Season 2009-10

Spurs Superb Victory Against Hull

/ Alan / 4 Comments

Tottenham Hotspur produced a scintillating attacking display to defeat Hull City 5-1, with a hat-trick from Jermain Defoe.

This blog’s influence is obviously spreading fast. No sooner do I pronounce Defoe as our key man this season than he comes up with three gems like those. He looks lean, well-muscled and, most significantly, willing to take the coaches’ advice, constantly moving into channels between the defenders rather than running into dead ends.

Defoe’s second and third were not only well-taken – the ball was completely under his control from the moment he took possession – but also breathtakingly executed, that split second’s dramatic pause before he pulled the trigger adding to the thrill as the ball creamed the back of the net, keeper helpless. Brilliant goalscoring, absolutely brilliant.

Also, as ahem! I suggested last week, he’s thinking about it, timing his runs to perfection rather than being trapped offside. His first was the least dramatic but perhaps the most telling in terms of his development this season. He stayed calm and picked his spot.

Hull obligingly made it simple enough for Hudd, Keane and Luka to slide the ball into those channels. The huge gaps between their defence and midfield were ripe for exploitation and their ineffectual attack seldom posed problems. The familiar manner in which Spurs surrendered the initiative after that stupid free kick was sadly reassuring. Bet in your head you wrote the match report right there, huh? Yet again allowing inferior teams a probably winning come back, Spurs’ soft underbelly, where’s the guts? How many times, how many sodding times…

Stronger teams than Hull would have turned the screw at that point but Tottenham kept playing and passing, better in possession than last season even when we weren’t getting anywhere in particular. However, this is about those moments of explosive brilliance. This is about having great fun watching Tottenham tear a team apart, about expecting moments of brilliance, not despairing at their absence, not hoping but believing we will score.

I’m still not convinced about Keane and Defoe together but huge kudos to Harry Redknapp for having the guts to select them as well as enabling them to combine so efficiently. Here’s me having a page on his quotes and I can’t find the one about this topic from last year, but I’m sure when asked about the problems of playing Keane and Defoe, he corrected the questioner, saying other managers had had problems….And Crouch coming on as sub – how reassuring is that??!!

So let’s leave the portents and enjoy it for a few days. A fantastic game. Thanks JD.

Give Us a Smile, Benny

/ Alan / Leave a comment

Benoit Assou-Ekotto scored his first ever goal for Spurs against Liverpool on Sunday, and it was a beauty.

In the London Paper, he described it as an odd feeling, strange at first then he got to like it. Same as the first time for all of us, Benny.

MOTD followed him off the pitch and he could not resist the attention, suddenly turning to the camera with a big grin and making a V-sign. In a good way. Actually, it was a touch disconcerting, more grimace than grin with a presumably unintentional touch of the Shining.

Perhaps that was me, because I’m not used to seeing Bennyboy smile, or for that matter, any expression cross his face to shatter his impassive mask of concentration. At White Hart Lane I sit near the halfway line, close enough to the pitch to look into the whites of the players’ eyes. BAE’s expression seldom changes during a match. A winger flying by might be signalled by a Gallic raise of the eyebrows, but other than mild surprise that’s all you get.

I never felt this blankness indicated total focus on his performance, rather, a slight indifference to everything. This fed into the rumours that he wanted to return to France. However, one change is apparent: he no longer shows fear. I always rated him as an extremely talented player with good control and passing skills, and credit to the much maligned Comolli for spotting that, but he never seemed suited to the pressure of the Prem. Now, that focus is there, born of the confidence of a series of excellent displays last season and of the confidence of his manager.

I detest the comedy mugging towards the camera now de rigueur for goalscorers, and don’t get me started on those choreographed goal celebrations (I said, don’t get me started…). But for once, I was glad to see Benny’s grinning mug. He enjoyed that goal and he enjoys our Spurs. If he’s happy, I’m happy.

Luka, It Must Be Love

/ Alan / 2 Comments

Even though this blog is still wet behind the ears, I cannot believe that I have not yet raved about the boy genius that is Luka Modric. Maybe I have, so let’s do it again.

His leap of annoyance as Keane’s lame shot was pushed over by Reina could well be the most significant moment of Spurs’ season. Keano as usual tried to be too clever. The ball demanded to be clipped across the keeper with the instep. He should have taken his cue from the guy who set it up. A straightforward pass slotted into the space, precise and perfectly weighted, beguiling in its simplicity and one of many similarly composed and assured touches on Sunday afternoon.

The position from which it was delivered proved how involved he will be this season. Coming off the left wing, not drifting aimlessly but with purpose, he is less easy to mark, possessed of freedom born of the certainty that the unselfish Palacios will cover.

That gesture: if he’s involved then he wants his teammates to respond in kind. The fact that it was a public display means that he is no longer overawed by more senior colleagues. Finally, it proved it matters. Tottenham Hotspur matter.

If Modric plays, really plays, then we play. Last year comparisons with the incomparable Ardilles seemed fanciful and overblown, but nevertheless I went right ahead and made them, Now we’ll see it. The short rapid strides, pass and move, shaping the pace of play, charming the game as it falls under his spell.

This precious talent is overawed by the Premier League no longer. I still have a paternal eye on his frail frame but he’s big enough to look after himself. The TV experts often airily dismissed him last season solely due to his stature. One immutable law in Punditland is ‘small plus foreign equals inadequate’. But Luka was brought up in the battleground of the Croatian leagues where as a young man he was an easy target. He’s stronger than he looks and he problems, such as they were, were the usual requirements of a young man settling in a new country with a new team with a manager who did not buy him.

And let’s not forget Harry Redknapp, who has spotted the potential of this shining diamond (but not geezer) and is building the midfield around him. This is the sort of tactic that I referred to last week around the importance of Redknapp’s nouse in our campaign this season. Now just hold onto him in the window, for goodness sake. We love you Luka, I do….

Spurs’ Premier League Season Begins

/ Alan / 4 Comments

Today is the start of the Premier League season. The real start, I mean, when Tottenham Hotspur kick off at 4pm. Don’t what yesterday was about. That Arsenal thing, that didn’t really happen, did it. Why was MOTD on last night when the league begins this afternoon?

Although I look forward to every new season with the anticipation of a 7 year old at bedtime on Christmas Eve, it usually takes a few weeks for me to build up a head of steam that will then last me right through until next May. This year will be the one where we do well but primarily I’ll enjoy the football, whatever happens. Just a privilege to be there and support the team. Don’t really care who wins the league. Europe – OK, a bonus.

That’s all bollo of course. Same every year, the identical exercise in self-deception. Something turns it. With Spurs it’s usually a couple of pathetic defeats against rubbish, occasionally the bright sparks of a fine win ignites the flames of this one true love.

This year, however, is different. Dear friends, I have made a cataclysmic error. 9 on the Richter Scale of cock-ups. The end of the world is nigh. Life will never be the same again. I have arranged to attend a family lunch. This afternoon. Chamberlain returning from Berlin with a piece of paper. Decca passing on signing the Beatles. Nothing in comparison with this unprecedented disaster.

I was consulted. This is what truly rankles. None of this family calendar clash, mainly because we don’t have one. The trip to my wife’s brother will be fun, he and his kids are good people. But I check everything, double and triple check. A cautious nature, each trip out of the house involves a ritual of rifling through pockets and mental checklists – keys money handkerchief glasses. Lately it’s got worse if anything, ever since 10 years ago I parked the car and left the handbrake off. Nothing happened – the car moved 3 inches – but that’s not the point.

But this time, this god forsaken moment frozen forever in eternity, I did not look in the diary. Convinced that we were kicking off early on Saturday, arrangements were made. Did I mention he doesn’t have Sky Sports?

Of course there will be other games but surely this is the top of the slippery slope as I begin the inexorable decent towards degeneration and senility. You have to understand that I have never done anything remotely similar in 40 years of watching Spurs regularly. I’ve annoyed friends, infuriated girlfriends and stretched relationships to breaking point and beyond, all because I must get to the match.

Soon I’ll be popping out of the house and not knowing why, repeating comments endlessly and leaving the gas on when I go out, which even for me in my geriatric state will be some achievement as we are all-electric.

So enjoy the game, you bastards. Have bloody fun why don’t you. We’re in the deepest country somewhere in Essex, so in case the texts and radio fail I’ve lined up a carrier pigeon as back-up. You can’t be too careful.