Good afternoon. Well. That wasn’t very nice was it?
We were in all too many respects link a racehorse the handicapper got to. Bale’s wife went into labour. Dembele was injured and these two absences sent the dominoes inexorably falling. The worst of it was in the middle of the park. Sandro without his foil found himself drowning.
The first mistake was starting Brad. I really believe that we need to give Hugo a run of games now. He’s not some child, give him the shirt and let’s get on with it. This isn’t taking a punt. He wasn’t cheap. He’s one of the best keeper’s in the world. That’s not opinion.
Kyle Walker was finally busted. Not interested in how hurtful the Tweets were. He’s been gormless all season and we need to be thankful we spotted sooner rather than later. He might not need abuse, but he needs benching and it’s vital he’s dropped in favour of someone competent. The Forest Gump runs never impressed me and the headless chicken routine has just become depressing.
People were screaming for Gallas’ blood yesterday but with a no midfield in front of him and a lobotomised llama next to him he was never going to win the day. He did do some good work; but there seems a general undercurrent of unkindness toward him. His header out was powerful. It was blind luck it fell so kindly for Cahill.
Neither Caulker or Jan seemed to be quite at the races. Were they overawed? Well their performances against Manchester United suggest that wasn’t the case. But there were no runs, no dynamism. No sense of dynamism.
Huddlestone stepping in for Moussa wasn’t helpful. In fact it was equivalent of shoveling road gritting salt into a wound. He’s a sweet touch and that’s all he has. Like a comic trading off one good catchphrase. He struck several wonderful passes and then stood as if waiting for the applause. Desperately immobile. A desperate waste of a career.
Elsewhere we looked generally weak and a rather timid. The same old Lennon. Whizzing and skipping and zipping about but not really achieving all that much. It’s heartbreaking. Dempsey and Siggurdson were horribly unmemorable.
Villas-Boas is playing a risky strategy here with his choice of forwards and his seeming reluctance to make substitutions. Defoe is extraordinarily limited. Is Adebayor still not fit? If not, why not? This was a game where the midfield decided the outcome and we simply didn’t have one.
Freidel was a mistake.He did play well for most of the first half but yes its about time.Move on.
Gallas played gallantly for a while.Probalem is he was never going to hold the speedy Chavs.
Experience doesnt count when you have been bombarded
and when you have a high line there is tons of space to exploit behind if the timing is right
Jan should have been in the middle but couldnt due to injuries.Against Chelsea we needed Caulker and Jan.Glad when Kaboul comes back and Benny and Naughton.
Lennon at least had a go
Exactly, I can’t wait for Jan to be back in the middle yet I keep reading from quite a few Spurs fans that he should be our new LB. Bollocks should he!! He is a fairly decent LB but the boy is a world class CB and I for one will be over the moon when he’s back playing in the middle of defence.
Take Bale and Dembele out of our starting line up and we look like salami sandwich without the salami.. lots of plain bread but no substance..
so in truth we are now a Bale Dembele team instead of a VDV Modric… now dont ja just feel a summer transfer shenanagan going on with Bale next summer and RM via Modric… if only we had extended his contract….. ooopss yeah Levy did that instead of buying a decent striker …
We have a world class training facility used by to many championship class players at the moment… pie boy should sling his hook and haircut and Walker should be tested for any signs of a football brain… Livermore should be mated with Jenas and sold on a BOGOF promotion.. Adebarndoor who fell over rather than tap in for a third to put us 3-1 up has the first touch of a sumo wrestler in a fine china shop.. he should be sent to the African nations Cup on a one way ticket and a certain brazilian kidnapped during January and parachuted into Hotspur Way… nothing much to be excited about yesterday for 15 mins in the second we woke up but then decided that was enough and feel back into the sleep of the dead once more.. comatose and bland with a sprinkling of effort … hope AVB wrote that alongside his shopping list in his little notebook
Thought Townsend deserved a start yesterday,is he not trusted yet,been playing well enough the few chances he had and has the zip to make things happen.
We are an embarrassment.
Chelsea at home. What was previously called 3-point lane from the away support had become memories. Mutterings of what was. We’d derailed a highly powered steam train at White Hart Lane and kept it off the tracks for 6 years. In those 6 years, we’ve experienced immense progression. We’ve matched the top sides, beating them in some years and established ourselves as one of the top sides in the country.
With great success comes great expectation. Fans become more expectant. We no longer enter these big derby games in the hope of not being embarrassed, but in the hope of finishing with three points more than we started the day with. We expect free-flowing attractive football. We’ve evolved from our previous eye-sore that we’d put up with for years in the past. We expect to win, every game.
Inevitably, with great success also comes a higher demand for match tickets, Spurs branded items and the like. More fans want to see the side play. Fans are happier to pay out more as their expectation to win grows. Many now visit White Hart Lane for the entertainment, supporting the side comes second to the day out. Criticism is easier to give than praise.
Standing in Park Lane yesterday cemented my belief that we can no longer talk of the fantastic support we offer at games. In the past we’d be used to experiencing defeat at the hands of Arsenal, Chelsea and United but atleast we’d stand there and back our boys until the end; singing relentlessly for 90 minutes. We’re never going to compete financially with some clubs, but this is no reason why we can’t win the game off the pitch. Our job as fans is to support the side. Support the side when we win, draw and lose. I almost felt embarrassed on Saturday. Chelsea fans, at one point, even coming out with “It’s so quiet, it’s so quiet at the Lane.” This coming from supporters renowned for their lack of vocal support – or so I’d perceived.
We’ve moved on from times in which starting a chant in the stands was publicly supported through thousands of others joining in. We’re now at a time when starting a chant is met with irritated looks. It’s easy to sing and praise the side when we’re winning. It’s easy to sing “AVB’s blue and white army” when we’re ahead. But the moment we go a goal behind, at any stage of the match, I get the impression the majority are already checking for when the next train is departing White Hart Lane. The flood gates open and we swarm out.
Picture having your boss looking over your shoulder at work. You instantly feel nervous, tense. You worry so much about making a mistake that you don’t excel or work to your best. The moment we go a goal behind the atmosphere gets tense and edgy. We find publicly criticising the side a far easier feat to accomplish than supporting them. What good does it bring? More often than not now I believe that many fans would rather sing “I know I am I’m sure I am I’m Tottenahm ’til we lose.” It would have more truth in it than any other song.
I still remember being at Fratton Park under Ramos, being 2-0 down and singing Super Tottenham for about 8 minutes. Long gone are those days and long gone is my initial perception that we one of the best groups of supporters in the Premier League. I continue to question why we’ve become something we hate.
Regards,
Ben.
‘Win the game OFF the pitch?’ There’s no game OFF the pitch, Ben, so that’s where you’ve been going wrong. Thw WHL crowd has always been famously critical of its own players – a Villa fan once told me that he was shocked by the abuse Jimmy Greaves got from our fans during one of the two home games we lost during the 1966/67 season (Villa and Blackpool, both were relegated and if we’d won those we’d have been level with United, the champions of that season – a little bit of history for the kids who know nothing about Spurs but abuse anyone who disagrees with them). Blind loyalty is for the blind.
The other one we lost at home was The Spammers 3-4. That year we were so damned close it really hurt. I think we lost it about October-November and only lost to Man U in 1967 before beating the Apostates in the final. Gilzean got some stick at Southampton I think despite scoring the winner.
Forgot all about the West Ham game – if we’d won that as well, we’d have been champions by two clear points! But those of us lucky enough to have been around in those glorious days all reckoned (quite rightly) that we were underperforming, winning the odd cup (okay, three FA cups, two league cups, UEFA cup and Cup-winners cup in 12 years to 1973) but not doing it consistently in the league. If only we’d known of the wilderness years to come, would we have been kinder to Greaves, Gilzean, Knowles (my all-time favourite Spurs player, despite his occasional walkabouts), all of whom took stick from time to time at WHL, let alone Peters or Venables, who were permanently under the cosh from the crowd? NO – support Dagenham and Redbridge if you just like mindless loyalty, because Spurs were traditionally supported by people with brains, and criticism and intelligence go together like Levy and failure – synonymous.
Splendid stuff Ches.
The one campaign that still rankles with me to this day was the 84-85 season. We had our own destiny in our own hands and royally f*cked it up- so bad in fact that we didn’t even end up finishing 2nd (which still wouldn’t have been any consolation to this frustrated, slightly weeping, betrayed, gullible, naive 10 year old at the time).
51 years & counting……..that just isn’t right.
Here we go again, somewhere a half century ago and in the long distant past-we were a fleeting phenomenan, it didn’t last and never dominated. The rules were different as is the playing field, the equipment as is everything else. For us to compete, we need an awful lot of money invested in the club to build a sustainable product and then aquire players, who right now-we simply cannot attract for the reasons already given. We’ve lost our star creative player, and were without 5 ‘first on the team sheet’ players and we still in the game until the last few knockings. To attribute blame on Friedel is nonsense, it wasn’t Brad who allowed TWO threaded balls to dissect the defence-It wasn’t Brad who headed clearances directly to the opposition and it wasn’t Brad who fannied and faffed about instead of clearing his lines. He was clearly exposed by players who really should know better, but to have your team plans destroyed an hour before the game started and lose half a team in the process is a tall order-and after that display I’m rather pleased Lloris didn’t play, because he’d have made little or no difference and probably would’ve been scarred for life in the process-we were out gunned and out played in midfield-the rest was a mere Mata of time. Defoe and Lennon were both on form and were a constant threat but without any mid support, but on the downside Verts recovery is pretty poor and Walker with Gallas playing like schoolboys meant we’d be exposed as soon as Huddlestone’s lack of mobility was exposed.
Also Siggy and Dempsy wouldn’t have started had those injuries and fatherhood issues not happened, so to judge a cobbled together team against a team in such form is harsh to say the least-mitigating circumstances I’d say?
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Cheers Whatever, the most interesting post I’ve read on here for a while, and well put. Got me thinking(rather than just reacting).
Please come again.
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Whatever? Or is it Ben?
Whatever.
ioanx how long you been supporting SPURS a heavy home defeat to scum who scored what 3in last 15mins SO U ARE A NEW AGE COACH WITH ALL THE BADGES AND EXPERIENCE TO BOOT WHO KNOWS EVERTHING IN HIND SIGHT!!!!!!!!
who spent 90mill on 3 players and 1BILL on every thing including a kitchen sink.
I WOULD get the prat who wrote this and LLL and piss off down kings rd if your not appy with losing 1 game.AND SLAGGING THE WHOLE TEAM OFF
a lot of us hate losing to the chavs ,nomads,and the east london tossers more than anything ,but saying its not acceptable is pathatic you middle class nonce ,since when is anything not being acceptable in life.
We must improve our performances ,improve our tatics is almost a must ,well you certainly wern`t watching us LAST YEAR was u because we won 3 out 15 end of last season or the season before 4 in 20
This geezer is doing more to improve this team than that prick done in 3.5 years
Here is an opportunity for all of u Redcrapp might be in charge qpr