24th October 2007 -
Surprise! Spurs only 1 point down on last year’s performance.
I decided
to do a par rating for Tottenham against our league
performance last year. I wanted to know just how badly we
were doing compared with results against the same teams
in our previous season. The aim was mainly to check out
how well we have to do for the rest of the season to get
5th again, 4th being now
exceedingly unlikely.
To my
surprise we have not dropped many more points than we
usually do under Martin Jol. Our high expectations and an
opening sequence of games including 3 top 4 teams and
some Hoodoo teams have made things look even worse not
withstanding that we are sitting in the relegation zone).
Bearing
in mind that last year was not that auspicious and that
we were holding off 6th place rather than, the
year before, challenging for 4th, we are just
1 point down on last year’s results (being liberal
with allocating relegation-team comparisons). That said
it means we expect a win with Blackburn’s visit (where
we only got a draw last year) which will put our par at +1
point, believe it or not. For those who say “the
table does not lie” I say to them: “the table
does not lie after 38 games.”
A look at
our par for the kind of results we need to challenge for
the Champions League is sorrier reading, though, with us
14 points behind. Where can we pick up that many points?
Nowhere unless we start paying Clattenberg and his ilk
whatever Liverpool and Manchester United are willing to.
For all
the boardroom bungles and hot&cold football Tottenham
can still be in Europe next year. Now, how do you win a
game again? Answers on a postcard to “Martin Jol, White
Hart Lane, North London”.
What has
been proven, almost beyond doubt, in the last 10 games is
that BMJ is not the man to take the club back to the top,
should it be capable of getting there at all. He is a
good stepping stone but the board will have to look
around for tomorrow's man.
More
worrying than Jol is that it seems proven that this board
may not be the people to guide Spurs back to glory. After
the Graham Gaffe, Hoddle horror, the Pleat blunder*, the
Santini shuffle, the Arnesen arse-up and then paying GBP16mil
for what appears to be a donkey they horribly unsettle
the entire team and the coach by going behind Jol's back
to Juande Ramos, being publicly rejected and then denying
the whole thing.
These are
not elegant people, they are idiots playing schoolboy
games and the magical Ramos trick was an attempt at a
quick buck which resulted, instead, in a disappearing
Champions League.
*-
thesaurus let me down... what can I say
spursfans.co.za
4th September 2007
- 4th Place, no worries!
The Spurs board have, in
recent weeks, been behaving with the same careful thought
as a crack whore and the forward planning of a death-row
inmate. Had Levy timed his attempted coup just a little
better, after the Fulham game, there would have been few
bleats in the wilderness supporting the Dutchman but I,
after some time to lick my wounds, would have been one of
them.
The problem of a four-game
management replacement is awful timing: it shows weakness
in planning and faith in your own structures and
personnel. If BMJ was to be replaced the intelligent, not
to say courageous, time to do it would have been out of
season after the man had, for the second time, secured us
the top5 finish we deserved. Give a new manager time to
bed the team down, introduce new training and establish
his tactics. Put your own arse on the line, Levy, you
coward.
I have no idea, if I am
honest, whether Ramos is a better manager than BMJ. Spain
is a different kettle of Europeans to the English game, a
kettle I do not watch often, boiling or not. With my
limited viewing of European footie I would say the Dutch
game is a little closer in style and substance to the EPL
so a "Jol" would probably have needed a shorter
adaptive period than a "Juan".
Jol has, ultimately,
results on his side with two 5th place finishes. I am
also, for the most part, enjoying the (largely positive)
football we play- not including the trip to Sunderland
and the last 15 minutes against the hapless Fulham.
Unlike BMJ I am a man who thinks attack is the best form
of defence- keep the opponents stretched and nervy,
don’t defend in your own penalty area and always
look for another goal but I am not being paid a million
pounds to manager an EPL team so perhaps Martin knows his
stuff and I should get off my high horse, saddle sores
and all.
The top 4 look more
vulnerable than ever. Manchester United and Arsenal lack
depth. Chelsea look shaky at the back even with Terry and
Benitez at Liverpool has yet to prove to be anything
special within the English game. United lose to City, Chelsea
to Villa. Neither are special teams, neither are managed
by a special manager. This year everything is up for
grabs and we have what looks like a “Best of the
Rest” manager in a run of rotten luck under all the
wrong kinds of pressure.
If we don’t make top4
we will never know if Martin Jol could have done it with
a little help from his friends and the fault should be
laid at the feet of the board. If we make top5 I, for one,
will still be happy. Stability is smart. Football is long-term,
not short-term and this year we should be targeting a
piece of silverware- preferably in Europe, to get the
players into a “we can win, we have class”
mentality.
Nonetheless, I still see us
finishing in the top4 under Jol this season. Robbie Keane
is the key, more so than Berbatov and his goals, largely
because of his fight and drive. And if Defoe wants to
start he could add to his case by, say, getting a shot on
target sometime soon. Bale looks like something special
and our left wing solution- no wonder we paid 10 million
for him, people can stop complaining now. Spurs could do
worse than also pushing Ekotto (le sulk part 2) into a
more forward position with his pace as a backup. With
returning defenders we have some clean sheets due us once
they settle down to play properly with each other.
There is a positive to the
rough start. At the gun we were part of a journalist's
“top5.” We were a team to beat. Opponents were
more fired up, more aggressive and more prepared than
they would have been for other teams. Now we are
“also-rans,” “in turmoil” and
generally discounted as low in morale and unable to
perform. Spurs are a team that bottles under pressure (still,
unfortunately) and having the pressure off the players
can only be a good thing.
The prediction: Our
second half to the season will be better than the first
half with our new stars settled, just like last year.
Look to us finishing around 3 positions higher than we
are on January 1st: 3rd or 4th.
A final word: there are
better managers than Martin Jol. Until Tottenham has one
hook, line and sinker it makes no sense to unsettle
matters.
spursfans.co.za- a place for south african
spurs fans to meet
11th August
2007 - Kicking the wrong end of the donkey…
Sunderland
is reputedly to be from the Anglo Saxon “to part,”
the only thing you want to do when you get there. Spurs
will be happy to see the back of the place for another
year, probably more if Sunderland continue to play
looking for draws at home and riding their luck.
Jol has
decided the blame for the opening match loss at Sunderland
was with the strikers. If the defence had, first, earned
what should have been an easy clean sheet for the
Lilywhites I might have agreed with the man but, under
the circumstances, I don’t. Lucky goals scored in
the referee’s added on optional time- 93m05s found
the goal in the back of the net, are all well and good
and part of the excitement of the game. Haplessly
conceded goals against unimaginative opponents barely
willing to cross their laid out Maginot line across
midfield while playing at home is entirely another.
Spurs
were without their first choice defence of King and
Dawson. YP-Lee, Ekotto and Bale were all unavailable on
the left. That meant the only first choice defensive
person on the field for Tottenham was Chimbonda leaving
Kaboul alongside Gardner and Stalteri on the left.
It was,
then, ironic that it was Chimbonda that was caught ball-
watching while the man he was meant to be marking planted
the ball in the back of the net. The less- than-
brilliant Stalteri had played above himself all match,
making him a passable left back, but had been unable to
stop a cross coming in from Tottenham’s left. Gardner,
having made his one horrendous cock- up for the match and
gotten away with it, stuck to his man as the ball sailed
overhead. The one bright point was Kaboul who had been
all but outstanding and will be a great alongside Dawson
on his return.
The
strikers who Jol jumped on were swamped by a 10-man
defence. Without any natural wide players to stretch the
northerner’s defence it was like trying to play your
way through an old- fashioned London phone booth. With
dodgier accents and a coal mine next door.
In the
end fourth- choice defenders are fourth- choice for a
reason. Hopefully Dawson will return for the visit of
Everton.
midnightjester
spursfans.co.za-
a place for SA spurs fans to meet
24th
July 2007 – Spurs in South
Africa – Pirates 1-2 Spurs
So
far the tour has shown up the worst of Africa in some
dodge officiating and the best of Africa in some awesome
crowds. The two came
to
a head in the Orlando Pirates game as Pirates fans joined
the Tottenham fans in jeering the referee as he allowed a
penalty to be taken over not once, but twice, and by a
different player (which I must admit I was unaware was
against the rules...). But Cerny did move off the line
both times.
Three
severe storm-fronts decided to take a quick 2 hr break
for the fans to enjoy the match sans creeping damp and
whereas the 2-1 result against Chiefs with Spurs fielding
their 'A' team was a little lucky the Spurs 'B' team were
hard done to be left with only a one goal cushion.
Man
of the first half and probably the game was Taraabt
running (like a girl) down the touchline in front of me.
Plenty of pace, plenty of skill and filled with the
desire to perform it's unbelievable that this kid of 17
isn't being hailed with a similar sort of passion to
Lennon.
Kaboul
looks solid as a rock at the back and good on the ball
although he made a good few fluffs of it but also an
incredible shot from half-way between the box and halfway
line turning the keeper to spectator and being denied
only by the upright. If he was 29 he would
be
considered a defender good enough for a top- six team at
least. At 21 with his whole career in front of him he
looks like the continuation of Campbell- King line...
except French.
Playing
Huddlestone was a mistake against a team of 4-inch animaniacs
as it was against Arsenal last year- a player better
suited to playing against a more physical midfield- but
looked good on the ball if often too slow to change
direction to cover going back.
Jenas
made a decent Captain, Bent showed he had the class to
place and not blast the ball tapping it over the keeper
and into an open net, Defoe showed the same incredible ommitment
to pressurise the defence off the ball and got a great (saved)
shot away and had the joy of being taller than at least
half of Pirates players, Gardner did some decent
defending without major mistakes a contrast to Stalteri
who proved that there is room for him on the transfer
list- give me Philip Ifil.
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