Season 2009-10

England v Croatia

/ Alan / 3 Comments

As the World Cup qualifier against Croatia looms, I confess to having little enthusiasm for the England international team. It isn’t outright antagonism (I’ll certainly watch the match), more a mild case of indifference.  Whilst I want them to win, the lack of any excitement on my part serves only to heighten my anticipation of the Manchester United game this coming Saturday, when adrenalin and the desire for victory will create an intoxicating brew.

Notice I wrote ‘them’, not ‘us’. Didn’t think about it, that’s just the way it came out. For some this admission denotes an absence of patriotism bordering on the treasonable, but I’m not alone. Several of my fellow bloggers have recorded similar feelings, and last year when the Spurs Odyssey messageboard www.spursodyssey.com discussed this, a large number of contributors clearly stated that Spurs meant more to them than England. The majority of people I know who are fervent England fans do not support a Premier League team as passionately.

The Croatian contingent at Tottenham poses another layer of varied and complex dilemmas. I really don’t want them to win, but if I am honest I would have liked our three to have all played extremely well. Maybe 4-3 to England, hat-trick for JD and Luka man of the match. No Modric of course, and Corluka obligingly managed to get sent off at the weekend so he can rest up nicely, thank you very much. Obviously he has the same focus on Saturday as I do, but am I the sole Spurs fan who would prefer Kranjcar to play better than Lampard?

This is very different from when I first started to watch England. In those days, Spurs and England both stirred the emotions equally. In my teens in the 70s I attended several internationals at Wembley. Living in West London, I just hopped on the 83 bus, tickets were cheap and plentiful, and Wembley still had that sense of mystery as a special place, kept exclusively for the biggest games, floodlights bathing the fading paint and rusting girders in a magical glow. I wore my Spurs scarf, to show where my true loyalties lay, and puffed out my chest with pride if any of our players did well. Seeing Hoddle score against Bulgaria in his debut was a great moment.

In those days it felt like the fans came together to get behind England, setting aside club rivalries and united under the banner of national pride. No one ever gave me any stick for wearing my colours. Now, club allegiances are more deeply entrenched. The all-consuming Premier League, with the media hype, the shirts, the merchandise and the international stars, dominates football.

The other major change that affects our attitude towards the national team is the way we relate to the individual players. In the 70s and 80s, visiting stars received a fair amount of stick at the Lane but it was nowhere near as strident as it is today. The worst chant I can recall was the one that pursued the Chelsea keeper Peter Bonetti for years after the Germany game at Mexico 1970. ‘Bonetti lost the World Cup, and so say all of us’ was hardly going to have Spurs fans being hauled up in court….

Much of the blame falls squarely on the shoulders of the players. Their enormous wealth and apparent prioritising of celebrity status over an honest performance has distanced them from the fans. If Lampard delights in displaying his life in Hello magazine, or on his own Orange channel, then dashes over to bait the Park Lane when he scores, then he should also realise the bitterness that such behaviour creates when people are paying a fortune for the privilege of watching him play football.

Ashely Cole was loudly barracked during the recent international against Kazakhstan. The media pompously castigated the fans (or ‘so-called fans’ as they became) for so doing. Supporters are always blamed as being fickle and stupid in such circumstances, but curiously we are not foolish when we turn up week in week out, or buy the shirt, or shell out half a week’s wages for tickets, food and transport. That night Cole got what was coming to him. He was not playing well but more significantly, as was missed by all the media, he had built up a huge groundswell of resentment. This loathsome oick is rich, talented and has a beautiful wife, yet he’s in and out of bed with every passing mini-skirt and chooses to remind us how shocked he was at being offered a mere 60k a week by the Arse. It’s not the money that truly irks me, rather it’s his overbearing arrogance in the fact that in his autobiography he genuinely expected us to empathise with his troubles. Poor old Ashley.

So if we do not unequivocally join hands as one to back Capello’s boys, it is the players not the fans who need to take a hard look at themselves, for it is they who have created a chasm of bitterness that cannot be spanned just by pulling on an England shirt.

Success for Defoe – This Time

/ Alan / 1 Comment

Yes, there’s nothing like an England friendly to soothe the nerves. Time to doze contentedly. An oasis of calm in an overwhelmingly frenzied world. Just a few moments contemplating the utter pointlessness of it all and I’m away. Peter Drury helps enormously: as he drones on, I drift off.

My heavy eyelids flickered open just in time to see Our Brave Boys combine for England’s second goal. It must be a reflex after all these years. My subconscious filters out all the dross but instinctively sends a swift burst of energy through the cortex as soon as there is a mention of anything Tottenham.

Even when the fixtures are suspended for the international break, everything still goes right for Spurs. I am genuinely pleased for JD, especially as I have already nominated him as my key man if success at White Hart Lane is to be achieved this season. He looks very good. A confidence player, he’s playing regularly and his self-belief is sky high. For me, the best element of his demeanour is that he looks well-balanced on the ball and when on the move, created by improved upper body strength that centres his core muscles.

Churlish though it may be to criticise such a fine goal, it may not be as indicative of his progress as the pundits appear to believe. He had a fraction of space at the edge of the box and with two defenders in front of him chose to shoot. It worked, this time. The problem is, we Spurs fans are the ones who know, because we have seen him do exactly the same thing many, many times, and the ball hits the opponent and bounces away. If we are honest, too often Defoe tries angles, whether for shots or passes, that do not exist.

All strikers are arrogant. That in this context is a compliment. When the pressure is at its most severe, they have the task of focussing totally on one single movement, that of putting the ball in the back of the net. To do so consistently there is no room for even a scintilla of doubt. You have to be one hell of a cocky so and so, and JD is that, to be sure. In the long run, however, JD has to have more than one trick at his disposal. Against Birmingham he missed a couple of passes that could have set others up. Later in yesterday’s game, through on goal he hesitated in two minds and was too easily ushered to the safety of the corner of the box. Don’t keep blasting away, JD, there’s more than one way to be a hero.

Meanwhile, the provider of the goal is making excellent progress on the faults in his game. Aaron Lennon had a quiet match but was effective in everything that he did. He had plenty of space, more so than in the Premier League, but for Rooney’s chance he burst into the gap decisively and with the ball under control found his man, qualities similar to those he is displaying each week for Spurs.

He works back well too. No matter that he tackles with the force of Kate Moss applying blusher, he’s in the right place and opponents have to work to get past. If a player is good enough to beat him for skill or pace, fine, but I guarantee 99% of left midfielders won’t.

That was more than enough excitement for one day. My last glance at the screen before settling back into the comfort blanket of sofa and pint of Pedigree revealed Stuart Pearce earnestly giving instructions to Carlton Cole with the aid of big pictures in his loose leaf folder. I guess the players have trouble with words.

Spurs Rise To The 10:10 Environment Challenge

/ Alan / Leave a comment
The boys at the Lodge

The boys at the Lodge

Tottenham Hotspur have signed up to the 10:10 environmental campaign to reduce carbon emissions.

This new campaign, launched on Monday, has a simple aim: we all reduce our carbon emissions by 10% in 2010. Spurs are founding participants, currently the only major club to back the scheme so publicly.

Full details of the campaign can be found here: http://www.1010uk.org. It’s a sound idea. Instead of fretting every time we see a David Attenborough documentary about polar bears falling into the ocean because the Arctic icecap is melting faster than a Mivvi in a three year old’s hand, we can all do something practical about it. Households, companies and football clubs unite. World leaders may be making earnest but totally unrealistic promises at various summits (it’s OK, behind their backs they had crossed their fingers. Feynights!!) but We the People can start right here right now.

This could mean changes at the Lane. No doubt Peter ‘Crusty’ Crouch will be off to join the peace camp on Blackheath, whilst David Bentley will trade in his Porsche for a Prius. Oh no, hang on, make that the number 57 bus, at least for another year. Harry is committed to turning off the heating in his manager’s seat on the bench, and training will be suspended as the boys gambol through green meadows, lace daisies in their hair and call each other sister. Wilson has undertaken to run only 37 miles every match. If only Keano could be re-classified as the N17 windfarm project and harnessed to the National Grid, then his arm-waving might actually achieve something.

The 10:10 campaign is an entirely laudable and worthwhile project and all credit to Tottenham for being in the vanguard. Football clubs are rightly castigated for their lack of involvement in the wider community but this is just one example of several over the past few years where Spurs have demonstrated a sense of their wider responsibilities. They were among the top givers to charity amongst clubs in figures released last year (far above the Arse), they are actively involved in local projects for children and young people with a disability and their education project greatly assists local children.

Is It Safe?

/ Alan / 4 Comments

The transfer window is closed and Tottenham Hotspur have concluded their business.

Our new Director of Football

Our new Director of Football

Is it safe? Is it safe? I detest the window, or more accurately the hullabaloo that surrounds it. I love the banter and camaraderie of the messageboards, so why is it that as deadline day nears, everyone goes mental? The bloke who texts the Sky Sports News ticker that his cousin’s best mate’s dad is a taxi driver and he’s been told to pick up Van der Vaart from Heathrow to take him to White Hart Lane is not telling the truth. Yet these and other similar rumours have been picked over and debated for the past few weeks on the boards. Oh, and is it too late to mention Van der Vaart was in the Dutch squad for an international at the time???

I am currently holidaying in not-sodding-sunny Cornwall and mercifully have been spared the ghastly spectacle of Sky Sports News on deadline day. Oh these gorgeous Cornwall villages and their cottages, oak beams, slate floors, roses growing round the window and only 5 T V channels – so delightfully quaint! I am therefore indebted to the Guardian online for the information that SSN knew big things were in store for Spurs today because, “Normally Harry Redknapp gives us a wave when he arrives at the training ground.”

I expect it was a full day of Standing Outside in the Cold news. Why do they have to stand outside a training ground or stadium to tell us what is happening? That is actually the last place to be, not only away from where decisions are being made but also out of  touch with other news-gathering sources. I’ll tell you what is happening outside the grounds – nothing. So then they spend several minutes telling us in excited, conspiratorial tones that nothing is happening.

As technology goes, Teletext will in years to come be regarded as the media equivalent of betamax. I never really mastered the knack of going back one page without it going through every page over again, and then missing out the one I wanted. But oh how I miss the humble page 302 now. Information. Plain and simple. This has happened. That’s all I needed to know. If the chief teletext reporter had a moustache like Ned Sanders, it was hidden from view. Irrelevant.

Pass the oil of cloves, deep breaths, HOLD and relax. The last few days have been good for Spurs. Kranjcar is a superb player, technically gifted, good on the ball and highly astute. Good for a passing game and for retaining possession, links well with the strikers, does things at set pieces. A steal at that price: this blog is unreservedly delighted at his arrival.

This is no short-term over for Modric’s injury nor squad-building, although we do have strength and quality in depth. He could initially slot in on the left but could play anywhere in midfield. Maybe Luka will settle into centre midfield, probably his preferred position, or we adopt the flexibility of the Croatian team, where they have a hard working, fluid midfield who support the man on the ball and use the space without having totally fixed positions across the field. Palacios will enable them to play. The prospects are genuinely exciting.

O’Hara’s loan looked at first glance as a sign that he was on the way out, but now it’s more like a sweetener to seal the Kranjcar deal. Portsmouth needed to bring players in before any could leave, because their squad looks well sort of Premier League quality. They will struggle and Boeteng will not help their cause. In 40 years of watching Spurs, I have never been so underwhelmed by a substantial signing. His brief performances proved only that he was a liability, full of hasty late tackles, conceding possession and positional naivety. Being skilful and promising takes you only so far. 4 million – thank you very much.

Finally, kudos to Daniel Levy. I’ve been extremely critical of his work in the transfer market in the past. This time last year he was desperate to buy any striker at any price and still failed, whilst letting Arshavin slip through our fingers is a cardinal sin. However, in the past he has shrewdly played clubs who he feels are weaker than us. Taking Keane and Lennon at the last minute from Leeds is a case in point, as is our ability to come up with cash for Sheffield United and the Kyles, and thereby outmanoeuvre our rivals Everton. All three deals with Portsmouth have been perfectly judged.