Belated Grievances

Oh I really don’t want to have to write this. It’s late because after getting home from the game, and all of yesterday, I was tired. Tired of watching the same performance for a year. Tired of watching us waste our chances; from our failure to capitalise on our status as Champions League contenders, to missing out on the right players, in the right positions at the right time, to our failure to convert presentable chances in the games.

While Levy was pooling all his effort into getting another brass farthing out of the spammers for the loan of Keane in the January transfer window, Man City got their £27 million business of signing Dzeko done early, and Liverpool were spending £20 million on Luis Suarez. A microcosm of how we do business- exert every bit of effort into recouping an extra tenner on the dregs like Hutton and Bentley, whilst completely blinding ourselves to the bigger picture. This is not how successful businesses are run. Being a master negotiator is one thing; I’m sure he gives the traders down at Romford market a torrid time for the best price on his Persil liquitabs, but is that the yardstick for a great businessman? I’m a million miles from being convinced that the guy is all he’s cracked up to be.

Perhaps he’ll pull a rabbit out of the hat again? Even if it is another talented but not necessarily what we need type (Kaka has been doing the rounds- Jesus ‘aitch), is this the kind of thing a great footballing or financial tactician does? It’s the behaviour of a chancer. A gambler. One of those city traders we love to hate who take a punt. With our money.

The playing staff need to have a long, hard look at themselves as well. Lennon hasn’t performed since before the last World Cup, and is in danger of becoming that fast lad we chuck on in the last 10 to see if we can get at ‘em. Gareth Bale needs to grow a brain and make it snappy. I made excuses for him last year- Always with space to run into, but always ball watching; always blankly gazing back at an exasperated  Modric or BAE, with a look so little-boy-lost, you felt he needed warm milk and a story, and not the demands of Premier League football. He wasn’t fit. Once he’s got the confidence in his limbs, he’ll make those runs. He’s fit enough now and he’s still not doing it, which can only mean a lack of intelligence.

Harry’s team selection was beyond bizarre. Livermore has got a bit more convincing to do, but what was going through his head when he thought Modric and Kranjcar would be better options for protecting the back 4 against the talent that they were going to unleash? A blind leap of faith in a we’ll-score-one-more-than-you, instead of showing sufficient respect to the task in hand and being hopelessly out thought.

As for Modric, Sunday was the final insult. Regardless of whether he asked not to be played or not, after everything he’s said over the summer, he still got the biggest cheer when the names were read out over the tannoy. After being ‘alwight-saaaaahn-gis-an-hour-then-yeah’-ed off, to a few boo’s, but overwhelming cheers, there wasn’t even a small, cursory hand-in-the-air thanks for the people who had paid to see him for the last 3 years, and who he’d insulted so publicly by demanding a move to another club. I didn’t think my opinion of him could sink any lower. If only that was the only unpleasant surprise of the afternoon.

I can’t find the effort to talk at length about City. Their fans singing ‘we are staying up’ and ‘we’re just a s**t Man United’ with a tongue-in-cheek sense of farce in regards to their ‘meteoric rise’ (copyright every hackneyed Man City article) brought the only smile of the afternoon across my glum chops. If Sunday is a barometer of their season, those fans are going to see a lot of exceptionally talented footballers playing with skill, vision and terrifying movement. Good luck to them, hope they can get one over on their own Arsenal.

Sorry if this bursts anyone’s bubble, but having sat through that and taken a bitter reality pill, I’ve got another one coming. Tottenham Hotspur are not going to win the Premier League this year. They won’t even come second.

I’ll let that sink in for a minute.

Yep, you heard me, and on top of that, our chances of being one of the 3 best teams in the country come the middle of May 2012 are pretty remote.

In other breaking news, Queen Victoria’s dead.

We don’t really do perspective and reality round our way, but there it is. What makes us so special that we are immune from the limitations of our station; we all point at Stoke or Bolton finishing in the top 10 and pompously state ‘they’ve done well’, but round our way, we rope in an ageing goalkeeper, and a loan striker not good enough to even make the squad of a team we claim are our rivals, and then act with incredulity that we get turned over by the summers 2 biggest spenders? This game is about glory. It’s also about us getting a f**kin’ grip, and realising that the benchmarks of the past have been moved.

After getting bashed 1-5 at home, there is no mileage in trying to skim over any of this by saying it was a bad day at the office. Serious questions need to be asked by all involved, or we could find ourselves deep in the smelly stuff, quicker than you can say ‘2 points 8 games’. What I will say is that once these last 2 games are put to rest internally; there are 16 teams in the Premier League that we can realistically finish above. This is by no means a guarantee- we need to get the right people in and quickly. If Scott Parker being a Tottenham player means that I’ll never have to see a Modric and Kranjcar central midfield pairing try to stem the flow of attacks from the likes of Toure, Nasri, Silva, Aguero etc, then fine. Whatever your thoughts on the guy, there’s no argument that his leadership and ability to protect our defence would have made a difference.

In the cold light of these 2 results, I can still see us battling it out for fourth place.