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.