Jenas and Huddlestone – Spurs and England

November 18, 2009November 18, 2009 / Alan / 5 Comments

The slight air of unreality surrounding our season so far was further compounded by the sight of Jermaine Jenas and Tom Huddlestone in an England midfield, baking under a Middle Eastern sun as the whiplash gales destroyed my garden fence. Congratulations to all our internationals, especially to Tom on his debut. Four Spurs players in the same team: if this carries on and Lennon returns, then perhaps in the years to come Tottenham can take the credit for victory in the 2010 World Cup in 2010, just as the Hammers lay claim to the 1966 triumph.

Now we really are slipping into the realms of the unreal. Not even the most nightmarish of LSD trips could conjure such a surreal vision. Nevertheless, there they were, the two players who most clearly divide opinion amongst the Spurs faithful. Even those who praise their efforts, as I do, would not have selected them.

JJ’s performance has been criticised in the media, or more accurately, it has been passed over. He worked very hard but did little to attract the interest or attention of a media eager for portents for the summer. But it was precisely this quality that for me made his performance interesting, because he worked with a diligence that is often missing when he plays for us.

His stamina and appetite for the ball is beyond doubt. Even during a bad game, to his credit he keeps running and makes himself available for the ball, a sign of his growing maturity as a couple of years ago he would have hidden from view once the crowd began to moan at a few misplaced passes.

His workrate is phenomenal, a quality that is not usually given sufficient recognition by Spurs fans. A few years ago I saw him as the senior player in a pre-season Spurs XI friendly against the now defunct Fisher Athletic. Under little pressure, he covered the whole pitch, running for the sake of it like a toddler dashing up the street, just because they can. On Saturday, he added more of a sense of discipline and purpose, tracking back and picking

Big Tom is happy. And Lenny takes the chance to practice speed skating.

up runners and at least on one occasion making a tackle that could well have prevented a second goal. When not in possession, he dropped back into the midfield shield and remained alert to danger, closing down opponents swiftly. On the ball, he found space and moved it on after a touch or two.

JJ’s problem is that he looks better than he is. In the paddock, so to speak, he is for all the world a thoroughbred, but on the track he will be in contention until falling away in the final furlong. Sometimes he looks so good, striding across the White Hart Lane turf, the ruler of all he sees. Athletic and poised, his long stride gobbles up the yards, setting up attacks, running past the strikers to pick up a knock on or through ball with perfect timing. He can be a danger at the edge of the box with his shooting, and once his free kick against Manchester Untied flew in unerringly.

Bursting with potential, I start each year believing that this finally will be his breakthrough, when he puts it all together. Except that day is never going to come. He will remain frustratingly inconsistent because ultimately his touch on the ball and judgement of weight on the pass is not quite good enough. The less said about his free kicks since Old Trafford, or indeed his credentials as captain, the better.

Coming back to the England experience, the future lies in a genuine response to lower expectations by restricting his role. If that’s how he is, then play to his strengths. We need more in defence, especially away from home, so let’s remind him about his workrate and discipline when wearing the Three Lions, restrict his forward movement until all danger has passed and use his stamina to pick up the runs of opponents or to press and harass in the centre. Here’s our box to box midfielder – I hope he finds his vocation.

As for Big Tom, there’s little to be learned from his brief appearance. The Big Boned One (is it me or have his bones become larger lately…?) also creates huge irritation for similar reasons. His passing is wonderful, seeing the long ball early and picking out his man. I will refrain from making comparison with the incomparable Hoddle, but on his day his touch bears comparison with anyone in the Premier League. He’s young and still learning – despite the number of appearances totting up, this season is the first when he has had an extended run in the team.

However, his inconsistency is again enormously frustrating. There is a top class player in there somewhere but the problem lies not in his feet but in his mind. There’s truth in the old adage that the first yard is in the head, and in Tom’s case it stays there. His lack of awareness when he does not have the ball will hold him back, especially as he lacks the pace to get himself out of any difficultly. Still, this is something that he can learn, but at the moment it’s slow progress. I confess I thought he would be further on in his development by now.

Again, a positional change will do him good. Hud is not a defensive midfielder, just because he’s a Big Bloke. He’s better further forward where his passing can set up Defoe and Keane with early balls to feet or chest and his shooting can be truly dangerous. He’s fine when looking in one direction, i.e. when the play is set out in front of him.

When he moved onto the ball before scoring against Sunderland, he was a man transformed. Gone was the gawky, clumsy, almost adolescent figure, a kid in a man’s body. Suddenly he was perfectly balanced, athletic and powerful in his concentration. The classic footballer pose, in fact. His cap should boost his confidence – he’s not the most extrovert player and his head drops after a few bad passes. Not much on the day but hopefully the springboard to the next stage in his development. But the real lesson to be gleaned from the weekend is a re-think over positions. Maybe JJ should stick to being our midfield dynamo with Hud the playmaker, setting up and scoring. It’s worth a try.

Spurs v Sunderland

November 8, 2009 / Alan / 10 Comments

Three points but complaints about our performance. Fourth in the league, yet harsh words for our manager. A strike force that sets up and scores a goal, but that’s not enough. Yep, all the hallmarks of a Spurs fan’s blog.

The minute’s silence for Poppy Day was respected by all except about a third of the West Stand boxes. Confronted by a proud parade of soldiers, cruelly let down by politicians but heroically prepared to do their duty for queen and country in pursuit of a futile, unwinnable war in Afghanistan, they remained resolutely seated throughout. I have always suspected that it is another world in the moneyed gallery of sponsors and the wealthy at play, and clearly these folk believe that being sealed behind a thin slice of smoked plexi-glass protects them from not only the rest of the fans but also from the moral values of compassion and humility.

Both teams lined up in unfamiliar formations. Spurs set out three across the midfield with Keane behind Defoe and Crouch up front, while Sunderland compensated for the absence of Jones, Cattermole and Cana by having Campbell drifting wide right but working to get to the lone striker Bent and allowing further support from other midfielders. Plenty of discussion continued amongst the players for the first half as the teams sought to settle down, with the benches frequently joining in. Harry was more active than usual. Often Bond or Jordan do the shouting whilst Harry remains in the comfort of his heated seat, twitching and glum, but judging by what followed, it is doubtful if the tic tac man’s gesticulating made any sense.

After a stuttering opening, the early goal was welcome. A classic big man/little man striker’s combination, Benny’s lovely curling cross to the far post was headed back by Crouch for Keane to run onto. He tried hard to miss from inside the six yard box but bundled it past the keeper. The absence of an offside flag produced pleasant surprise from the home fans and fury from the Sunderland supporters, whose anger at the referee’s performance grew steadily as the game progressed. No replay was shown at the time, usually a sure sign of a dodgy call, but the big screen proved at half-time that the run was timed perfectly.

Far from the goal settling Spurs, our first half then proceeded to degenerate, apart from a few promising flashes from Keane and JJ, and Sunderland wasted several opportunities. Ours was a dreadful display, disjointed and decrepit, as poor as anything I have seen since Ramos left. Passes continually went astray as the man in possession looked in vain for support. The pressure was alleviated occasionally when Keane dropped back to get something going but our moves were thwarted by a consistently wasteful final ball. Jenas was at his frustrating best and worst, moving purposefully to intercept and drive forward only to fail with the final pass, whilst Crouch was, with a few notable exceptions, uncoordinated and the ball-control of a brick wall.

Three in midfield was a total failure. Sunderland easily outnumbered us with their four or at times five, whilst the lack of width was further compounded by the full-backs’ unwillingness or inability to run into the space on the flanks. On the few occasions Benny did venture upfield, he produced effective crosses – more please. However, neither he nor Corluka (who had a bad game) did not enthusiastically embrace the attacking possibilities as would, say, Cole or Evra, or even Hutton, who hammer forward as the need arises. Palacios was another with a low rating. His domain is firmly centre midfield, so he is wasted on the left, whilst Hud struggled to get going, until later that is.

Fielding Keane in the hole makes the best use of his talents. He can both make and take chances, he’s clever with the angles, aware of what is happening around him and, moving late into danger areas, has the intelligence to find precious space in the box. However, this should not be at the expense of the shape of the team. To accommodate this role, Jenas and Palacios were forced out of position and our defensive-minded full backs did not compensate. Keane’s positioning unbalanced the entire team and this should not be allowed to happen again. On other days, with a different referee and if opponents had taken chances, it would have led to defeat. This is not so much about how Keane plays – he did well enough at times, and I haven’t forgotten his goal. With this squad, the man in the hole simply does not work.

Harry recognised the problem, moving Keane to the left after the break. But Keane for all his effort is not a left sided midfielder, so still the team was unbalanced and the standard remained low. He is then substituted, again, and immediately we look better as Kranjcar came up with an excellent cameo, full of accurate penetrative passing and good support play.

The real point is, we know all this already. We have seen this season that Keane is not a left midfielder, neither is WP, that Corluka doesn’t do overlapping, that 4-4-2 is our thing. So why expect that today would be different? Harry is a strong man, not weighed by sentiment however he may present himself in the media, but the feeling that he is trying to shoehorn Keane, Defoe and Crouch into the same team is inescapable. From now on, either Keane plays up front (with either strike partner) or he does not play.

Although Kranjcar’s arrival bucked us up and we finished on a high note, the real turning point was of course Gomes’ penalty save. That Darren Bent, chucking himself over, and there’s me thinking he was such a nice quiet boy… Other refs would have sent Gomes off, although the booking was right. The business of keepers diving at attackers’ feet is so fraught these days, I actually feel for referees. It’s so quick and cheating, or bending the rules, or making the most of an opportunity, whichever way you choose to perceive it, is now an expectation for forwards, who, if they remain on their feet, are subject to almost as much comment as the referees, however they decide.

Whatever, he galvanised both the players and the crowd, following the penalty with a series of fine saves. He’s learning: witness the save at the foot of the right hand post from a header, where he not only dropped quickly and low but decisively pushed the ball away from the oncoming forward to avoid a rebounded tap-in. This as much as the penalty shows his awareness, confidence and presence of mind.

Then a wonderful strike from Hud, thrillingly rising for all of the twenty yards into the roof of the net. A great goal, frankly out of keeping with our performance. He then became a man inspired, full of energy, purpose and guile, although the suspicion nags away, why does he need a boost like this before he plays so well? It is significant that he was pushed further forward during the final quarter of the game. Although this may waste his long passing ability, I believe he is more effective in this role, released from defensive burdens to slot the ball into the gaps and to shoot dangerously.

The game closed with some gleeful Bent-baiting, comparing him unfavourably with his nemesis Sandra. Oh what fun we had: three points but in the long run some hard lessons to be learned.

Spurs v Sunderland Looking Ahead At Last

November 6, 2009 / Alan / 2 Comments

Looking forward, not back, so the visit of Sunderland to Tottenham tomorrow assumes a greater significance than might otherwise have been the case. Sunderland have quickly built a useful team under the experienced guidance of Steve Bruce but our attention will be focused firmly on the reaction of our own players to the events of last Saturday.

It might be my imagination, but the derby loss has had more of an impact than usual. We should be used to these by now, yet a pall of gloom continues to hang over the fanzines and messageboards. A particular combination of the excruciating manner of the defeat plus our dizzyingly high league position and the accompanying raised expectations are to blame. Or maybe it’s just me being a miserable old git. Whatever, Sunderland is now A Big Game.

When I was a kid, I was always playing football in my spare time, conveniently ignoring the absence of a garden or outside place to play in our maisonette. This meant I was often reduced to kicking a cushion around the front room. One evening the inevitable happened: I fell over the standard lamp and the wire came away from the base. In my imagination, I had been tripped by a nefarious Arse defender, Ian Ure most probably, when clear through on goal. Bemoaning my fate, my mind was elsewhere so I absentmindedly picked up one end of the wire. Unfortunately, the loose end had become detached from the lamp itself, not as I thought the plug. The power coursed through the cable and burnt two neat, perfectly circular black marks on my palm.

This is how I imagined the face of the MOTD post match interviewer to look when he suggested to Harry last week that Sunderland was important, the power coming from Harry’s eyes. I swear I could smell burning flesh. He was livid, a reminder that Uncle Harry is a hard so and so. The journalist caught him off guard amidst the pain of defeat but even so Harry’s reaction was revealing in the extent to which an innocent question put him so much on the defensive. I wonder if HR suspected that his team has a soft centre and that the derby confirmed his worst fears. It also revealed the problem publicly.

All his fabled powers of motivation will be therefore tested to the limit tomorrow. There is plenty to play for, points as well as pride, although the question mark remains, if we can’t get up worked up for the derby, then what really does matter? Still, there is an opportunity to get back on track. Also, the plain fact is that every match carries pressure when you are challenging high in the table. Simply, we must get used to this, right now.

Although Sunderland have a decent side able to create and score goals as well as work hard in midfield, they are not strong away from home, their point at Old Trafford notwithstanding, having lost at Stoke, Burnley and Birmingham. They will also be without the drive and energy of Cana and Cattermole in the centre, and Jones is also not available.

But what use analysis when instead we have football folklore. The Immutable Law of the Ex dictates that Reid, Campbell and Steed will excel and of course Bent will score. Last season was an example of another law which in my paranoid anxiety outranks even the Ex, namely that against Spurs rubbish players and teams will play a blinder. One Game Wonders, it’s called, basically because I can’t think of anything better. Cisse’s time at Sunderland was hardly a success, but against us he rose majestically to classically head a late winner, as we gradually let the match slip away from us. There’s another Spurs law, but another time.

The main question for Spurs is whether or not Harry makes wholesale changes, partly to motivate but also to rest men like BAE and Hud who are not at the top of their game. JJ must start in the centre, please, and Bale may have an opportunity. Up front, Keane is way off the pace, bless him, he’s not even waving his arms with much enthusiasm. However, Harry might resurrect his partnership with JD to beat the ponderous Sunderland defence with pace and guile, in which case Kranjcar needs a good one too.

If I were Bruce, I’d go with two strikers to pressure our shaky defence but probably away from home he will be more concerned with shoring up his midfield, so there is a chance for us to attack from the back. Long term we must establish a settled pair of centre halves, but with injuries that’s not possible right now. Dawson and Woody for me if Led is unfit.

Two Mornings After – How Was It For You?

November 3, 2009 / Alan / 12 Comments

So how was it for you? The morning after is always worse than the night before, or in this case two mornings after. It’s bad enough watching Spurs self-destruct, but the real impact is when you have to go work on Monday.

My tried and tested method of dealing with football-related grief (hey, that’s sounds good, I’m going to make that a syndrome!), sorry, Football Related Grief is to remain morose and irritable until the body’s natural processes of recovery (and alcohol) enable the pain to dissipate gradually. Time passes, and at some tipping point brooding over the past gives way to optimism about the future in the form of anticipation of the next game. The problem with derby matches is that outside forces prolong the FRG process. My method, also known as the Misery and Self-Loathing Approach, is fine for the first four of the well-known Five Stages of Grief but stops dead at the fifth, acceptance, when you’ve got the mouthy git from accounting synchronising his trips to the kettle with yours, or the I.T. nerd who arrived at the office at 6.30am in order to download a loop of the second goal as your screensaver.

No one at my work is that interested in football – they are Chelsea fans. Although I bemoan the lack of football banter, at times like these it’s frankly a relief. I can bury my head in work, rather like the way I think of our defence on Saturday and bury my head in the sand. Schooldays were bad enough. Everyone joined in, regardless of who they supported, with that special talent for wind-ups and mockery that schoolboys inherit down the generations. However, in those days people supported a variety of teams, including Spurs and the local lower league teams like Brentford and QPR. Now, support is much more polarised around the big four, especially the A and Chelsea in London, with Man U not far behind, so a defeat to any of these must be a real ordeal for a Spurs supporting pupil.

However, I have been visited, or should I say violated, by a large number of fans of our opponents last Saturday. The blog stats show that many have been directed here by a certain site. I’m not using the A word in this piece in case the search engine picks it up, but investigating the source of this sudden and unexpected interest was a depressing exercise. Checking a few of their sites, even just by looking at the headlines, what comes over is not the abuse but the ridicule and derision. Spurs are a total laughing stock, figures of amusement and in some cases pity. We need more than one or two victories in the future to even begin to balance out the twenty or whatever it is games since we beat them in the league.

And what can be said in return? Loyal supporters, supporters of a real team not just gloryhunters, this is our only defence, because the players have not protected us in any way. Saturday was so awful, no possible crumb of comfort can emerge from such an abject capitulation. At moments like these, the gulf between the supporters and the players is never wider. They cannot feel the pain of defeat as we do, or else they would not perform in that way. Isolated by their wealth and celebrity from the outside world, they remain cocooned in a world that encompasses the training ground and their large house. Even Crouchie would not have dared to have been seen out on the town over the weekend. Agents were no doubt massaging their slightly bruised egos.

Robbie Keane, we look to you for leadership as our captain. If anything could have made things worse, it was your pre-match comments about how good we were. Never, ever speak to the media again. Actually, while you about it, just don’t speak. Motivation for their players and cannon fodder for their fans in one fell swoop. And now that it is over, how much do you care? I mean really care. Did you or any of your team-mates have a sleepless night or spend 48 hours in a stupor of depression? No, because in the end it does not matter. We give you everything, our heroes, but this is just a reminder, if one were needed, that you are different from us and some of you are not worthy of our adulation.

Talking of the head in the sand approach, the alleviation of FRG can be assisted by ignoring the media as much as possible in the aftermath of defeat. I’m usually pretty good with this, although I did watch MOTD this weekend. However, from what I can gather, the papers and Talksport are having a field day, having a belly laugh at our expense not only for Saturday’s performance but also for our pretentions in being top four contenders.

But wait a moment, surely it is the media who set us up as top four in waiting. Most fans are, like me, delighted with our progress but have not been fooled into believing we will sweep all before us. Anyone who has seen us play this year will know that we are good but not that good. The same pundits who have been building us up as real contenders with lazy generalisations about our games, even when we defended poorly, are now making fun of our having ideas above our station. They build us up and knock us down. Not our ideas but yours, you pathetic individuals, saying anything to get in a cheap jibe and to cover up their own inadequacies as judges of the game. And once again we the fans have to sit and take it.