Same Old Trafford And Nowhere To Run For The Cro-Rat

Patience isn’t a strong point of us Tottenhamers. Having spent the summer endlessly checking the official site for a sniff of a signing, and following all the ITK’s we could possibly dig up- no matter how ludicrous their claims- we then had to wait a further 9 days (aka, an eternity) for our domestic season to start. It’s enough to make you go stir crazy, but as luck would have it, we’ve now got ourselves a light-bite of an opening fixture in Manchester.

Hearts played Chief Wiggum to our ravenous pack of Tottenham attack dogs on Thursday night- starved of competitive action, we leapt upon and mercilessly mauled the first side to tauntingly cross our paths. Impressive as we were, we’ll all be hoping that it was more of a Hearts d’ouvre than a hearty meal that we were feasting on, and that there is plenty of room left for our Devilled Reds main. We all remember the excitement of thrashing the ‘AS Roma Summer Holiday Shopping XI’, only for us to relieve Juande Ramos of gainful employment 6 weeks later, after a couple of points from a relatively large number of games when the real stuff started.

News from OT is that their captain and EPL Player of the Season candidate (or did he win it?) Nemanja Vidic is out for 5 weeks, with other defensive rock Ferdinand also unavailable for at least a week. When I say rock, I mean one of them ones that break quite a bit and need super gluing back together from time to time. With that in mind, it’s looking like promising young defensive duo Smalling and Jones will be the boys called upon to stem the flow of attacks from such luminaries and Crouch, Defoe and Pav. A month ago, their ‘keeper was one of the most promising youngsters in world football. After a charity match and a game in the Premier League, it would appear he has all the promise of a Stereophonics album, and with that, it’s only a matter of us putting some shots on target that will see us win this one.

Perceived weaknesses aside, this United side will be the same as ever. Great at winning football matches, especially against Tottenham. I haven’t heard any ‘it’s always a great match when we play’s’- largely because he wins them all- as yet from the Bells spokesman, so lets hope we’ve got him a bit worried at least.

As for how we’ll shape up, I see it as the same as Hearts, but with different personnel. Despite his second half disappearing act, I expect Defoe to carry along up front with VdV in behind, while Livermore will give way to Huddlestone. I can see Harry putting Corluka back in for Walker and sticking with Gomes. For now.

News of the Cro-rat’s head not being in the right place (Manchester, for one), is just the sort of farcical blow we have all come to expect on the eve of a league campaign in these parts. It raises an interesting debate over whether to let him rot in the stands (we don’t have a reserve team, remember) or take the money, Berbatov-style, and cut our losses. Personally, while letting him go would certainly be the pragmatic path, I think we’ve passed a point of no return in our ability to take the transfer fee and re-invest. After the strong words of our chairman and our *reasonably* consistent stance from the management, the fans, players and, increasingly, the football world at large are looking to us to stand firm against this player, and more tellingly, agent power. If he won’t play, get on the phone to the Russian mob who’ve got a shed load of cash and send him there on loan. Make it as uncomfortable as possible. If he behaves himself, take him back in January with the promise of selling him in the summer if a bid of X amount comes in.

As for tonight, I’ll be watching on in hope rather than expectation, but a crumb of comfort on offer might be United being historically prone to an early season slip up. Wasn’t there a defeat away at Pompey a few years back? I may have made that one up, but they definitely lost to Burnley a couple of seasons ago. Whether this constitutes a ‘pattern’ is, obviously, completely unfounded, but nevertheless, these big machines tend to take a little bit of warming up before they’re at full steam, so with a bit of our midweek swagger mixed with United being guaranteed an early slip-up (it’s fact now, I’ve decided), let’s hope the footballing Gods conspire in our favour.