Spurs and the League – They Weren’t Bothered and Frankly Neither Am I

December 4, 2009December 4, 2009 / Alan / 18 Comments

I know it is really just some knockabout fun on a Saturday night but sometimes the X-Factor really gets to me. It’s not so much the lousy acts or the fact that the World’s Most Revolting Man leers out of the screen – I can and do turn away until it’s gone. It’s not even the fact that millions of people take part in a process that exists for one major purpose – to make Simon Cowell very, very rich.

The X-Factor distorts our perceptions about what is good and what is bad, where people win a tumultuous standing ovation apparently for their use of hair gel, where one of the last eight (mercifully I don’t know his name) was recently described as a ‘genius’. The currency of talent has been devalued to such an extent by this and other reality shows that we struggle to know what truly matters. Can we tell the difference these days?

Soul music, pure true, soul music is just that, from deep down inside, pure and fundamental. Several years ago on one reality show, a contestant was struggling with the singing teacher to grasp the plea to ‘put more soul into it.’ Suddenly the penny dropped: bright eyed she gasped, ‘I’ll sing louder then!’ It’s my metaphor for the times in which we live.

The League Cup is hardly the football equivalent of Jedward but it does require the application of a sense of proper perspective. It can be good fun in the later stages but in the end it does not matter that much. Certainly it is no benchmark by which to judge Spurs progress and development.

Against Manchester United we saw plenty of the new Tottenham but unfortunately traces of the old regime. In the first half some lovely confident, bouncy passing movements buoyed by enthusiastic overlapping full backs in Bale and Hutton saw us breach their defence on several occasions, to be thwarted by good goalkeeping and Keane’s dilly dallying.

For both goals, however, the old failings of a midfield not protecting the back four – they were there in body but not mind or spirit. A one-two and in the absence of cover, a centre back has to leave the safety of their box to close down, leaving space behind them. Then, our strikers became increasingly detached and any late challenge predictably was not forthcoming.

Over the last few games we have become used to better as the full potential of men like Lennon, Huddlestone, Defoe and Kranjcar has been unleashed. However, nothing significant is to be read into this performance and there’s little to be learned that we did not already know. The flowing passing game is fast becoming ingrained but we remain vulnerable defensively, although as a whole the team is moving forward. Everton is a much truer test, partly because they will be well organised and hard to break down, partly because the Premier League matters.

The prospect of a trip to Wembley is incentive even for this grizzled sceptic and with a fair degree of hypocrisy I take an illicit pleasure in the semi-finals and finals, a little like going up to bed as a young man then listening to Radio Luxembourg under the covers. Like the League Cup it wasn’t so good but pop music seemed so much more important then, so you put up with the signal fading in and out just to be part of something special and mysterious. Our triumph against Chelsea was undoubtedly a great day, the tension stretched to breaking point because of our lack of success in recent years and the London rivalry. But Sky’s frantic hype about a Wembley final and the prospect of Europe cannot compensate for this trophy’s fading appeal. Even the carrot of a place in the Europa league means little given the contempt with which that competition is treated.

So if we have a trophy that the big clubs don’t want to bother with, then why should the players? I know one answer – they should give 100% in every game and that’s what they are paid shedloads to do. But the human psyche is phenomenally powerful. It works in mysterious ways, functioning on levels way below the conscious. The doubts about the competition may be securely hidden from the individual players themselves, immune to the most rousing of motivational team talks.

Not even Henry V could have got through to Bentley, Palacios and Jenas the other night, let alone our own King Harry. However, HR chooses to share his priorities with ‘arry’s ‘acks a day or two before the game, and the League Cup is pretty low down the list. He should have kept his mouth shut; the players cannot fail to absorb some of that. What we are talking about here is that extra 2 or 3 per cent that makes the difference between winning and losing. The team played some decent football in the first half – it’s rare that teams playing United have a greater share of the possession. However, after the two goals we did not possess the wit, wisdom or desire to claw our way back into the match. It felt like, if it happens, it happens, if not then, well…
Those vague performances by Basson, Palacios, Hud and JJ were about the missing 2%.

If we are questioning the wisdom of this tournament, we English fans who delight in our payers running themselves into the ground week in week out, for whom the never-ending fixture list is a merely a test of true manhood, then what on earth does a Honduran make of it? Wilson does care, of course he does, but that extra yard or two, one further lung busting sprint back…. A week’s rest would have done him good.

It was not a good performance and in many ways a missed opportunity, but there are no meaningful judgements to be made about players or the team. HR must enable them to focus on Sunday and the true test of a tough but winnable away match at Everton.

Villa v Spurs

November 29, 2009 / Alan / 2 Comments

In the middle of my raving and swooning at the wonder of the Spurs performance versus Wigan, I made a facetious remark about cosmic redistribution. To balance out all the missed opportunities and anguish, everything came right, but just in a single huge dollop of Good Stuff. The forces of the universe revealed their fundamental nature not at the Hadron collider but somewhere in the middle of N17.

But the world spins and time rolls on. Against Aston Villa we played almost as well, especially in the second half, yet nearly came away with no reward for our flowing football and total domination of the second half. Given that Villa are a well-organised side who are genuine rivals for a place in the top six, the excellence of our football and our ability to shift up through the gears after the break shows that the Wigan result may be a freak but the quality that produced it is authentic.

Villa’s pressing game stifled much of our endeavour in the first half and they were assisted by some wasteful possession. Crouch and Defoe were adrift up front for some of the time and whilst we were likely to be dangerous, at half time O’Neill would have been scheming ways of hanging on to a lead provided by a messy goal. In our efforts to block the header and rebound, the defence were pulled to the near post and Agbonlahor was fractionally quicker to move into that gap to reach a loose ball.

In the second half we upped our game and took over for the rest of the match. This was less a failure on Villa’s part to repeat the pressing and more about our collective ability to raise our game. We passed our way round their midfield and pushed them further back until they fought a rearguard action in and around their box. Lots of talk in this blog earlier in the season about resilience, and we have developed the wherewithal to respond positively to adversity rather than crawl back into our shell. This is just as significant in terms of future success as our superlative passing.

More shimmering brilliance from Kranjcar, drifting in from the left. Superb touch, inventive accurate passing and a killer shot, this could be the best £2m we or anyone has spent for many a year. I always rated him but had no idea he was this good. He didn’t get a regular start at Pompey for some of the time there. With Hud in a forward position we prompted and probed. Freidel was in good form and often in action.

Our final ball was not as telling as on Sunday. Much of this was down to resolute defending in the box, closing down the space. Crouch drifted to the far post and expected some success there but Beye dealt with him very well. Also the ball did not stick on that final touch as it did last week, when JD had one touch and bang. That extra couple of feet makes all the difference. In the battle of the wingers (see the comments section on the preview), honours were about even. Lennon did less but was still dangerous when he had some room, but Villa blocked the inside channel effectively. Milner and Young are more versatile as they work back well but as the game wore on they were pushed further and further back so their crossing threat was nullified.

Great goal from Daws. He hit it high on the bounce and kept it down well. I was so pleased for him. He’s one of the players I just like a hell of a lot. So willing and genuine, he puts his all into every match and has done well to get back into contention after his injury pushed him down the centre back pecking order. I really hope that the transfer rumours about the arrival of more defenders do not effect him. And yesterday his distribution was excellent. Bassong alongside him played well, his pace dealt with Villa’s increasingly sporadic breakaways.

We faced one of rivals for the top places and did not lose ground – that will do. More than that, we were the better team and that’s the message I will take from this game.

More about that later this week – no time as Christmas shopping beckons. Or to give it its proper title, sodding bloody christmas sodding shopping. I will be giving money to charities who stop playing electronic musak stylophone carols in the street. Turn it off and you get the cash. Bah humbug!

Irish Indignation – Society Is To Blame

November 21, 2009 / Alan / 8 Comments

By now everyone who has any connection to Ireland has had their say about the handball. Prime Ministers, footballers including our own human wind turbine, and, on the Today programme yesterday morning, A Rich Irish Bloke Who No One has Heard Of. My neighbour’s Irish setter is in mourning. That must be why he was howling all night, and if I was kept awake, then it’s a worthy sacrifice in the face of such a craven injustice. I like to be seen to do my bit for the downtrodden and exploited.

But one voice rang loud and true. Roy Keane never struck me as big on regret or hand-wringing, and his advice to the Irish F.A. to get over it and move on may have ruffled a few feathers, just as his tackles did on the pitch, but never was he more effective. Opinions are divided on his status as a manager but this interview uncovered his attitude and methods. Imagine the defenders’ reaction if he were in charge, entering the dressing room full of injustice only to choke on their protests as Keane reminds them just how bad they were. You would have to be a strong character to emerge from a battering like that. No wonder the players don’t always respond as he would wish.

Mind you, this was nothing compared with his dressing down of the unwary journalist whose mobile rang not once but twice during the press conference. The hapless hack wilted under the twin-pronged assault of the burning heat of Keane’s stare and his sarcastic silences. I shuddered, and I was only listening on Five Live.

The question at hand is not so much whether or not the game will be played again – that was never going to happen – but why the demand for a replay is so great. The Irish have been badly treated, their most justified complaint being not so much the handball but a play-off seeding system that allows FIFA to confer a huge advantage on their favoured teams. However, the fact is that matches are simply not replayed in these circumstances. Ever. Bad luck and move on. This has always been an element of a game where the unpredictable provides much of its enduring fascination.

It’s always tempting to divorce sport from the society of which it is a part. Cricket has been the most illuminating example in recent years, with tours to Zimbabwe threatened and/or cancelled as debate rages over whether the game should be independent of the politics of the countries England play. Sport not politics was infamously used as the justification of the English cricketers in the seventies who took the South African cash in the face of iniquitous apartheid and world condemnation.

Closer to home, we all use football as a means of getting away from it all for a couple of hours. Enter the ground and we work to a different set of customs, morals and rules. As someone who is so mild I make Clark Kent look like Gengis Khan in comparison, I would not only not say boo to a goose, I would give the goose a very wide berth in the first place. Yet I am more than happy to sputter and rage at Spurs’ opponents, and from my vantage point fairly close to the pitch, I glory in their fear and trepidation.

But football is an integral element of our culture and the two are inextricably linked. The roots of the barrage of Irish indignation lie within the growing trend in our society not just to find someone to blame when things go wrong but to seek redress from the institutions that govern us. On one level, we have the compensation culture where accidents seldom happen or individuals are never at fault. We no longer trip over cracked paving stones, we are instead victims of a council deficient in their road repair duties. Schoolchildren cannot play ball or make ice-slides in winter because the school could be seen as culpable if injuries follow. An institution is faulty in some way.

It’s the same on a broader scale. News items, some covering undeniable human tragedy, so often conclude with a demand that ‘the government should take action’ or ‘the government should compensate us’. A car company goes under, there’s a terrible accident or people lose money when investments fail, in all of this and more the government may have some sort of role but primarily that’s the way the system is. I truly feel for the individuals involved – I have lost children in tragic circumstances and there is nothing worse. However, that’s not the point: the clamour for the government or a governing body to ride over the hill top and save us all is so much hot air.

This is my only way of understanding the source of these increasing demands for redress and replays after the event. It’s definitely on the increase and never used to be part of the game. We grumbled and moaned, shouted abuse from the stands or indulged in murky conspiracy theories in dark corners of smoky pubs. Society is changing and so is football. Improve refereeing, put the onus back to players regarding their conduct and get the governing bodies closer to the fans, but resist these attempts to rewrite history. In the face of the forces of these social trends, that may not be so easy, but if the game’s ruling bodies cave in at some future point, football will be changed forever and not for the better.

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.