a grown man cry? These are all questions that
only Juande and perhaps Gus know the answers to. Or do they? I think the
Juande Ramos tactical genius show is looking a little threadbare to this mere
fan. It certainly didn’t work against City. We went ahead, played some
nice football but apart from Keane’s brilliant strike managed very little
incisive passing. Two duff decisions by
linesmen and a return to our dire set play defending saw us concede the game
and we looked as if we could n’t really be bothered to win it. This
from players allegedly playing for their places. Unless Ramos has a strategy
for the remaining games which is not clear to me then we seem to be drifting
aimlessly to a bottom half finish. We need another win to be safe, then
perhaps we will see Taraabt, Peckart,
Rose et al starting games, unless Ramos is going to get rid of everyone
except Berbatov, Keane, King, Woodgate and Hutton
and can’t wait until the end of the season. Who knows? |
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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
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