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16 February 2007 -
How Soon Is Now?....... In what once again feels
like depressing times for Spurs fans it is only natural that
The Smiths might be considered appropriate for some as
background music. When I look at the present situation
with Spurs I honestly have no idea what I think anymore. The
problem is that I am burdened by 15 years of failure and, possibly,
one false dawn too many. All this makes an informed opinion
difficult for me these days. We've been told for the last
year or so that Spurs are now ready to hit the big time again. How
we are now knocking on the door of the big 4. Even how our squad
is now finally better than Arsenal's, even if our first eleven might not
be. And yet here we are again in freefall in the league
and a defeat to Arsenal's reserve team in a league cup
semi that we showed no ambition in once we had scored the first two
goals. 'Now' therefore suddenly seems further away than it has for
a while. We all know most of the positives and the
negatives so there's little point me listing them all here (we were
the 5th best team in the league only 8 months ago so this is just a blip
etc.......or.....we play uninspiring football considering the players we have
and the money we have spent, without any leadership, and have now
been found out etc). My gut feeling leans towards the latter but
I can't tell anymore whether this is because of the fact that
I have become so used to disappointment that I cannot see beyond
it. I do have a nagging feeling that a lot of Spurs fans have become the
footballing equivalent of battered housewifes as
far as Jol is concerned. He treats them well and they are so
pleased they are no longer being so obviously treated like
shit and publicly humiliated anymore that
they have become blinded to the fact that the new man in
their lives might not be so great. And, quite understandably, they
are fearful of dumping him in case the next bloke is more like the ones they
went out with before him who were a bit handy with their fists
(metaphorically of course, certainly in the case of Chalkbones).
But then I cannot deny that there is also a strong part of me that says,
despite the lack of an exciting and imaginative system of play so
far, he does seem to care about Spurs and he got us to
5th last year so maybe he deserves to be left alone for a while
to develop the team into one we can be proud of and associate with. Regardless of whether I believe in Jol or not
there are a couple of things that I can see, from a factual point of view,
have had a huge bearing on our season so far which should be
acknowledged. I can see that a keeper who gained us ten
extra points last season with his performances has possibly lost us the
equivalent amount this season. I can also see
that King has played less league games than he had this time last
season. Perhaps most importantly, I can see that the board gambled on
Zokora being an able replacement for Carrick, with the safety net of
Huddlestone coming through, and have lost that gamble in a big big way
as far as this season is concerned. Additionally, perhaps the present
backward step goes much deeper and there is the lack of a
winning attitude that generally exists within of our club? I
remember when we won the cup in 1991 our league form fell
apart . At the moment, whatever the logical arguments, I am resigned to the 'what will be will be' school of thought and I care less than I have for a while. Moody premiership league games in the pub are becoming much more attractive. Rather boringly therefore, I am going to allow time to convince me whether Jol, as much as I want him to do well, is sadly the son and heir of nothing in particular, or whether the presently negative opinion of so many Spurs fans is only because we've waited for so long that all our hope is gone |
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Columnist Profile –
‘One Danny Thomas’ |
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25th
January 2007 - Sven will Jol learn.... A draw at home to another premiership
club's reserves and in the end fairly fortunate to get that.
There's no other way that I can look at Wednesday night's events
than that. Incredibly I have heard it said by some Spurs fans
that Arsenal were the better team and that this means we should all
be happy we got a draw. What? I'm sorry but even that were
true, and I do not believe that they were better team, exactly what is it
that is being said here? If they were the better team then why on
earth were they the better team? We were playing against another
premiership club's reserve side for fuck's sake. A club that we
spent 75% of last season ahead of their first team. I am sorry to say
that, whether Arsenal were the better team last night or or
not, the buck stops with Jol. Once again it looks like he made a
decision to play with the hand break on and once again it cost us. Yes
they had some good players in their team last night but it was
still another premiership club's reserve team and we had more good players in
our team. We should have been looking at putting the whole
tie out of their reach last night especially when it went to 2-0. Jol
seemed to understand the need for fast aggressive and attacking football at
first then but then sadly reverted to type when we lost
Berbatov. Arsenal dominated the second half more than I can remember
their first team doing so at Ok things aren't all doom and gloom on
paper. We can still win turn this tie around and our UEFA Cup
chances look very promising. However, Jol continues to show
worrying tendencies to think like Erickson did for 4th
December 2006 - Jol-tally Unacceptable. Pathetic, spineless and shameful are the words that spring to mind
about Saturday. Defeat to the filth is
not an unfamiliar feeling to most Spurs fans in recent times but the manner
of this defeat was. Even our worst
sides over the last ten years have put up a better fight than this shower
did. Seeing some of them simply give
up, like Lennon did in the second half when he lost the ball in front of us,
was shocking. The bare minimum we as
fans must expect from our players is 100% commitment in this match more than
any. Why on earth Jol changed the forward line after the way Defoe and Berbatov
played together against 29th
November 2006 – rSol-less North London As we now approach the first 'Campbell-less'
North London derby since Campbell left White Hart Lane for Arsenal, the
rights and wrongs of what happened back in 2001 are somewhat old
hat these days. In a perverse way I'll almost miss him not
being there on Saturday as he achieved the seemingly unachievable by
actually increasing the atmosphere of these occasions. On this
note, Spurs fans have taken a bit of a hammering at times in the
media as a result of their treatment of It should
never be forgotten that the vast amounts of money swishing about in
football are primarily as a result of the passion of the
football fan. Football fans are generally irrational when it comes to
football. Their passion prevents them from being too
rational and it is for this reason (unless you play for The trouble
with passion, however, is that its not a one sided coin. Its not a tap
that you can simply turn on or off. Football fans
are generally unable to see the players of the team they
support as mere 'employees' due to this passion they have for their
clubs. The players do the job that the fans can only dream
about doing. The minute all of this changes is the minute that the
big money from football disappears. If this ever happens,
then players will probably be quite entitled
to treat playing football as 'just a job'......because at that
point they will be earning the wages of 'just a job'. I am sure
footballers would love to have all of the trappings that the good
side of fan passion brings; namely money, lifestyle, women,
hero worship, strong vocal support when playing, without any
of the bad. But human beings do not work that way and football fans, on
the whole at least, remain members of the human race. The long
and the short of it, therefore, is that the very reason Campbell was treated
as a hero by the fans at White Hart Lane when he played there, and the very
reason Spurs had enough money in their accounts to offer him wages
of approximately £80k per week to stay, is directly related
to the very reason that he became, and continues to be, such a hate
figure to Spurs fans. Its the other side of the same coin. The
fact he no longer players for Arsenal does not change what he did and
the manner in which he did it. So,
though I'd agree that things such as death threats and physical
violence etc etc are obviously wrong and an extreme
level of passion far outside what can be justified, I for one am
quite comfortable with the fact that Campbell continues to this day
to be the subject of vocal abuse by Spurs fans (albeit to a
much lesser extent as time goes by). No doubt the media will pass
comment next week that Spurs fans were "still" singing about
Sol Campbell at the Emirates. Lets hope they're also
commenting on a famous win as Spurs fans have much more to sing about
these days, thankfully, than just Sol Campbell. As
aside, I wonder whether 20th Nov 2006 - Pull
the other one... Anyone
who has supported Spurs for long enough to know how these things work won't
have been surprised by the events of last Sunday. Things were going too well.
Moving up the league, into the last eight of the league cup (with a tidy
draw), top of our UEFA group and having just beat The
only genuinely disturbing event of the day for me, therefore, was the
chanting of "We beat the Scum 2-1" from the traveling Spurs fans. Until
the Russians came to town Chelsea were simply the bloke in your street who
suddenly had a nice car, new extension built, a drive way put in,
conservatory round the back and everyone thought he must be doing well for
himself. At face value he certainly was. Except in reality he wasn't. He'd
bought it all on credit cards and bank loans to simply make up for the fact
all the other people in the road worth talking about had done better for
themselves through genuine hard work and achievement over the years. He owned
none of it and it was all a facade. Tuesday, November 07, 2006
- Spurs 2 So
the phoney world class left back Ashley Cole feels
that he got the rough end of it on Sunday from the man in black. Cole says
that, after being told by Graham Poll to move back further for a free kick
just before half time, he refused as he thought he had already moved back far
enough. Poll then told him to move back or get booked. Cole didn't. Cole then
got booked. Who would have thought it? Its certainly not like Graham Poll is
renown for his use of the yellow card. Reality
and Ashley seem as well unaquainted as ever. First
of all we have the nonsense about his wages. Now he's upset because the
referee is the person that applies what he believes the rules to be during
the course of a football match rather than him. Poor Cheryl. She mustn't win
a single argument in the Cole household and there must be plenty of them.
Mind you, the tale of the tape suggests she could probably beat the shit out
of him. |
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