Chelsea. Swansea. Norwich. Pop.

Both teams rueing a missed opportunity probably means it was a fair result. Still, avoiding defeat was the main objective, and we can wake up on Christmas morning in the knowledge that we’re London’s top placed Christmas fairies for the first time since 1995, and that ain’t not half isn’t not too bad.

Back to last night, wind well and truly sucked from the sails following the questionable equaliser, we were probably a little fortunate not to be behind at half-time. Also questionable is what Ledley and Benny thought they were playing at by stopping still and waiting for a handball call that never arrived. Not good enough chaps. They’ve both been excellent so far, but not one to put on the career highlights tape last night. Benny especially, had his worst game in a good 2-3 years; disappointing for a young man who has been largely excellent.

Invisible man replaced invisible man at half-time, and come the hour mark, came my first personal concession that a draw would be taken if offered. Still, didn’t mean any of us were any less gutted when Ade rolled his late effort wide, with a touch from ‘you know what you are’ unfortunately turning the ball the wrong side of his post. The bounder. The ready prepped ‘JT shrugs off personal problems to put in AMAZING performance’ have been predictably dusted off for the morning editions. When you’re a soulless, moral vacuum however, I’m not sure how difficult this actually is, and the fact it’s being praised almost beggars belief; from the same outlets no less, that 48 hours earlier had acted with such condemnation towards the Liverpool squad for trotting down to their local ‘we do stag and hen nights as well’ outlet.

Anyway, Norwich and Swansea away in just a few days, so let’s look ahead to these mothers. Paul Lambert and Brendan Rodgers will one day manage big clubs. They’re both Scottish/ Northern Irish and like to play decent football. What greater qualifications does one require to succeed in Premier League management? On paper, they should be good games, between sides that like to play decent stuff, and given the number of technicians available to us, even after the injuries, we should be able to out-football them. Decent home records for both though, so certainly not gimme’s, but bearing in mind WE ARE IN CRISIS! after claiming just a mere 4 points from the previous available 9, at least another 4 before heading into 3 win-able home games, would be novelty tie-rific.

Tottenham v Chelsea. It’s A Big’un.



AVB patrols the touchline


Greetings everybody, my first post as a married Gent. Things are going to change around here and make no mistake. Out go hastily compiled match reports and ill-informed opinion, and in come reason, logic, and a more rounded and mature outlook on, not just Tottenham Hotspur, but life itself.

*farts*

And what better way to kick off this brave new era than with a look ahead to what’s probably our biggest game of the season so far, against the unwashed of North Fulham. Having been lording it up in a country manner at the time, reports suggest that Sundays narrow victory against slumberland was very much a case of ‘job done’, but we might need a bit more tonight to keep our band wagon rolling.

Bale, King and Adebayor have all been declared ‘maybe baby’ by our Harold, which suggests to those fluent in ‘arry’ that all 3 will make it, while Sandro looks set to continue. A back 4, Captain Combover, Sandro and Mods sitting/tucking back in, when the full backs bomb on, with Bale and VdV buzzing around behind Ade is where best guess lies.

As for the opposition, lumbering, serial adulterer and Combat18 leader (slash) part time footballer Jonathan Terrance, having been spared a night in the cells, is free to Captain his deeply unpleasant charges, and provide us all with pantomime-levels of villainy. And what are games as these without a little theatre? As for the rest of them, Mata and Sturridge aside, they’ve been a collage of unremarkable grey, and I’m still not convinced the YTS management trainee they’ve got directing the blue traffic in his ‘crouching touchline, startled badger’ pose, knows entirely what he’s doing. Mind you, there’s a certain level of sympathy in having to deal with matters like the one he finds his Captain in, as well as the confused head-scratching of rotund ‘legend’ Frankincense. You’re slowing up in a game that’s getting quicker. Simpler than a 2 piece jigsaw puzzle, chief.

It says something that, Manchester clubs aside, we go into all fixtures now with a heavy expectation of victory, and tonight is no different. This lot are not that special: let’s not forget that without Stoke-levels of officiating at their place last season, we’d have won there as well, without a striker, and tonight presents another opportunity to underline our claim to be the capitals Christmas Kings. Sturridge and Mata’s shackling will be key, but in King, Parker and Sandro, we’ll have more than enough to cope.

If we’re truly going to take the next step as a club, we need to beat our rivals at the top, particularly at home, and make it a bit convincing while we’re at it. We seem to have grasped the concept of beating teams we should be, but a top of the table ‘six-pointer’ against an experienced bunch will give us a huge indicator of what the rest of this season has in store. It’s a big one. 3-1 Spurs.

Foys Orks 2 Footballers 1

Everyone settled down yet?

In the aftermath of Amir Khan’s defeat in Washington, at the hands of Washington-born Lamont Peterson, one boxing commentator made an excellent point; when you go to fight in somebody else’s back garden, make sure it isn’t close. Go in there and perform so mercilessly there can be no doubt who’s the champion. It could easily have been applied to Tottenham on Sunday.

I don’t accept that they ‘wanted it more’. We generally play controlled, possession football, creating openings by relying on our movement and ability. They played as if they’d each downed a 6-pack of red bull and got told that the lads dressed in purple had cussed their Mums.

The first half hour set the tone for the whole game… in fact, scrap that, the first minute set the tone, with them muscling their way through our shell-shocked back line and forcing Brad into an early save. ‘’But Mister Harry, I thought we were playing the English National Ballet select XI’’. Expecting something and dealing with it are completely different, but lads we thought would stand no nonsense- Parker and Kaboul to name but 2- were brushed aside like a bunch of Crouchey’s, or wacky waving arm-flailing inflatable tube men.

But the ref was to blame! Criiiiiiinge. Foy and his team had an absolute stinker, but when you’ve got a guy with an itchy trigger finger and an overwhelming desire to be ‘the man’, and you’ve already been booked, and your man is running nowhere, just stand him up. It’s pretty simple.

Anyway, I’ve sort of missed the boat on all the post-match stuff, so I’ll leave it there.

I’m getting married on Friday, so this will be the last you hear from your intrepid blogger as a single chap. Sunderland preview and report, I’ll leave to the many other fine wordsmiths out there, but suffice to say, their slice of luck and our somewhat unfortunate sequence of events from Sunday should see the universe realign itself ready for the dust up with Chavski.

Return of the Crouch

Hello etcetera.

A few ground-breaking headlines to come out of Spurs this week. Apparently someone is going to ‘earn his Spurs’ Like, when you earn *actual* spurs for your achievements in combat, but we’re called Spurs so it’s a really clever and highly original use of ‘spurs’. There have been other things that have Spur’d us on. How do they come up with this stuff?

Stoke away conjures up pictures, as opposed to full on game recollections. Have we ever played particularly well or badly up there? Is the Wallpaper (Britannia, I’m being told) Stadium just one of those places where everyone says exists, but it’s all a big lie? Like the lost City of Atlantis, or South London? Eidur getting the winner in the game that, pour moi, confirmed us as a Champions League team. More recently, that lush volley from the lad Garth and his surprised (slash) ‘did you see that?’ face. Still further back in time, before both of those, Gomes doing his ‘boo boo’ routine. I believe there was also an ambulance present? I’m struggling with much else.

But wallpaper, while being largely easy to ignore, can be really annoying and stubborn to shift when you’re forced to face it head on, which is exactly what we can expect from the stripy chaps on Sunday. Among their number are former Tottering favourites Woody, Wilson and Crouchy… well, maybe not Crouchy, but the other 2 always enjoyed a largely affectionate place in our lilywhite hearts. They still do, although largely because we probably know we’ve seen the best of them, and are unlikely to do us much harm. Peter, on the other hand, who had a scoring record of around 1 goal every calendar, will be greeted with far greater caution. A penny for every one of us who says: ‘you just know he’s going to score’.

Ledley’s ‘banged’ his knee, while Defoe and Bale have wonkys that sound as if they’ll be easily shaken off. Ledley’s absence is a worry but if Gallas can find some of the form of last year, we should have too much for them.

7 wins on the spin? We’re already record breakers with 6, perhaps the promise of a 7^th will ‘spur’ us on even further. Hahahahahaha. Classic me.

You Don’t Understand! You Weren’t There, Man!

Indeed I was not. During game time on Saturday, I was in transit toward a go-karting track to be out-driven by 14 year old boys, having spent the morning being pelted with paintballs by a gaggle of 14 year old boys. There’s a worrying pattern emerging here.

However, with the transit in question being equipped with all the mod’ con’s, like a radio, the bulletins came flying in. Goal followed goal, followed red card, followed goal. A free-nuffink home win enough to ensure that the brow was suitably and dramatically mopped, and the evening’s jovial celebrations and banter remained untainted by the nagging annoyance of points being dropped at home. A full autopsy could wait until the following day.

Bleary eyed, the12’’ gogglebox in my Southend Travelodge room flickered into life on Sunday morning, just in time to catch the highlights of our game. As the instant coffee begun to work its dubious magic, only 2 things managed to filter through to ones stuttering lucidity; it was never a red, and we missed another hatful. Actually, there was a bit of appreciation in the form of a pained groan at Lenny’s finish, but mostly it was about another week of goal mouth fluffery. Conventional (clichéd) wisdom dictates that it’s when you’re not making the openings that you need to start worrying, but if this is a parallel dimension we’ve stumbled into, where Tottenham are going to start challenging for bigger pots and pans, it’s a seismic shift in thought  and standards that needs to take place first.

Players like Defoe and Lennon, for example, have spent their entire professional careers in cultures of 2-1 home wins being great news against ANYBODY, whether it’s 0 or 20 chances that have gone begging; trotting into training the following day like a cock of the walk, safe in the knowledge that they’ve done enough, no matter how many lines had been fluffed. Indeed, we as fans are guilty of having the ‘job done’ approach, only for us to explode in rage when we’re missing the same efforts in tighter games of greater significance. While the likes of Giggs, Roy Keane, van Nistelrooy and Ronaldo might have been able to live with this kind of scenario every once in a blue moon, somehow, I couldn’t picture them being over the moon at 3 of them in a row, and you can bet SAF would be apoplectic. What about games where you simply won’t be allowed to create even a quarter of these chances? Saying that, I have full faith that it hasn’t escaped the managements attention, and that there will be a few words said.

Let’s start putting these dregs to the sword! If the Premier League has shown nothing else this year, it’s that the gap between the have’s and have not’s has grown once again. If we’re to continue making waves, the victories against the bottom half teams need to be more ruthless, more Man City/United-esque, and ensure that the ‘job done’ or ‘that’ll do’ attitude doesn’t become a comfortable malaise, when far greater efficiency against the top 6 or so will be even more vital.

Bubbled Over and Staging Wanderers

Out of Europe before Christmas. I’m struggling to be gutted about this.

You may or may not have noticed that ISS has not bothered previewing any of the group games since it appeared that the club couldn’t be bothered to field a team that showed any real intent to win any of the games. I’m not angry about this you understand, sacrifices need to be made if we are going to succeed in the league, and if they’d had the chance to do it again, I’m sure everyone involved in picking the team would have done the same, and I make them right. Last night, a home win would have been enough to virtually guarantee a post-Christmas jolly up on mainland Europa, but even with a suitably competent gaggle of pro’s, we came up short. The bubbles done good, and you can’t begrudge them their win after a dramatic rearguard action (ooh er). It’s negatives into positives time, and nobody will even remember the names of our group mates should be make the top 4 or beyond. Still, would have been nice to keep the kids around a bit longer. As it is, they’ll be off on loan, with only the beano to Shamrock left for them to show us what they’re made of.

Speaking of beano’s (and Irishness), It’s my stag do on Saturday. The original plan was to do a few bits, head over to The Lane, show the non-spursers of the party what a proper football team look like, and follow it all up with a few libations in the evening. Actually, no, the very original plan was going to be a trip to watch us play Stoke next Saturday, but having got everything booked, the powers that be decided the game needed to be moved to 4pm on Sunday, so it ballsed that plan up. We then tried to get everyone else tickets for the Bolton game this Saturday, but due to the late moving of the Stoke game, all tickets for Bolton were sold out by the time we enquired, so that was out. To compound the misery, Bolton have been in such shoddy form that their fans didn’t fancy yomping all the way to London to watch them get beat, so the lower bit of the away section has gone on sale to Spurs fans, where we would have all easily got tickets. Moral of the story: don’t plan anything around a Tottenham game.

Still, it’s my own fault for getting hitched in the middle of our best run since the 60’s, so I won’t be there to witness what should be a fair old thwumoxing (real word) of the Wanderers. Despite last night’s defeat, the word rags and floating cyber letters will tell you that we’re doing pretty well at the moment, and an out-of-sorts Bolton will be no match for our current might; that annoying ‘D’ from the hashtag predicted to drop down yet another place come 5pm on Saturday and Spurs up to second in the standings, the only possible outcome. A lamentation of our own inconsistency would usually follow, but in a similar vein to the M-People before us, we’re movin’ on up. Like trying to stack domino’s end-on-end, it used to be that Spurs could only ever put together 3, maybe 4 wins at a push before it all came crashing down. We’re made of sterner stuff these days. It’s more like stacking oxo cubes, or yoghurt pots, or something not quite so structurally flawed.

Bolton’s recent form is what you could only describe as ‘stinky’. Their opening day trouncing of Quipper made them look like a side who’d spent the summer quietly building something a bit good and knew what they were doing. Turns out they don’t. Even the old battering ram, Kevin Davies has lost his mojo. He’ll score on Saturday though. He always does.

So as we hammer in our fifth of the afternoon, spare a thought for your usually present blogger, who’ll be God knows where, doing God knows what, all in the name of a good old fashioned single man send off. I’ll trust the lilywhite lovelies to handle this one unsupervised.

I can smell the dirty pint already. 5-2 is my ludicrous prediction.