Spurs v Young Boys. A Morning Like Any Other But A Night To Remember

August 25, 2010August 25, 2010 / Alan / 9 Comments

A morning like any other, in fact a pleasant one. Warming sunshine, brewed the coffee just right, little traffic on the M25. A gentle welcome to a momentous day, for come nightfall, in a splash of searing incandescence in north London, thunder from the throats of thousands will roll out into the dark and tumble around this famous old ground, inspiring the righteous and striking fear into the hearts of the weak.

This is the most important match Tottenham Hotspur have played for many a long season. And haven’t some of those seasons seemed so long, individual moments of brightness snuffed out by the pervading hopelessness of mid-table mediocrity. But this one is different. This is the real thing, the game that can launch us into another world, of glory and untold riches.

Cluches abound but tonight is the genuine article. Fortunate enough to remember the real glory-glory nights of European football at the Lane, I treasure the experience. The passion and tension concentrated by the lights, the world and universe is for 90 minutes that florescent green. Nothing exists in the murk beyond the glare, there’s only Spurs and us. Anderlecht, Barcelona, Milan, Feyenoord, and I’m too young to have seen the Double and their great feats in the early and mid 60s.

With all due respect, Young Boys are hardly the opponents I would have had in mind for the return of the glory days, but this is the modern era of the Champions League, and the Champions League equals money, and money equals success. Not the way I like it, but there’s no avoiding this stark truth. The CL is a passport to other objects of desire. It safeguards the finances, enables us to pay higher salaries and transfer fees and attract better players. Better players keep us up there, and so it goes. Whatever the ITK on individual players, decisions will be made on Thursday morning that could shape the club’s future for years to come. Get it right and the success is self-perpetuating, get it wrong and the trap door to mediocrity clatters open.

Assuming Ledley is fit, the team picks itself for all but two positions. Lennon and Bale will offer the width and pace, and in Bale’s case the power, that will be crucial factors as YB settle back into their efficient, well-organised formation. Defoe should start but there’s a question over who partners him up front (and we will begin with

4-4-2). Crouch will get the nod despite Pav’s superb goal in the first leg.

The other question is centre midfield. As I envisage the game unfolding, looming out of the darkness is the vast bulk of Tom Huddlestone. I see him directing our play and controlling the tempo. Who would have thought it, not so long ago, but this team now plays with and around him. They feel comfortable with his presence, he enables them to play. Alongside him in Luka’s absence, Wilson would normally be the one to step in without a second thought. However, he’s not started the season well and I wonder if JJ’s good second half against Stoke, plus his extra mobility and willingness to get into the box, given that we can’t sit back, could see him given the chance to rescue his Spurs career.

Europe in knock-out games brings tension like no other match. However, two legs do offer a second chance. We so nearly blew it in 30 minutes in Switzerland but there’s another 105 to make up for it. We must dominate from the beginning and dictate the tempo, without taking risks at the back. Led will give us more pace there and we have enough attacking options to afford the luxury of not stretching ourselves too far. I’m nervous, but confident that we will win.

The significance of this match cannot be over-exaggerated. I’ve described it myself as a passport into riches. However, this sort of approach is an aggravating element of modern football. Notice how the importance of most matches is described in terms of something else, of what it might bring rather than what it is. Finishing in the top four is a triumph in itself, yet all the talk is of qualification into the CL. The CL qualifiers provide admission to the prestige and income associated with the group stages, but then the significance of the group stages is relegated to it merely becoming a path into the knock-outs. The play-offs are another example. It’s the way to get the Premier League cash, not an achievement in itself.

Modern football is as thrilling and exciting a spectacle as can be. Enjoy it for what it is. Win this game because we can, and take glory from that. Sure, the money is important, I can’t ignore that, but in all this talk of what might be, of what’s around the corner, there’s a danger that we might lose sight of what we have right in front of our eyes. We have a fine team playing a vital match. The triumphs and the glory are here and now, in winning that. Stop and savour the moment. Enjoy it – these moments don’t come around that often.

Stoke v Spurs: A Win Is A Win

August 23, 2010August 23, 2010 / Alan / 4 Comments

I often ponder on the psychology of footballers. Presuming they reflect on life at all, an assumption that might be stretching the reader’s credulity beyond breaking point, their state of mind appears to be the difference between success and failure. Intangible and nebulous, sometimes it over-rides fitness, tactics, even the laws of physics, as the ultimate determining factor in winning or losing.

Players and managers can convince themselves that black is white, such are their conceptual contortions in order to stay motivated. In so doing they sound so foolish in the media – Martinez, a serious, intelligent and articulate man told MOTD viewers that they will take the positives from Wigan’s 6-0 defeat against Chelsea. The point is, he meant it. Such self-delusion is a vital element of what marks out the professional sportsman from the rest of us mortals. The merest doubt in the mind and all is lost. Sometimes this comes over as sheer stupidity, or alternatively as arrogance, but to a professional it is as necessary as breathing.

So this morning, I muse on this – a shaky odd-goal victory over Stoke could have set us up for the season. More so than the excellent performance against City the previous week. This was blood and guts, controversy and good fortune, backs against the wall, where seven days previously had seen polish and poise. Yet I’ll wager that the fact that we came through it, the elbows and the power, the aerial bombardment and set pieces, the sweat and pressure, means more to the team that a point versus a top four challenger. We won and that’s all that matters.

Deprived of three quarters of our strike force, nevertheless Harry could not have been too disappointed by taking the field with 5 in midfield. Harry’s pretty quiet on the bench these days, snuggling back deep into his seat like a pensioner on a park bench with a few hours to kill before yet another evening of bad TV and nothing-to-do. Maybe he’s finally put those relaxation techniques to good use: ‘Meditation For the Stressed Sixties – Settling Into a Relaxed Retirement’. I’d make a fortune if I had the time to come up with a book like that. He’d have believed the back four could handle Fuller and Walters, rightly as it turned out, and the security of an extra midfielder may have quelled the twitching, at least for a while.

It worked well in the first half. Who needs strikers when you have two wide men like Bale and Lennon. Harry kept Lenny on the move, left then right then left again. Stoke couldn’t pick him up. Even if they knew where Bale was, they couldn’t stop him, not on this form. With their four, Delap was pulled inside: switch it with a bit of speed or a long ball and Bale was all alone.

Two long, perfectly weighted balls from Lennon, one off the nose, one the sweetest smoothest gem you could ever wish to see. There’s always something special about a volley – it’s the sudden unexpectedness of it all, the lack of predictability in an increasingly formulaic game – but this one was superlative, partly because of the height, partly because it was not just brute force that meant it flew into the opposite corner. A perfect connection, ball and boot, mind and body. True brilliance.

In between, we had let the lead slip all too quickly. The first bit of argybargy in the box and it’s in. Let’s deal with this here and now. Gomes has to expect some rough stuff in his box and needs the assistance of his defenders to clear it out. He could have done better on Saturday, no question. However, he was targeted, off the ball and illegally, at every set piece. Stoke are rightfully aggrieved at the goal that never was but just beforehand Huth had eyes only for our keeper and his little push successfully weakened Gomes’ leap. The pushing and shoving happens with every team – yes, even us – and every corner, but here was a concerted and deliberate campaign to prevent our goalkeeper from playing.

Goal-line technology gathers all the headlines but cutting out the fouling in the box would immediately and immeasurably improve the game to a far great extent.

At half-time, Pulis cancelled feeding time; his team came out hunting for red meat. Harry again – good team selection with Kaboul, alongside Dawson, the right man for this particular job. The two of them gave as good as they got, for the most part. Kaboul was turned once by Fuller in the first half and Daws launched himself once or twice, but they kept Stoke in front of them for the whole game.

Last season I wrote so many times that we have to match the strong and physical teams, rather than make Wengeresque excuses. A Stoke crowd getting worked up about our physical approach, oh the irony. Sadly however, another problem from last term did raise its ugly head – giving the ball away. Time and again we failed to hold onto possession, so back in it came. Sweat and toil is futile if we just hand it back to our opponents, and frankly against better teams it will prove fatal.

We defended well and I thought we had ridden out the storm when suddenly we rode our luck. With these things I try to back my own judgement in real time. Watching on a stream, my instinct was that he has to give it, he’s waiting for a second to be sure, now he’s glanced at the linesman but he’s right there, best view in the house, got to point to the centre, fair enough, disappointed but a point nevertheless, Stoke deserve it on the play….

And the game goes on. It was over but Gomes was fouled –see above. Also, I just do not think it was as conclusive as everyone with the benefit of 17 replays said

Huth Trains for Set Pieces

it was. I heard both a radio commentator and a Stoke fan say it was a yard over the line: it wasn’t.

Of the rest, Crouch worked hard but was often too far away from the midfield to be of much use and we could not find him in the later stages. JJ had a good match, especially in the second half. No comments about a second dawn (should that be a 37^th dawn?) because we have seen it before, but I’m pleased for him. He made a significant contribution on Saturday.

I go to Wednesday in a more positive frame of mind compared with how I felt 30 minutes into the first half against Young Boys. We have every chance and the Lane will be rocking. We must keep the ball better than we did on Saturday and in the first leg. Not jumping to conclusions, but once is an off-day, twice is not a coincidence. Have to sort this out.

Above all, the squad will be confident after this win. Overall, the quality of our football didn’t merit that confidence but the knowledge that we had the strength to battle and hang on will resonate in the dressing room for some time to come. And that’s what counts.

The Ups and Downs of Benny The Ball

August 20, 2010August 20, 2010 / Alan / 5 Comments

With the season barely a week old, Spurs full-back Benoit Assou Ekotto has already touched the stars and plumbed the depths. I trust the motion sickness will have worn off by kick-off tomorrow.

It all began with so much promise. A fine performance against Manchester City on Saturday not only kept us tight and cosy at the back, a number of long-range curling passes turned defence into attack. His tackle on SWP saved the game, and if Hart had not been wearing those new jet-pack boots, his first half shot, bound for the top corner, could have won it for us. He would have been pleased to see his name on the team sheet in the first place, given Bale’s rip-roaring form. That was quite a compliment, but not quite matching the ultimate accolade – the Tottenham On My Mind MOM…

But there’s more. In town on Monday, you know those people who read your paper over your shoulder or out of the corner of their eye, the ones that if you make eye contact, they pretend to be looking just past you, engaged in an intense study of ceiling rivet techniques or the patterning and durability of the seat covers, comparing modern fabric with the classic London Transport check of 40 years ago, well, I am that voyeur. It’s a compulsion – I do it even if the paper is free and I have said paper in my hand at the time.

On the Northern Line I spotted on the top left of the Evening Standard page, ‘Spurs star who takes the..’ and the rest was obscured. I later picked up a copy with a sinking heart: bound to be either two metre Peter’s latest drunken philandering or, worse, it’s a Spurs man who has the super-injunction. In fact, footballer in good news story shock horror drama probe. The Standard, always on the look out for any passing bandwagon, has leapt aboard the Big Society as it careers through state and local authority provision. Benny is a major contributor to ‘the Dispossessed Fund’ which has gathered £1m to help support London’s poor.

It’s a genuine good news story. Benny loves London and travels everywhere from his Canary Wharf flat (thought they all had to live close to Chigwell and the training ground?) by public transport.

Benny's Famous Roger Moore Impression

“I love London and consider myself to be a Londoner. I take the Tube. It allows me to feel like a normal person,” he said. “I’ve always got my Oyster card with me. I live an anti-football life. I want to live like a normal person.

“It’s strange to walk around the city and see people sleeping in the streets. You shouldn’t be able to see something like that and then just go home and carry on with your life as normal. You have to do something about it.”

He owes this refreshing humility, rare amongst professional footballers, to his upbringing:

“My mother didn’t teach me to live like a star. I know how difficult it is to make money….I’m a footballer and I earn a lot of money, but when I go back to Cameroon I see the real problems that people are facing. It made me re-evaluate my life.”

In contrast, on the back pages of the same edition, Ashley Cole is being given a PR makeover to improve his image. The clue is in that sentence, Ash – it’s about what you do and how you behave, especially towards your fellow human beings, not about image is. He’ll never learn, bless him.

Spurs have joined in the campaign too, the first Premier League team to do so.

Benny is different, we know that. Last season he pulled off the staggering feat of saying that all footballers are in it for the money, but in a nice way. He’s a professional and will give his all, but in the end it’s a job and he’ll walk away. He plays football because he can but would much rather do something in music. Badge-kissing and fist-pumping is so much nonsense – see players for what they are and enjoy it, he seems to be saying, but don’t make them something they are not.

He greets all this with the same expression, slightly bemused and disconnected but not unhappy. My son has seen the team board the coach post-match at a few away games. Benny will stroll towards the bus, headphones on, in a world of his own, whereas the others will mostly sign a few books and pose for photos. Somehow he does it in a manner that does not offend. It’s just the way he is. The only clue to his feelings is the merest twitch of the face, the most expressive raised eyebrow since Roger Moore’s puppet on Spitting Image.

I swear he’s the same in games. Whether striding forward, hammering back or hurling himself bodily into the tackle, maybe just the slightest furrowed brow is the only change you can discern.

Benny Relaxes Between Bouts of Fundraising

On Wednesday, he was fairly blank, albeit with eyes downcast, as he suffered the ignominy of being hauled off after 36 minutes. It could be that he was sacrificed for tactical reasons as Hud came on, but Harry did not look at all happy. Benny had been drifting wide and out of position, stranded when he saw the Young Boys forward move up for the third goal. From hero to villain in 4 short days.

I’ve grown fond of our full-backs over the years. I sit on the lower Shelf in the centre and see a lot of them as they toil up and down, the fear in their eyes as they face a quick winger or Bale’s astonishing physicality as he steams up the field.

I like Benny. He’s a good player, quick, alert and neat, good on the ball and sharp in the tackle. If he didn’t care, he would not have improved so much in the last two years, he’d just hang around and pick up his cheque. Sometimes he has off days but you can’t tell until it’s too late, until he wanders or he has those mad days. He reminds me of my dog – even and consistent the vast majority of the time but occasionally for no reason, she flies in and out of the house at top speed for five minutes or so, then stops, again for no apparent reason. Benny goes mad too, usually going walkabout and fouling desperately before being substituted.

Let’s hope he picks himself up for Saturday. Certainly a week of ups and downs, but still, knowing him, he’s probably not noticed and even if he has, you wouldn’t notice the difference.

Public information announcement: our game is live on Absolute Radio Extra tomorrow: DAB Digital Radio, 1215AM and online in the UK. For more go to http://bit.ly/StokeSpursAbsoluteRadio

We Got Away With It

August 18, 2010 / Alan / 13 Comments

A lousy stinking filthy cess-pit of a performance. Surely scrubbing the very last shreds of excrement from the bowels of those lorries that suck the pits dry, using your fingernails, would feel better than watching Spurs last night. Cover me with slime and malodorous mucus. Let me wallow in troughs of putrid decaying refuse, rub foul sludge into the gangrenous scabs that spread over my rotting flesh. And I will dance and sing with joy, because compared with my mood just past 8pm, my spirits will be hearty and hale once more.

But in the end, we got away with it. In the last five minutes, we preened and posed, holding the ball with insouciant nonchalance, like we meant it. Narrow defeat and two away goals, take that before the match started. Yeah right.

What’s more, he was the one who lifted us from the steaming depths of doo-doo. He, the lowest of the low, worst of the worst on a shocking night, shades of Keane and Berbatov again with the one-two and a moment of thrilling brilliance and uncanny understanding totally at odds with the rest of the evening. Reminders of Burnley in the League Cup semi, too. Redknapp bewildered and bereft of ideas, open-mouthed at the inept stupidity of experienced, able players perfectly prepared to throw it all away without, apparently, a second’s concern. Then Pav popped up again with a neatly taken chance that shifted the course of the entire development of the club. If we progress, how much will yesterday’s goal be worth?

I’m never over-confident but I really, genuinely believed, no, not believed, make that rationally analysed using the hard evidence available, that we had got past this sort of thing. Away from home early on you expect to weather the storm from a team whose mindset must have been tuned to confident giant-killers, nothing to lose, show them what we can do. Even accept the lucky break and well-taken goal. But complete mindless feeble collapse, that was consigned to history. Surely. Wolves, February 10^th, same thing (not quite as dire), then consistency, determination, resilience, good football.

Pass the ball 5 yards to someone on your team. Then do it again. That would have been a good start. I’m not asking for the moon on a stick. None of your over-inflated expectations. All this stuff in the blog about we’re not there yet, this isn’t the Champions League, just qualifiers. Not here. Just pass it 5 yards to another white shirt. But we never quite managed it.

Back four stretched across the whole width of the field. Dawson knows he’s slow, he worries, it plays on his mind and is his personal kryptonite. So he flys in, and is lost at sea, stranded. On Saturday I generously thought he was doing so under instruction because he had cover and City were conceding space, but two games in a row in very different circumstances: bit of a problem.

Not all his fault. This rock of ours does his best work deeper in our box, protected by his midfield. That’s why he was so good last season. If Daws was lost at sea, then Wilson drifted off the end of the earth. The perfect first-leg man, sit and hold. Last night, if he had been instructed to hold his bollocks he would have missed them.

So Daws in his desperation felt irresistibly drawn to the siren-like attractions of his defensive partner. Standing in each other’s shadows, miles up the pitch, one deft pass and they were both out the game. And Young Boys had a few of those passes. They were excellent with their swift and economical breaks, diagonal passes with perfect weight into the space. Their third was a fine goal: if Barca or Brazil has created that, it would be on loop repeat on Sky with the pundits slobbering lecherously.

Easy to blame Seb for that but it was a lovely pass and he received no assistance whatsoever from Benny. BAE could see the man making that run, Bassong couldn’t, and he should have been tucked in more. Instead, he fell into one of his bad habits, which is to hang out too wide, leaving a big gap between him and the left-sided centre half.

The same charge can be levelled at Corluka, not for that move but he severely disappointed. I expect more of him, but he too left a big space inside him and was so wasteful with the ball. He’s one of our men who I look to for a little steadiness under fire. Hold the ball, knock a few short passes, slow it down. Precisely because he can’t run or beat a man, solid defence and short passing is what he does. So do it. Unable last night.

Harry’s bold substitution bringing Hud on so early was a turning point of sorts. Although we were hardly scintillating after his arrival, at least we had some shape and purpose. He’s fast becoming a key man. The team are reassured by his presence. He makes them play better.

By that point it could not have become any worse. Literally. Pav was abysmal, constantly finding new ways to give the ball away and for goodness sake STOP DIVING, it’s so obvious. He lost a perfectly good free kick at the edge of the box because the ref was fed up with him. Gio is not a winger. If he’s given a freer role across the pitch and behind the strikers, he moves well and chooses the options to run with the ball or pass it. Stuck out wide, he just runs, head down, unaware of what is going on around him. Bale looked lost, a reminder of his inexperience for all his success of late.

But still in the first 30 minutes we made and missed 3 great chances. Defoe tried the outside of the foot with that ball from the left when surely a right instep would have fulfilled the striker’s obligation to get the ball on target. He did the same thing from a ball at a similar height for England at the World Cup. On that day it hit his ankle and went in, he became the hero, but there’s a technique problem there.

So we got away with it. Back to the Lane only one down and a couple of away goals in the bank. Young Boys are a useful, well-organised side who will still be quick and active on grass, but it’s a tie we have every opportunity to win.

On Saturday there was much to praise, in particular the collective determination of the team to take the game to their opponents, to be in charge. Don’t know where that’s gone. Perhaps it was never really there after all. Thought I had seen so much of it – Chelsea, Arsenal, City last season, that’s where I saw it. Or was it just my imagination? We’ll need it on Saturday and never more so come a week tonight.