Good morning to you.
It’s a pity that irony doesn’t pay the bills. Early last year I tried to run a ‘Let’s Kick John Terry Out Of Football’ tee shirt and ‘Let’s Kick Racism…’ threatened legal action so it was shelved. Now black players are threatening to boycott a campaign that means nothing, achieves nothing.
The cad Terry won’t be playing tomorrow but all eyes will be on the away fans. They’ve more form than Framkel when it comes to racism. Hissing, coin throwing, you name it. No one likes a grass, but if you’re there and spot someone behaving like this, tell a steward.
The side kinda picks itself to a large extent. Hugo had a solid international performance against Spain during the week, stopping a Cesc Fabregas penalty here and making a double save here. After that he would be the right choice to bring into a big game like this.
A back four that makes the fewest number of mistakes as possible is the way forward and reluctantly I’m picking Walker ahead of Naughton. Walker increasingly terrifies me defensively and I’m becoming rapidly depressed being told how good he is going forward. This is like telling a woman who’s lost the heel of her shoe that the colour goes perfectly with her outfit.
He doesn’t appear up to the job as a defender. He’s athletic and he does make some useful passes I’m not denying that, simply asking, at what cost? Unless something dramatically positive happens tomorrow we need Naughton.
Jan, Cauler & Billy look as sound as we have been in decades. This seems extravagant praise, but if you think about it that’s how long we’ve been mending and making do.
Sandro & Dembélé have been actually formed a formidable partnership with their highly efficient contrasting styles. An excellent article by Matt Swan is essential reading here.
Opta sats on Sandro only serve to underline what we might have suspected. His Own Half passing accuracy rate is consistently excellent. Against Norwich City, Manchester United and Aston Villa it was 100%. Overall this season in his own half his passing accuracy was 93%.When he goes over the halfway line things go a little downhill. His Attacking Half passing accuracy rate drops to 79%. In the final third it takes a small hit and becomes 77%. So the key is obviously for him to keep it simple and concentrate on utterly owning the zone he can control.
Dembélé missed the Newcastle and West Brom games so it’s important to look at the direction the stats take you in. Also this is Moussa’s first season with us. Factoring all this in, Moussa’s numbers are better than encouraging, to put it mildly.
Overall this season in his Own Half his passing accuracy has been 90% his is Attacking Half passing accuracy rate has been 87% which in the final third he maintained that 87%.
Bale, Dempsey, Azza and Ade. The only question mark in my mind here was should we swap Dempsey for Siggy or the Midget Gem for Adebayor. The answer I believe is more a question of who would I want coming off the bench. This is a game where it’s highly likely the subs will be deployed so we need to ensure that they make an obvious difference.
My prediction? This, like the Manchester United game and indeed every tough test is about being able to play for 95 minutes. We ought to win and I think by two goals.
There will be much made about this match in relation to Villa-Boas facing his previous employers for the first time since getting the tin tack. If we draw or worse, it’s important to focus on the manner the game pans out. How we played and how well we’ve done so far this season.
Your predictions? Ha. Here they are!
Any chance of us buying a linesman (Assistant referee) before tomorrow’s game?
Now there’s a good idea :daumen:
Hazard is spouting about Dembele being injured when Hazard replaced him on Tuesday.
I haven’t heard what’s wrong. Anybody?
I saw that Dembele was subbed 2mins into the 2nd half of the Scotland game…doesn’t look good :-(
Haven’t heard anymore…dont worry though, we have Livermore waiting in the wings :-(
Ok, he’s not mentioned as injured on the SPurs tea,sheet website and according to them he’s just given an interview saying how much he’s looking forward to it so fingers crossed!
I’m not advocating it, but this would (at least) be one game where we might get away with playing 2 DMs, if it came to it…
I must have missed the posts where Hairy condemned Spurs fans for the racist lynching references in the song for Campbell, where h fearlessly outed the same supporters for the racist suggestion that Adebayor’s father must wash elephants because he’s African, and the the utter renunciation of saintly Ledley for his racist abuse (“fucking paki”) of an Asian bouncer.
Otherwise this attack on Chelsea FC and its fans might seem hypocritical.
Prediction tomorrow? It will still be Tottenham 2 Chelsea 4 (league titles, that is).
Tottenham 2-1 Chelsea if you disallow the ones that were bought.
That will include the champions league trophy and subsequent qualification this season.
bought in a slightly different sense.
Campbell song was racist, though it was certainly homophobic. Adebayor song was racist. I don’t know where you are getting your information about what Ledley apparently said to a bouncer, but this was not in any news story I read so I conclude that it is bollocks you made up.
Yes, we have some knuckleheaded fans too, but if you are coming here trying to score points against us on that basis, as a Chelsea fan you really are on a hiding to nothing. Your fan base is essentially a uniformed wing of the EDL.
*Campell song wasn’t racist – which it wasn’t, there was no reference to race in the lyrics whatsoever.
Any chance we can possibly bin this line of enquiry?
It bloody well is racist as your average caveman singing about hanging a black man does so with the same gusto as your average deep south KKK member.
If you disagree then please, you carry on. Let’s have another thread of utterly pointless barrack room lawyer guff.
Alternatively we can focus on Spurs and not some flake who wore the shirt once.
:unsure:
No, because it isn’t racist. There is no implied link to lynching and a load of North Londoners evoking the worst crimes of the Deep American South 80 years ago would be not just an offensive link to make, but a completely esoteric one.
The hanging thing is a reference to suicide, look at the lyrics and it’s utterly obvious. It’s offensive enough as it is – making fun of suicide, mental illness, HIV etc etc – there is surely little need to perceive an implied racism which even given the tone of the song makes little sense at all within its context.
It’s not lawyer speak, it’s just not being an idiot! The worst thing about all this is that the papers and everyone else surely didn’t care about the other offensive elements which were clearly there for everyone to hear at least they chose not to focus on them and instead inferred a racist element which wasn’t there – aggressive homophobia is obviously still basically ‘OK’ I guess.
‘He’s big, he’s black, he takes it up the crack’ – that was inarguably racist AND homophobic. The Adebayor song was racist. I hope that the fact that he now plays for us might force those cretins who used to sing it to look once again at their shabby little existence and what the purpose of it is.
The hanging of Cambell was a reference to Judas.
Yes, forgot that one, haven’t read the lyrics in a good while. It was Judas, and if you want to infer anything more then perhaps suicide. Either way, a reference to the KKK it was not.
No one should have that kind of song sung at them and I’m no apologist. I just thought the hanging bit referred to the historical Judas.
Exactly, it’s a rotten song. It isn’t a racist one though. That doesn’t excuse it, unless you are comfortable with homophobia and laughing at mental illness and whatever else.
definately not racist, and it was a disgrace it was reported as such. LIES.
And to the Ledley, after googling the original news story and seeing the lack of any follow up or criminal charges, I conclude that this was likely to be bollocks made up by the bouncer.
You did miss em fuktard. He condemned both .
@Hairy Hotspuds
I appreciate you trying to dig your club out of the festering toilet in which it lurks, but I’ve done both.
You don’t know this blog and my guess is you won’t even return to read the responses to your silly comment.
Good luck.
This is so predictable. I can only conclude that these are the same tired, dreary points made by Geoff 1948 on a previous blog. Maybe you and Geoff 1948 are one of the same person. Or a clone. Who knows. These “arguments” have been put forward ad nauseum. These isolated incidents which you claim, without a shred of evidence I might add, as I waste my time to dig up non-existent evidence of the night club incident and your other allegations does not detract from the proven fact that your football club harbours a hardcore of some of the worst racist fans in Europe. If there is any racism at Spurs it barely registers on the Richter scale whereby the racism evinced by some (a lot) of your supporters is a full blown 8.
Well said.
Beyond tedious.
Absolutely. The Blue Racists and their Masonic connections north of the border are well known to racist abuse. There is no place for it. Only the conscience have never heard of it.
Good set up for tomorrow.
You’ve mis-spelt clone?-It’s CLOWN BC
Let’s be accurate. The elephant washer is Ade’s mum, not the gov.
4-3 to the spurs… us on top to begin with and holding the fort for the last 5 mins…
it’s just a prediction…
Midfield’s the key for this one. Heavy pitch which will require stamina and concentration to the max for the entire 90 mins-Having a poor half won’t get us out of jail this time. Sandro needs to be cautious and on his game-as he and Dembele are the key to our success if we’re going to match them. They’ll be fully aware of Bales threat already-so why not hit them in the heart? Lennon and Bale will occupy most of their thoughts, but I feel their weakness is in the centre defence, and not solely because of Terry’s absence,more because Luiz’s lack of concentration= COYS
Good point re midfield, remember the cup semi final we were in the game playing 4-5-1 but went to 4-4-2 and they picked us apart in the last 25 minutes.
Not forgetting their mids are far more fluid and move the ball quicker than last season’s team, but Sandro needs to be less headstrong because I feel they’ll single him out with a little play acting if he’s not quite at the races