Good morning.
Our players won’t have been looking forward this. I’m not looking forward to this and the full extent of my involvement will be nudging the volume up and liberating something ice cold and imported from the Frigidaire.
QPR have made a mess of things. The chilling words of Neil Warnock, ‘I’ll remember where I left QPR …in the Premiership.’ may become indelibly tattooed on Tony Fernandez’s mind come the last day of the season.
Warnock may not be to everyone’s taste, but I still rate him and if left to manage with half decent resources he’d probably be a better than good Premiership manager.
Mark Hughes has his gang delicately poised 3 points above the burn outs that are Bolton, Blackburn and Wolves. My point being that this is wounded beast territory. Never more so than with QPR. Their form has fallen into a very simple pattern. They lose away and win at home. Their last 3 scalps being Swansea, Arsenal and Liverpool.
I chatting to a Spurs fan on Sunday about this and we both agreed that psychologically the pitch at Loftus Road appears narrower. It isn’t of course, but the way the ground is laid out it just feels that way.
So the board then.
fig.1=like a limiter in a car, the rear guard must stay in position. Parker, Walker and Benny aren’t the best men to play forward balls. fig.2=Modric mustn’t get bogged down playing ‘rush defensive mid’ his role must be forward distribution. fig.3&4=go wide and stay wide.
The plan here simple. Try to create space in the final third and take the initiative. This game could deteriorate rapidly into school playground game of punt and run with nobody having either control or a plan. With the ‘wing backs’ muzzled because they simply aren’t good enough at delivery, they can sit deeper and five defensive players ought to be enough.
It’s completely pointless playing into QPR’s hands and letting Azza & Bale ‘drift’ centrally in what will feel like a tight pitch anyway must be stopped. Adebayor and Saha need service and if it is supplied they have got more than enough to beat Paddy Kenny.
QPR are where they are because they do not play great football. Not because of bad luck or because they upset the gods. Spurs need to step up with a plan and stick to it. A casual approach with some ropy 442 or fielding players who either lack ability or class (hello Ledders and Half Nelsen) is guaranteed to be a waste of everyone’s time.
Eye-catcher bets from Boylesports.com 1-3 Correct score is 12/1, Last goalscorer Saha 11/2 and Spurs to win by 2 goals 11/1.
I recently finished reading ‘Harry Redknapp – The Biography’ by Les Roopanarine (not on commission!)which covers up to the period just after our Champions League journey. It is quite damning on Redknapp’s ability to sustain a credible run in the second half of a season at any of his clubs. Some interesting comments –
Redknapp at West Ham “The day I stop choosing who I buy and who I sell is the day I am not managing a football club anymore.”
Rupert Lowe on Redknapp at Southampton “Journalists write very good things about him all the time because he spends his life giving them stories. If he spent five percent as much time coaching the side as he did schmoozing the media, we might actually get somewhere. Ultimately he has his favourites. He’s not a great man-manager in my view, he’s lazy.”
Redknapp on Modric having taken over from Ramos and moving Modric into a more advanced position “That is his position. He needs to be free. I’ve never seen him as part of a 4-4-2. It’s difficult for him to play as one of two central midfielders; he’s got to play further forward.
And perhaps the most pertinent comment from Redknapp was while at West Ham and they were slipping down the table “We won’t win the Championship but we do give the fans plenty of entertainment and I couldn’t send out a team to play boring football. Unfortunately, some people have a false idea of where this club should be.”
Some things just don’t change….
Him being a (unt is just one.
Redknapp can go as long as he takes Bale with him.Gone to shite wirth respect to the 3 or 4 players who care.
Seriously, HH, we need a petition – a genuine petition or some other public movement – to make it clear to DL we don’t want this twitchy idiot ruining our club anymore.
If the fans start singing HR out at the Lane what can it hurt?
The season’s over anyway…
We cannot possibly run the risk of FA saying No and him remaining at Spurs next season
Fuck levy he wanted to drag us to te East End and now he and his dream are fucked. Fuck him. Shouldve bought quality in Jan.
One big kick off from the fans Mr levy and you wont get tupence for us, you wanker.
Another wasted weekend..
Doesn’t seem our beloved club will get anywhwere this season, even worse, don’t seem to have any answer to these disgraceful results..
Didn’t join the HR-Out brigade so far, but by now it’s so obvious something has to be done..HR-Out, there, i’ve said it..
Having said it, think DL(although i really rate/appreciate him as chairman) sitting on his money in Jan has been a very big miss which we’re paying(big time)for now..
Also, the attitude/mentality of many of our current players is disgraceful (yeah, i know we got 3 or 4 players that (we all know who they are) really want to win, they’re excused)
So sick of this..from contenders to laughing stock in 6 weeks…………….