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.

Spurs v Arsenal

November 1, 2009November 1, 2009 / Alan / 5 Comments

Defeat is always hard to stomach. Despite having had enough practice over the last 40 years or so of watching Spurs, I have never quite become used to it. There’s nothing for it except to allow time to pass. Some people get angry, some just get over it, but I remain morose for however long it takes.

But there are defeats and defeats. If we are beaten by a better team, well, there are always things that we could have done better or learning points for the training ground but in the end we have to get over it. What makes my blood boil is capitulation. When all our talent, skill and experience is thrown out of the window. When players are apparently incapable of a moment’s thought about their game. We give them everything, our heart and soul, but in the end our fate is in their hands. When they leave us exposed to ridicule from braying gloryhunters in red and royal blue.

Against the old enemy, it seems we can come up with ever more creative ways to lose. I remember a good few years ago sitting right at the back of the Paxton with a precious ticket watching them take us apart. It was near the beginning of the Wenger era. At the finish, the mood around me was surprisingly philosophical, beaten by a better team on the day, therefore in some measure we could deal with it. But since then, we have games when we are on top but are then destroyed by breakaways, cup semi-finals, we watch them win the league on our ground, we score four but concede five. Now we have the 11 second goal. Utterly pathetic, like watching the primary school team give the ball to the big boy who’s better than everyone and runs straight through.

What on earth goes through their heads at moments like those? Nothing much, probably. Meanwhile, through mine runs an endless replay of desperate missed tackles and bewildered expressions, of half an hour of mindless hoofed balls high into the sky, a loop tape of failure.

We started well enough, with a limited but achievable aim of containment. Just as we began to believe, this solidity was exposed by the first goal as a façade, as flimsy as the Halloween decorations that the gales are blowing away down my road as I type. Our defending was infinitely more terrifying than any of them, however. Ledley, my lovely, magnificent, loyal Ledley, did not have a good game, but he does not deserve Shearer’s smug unthinking dismissal from the comfort of the MOTD sofa. Defending is a team exercise. For the first and third goals, our right-sided central defender had to come across to the left in the absence of Bassong and BAE, drawn out of position by Arsenal’s elementary forays down the wing. Our midfield did not have the wit or willingness to drop back to cover throughout the entire game, when for much of the time we played with three in the middle. The enemy did so little. A couple of quick near post crosses was enough to take us apart.

If marks out of ten had been my task this week, then Robbie Keane may have achieved the unique feat of a minus score. Contributing little on the pitch, his pre-match comments that we have a better squad of players provided more than enough plus points for our opponents, putting Robbie firmly in the red. So to speak. Harry was helpful too – ‘Arsenal won’t win the league’. He may be right but not the right time to say so, HR. The cock up starts early at Spurs. For the outfield players, the best I can come up with is, ‘JJ kept going’…..

Any fleeting belief in a newly created resilience or ability to play badly and win was dead and buried after this one. Next weekend, start again, but until then can somebody turn off that bloody tape.

Spurs v Arsenal. She Gets It

October 31, 2009February 9, 2010 / Alan / Leave a comment

A few continuity gaps in the blog over the past couple of weeks. Work is the curse of the blogging classes. Not that the net has been humming with dismay and angst. Bobby Gee, we salute you.

Now the tenders are complete, the meeting over and the reports written, the important business of life has my full attention. During this barren spell, the ethos of TOMM has never been better evidenced. Evidenced, See, I’m still partly in work jargon mode. Evidenced isn’t really a word or at least it didn’t used to be. However in my world it has become a mantra. Everything must be proved, documented, show your working out. So evidenced it is.

Lost in the labyrinthine complexity of business plans, continuity assurances and probity safeguards, Tottenham was the guiding light. I can share with you, my friends, that I don’t know what the flip we are going to do if swine flu carries us all away but that’s not what we told the London Borough of Haringey.

Because through all this Tottenham really was always on my mind. My intense note taking in the parliament building? The Everton preview. The final tender? The red presentation folder rejected for a more appropriate shade of navy. Never red. After one meeting I was complimented on my prompt distribution of notes and the impassive authority of my little psion notebook on the desk has contributed to my status as meeting chair. Relief. Before sending, I had remembered to cut all the notes about the Arsenal game from the minutes.

And there was market research. In the pub following the most po-faced of debates, my good friend Adriana, who has been enormously encouraging of my efforts despite having visited this blog as often as she would leave the house in Primark underwear, with characteristically delightful mischief described me as a writer to someone who is doing proper research for a proper book. With pages. Cringing, I was forced to describe my pony efforts to an enthusiastic young football innocent. A pause. ” Tottenham On My Mind’, she weighed the words carefully, out loud. “What a great name. I suppose that’s how football is if you are a fan.” Doesn’t know her overlapping full backs from her catenatcio, she got it. Always on my mind.

Never more so than on the eve of the north London derby. I can remember the times, which to me do not seem so long ago, when the most repeated statistic about Spurs and Arsenal was that over the years the head to head record of wins and losses was almost symmetrical. Since then, they have pulled away, if not out of sight quite yet. Now we have a team capable of challenging their dominance, or more accurately we have the players if not quite their teamwork. However, that resilience is more fragile than ever. Against West Ham last week they were fine when all was going well but crumbled as soon as a challenge was mounted. They could have easily lost after being well on top for two thirds of the game. We must keep playing, keep it tight, attack to pressure their back four and not fall apart if we go behind. We will have another chance.

Problem is, will we take them? This blog has concentrated on our defensive frailties but over the last two games, we have been so wasteful in front of goal. Keane missed so much on Tuesday and Pav was in another dimension. Or crap, whichever you prefer. In a match where we are likely to have few opportunities, we can’t be so profligate.

Bentley must play following his fine display against Everton. I was pleased for him. It was a pleasure to see the fear visibly evaporate as the game went on, although despite his warm words of praise, Harry could not have been pleased with the ball juggling flash of the last ten minutes. Mark Hughes would not have tolerated that at Blackburn. Maybe Bentley needs that firm hand, but Crouch will prosper if those crosses arrive whipping and curling from the right.

Outwardly brash and cocky, Bentley’s mind has been on his business and music interests as much as on training. A round of media appearances shortly after his transfer signalled his agent’s plan to launch him as a celebrity player. At Spurs they call him ‘Becks’. However, this masks a psychological vulnerability that has left him unable to challenge Lennon’s domination of our right side. Used to being an automatic selection, he has not known how to react and as a result his attitude in training has been poor. He took his chance on Tuesday, admittedly without being pushed too hard by the opponents, so now maybe today and next Saturday to decide if he will remain a Spurs player.

Without Lennon, JD and Modric, we are deprived of the pace and creativity that are the key to victory. JJ will surely return as Hudd will be too slow for this one. Despite Keano’s form, two up front will maintain the pressure and cover Vermaelan’s forward runs.

Spurs v Everton Preview

October 27, 2009 / Alan / 1 Comment

And so to the League Cup, in some ways a chance to put the Stoke defeat behind us but these days the midweek cup bears little resemblance to the issues facing us or any Prem team in the league.

From Everton’s perspective a kick-about in the Goodison car park has a greater priority than this evening’s match. Their injury list is in double figures and they are already fielding weakened teams in Europe, losing 5-0 last week, so we could have a situation where as their team is announced, we can call ‘Whooooo?’ after every name. I hear a couple of the subs are bringing their mums to tie their boot laces.

We’ll make changes too. With Crouch, Lennon, Woodgate, Defoe and King all missing there are opportunities for players who are pressing for a first team slot. It’s tempting to give them a run-out and I’d certainly like to take a look at Naughton for the first time in a Spurs shirt. However, I would not advocate wholesale change for change sake. This is a game we should win but we have to guard against complacency. Personnel rotation can upset our balance unnecessarily. More importantly, the first team is still learning to play with each other and I would prefer that we spend 90 minutes working on at least some combinations that will bear fruit in the Premier League.

I would go for a strong spine that could easily take the field in any league match. Let’s give Gomes more time to work with Dawson and Bassong in the centre. JJ has to start on Saturday so partner him with WP, develop their understanding together about who goes forward and who stays back, and when. Up front, Keane will play with Pav, although it’s shame Pav and Crouch could not have a run-out together. Maybe the Russian will benefit from the freedom of not being the target man, a role he does not enjoy and cannot be effective in, and have a greater license to roam. There’s no reason why he can’t play in this manner with Keane, however, and I’d like to see Harry tell him to play with Keane as Defoe does, i.e. the team are looking to pass and move, through-balls into the gaps and tell Pav not to have his back to the goal all the time. To me, the benefits of all this outweigh the desire to rest people.

Out wide there’s more room for manoeuvre. Bale should be selected at left back – he is so talented, I really want him to succeed here. Hutton or Naughton on the right. Kranjcar needs more game time to get fit, rather than rest. That leaves Bentley. Harry really does not fancy Bentley, for whatever reason, so if he has no place in our plans, to my mind it is pointless playing him, even if Lennon will be out for a while. Give someone else the experience. However, if he can play for his future, if he wants to stay and fight for a place, if the rumours about not giving him another league start for fear of triggering a transfer payment are untrue, then go for it, DB. Only Harry and Bentley know the answers to this one, but should he play and not show any real appetite, then we will make our own minds up about his future.