Season 2010-11

Spurs Crumble Then Capitulate

/ Alan / 11 Comments

Not like this. Not this way. If we had to go, and we’ve had a miraculous tilt at this European lark, then go down with a passion, a flourish. With the style that swept Inter aside, or the courage and poise that created a victory against Milan in Italy, then the fortitude than saw us through at White Hart Lane. But not like that.

Reaching the Champions league quarter finals is a wonderful achievement, far beyond my wildest dreams when the campaign started. ‘Reaching the group stages and giving a good account of ourselves’ or some such, that’s what I wrote back then and I believed it. To be contenders, to be part of something, that would have been enough for me.

So here we are are, the heady intoxication of the CL quarter finals, and when the camera panned around the floodlit tiers of the Bernabeu, every Spurs fan in the world bit their lip and marvelled. What that, in my eye, just a speck of dust….  At the start of the season nobody expected this but here we were, on merit. We deserved to be there because we had taken on and beaten some top sides. We had done everything we needed to and no one could ask for more.

There’s disappointment but never despair in being beaten by a better team, and Madrid were far superior on the night.. This one wasn’t quite like that. Spurs have so much to be proud of but this meek capitulation means it will take a while for that positive memory to rise to the surface of my steaming and frazzled brain. To lose to a series of self-inflicted calamities hurts. However well Madrid played, however many shots on goal they racked up, all the goals were avoidable to a greater or lesser extent. Two at least made us look mugs, and that hurts badly. They pulled us this way and that, stretching our ten men until we snapped, but two of their goals were unchallenged headers from set pieces that came straight out of the Blue Square. Majestically taken but utterly preventable. An early corner and their main danger man is unmarked. All he had to do was to take a few steps forward and jump. No one was on him. No one.

In other circumstances, you couldn’t blame the team for using a corner to take a few seconds breather. Second half now, under intense pressure but surviving with two banks of four, working hard, thinking hard, still only one nil and thoughts of having something to aim for at the Lane. But against the cream, there’s no respite. Quick corner, Gallas clearly hampered all night by his injury although he did well to make light of it, nothing in his legs to jump, but still criminally isolated as another straightforward header from a quick corner.

I’ve left the worst until now because I don’t even want to think about it, let alone write a couple of vaguely coherent paragraphs. This blog makes a determined effort not to blame individuals but the utterly inexcusable actions of Peter Crouch delivered a body blow that left us doubled up. It was as if you were cornered by a gang of bullies in the park then one of your mates turns round and whacks you. The physical pain will pass but the sense of being let down lingers on.

In my more philosophical moments, of which there are many,  secretly I like it when sportsmen at the top of their profession do something stupid under pressure, because it shows that actually they’re human, they are like you and me. This is not one of those moments. Lumbering in for challenges that he was never going to win, not once but twice, the yellow card warning totally ignored. Lanky leg off the ground, not once but twice. Them’s the rules, Peter, have been all season. To compound the madness, two completely unnecessary challenges, 70, 80 yards from our goal. No despairing last ditch heroic efforts here.

Time and again we’ve stressed the value of experience in Europe and how this team has had to learn so quickly, on the hoof. Yet this is not the case for a 30 year old veteran of World Cups and of European competition. No callow youth this, tanked up on adrenalin and speeding the night away.

This destroyed us. Bizarre though it seems in the cold light of day, Crouch was arguably the single most important player in our formation. His height has troubled other European defences and so Harry teamed him with Rafa, the latter searching for crumbs as the long far post balls not only might have created something up front, they also provided a precious lifeline to relieve pressure on the defence. He might have helped out at corners too…

His absence meant we were under pressure throughout. Rafa lost his role and was taken off as the game passed him by. Ten against eleven would bend us out of shape. No out ball meant we could not shift the ball out of our half. No one to hold it up, back it came almost before we had time to catch a lungful of air. Pressed back, time and again our midfield, harassed and harried, looked up desperately for something ahead of them. However slim a chance of getting it forward at least with Crouch there would be something, but they searched in vain.

Mouriniho needs no second bidding. He pushed his men up to hold a high line. The back four could play it out with impunity. Marcello could get forward, freed from the pressure of having to care about what he had left behind at the back. No Lennon to worry about either. Very odd that, by the way. I’ve not seen the media since the final whistle. I wonder if he complained about something before kickoff and they were forced into making a sudden ‘should he shouldn’t he’ decision. Whatever, his threat was important tactically in keeping the rading Madrid full back occupied. Madird could therefore press high up in midfield, just as Barca do. We were never going to get behind their defence and Bale and then Rafa from the cheekiest of throws, were dealt with by Carvaliho. JD coming on was pointless.

Spurs passing and movement was poor and we gave away the ball so many, many times. Luka was unexpectedly at fault. I looked to him for something different. However, Madrid gave them absolutely no room to move and any team in the world bar Barca would have struggled in those circumstances.

After the early disruption caused first by Lennon’s sudden withdrawal then Crouch’s brainstorm, we regrouped and defended well for long periods by conceding territory and crowding the space in front of our back four. Jenas and Sandro worked hard, the latter dropping back to central defence to limit the room Madrid wanted to play those little angled passes. Dawson was the pick of our defenders, determined and strong. Not sure where he was for the second goal, though, and at times Madrid pulled him out of the comfort of the middle. He seldom missed a tackle. Gomes was admirably decisive and his clean handling would have inspired an increasingly desperate rearguard effort. Then an error at the near post. Those shots are harder to save than they appear on TV. It came from behind a defender and was swerving, but he still should have got a stronger hand to it to save.

Ultimately it was too much. Ten men plus wave upon wave of eager  attackers, probing away. Bale not fit enough to both attack and drop back to defend, three men on him instantly he received the ball. There was room on our right. Corluka was often left unprotected too, then injured. We’ve run out of right backs for the league now. Gallas couldn’t jump. The pressure told as we tired, giving the ball away more and more, unable to close down every forward.

Not the end of our European adventure but an ignominious night none the less. 4-0 is a sound beating. Given the  nature of the defeat, it will be so hard to be inspired by adversity to league success. Self-inflicted wounds take an age to heal. Stoke will be looking to steamroller us on Saturday, knackered, injuries and depressed. Never mind the top four, the struggle to hold on to the top four will test Harry’s powers of motivation to the limit.

 

No Wigan report this week. New piece of software, pressed the wrong button when in the final paragraph, no time to re-write it. You were mortified, weren’t you. Regards, Al

If Spurs Were United, We’d Never Be Defeated

/ Alan / 11 Comments

Tribalism is the essence of being a football fan. United in support of our obscure object of desire, Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, we pledge everlasting love and set aside other relationships in preference to the one that truly matters. We have our colours, our temple of worship, our rituals. At games or out and about, I strike up conversations with perfect strangers because  they are navy blue and white. The Lane, just before kick-off, I shake hands with people I see more frequently than I do most of my friends and relatives, people with whom I feel a deep common bond in a place where I am more at home than anywhere else on earth. I don’t know their surnames, where they live, what they do or think, anything of any significance, yet none of this matters, because we are Spurs.

Scratch the surface, however, and deep fissures shatter this fragile unity. At least, that’s the conclusion I’ve reached after reflecting on how this blog has dealt with some of the major issues that face the club. Two topics have produced more comments than any other articles that I’ve written over the past couple of years, namely Stratford and the Madrid tickets.  Not necessarily more views than other pieces, in fact ironically my most read article is an innocuous match report on this season’s away game at Everton that was picked up by Everton sites and messageboards, Surprised and pleased at my even-handed approach, they extended fraternal greetings as fellow football supporters and wished us good luck in Europe.  It’s the reaction that has been markedly different, revealing deep divisions not just on the topic itself but, significantly, on the very nature of being a Spurs fan.

There are several pieces on Stratford; the comments sections on a couple are not for the fainthearted. The single biggest issue to face Spurs since the club was in deep financial distress under Scholar was bound to provoke a meaty debate. Last week I offered some constructive criticism of the ticket office’s appalling treatment of fans trying to buy Madrid tickets but the fascinating comments section, which as a regular correspondent noted somewhat disconcertingly for an author was as good as the article, revealed distinct differences of opinion about the solutions.

To be very clear – keep the comments coming. I read them all, often respond and don’t censor or delete them. If you take the time and trouble to not only read the blog but also comment, I’m genuinely grateful. Interaction is what blogging and the internet is all about.  This piece is not about who is right and wrong. Perhaps I was being naive but the ferocity with which some people got stuck into to fellow Spurs fans did take me by surprise.  With the OS, for example, I’m anti-Stratford but understood the concerns of people who see it as the way forward. The fairest way of distributing tickets for big games is via the loyalty points system, not perfect but the least worst. However, several people rightly pointed out that if they have a membership, they are just as entitled to go for the tickets as anyone else. In fact, a wider distribution encourages a broader based support.

In the end, we’re all Spurs, right? Wrong apparently. As the debates raged, the nature of a being a fan came into dispute. Are people who have been attending games for many years more a fan than others who come once or twice a season? Younger fans in this equation will always be at a disadvantage because of their date of birth. Family circumstances and money prevent an increasing number of supporters from coming to see the club they love. When I was in this position for a few years, I remember listening on the radio to a home game when we were near the bottom of the table and physically being in contortions of agony until victory. Would I have been more of a fan if I had been at the ground? Yet who can deny the phenomenal dedication of  those who give up their time and money to follow them around the country. Some tried to find the coefficient between the two. With Stratford, both sides saw themselves as defending the club’s future, both with very different views as to how this might be achieved.

To repeat myself, I’m not talking here about who is right or wrong about Stratford or ticket distribution: I’ve written about that elsewhere, feel free to comment. Rather, I’m taking this as evidence of divisions within Spurs fans that are exposed whenever problems arise. I’d say that the one thing we agree about is that we get behind the team, but the fact is, there’s disagreement there too, the two extremes being those who cheer on regardless and those who feel justified in complaining openly by booing or abusing our own team and/or players. Most of the time it’s a comforting and humbling experience to be part of the worldwide Spurs community. Sometimes, that comfort is an illusion.

Ironic that I’d been mulling this over in a week when a 4% rise in season tickets has been announced. I’ll pay of course, and Daniel Levy knows I will. More importantly, he knows that if I don’t then someone else will. For the record, my ticket has gone up by over 6%. Increased operating costs are the reason, apparently. I work for a charity. We have cut our costs as much as we dare because of the current climate, but Spurs are seemingly immune from the pressures we all face because the law of supply and demand has come down heavily in their favour. Increased revenue from Europe and TV ( did I see an increase of over 40% mentioned?) has not been reflected in concessions to the fans. There’s no moral imperative to consider the loyal fans – but again, I’m being naive. Levy knows we are divided. I’m reminded of the industrial disputes of the 70s and 80s. Two factors overruled everything else – the unity of the workforce and how real was the possibility of a strike. Levy knows our weaknesses and will exploit them.

League Leaders Spurs in Ticket Office Farce

/ Alan / 62 Comments

Ten days ago the Football Supporters Federation, the country’s largest representative organisation for football fans, published the results of a nationwide survey of club charters, documents that set out standards of customer service. Clubs were graded according to a number of criteria, including accessibility, timeliness, quality, complaints procedure and contact details. Sitting proudly on top of the table are the mighty Tottenham Hotspur, scoring an impressive 31 points out of a possible 35 and fully 8 points clear of our nearest rivals, Arsenal. Where’s your St Totteringham’s Day now, huh?

Try telling that to anyone who went for Real Madrid tickets yesterday morning. The charter is on the web, if you have the time and inclination to work out where anything is on that messy and counter-intuitive  official site. It’s glossy, carefully constructed in well-modulated, easy to read language and about as useful as Aaron Lennon in the air, because in reality Spurs treat fans with withering contempt.

Madrid was always going to be busy and frustrating because demand massively outweighs supply. The boards and sites were bulging with tales of joy and despair as the infamous online site maroon bar tantalisingly stuttered from left to right along the screen. As ever the abundant ingenuity of fans reached new heights of creativity. Entire offices mobilised online and on the phone in pursuit of a single ticket. Different, non-premium rate telephone numbers. One person I know queued for 12 hours at the ticket to be successful.

We all understand this. Until we have a bigger stadium, sadly many fans will be disappointed for the big games. However, what truly infuriates is the manner in which the club handles these moments. The disappointment is bearable, a sense of being kept in the dark and of the club not caring is not, especially when some problems are entirely avoidable.

Yesterday I logged on to the system at 12.10 on behalf of my son who wanted to register for a Chelsea away ticket – applications closed at 5pm and he wasn’t near a computer. On the home page of the official site there was no direct link to Madrid home tickets. Plenty of knockabout hilarious banter between JD and Bale over today’s international or the breaking news -hold tight to something solid – that Crouch was looking forward to that game. Nothing about the single most important thing that any fan wants to know about their club – match tickets.

I went onto the online ticket section to be greeted with the usual message about waiting a queue, don’t refresh you putz or you’ll lose your place. Nothing happened. About 20 minutes later a sliver of maroon appeared which steadfastly refused to budge for another half an hour. By 1.20 I was about an eighth of the way along, an hour later not much further.

This could only be due to one thing – people still believed they were in with a chance of Madrid tickets. Yet a messageboard post at 10.53 stated tickets had sold out. On the ‘forthcoming matches’ page Madrid was listed as sold out but you would not access this page if you clicked on ‘buy tickets’ and were taken straight into the system. Just after 2 I had another go on a different browser. This time, a message came up saying the tickets had gone but people who logged on hours earlier had no way of knowing this – “don’t refresh” and still nothing on the home page of the main site.

About 2.30 I suddenly shot across to 75%, then was unceremoniously booted off just gone 3. My son called the box office who confirmed my suspicions – so many supporters had by this time been left hanging in the wind for at least 4 hours since tickets had ceased to be available. The club said they were intending to clear the system and start again.

This doesn’t affect me personally as I’m fortunate enough to have a season ticket. My original standing season ticket lapsed in the late 80s when my children were young and family life was busy. As they grew older, we started going regularly to matches and bought season tickets in 1999 (no waiting list back then) because of the increasing problems of getting members tickets for important matches. Even if we couldn’t go to every game, it was still worth it. Yet yesterday makes my blood boil because better communication and a better system could have prevented the frustration and anguish of my fellow fans. It’s made all the more insulting because of the mealy mouthed empty platitudes of the Charter written by club mandarins who keep themselves as far away from the unwashed public as they possibly can. Here’s a bloody charter for you from this fan.

Tell people what’s going on. We are old enough and ugly enough to handle bad news. What we don’t like is being the mushrooms under the crap, kept in the dark. Have clear, updated ticket information on the club home page. If I could do that in 30 seconds on my pony blog, then that’s easy for you too. Use the £3.70 admin fee you charged for the costs of the electric pulse that uploaded my ticket purchase onto my season ticket card, there’s probably about £3.699999 left over.

If tickets have sold out, clear the system and replace it with an up to date message. If the start time for tickets is 9.30, don’t allow people on the system before then, thus avoiding the myths circulating about when you can and can’t log on in the mornings.

The loyalty points system is not perfect but it’s the best we have and by far the fairest way of selling tickets. Use it for games like this. Publicise a number in advance, you can’t apply for a ticket unless you have, say, 200 points. Once you meet that threshold, it’s first come first served. Not perfect as I say, but better that what happens now.

I know nothing about the logistics of ticketing but these measures are straightforward. Perish the thought that any of this might cost the club money…

In my experience the individuals at the club ticket office, including the manager, are very helpful. When Paul Barber was at the club, he used to reply to genuine concerns and enquiries personally, via his Blackberry sometimes. The current system is better than in the old days. My first game at Spurs was against Sheffield United in 1967. As it was the final home game before the Cup Final, ballot cards were distributed at the turnstiles, so I could have obtained a Final ticket on the basis of attending precisely a single game. However, the system could so easily be improved. As for the Charter, not worth the glossy paper it’s written on and the FSF, noble though they are, would be better off surveying the actual experiences of fans with clubs who depend to a large extend on taking our money. About time they put some effort into treating us better.

 

Spurs: Reflections On A Goalless Draw and Particle Physics (Eat Your Heart Out, Brian Cox)

/ Alan / 10 Comments

Just one of those weeks, things conspire to make it a time of thought and reflection. Work overflowing with problems, unsettled elsewhere. The game is as enticing as always, it’s just that sometimes the mind dallies along the way.

‘Glory glory hallelujah’ rolling out from the east upper (so it seemed)  threw me. I had a vision of the East Stand, old school, battle hardened veterans but never weary of good football, the old fashioned song had to return. That was ours once, you know. No one else dared sing it. No ‘glory glory Man Utd’, just us. Time for a comeback.

Thoughts too of John White, a hero of a bygone age brought to life in a terrific book ‘The Ghost of White Hart Lane’ by his son Rob and Julie Welch, reviewed here last week. Frail, deceptively influential, superb passer of the ball, tireless in his energy and capacity to support team-mates. Sounds familiar? Surely his spirit lives in another Tottenham great, Luka Modric, a peerless display of the midfield art. Gliding over the turf, he’s involved in a scuffling tackle to regain possession, lays it off, your eyes stick with the ball yet suddenly a few moments later, he’s there, 40 or 50 yards, in attack now, scheming, touching it on, looking for the shot. String theory. Particle physics. There’s an idea that the fundamental particles that make up all matter, some of them have a property of being in two places at once. Luka’s made up entirely of those.

It’s odd how you can be alone with your thoughts amidst the bedlam of a London derby. Like the mascot. No older than 4, he stands for the minute’s silence. 36,000 thousand people, still in mournful respect, he starts to practice his moves. The kick, a stretch forward, like a slow motion robot. Delightful, bless him, totally oblivious to the world outside his imagination.

Back to reality with a bang. Harry’s imagination has been working overtime in the break since our last game. The climax of the season, playing a relegation threatened team, totally new formation. That’s the thing with Harry: even after all this time I can’t quite figure out if he’s brave or barmy. Sure I admire him for trying something new, a different way to both utilise to the full the talent in the squad and do something about our lack of goals, but now, at a time like this, when we needed a win against a team down the bottom, not now, surely.

Let’s start, as always, in centre midfield. Redknapp’s selection of Sandro on the face of it does not seem too surprising, given his masterful performance over two legs against Milan. However, he’s been uncomfortable for the most part in the league, taking time to adjust to the pace and particularly the pressure of the Premier League. Teams have sussed this, pressing him as soon as he gains possession even if it meant pushing a man right out of midfield to do so.

On the basis of this game, Sandro has passed another milestone in his development towards what I believe will be a highly successful career. He proved he’s adapted. Strong in defence, fearless in the tackle with the stamina and awareness of a genuine defensive midfielder. Luka was outstanding: he’s a truly wonderful footballer, a privilege to see him play in our colours. As good at this age as any since Gazza and if he keeps this up, he’ll become one of the great Spurs midfielders of the last 30 or 40 years.

The change was of course Defoe up front on his own with Rafa allowed even more freedom than usual to rome, actually make that, allowed less freedom because he was told to drop deep and pick up the ball. Advantage: we have an extra body in midfield, that allows Bale and Lennon, wide men key to our attacking formation, more leeway to get wide and stay there, covers the space against opponents also playing 5 in the middle with a strong middle three of Hitzlsburger, the excellent Parker and Noble.

Disadvantage: he’s not up front. Where we need goals. Where JD is isolated. Can’t be in two places at once, unless you’re a subatomic particle (theory unproven) or Luka Modric (fact).

Defoe up front on his own was an odd one, because although his positional play and movement is much improved this season, there’s precious little evidence to show that he functions well in this role. If anything, he’s the classic ‘little man’ in the bigman/little man partnership, which in the modern game has become one striker playing off another. He needs someone alongside him to put him in.

Also, Bale and Lennon are there to provide the crosses, but to whom? On Saturday, most of the time, to no one. With no target in the middle, their effectiveness is diminished regardless of the opposition’s tactics, and on Saturday Bridge handled Lennon very well. We looked brighter when Pav came on, went to 4-4-2 and the Whammers were tired. He had space to do that thing he does, you know, knocks it a metre in front of him, moves onto the ball and wangs it, like the goal he scored against Chelsea.

JD as lone striker smacks of desperation rather than sound tactical planning. It may be new but underlying it is the same old problem – none of our three strikers are good enough at the highest level.

Rafa has been on the end of some hefty criticism around some of the boards and sites. Already people are saying he’s a luxury, that he doesn’t fit in. Mine is only the ‘hefty’ bit: he needs to shed a few pounds, it seems to me, and to get fully fit again so he can trust his legs and lungs for 90 minutes.

The thing about Rafa coming deep is not just about what he does, it’s what everyone else does in response. Modric was able to push on past him, as was Bale. Lennon should have varied his position when he did not have the ball, should have got in the box more. This movement has to be part of the system if this is how we’re going to play. Rafa deep gives us more options but only if other players not only get past him into the box but have the ability to do some damage once they get there. This goes for Rafa himself: he’s got to be more mobile with the stamina to last the game, including some lung busting runs to get right into danger areas. If this is the way to go, we need to have that commitment and awareness from other players to be flexible and to move well.

Certainly it produced some excellent flowing football. Our movement was a joy to behold at times, we always had a spare man, the width and a series of long crossfield balls from deep meant an expansive game and we held onto possession well for three quarters of the game, the exception being the first twenty minutes of the second half where our opponents not only took the game to us, they could so easily have scored a goal that might have proved to be the winner.

No punch up front to finish, all our good work put to waste. And yet the chances were there. Defoe missed three good ones and a couple more. I thought he had the measure of the defence when he twice early on got to the near post first, in front of his marker. Showed he was sharp and thinking about the game, but there was no sharpness when the easier opportunities came his way. Not the most emotionally intelligent of individuals, scoring against his old team probably meant too much, which got in the way of his instincts.

Whatever, no use Harry getting ratty with the MOTD interviewer. Three games against teams we could have beaten, two points. 4th is receding as fast and as far as my hairline. I liked the formation, with the proviso that VDV uses this break to return to fitness I’d like to see it again sometime, maybe with Pav up front, but then again…I know, none of them are quite reliable enough. It makes good use of Rafa and Luka, gives Bale the chance to get in the box and if JD had taken just one of those opportunities… but it requires polishing, so leave it for now, or for when we are three up away from home, certainly back to 4-4-2 against Wigan.