Season Preview 2010/11 – I’m Worried That I’m Not Worried

August 12, 2010August 12, 2010 / Alan / 16 Comments

This afternoon my son and I will conduct our regular pre-season ritual. We could have the season tickets posted to us, but instead we opt to travel for 90 minutes to queue up in a portakabin then wander round the outside of an empty football ground. No doubt we will be tempted by some ludicrously over-priced items of tacky clothing. And we will relish every moment, because there’s nowhere else we would rather be. I’m ready now.

Last season’s predictions pondered on the clichéd but oh-so-true summary of the pain and joy of being a fan: it’s not the despair that gets you, it’s the hope. If true, then this term promises to be excruciating, because the hope has never in recent times been greater.

I’m trying not to write or talk about Spurs being in the Champions League. We’re just in the qualifiers, but if thinking about something that has not yet happened is a jinx, then too late. A top European team, at the Lane, under lights, the hairs on the back of my neck are bristling as I type.

This isn’t the pandemic of blind optimism that spreads like the plague throughout football in these two weeks in August. For Spurs, this is reality. We finished 4^th on merit. That when the media blather on and on about the top four, they’re talking about us (not Sky, obviously. They awarded Liverpool 4^th on an honorary basis). That we will be a target for every single team that plays us. That in every match we must confront the pressure to deliver. I hope the players have come to terms with this because I’m not sure I have. I’m a Spurs fan, I’m not used to this. My emotional territory is wasted promise, dashed expectations and a lack of fulfilment gnawing away at my very soul.

We have a strong squad with several emerging players who can only get better, a good team ethos and above all a growing sense of confidence and resilience. There’s talent and cover in every position and excellence in a few. Harry’s lack of transfer activity has no doubt left him twitching like expiring roadkill but players of the quality we require are in short supply and whilst it is frustrating, Levy is totally right to not panic buy and pay inflated prices for inferior goods.

Anyway, we have been richly successful in the market this year: we’ve kept our best and most coveted players. Modric was Ancellotti’s first choice in midfield but instead he’s signed a long-term contract. Huddlestone, Lennon and Dawson have all signed up over the last 6 months or so. Levy has moved purposefully to do the deals before the window opened. Brilliant business, and a sign of the optimism amongst the squad as a whole. We’re also looking to the future with deals for promising young players like Townsend, Caulker and, today, Dean Parrett.

Nor do we need to sell in order to buy. I’m sure Harry has said we do, and I’m equally certain that he said on another occasion that we didn’t, but we’re used to the bout of temporary Alzheimer’s that hits twice a year, in January and the summer. Our financial position is strong and I would not get rid of any of our current players until we were certain an upgrade was in place. There is simply no need: the demands on the squad’s depth will be unprecedented this coming season.

More of the personnel in a moment, what comes first is the tactics. Harry’s keen on 4-4-2 and has bought the players to put that into practice. That’s his distinctive ability as a manager: he buys men to do a job then enables them to get on with it. So we have the big man/little man up front, a flying winger and strength and skill in midfield.

The rest of the league may not let us get away with this. A few weeks ago I was musing about the effect of the World Cup on the Premier League. The Prem has often been accused of inhabiting its own little environment, oblivious to the changing climate around it, and there’s no doubt that the physical pace of our game marks it as different from, say, La Liga or the Scudetto. However, 4-4-2 was soundly discredited in the World Cup, where most teams operated with five in midfield. Their actual set-ups differed – some had two DMs and 3 further forward, others turned 4-5-1 into an attacking 4-3-3 as soon as they won possession – but they all had 5 in midfield when they did not have the ball and the team with a four, England, were easily outnumbered. The skill factor is nullified if you are overwhelmed, and I predict that many Premier League teams will continue the safety-first trend of last year by using this formation against us.

Two other lessons emerged from the best teams in South Africa. One, midfield players were flexible, masters of every facet of their art rather than just excelling in a single area. For example, defensive midfielders weren’t crunching enforcers, they were mobile, alert and able to distribute the ball once they got hold of it. Their team-mates chased back and bombed forward time and again.

Secondly, possession is the new religion. It’s one thing playing a high tempo and moving the ball forward but in both attack and defence, keeping the ball is an absolute priority. If the opposition haven’t go the ball, they can’t score.

So where does all this leave Spurs? Whilst we proved that we could defend, especially at home (and I have to say our low goals against was a big surprise to me), we’re at our best when we take the game to the opposition and we must play to our strengths. Mindful of our opponents, we can’t allow them to dictate to us. That’s what the best teams do – they dictate the game. This attitude must infuse every stride, every pass, every touch. We are a top four team now.

Build the team around Modric. He has all the qualities of the modern midfielder, a world beater if he scored more but to me he’s a gem. I’d play him in the middle where he can exert the greatest influence on the match but he’s more likely to cut in from the left to enable Palacios and Huddlestone to control the centre. Goodness knows how Wilson coped with the pressure of his brother’s death but this season he must pass the ball much better and stay on his feet in the tackle, otherwise he should make way. Lennon on the right, of course, with a reminder to keep working back. Just being there is often more than enough, it’s not about hard tackling these days.

Kranjcar can slot in anywhere across the middle, again he must track back. Sandro must be seen as an unknown quality to be protected from over- exposure early on, but I’m very much looking forward to seeing him. He comes highly rated.

Last time, the only time in fact, I made a sustained comparison between Jenas and Huddlestone, one of my most regular and insightful correspondents vowed to be physically sick next time he read anything on the topic. Which happened to be when he visited AANP– sorry Michael. So none of that here. I’m happy for JJ to stay, even though I suspect most readers are not, but as back-up, because Hud has progressed, he hasn’t. I expect he’ll be off, though, as will Bentley, for whom I won’t shed many tears. Whoever plays, we must keep the ball better, especially when we have gone a goal up. Too often we let teams back into the game without them having to try too hard.

Bale at left back for me, Benny’s good but not that good. Coming from deep, Bale can combat even the most packed of midfields. At right back, Corluka of all our players disappointed me most last season. I rate him and he’s clever enough to not let his lack of pace be an undue problem. His steadiness allows Lennon freedom to get forward. I expect Hutton is off, Walker looks talented.

In the centre, it all hinges on Ledley’s fitness. Daws will be mighty again and should be captain but he needs pace alongside him. Kaboul may be ready as back up but I can see another player coming in. Gomes is simply magnificent and with Cudicini fit plus the expected arrival of Pietlkosa, we were well served between the posts. When I said I was happy to keep all the current squad, I forgot about Alnwick. Byeeee!

Which leaves the strikers, my main area of concern because I doubt that they have the ability to score consistently against the best defences. None are good enough to play up front on their own, which is a problem for me. Pav is used to that role in Russia but his flashes of brilliance don’t banish the feeling that his consistency in front of goal is not good enough. Crouch is limited, lacking in pace and movement, and if we are trying to keep the ball the temptation to wang it forward is too great when he’s in the team. Defoe’s movement and team play improved for England but he can’t be trusted to do the work on his own, and the same can be said for Keane (not the England bit, obviously).

The addition of a top class striker able to play on his own up front could transform this already excellent squad. I’d go 4-5-1 with Luka behind the front man, Niko could play more often, Wilson and Hudd together… but the whole world is after that front man.

Harry’s solution could be pace. Several of our supposed targets, like Bellamy and Young, are fast and mobile. Add Bale and Lennon….

One dark horse is Gio. He likes to party and was on his way out but had a good World Cup and by all accounts has buzzed behind the strikers in the friendlies. Could this be his moment? He needs some freedom – he’s wasted stuck on the right or left – and he could suit that link up role between striker and midfield, dropping back to help out.

One final point – free kicks. Sort them out. Over 35% of Premier League goals were scored from set pieces last season, but not by us.

And so the madness begins. We’ll do well again this year – you want a prediction don’t you, head says 5^th, heart says 4^th so 4^th it is. Handling the pressure of every single game at the top is a new experience, one that we must learn to love and cherish, rather than shrink away with intimidation.

The exciting thing is, the players who did well last year, Lennon, Bale, Modric, Huddlestone, Gomes, are going to be even better this year, never mind any new signings. They have more to give, I’m convinced of it. And with the addition of a quality lone striker, the possibilities are truly mind-boggling. The only thing that worries me is my unnatural optimism.

Always On My Mind. Spurs Stories: In Hospital

August 5, 2010 / Alan / 3 Comments

There’s always a stir when the ward has a new arrival. Disparate individuals thrown together forge temporary bonds in adversity as a lifetime of carefully tended privacy is at a stroke upended by the indignity of pain and bed-pans, honed by a nurse’s scolding when powers fail.

A fragile culture is shaken whenever a newcomer appears, the tension is palpable if it’s a man. The last man was oblivious to his surroundings, baring the West Ham tattoos on both thighs and when he wasn’t snoring bellowed his suffering down his phone louder than a Tunbridge Wells stockbroker on his mobile in a rush hour train.

We, the regulars, practised in the fine art of hospital visiting, we who long ago said everything that there is to say but still talk, feign indifference but are alert to the swish of the plastic curtains being pulled back.

‘Leave me alone, woman. Leave me alone.’ He’s a shouter.

She sits, she stands, she sits again. ‘Have a wine gum, go on, they’re nice’

‘I’ve told you, I don’t want a wine gum.’

‘Go on, have one. They’re nice’

‘I don’t want a wine gum!’ The whole ward knows he doesn’t want a wine gum.

‘Go on, do you good, you need the energy. How are your pillows? You’re not comfy.’ She’s up again. ‘Let me do them for you.’ She glances around without making eye contact with anyone.

‘Leave me alone woman!’

In hospital nothing happens. The slightest provocation is acted upon, if not created, in minute detail, then discussed with a similar nuanced attention. All undertaken in the name of the patient but in reality it fills the time and provides the visitor with a reason for being there.

She looks around again with a nervous grin. ‘All right if I have one?’

The young man, quiet until now, has had enough. ‘Spurs are playing tonight, granddad. Go and get a coffee, mum. Cup game!’

‘Up the Spurs!’ Animated now, alert and bright. ‘They’re doing all right this year, eh? Told you Harry would sort them out. Told you.’

‘Win this one and they’re at Wembley, granddad.’

‘Ahh, Wembley. Did I ever tell you about when I was there in ’61?’ The boy settles back with the air of someone who has heard this one before, several times, but he’s happy to listen once more. ‘Never be bettered, son, not the same these days.’

‘I couldn’t get coffee. Bloody cafeteria’s closed. Coke from the machine all right? He’s not going on about bloody Spurs again, is he, the old sod?’

‘Mum,’ says the boy, ‘Just shut up.’ He settles down again for the rest of the well-worn saga. His mother stands. Moves the pillows a fraction. Smith scores. Sits. Tucks in the blankets. Blanchflower lifts the cup and he’s lost his hat, tossed high in the air. Stands. Sits.

A few days later, when we are all familiar with tales of Tottenham heroes, of Smith, Greaves, Blanchflower and especially White, glorious, silky, best ever White, I pass the bed on my way out. ‘Good to meet another Spurs fan.’

He stirs and sits bolt upright. ‘Two sugars please!’

He dozes again, as suddenly as he woke. I walk on, past the laminated pledge on the wall that guarantees same sex wards from 2007.

Next day I stop again. ‘Bought you a programme’. I’m not a good visitor, despite the practice over the last two years. I’ve deserted my duties. Even now, under these circumstances, the game and being there is on my mind.

The boy thanks me, ‘Look granddad, a programme. 3-1 today’. The woman, more agitated than normal, thanks me repeatedly, and no, for the tenth time, I really don’t want the money. The boy shows him the pictures, as you would a toddler.

He barely stirs, a flicker maybe of an eyelid buried deep now in hollow sockets surrounded by grey drawn skin. His lips move, ‘What’s that granddad?’, says the boy, ‘3-1 today, Defoe again!’ Faint and barely audible, he summons the strength from somewhere to respond. I swear I heard, ‘Up the Spurs’ but I couldn’t be sure.

Sunday afternoon and I pass the woman in the corridor, on the phone telling someone that she has the money but will be late because she’s at the hospital. The boy brushes past, carrying a small bag with the programme in his hand. ‘Thanks for this,’ he looks at his shoes and doesn’t stop. Turn the corner and the curtains are pulled, the bed empty. It will be occupied by the evening.

Lucrative Friendlies or the Training Ground? I’m with Harry not Daniel on This One

August 1, 2010 / Alan / 17 Comments

On Friday the draw takes place for the final Champions League qualifying round. Even now I’m simultaneously incredulous and breathlessly excited that the name of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club will be included. Yet even before the balls emerge from UEFA’s tacky plastic cannister, our preparation for the most significant match in recent times has been severely hampered in the pursuit of the true goal of Premier League clubs, money.

The days of a relaxed pre-season to ease the players back into fitness are long-gone. A couple of weeks hard running in the home counties followed by a jaunt round Scandinavia was the traditional precursor to a few friendlies against well-known sides, usually Scottish, a tapered build-up to a long, strenuous season. Now we’re off to the States for three games, back to play at the Lane only four days later, then Portugal, then back to the Lane for Saturday. You can’t hit the ground running if your legs can’t stand the strain.

Harry Redknapp agrees: “Our schedule is crazy. We pile games in but I need to get the players on the training pitch.” The players who went to America have struggled to adjust to the time difference, waking at 3am. Jenas has a thigh strain, Modric and Pavlyuchenko both picked up hamstring injuries in the States, Palacios has a groin strain. Says Harry, “He’s had an injection and I hope that does the trick.”

Two weeks before the opening match and we are using injections to enable a player to work through an injury. All these problems are the natural consequence of athletes pushing too hard too soon. If a podgy panting decrepit jogger like me knows this then I’m fairly certain it’s apparent to the Spurs legion of medical staff. Medics and manager want one thing, the chairman has sorted out something else, a nice little earner.

Pre-season is always a delicate art. If teams start well, you’ll hear it attributed to a good pre-season. If teams fall away in the second half of the season, I guarantee someone, usually the same someone, will solemnly ajudge this to be down to a heavy early schedule. If teams lose their pre-season games, someone will say friendlies are meaningless, it’s competition that counts.

So it can be everything and nothing. Pre-season gives coaches the chance to settle their men into familiar formations and patterns, as well as getting them reasonably fit. The training ground is the place where this happens, not a jolly with half the first team in the states.

This has never been more true than this pre-season. Not only do we have the Champions League, we have players returning late from their travails in the World Cup. Time is therefore precious in order to establish the blend, yet Harry and his coaching staff have been deprived of this most valuable pre-season resource.

Daniel Levy has ensured the financial security of the club at a time when many of our rivals’ self-inflicted wounds have left them vulnerable. For this reason only I’ll lay off the criticism. This schedule was presumably arranged some time ago, indicting that Levy wasn’t so certain of finishing 4th. Of course I realise we need the cash to compete at the highest level but however lucrative the tours, it’s nothing compared with the riches of the Champions League. Oh yes, and the glory but never mind that.

In a way,pre-season proper starts here. Harry has two full weeks and two friendlies with the whole squad, hopefully the injuries will have healed. It’s not just the Champions League: we open against Manchester City, one of our main rivals, who may be bulging with quality but who will be away from home and potentially disjointed with all the new arrivals. One consequence of our lack of transfer activity is at least that the players all know each other. It’s a good time to play them, provided that we ourselves are fully prepared. We’ve not given ourselves the best of chances.

Will the World Cup Influence the Premier League and Spurs?

July 28, 2010July 28, 2010 / Alan / 12 Comments

So here we are again. All those well-intentioned promises came to very little in the end. The World Cup, Spurs history, World Cup Conversations…although it’s time has passed, I must tell you about the waxing woman some day soon….

I enjoyed the World Cup but in the end, it had all been said about England, and anyway as I’ve shared before, dear reader, I don’t get as worked up about the national team as I do about Spurs. Other people with a better feel for the international game were doing a fine job. The Guardian Fans Network was great fun and if you haven’t checked it before, Zonal Marking – phew! Great site. www.zonalmarking.net

It was a reminder of my motivation for writing this blog, which is about a year or so old now. After all these years, I feel so close to the club. In a small way, I’ve been part of its heritage over the last 40-odd years, and the club is as much a part of me as the air I breathe. Inseparable, heart and soul. Some who know me might say that is a bad thing, but frankly it’s too late to turn back now. Always on my mind, so I write about what I know and feel. I don’t feel it for England, so I can’t write. Lots of ideas and just-begun pieces, paragraphs tailing off. Haven’t the heart to finish them.

Although many of you are clamouring for the start of the new season, I enjoy the break. I need it. To not anguish over the last game and plutz over the one to come is a blessed relief. Peace and quiet encourages reflection and a sense of perspective that does not come easily amidst the plethora of pundits during the season itself.

But as always, the world turns and seasons change. Never mind the summer solstice or the calendar – the arrival of the note that my season ticket is ready is my personal springtime. New beginnings, the promise of better things to come.

It will be interesting to see how the World Cup affects the Premier League in general and Spurs in particular. The often-repeated statement that the Prem is the best league in the world may still hold good in terms of excitement and competitiveness but if England’s finest can be so readily put to shame, our tactical and technical backwardness has been ruthlessly exposed.

This may not matter to most punters, but by charging inordinately excessive admission prices, clubs put themselves under increasing pressure to deliver. Fans have a tendency to become more disgruntled more quickly than ever before, and consciously or subconsciously one factor is surely a demand for value. We blanch at the credit card bill but it’s all worth it if we are watching top quality football. If it falls below that standard, the tetchiness begins and can easily overflow into anger.

The same goes for Sky: if they had their way it would be Super Sunday every day of the week but over the summer we’ve seen for ourselves how unsophisticated and technically deficient our so-called top league has become, even with foreign players. Sky’s publicity behemoth can’t fool all the people all the time.

The World Cup is bound to influence tactics in the coming season. The main message is: the team is the thing. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts. This of course has always been the case, but this summer in particular we saw a tournament where there were few individual stars. Rather, we purred at the combination play of, say, a young-ish German team who supported each other phenomenally well or marvelled at the passing and ball-retention of the Spanish.

Two up front has been severely discredited. The search around the leagues of Europe will intensify for the lone striker able to do, well, everything. Hold it up, run into space, drop back and chase, finish with lethal precision. For Spurs, does anyone fit that description? Not for me. Interestingly, Keane has been tried there. Friendlies this early in the season have no significance whatsoever in the outcome of the season but they do sometimes shed light on the manager’s thoughts. Keane at his best does fit the bill but he’s not exactly dynamite in the air, essential for the Prem. We can’t tell – it may that he’s up there simply because Crouch and Defoe hadn’t returned to training and Pav had a knock.

Harry is keen on 4-4-2 and has set up our squad accordingly, but if the rest of the league have five in midfield, like England we will be outnumbered. We had enough trouble against the likes of Hull, Stoke and Wolves last season.

Finally, two defensive midfielders is the fashion sweeping the metaphorical catwalks of European football. I say defensive: again, they require the whole gamut of skills. The familiar traditional midfield destroyer will take you only so far if he can’t pass. Here we are in better shape. Huddlestone, Modric and Palacios (but the passing…) are good for a start, and whilst we shouldn’t have unrealistic expectations of a young Brazilian not used to the league, Sandro is by all accounts a quality player in precisely this mode.

Our offer for Scott Parker has been declined but to me he’ll fit in just fine in the centre of midfield. He has plenty of skill, energy and experience, great positional sense, is a fine passer of the ball, shrewd, a leader on the field who can take over a midfield. Hudd and Luka will fit right in around him, he’ll help our developing players. Last season he carried West Ham and with better men around him he’ll look great.

A sound buy for the right price. And that’s the issue. He’s had injuries in the past that have disrupted his career, so we can’t go over the top. Sullivan’s public determination to keep him is all about creating a tough guy image with his fans. For him, everything on earth has its price and he’ll sell his grandmother’s kidney if the offer was right. I’m not inclined to become sucked into a bidding war. 5 or 6m, then leave it.

Otherwise, it’s early days. We are probably making lots of enquiries but there’s no need to rush. High quality men will take some persuading to come to Spurs because other mad chairmen will agree unrealistic salaries that we won’t match. Also, the market will unblocks itself once one big deal has been done, likely to be James Milner. We are keen on Young and Agbonlahor, they like the look of JJ, Bentley and Keane, City might like our cash for Richards….and so it goes round.

Whatever, don’t sell anyone until we have someone better signed up. Where that top class centre forward will come from, well, this will stretch all of Harry’s powers of talent-spotting and then persuasion to get him to come to the Lane.

The Premier League will provide great entertainment again next year. The trend towards 4-5-1 will continue but we may see teams adopt a more containing frame of mind. In the World Cup, the best teams used that formation to flow and pulsate, many used it to frustrate and minimise risk. If so, Spurs may have to discard our faithful 4-4-2, in which case we will require at least one new striker with different skills. Harry’s way forward could be pace and mobility. Bellamy, the two Villa players, plus Bale and Lennon – it may not happen but it could be an indication of his thinking.