Bale, Modric, Blackburn and Hodson - A Strange Weekend

It has been a funny old weekend to be a Spurs fan, but generally a good weekend to be a Spurs fan. There have been four major talking points, starting with Gareth Bales interview for Football Focus, but I have already made my feelings known on that so I won't go over it again. This seemingly led to Redknapp stating that he was not sure if Modric would stay this summer, just 24 hours before our important match with Blackburn. We all struggle to see the logic behind this, maybe Harry believed he already had the England job secured and was just being honest, maybe Harry is a slave to the press and will do anything to give them a good story, well no maybe about that one. However, I am beginning to think it may have been very clever mind games on the part of Harry. Modric turned out his best performance this calendar year and was an integral part of the side once again. Whether Modric goes or not will be dealt with in the summer, but could it be that Redknapp has finally pulled off a masterstroke in the press by making Modric realise that he needs to up his game if he wants to keep in the thoughts of his potential suitors?

So we were all apprehensive at kick of as to what to expect, but playing Blackburn, a team who have hardly made it into second gear at all this season, we were also optimistic. Spurs started really well, nearly taking the lead within 90 seconds, through Lennon, who could only find the side netting. Sandro, who I personally thought was man of the match, thrashed a long range effort against the under side of the cross bar. Sandro was on great form all day, controlling everything in the middle, and offering an attacking presence that Parker often does not. Gallas Also hit the woodwork with a header. It was not until after this that Spurs took the lead. Van der Vaart tapped in from two yards, this time with the linesman getting the "was it over the line, wasn't it" question right, and it was no more than Spurs deserved. The second half was not quite as exciting as the first. Spurs confirmed the victory with a world class Walker freekick. He curled it round into the top corner in a strike that he later claimed was his best career goal. Walker has been fantastic this season and is now showing signs of turning into a Dani Alves esc player. Another impressive trait of Walkers' this season is that he has been immensely loyal and has always fought for the cause. He has apologized on Twitter when he has made a mistake, he has always showed passion and a desire to win. One thing that stood out for me is that when he was awarded our player of the month award he stated that he hopes that it was the first of many for the club. That kind of loyalty is refreshing in an era when more players seem worried about getting as high as they can as quick as they can. All in all it was a good performance and a good result, granted Blackburn didn't have one shot but we still needed to get the job done and we did.

Another piece of good news came after the match. The FA reveled that they had approached Roy Hodgson for the vacant England managers post and that they were not intending to speak to anyone else. Obviously I have previously made it clear that I am not the biggest Harry fan but at the same time I am glad it should now be down to us whether he leaves or not. If we do get third or fourth and do get into the Champions League I would not be opposed to Harry staying as then he would definitely have achieved something this season, that is ofcourse linked heavily to Chelseas' fortunes in the final. From an England point of view also Hodgson is a far superior choice to Redknapp. He has international experience and will bring through youth players and not stick with the same old crap that we have been plugging on with for years like Redknapp would have.

We don't have much time to rest, Bolton away on Wednesday, a very important match, that could see us going just one point behind Arsenal. Chelsea play Newcastle at the same time so it is our chance to put some distance between us and at least one of them, lets just hope now all this Harry to England nonsense is finished that we can crack on and produce another good result. I have written the whole article, and still not mentioned that we are back in fourth, and the race for the top four is back in our hands, at least until Chelsea play Bayern.  

Press to unsettle Spurs once again

Having finally watched Gareth Bales' interview for Football Focus, I do not think it is that bad, or at least not as bad as the BBC and the other press organizations are making it look. He did say he would have to consider his future, he did say he wanted to play Champions League football but he did not come out and say he wants to leave Spurs. It was in no way similar to outbursts of Luka Modric last summer. The press are seemingly trying to engineer the move of Bale to any team that isn't Spurs. I personally do not see anything too bad in Bale has said, and still remain confident he is committed to Spurs. However, should he try to engineer a move away in the summer himself, my opinion would change very quickly, but for now he remains a yid.

On the plus side Newcastle are 4 0 down to Wigan as I write this and Arsenal are drawing with Stoke. While I am sure the scores will not stay this way, Spurs will have a good chance to at least return to the top four tomorrow against Blackburn.

Another Nail in the Coffin!

I would like to start by saying, I do not enjoy moaning, although it may look like a do, i really don't, I would much rather start every Monday morning by writing a blog about how happy I am about  what the weekend has had in store for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Unfortunately this Monday, like most Mondays recently I am left annoyed, frustrated and disappointed. What has made it worse is that non-Spurs fans are starting to realise that not everyone at the club holds Harry Redknapp in as higher esteem as he would have them believe. So now those of us who think it may be time to freshen things up, like me, have to answer accusing questions from Chelsea and Arsenal fans in particular, along the lines of "you were nothing before Harry, how can you want him sacked?". Do they really need reminding that Arsenal called for Wenger to be sacked earlier in the season, despite the fact he really has made their club what they are today. Chelsea sacked Ancellotti less than a year after winning the double, so the day i take advice from anyone in the blue of Chelsea, is the day I sign up to my Saracens season ticket and throw my Spurs season ticket straight into the Thames. Anyway enough of a rant about what uniformed arm-chair fans of other clubs think, down to the real matter at hand, Spurs abysmal defeat to the hands of QPR.

Despite what you may think about the title it is not a reference to the end of Harry Redknapp tenure at Spurs, but in fact the more important business of Spurs' season as a whole. We have dropped out of the top four, and i for one, cant see us winning again this season. We fell to an Adel Taraabt free-kick in the first half, the player was latter sent off. I do not begrudge Adel getting his goal, although it was painfully predictable before the game. I have a lot of time for the lad and i feel that he would still be at Spurs now, had he been guaranteed first team football. I think it was a bit harsh that he performance against us earlier in the season was described as "useless" by our fearless leader. For a youngster and a former Spurs youngster at that, it will not be constructive for his carear to level those kind of insults his way, especially when he has destroyed all your tactical knowledge, if it can be called that, with one swing of his right boot. The whole speech stank of jealousy and desperation, and I don't think there is one party who benefited, other than maybe Redknapp who took on the persona of a typical bully, I feel hurt so I am going to slag someone else off.

Other than the winning goal there was little else worth mentioning in the match. So where did it all go wrong? Firstly, Bale and VDV were just behind the striker again, leading the Spurs fans to sing once again "He plays on the left, he plays on the left, Gareth Bale he plays on the left". We have all been through this so many times, I am not going to waste my time by re-writing it all again, but we all know, he can not play in the middle. Again we started with two defensive midfielders, Sandro and Parker, on the face of it this looks far too defensive. However, after having the idea given to me by someone who's football opinions i rate very highly (unlike the clowns in the first paragraph) it seems clear why we start two defensive midfielders so frequently now. Redknapp is so worried by our defensive frailty that he doesn't trust any of centre back pairings without Kaboul and therefore needs to reinforce the defence with Sandro and Parker. Don't be fooled though, I am not defending his tactics, I am just saying that the problem comes from a different area than you may think. The real question is then, with Cahill, Samba and others on the market in January, why did we bring in Nelson, if he is not trusted?

Once again the team looked lifeless and passionless. Something needs to be done, no matter how many time Parker and Redknapp say "we haven't got time to look at whats wrong" if we don't we will find ourselves in sixth, and remarkably worse than last season. I don't for a minute think Redknapp will be out of Spurs before the end of the season, Levy will now want to hold out for the England money to come in. Should England not go for Redknapp, will he be sacked, depending on the final four games of the season of course? Unless the wheeler-dealer has some serious dirt on Levy i can't see how he can keep his job, Levy is not a stupid man, he know Harry should denied speculation about England straight away. Only time will tell now, and perhaps i should quote Scotty Parker, now isn't the time to look into it.

Another excuse was that Spurs don't have enough strength in depth and the bench lacked any quality on Saturday. I wonder what Newcastle fans and management think about that, they have a far lesser squad than ours and they are flying. I think it is an insult to teams like Newcastle when Redknapp produces that sort of drivel as an excuse for his poor tactics. Furthermore, why are Townsend, Pinaar, Corluka and more out of the club on loan if he is that worried about strength in depth, at the end of the day it must have been you who signed the forms to let them go Harry?

All i hope now is to be able to write a happy blog about next weekends home match with Blackburn. Despite how it may seem, moaning about my beloved Spurs is tiresome, and i would give anything to highlight the good points as well for once, just there haven't been many good points recently, and i don't think anyone could argue with that.

A Second Chance?

Firstly i would like to apologise for not writing a blog about the farse that was Sunday evening. We all know how the story goes, we were cheated, it was a disgrace, and I along with most of the Spurs fans left before the clock had hit 80 minutes, so i didn't and still haven't seen the last goal. We were all very dissapointed, and dispite what the scummy Chelsea fans might say, the ghost goal changed everything. Anyway enough about that, back to league matters, and Wigan have done us a massive favour.

While Arsenal were gloating about our loss of form they were beaten 2 1 on their own patch by the Latics, who got their two goals in the seventh and eighth minutes. I have always liked Wigan but now I can safely say I love them. This result has left us five points behind Arsenal with a game in hand, and they face the "in form" Chelsea on Saturday. We of course face QPR away, a game which of course will now be our game of the season.

We really need to pick up our form, and as Gallas says our luck and turn out a great performance at the weekend, it could really give us the lift we need. We all trust this Spurs team, although we may not have shown it recently and although we have been disapointed we need to believe we can finish third. Everyone needs to pull together, no matter what happens at the end of the season we need to make these final five matches count. COYS!

FA Cup Semi Final Preview

Spurs have been to Wembley for so many finals and semi-finals in the last 5 years that it almost feels for many of us that we have a Wembley season ticket. However the 6pm KO FA Cup semi against Chelsea on Sunday probably represents the biggest of these visits, at least since we beat them in the 2008 League Final 2 1.

The good news is that Ivanovic failed in his ludicrous appeal against the retrospective action taken against him and will not be available for selection on Sunday. On top of that Ashley Cole is struggling and may also be out of the Chelsea team, which would certainly leave them light at the back. Other than that they seem to have a clean bill of health.

Parker, Kaboul, Gallas and Kranjcar all face a battle to be fit but could feature. Dawson and Huddlestone are still out. It is likely that Redknapp will revert to Adebayor and Van der Vaart up front again after the disaster of the Norwich game and that should be a bonus for Spurs.

Spurs have won the FA Cup 8 times, lastly in 1991 and will be hoping to cement their place as the team who has won the FA Cup the third most times in England, by lifting the trophy this year. Chelsea have won it 6 times, 4 of those wins coming since 2000. Sky Bet make Spurs the favourites at 6/4, while Chelsea are 7/4 and the Draw is 23/10.

Hopefully Spurs can live up to their favourites tag and return to Wembley to face either Everton or Liverpool in the final. One thing is for sure, there will be a great atmosphere and should Spurs win it will be a great day. COYS!

Led will always be the King!

Ledley King will go down in Spurs history as a great centre-back, a great captain and an all round great guy. He has been plagued with injuries through out his career and if he had not had these there is no doubt he would have been a regular for England and would have lead Spurs to a few more trophies. Unfortunately Ledley is no longer looking up to playing in the Premiership, and this is not surprising as he barely trains, and most of his training is done in the swimming pool. Ledley would always have a place at Spurs if it were down to me, and he would have a contract for life, but he doesn't seem that he can be the main man at the back like he once could. If we are to replace this hero, who can we replace him with, now that Cahill and Samba are off the market?

JAN VERTONGEN

 

Vertongen is a Belgian international who plays for Ajax. He is vice-captain and has been the rock at the centre of their defence since 2006. He is left footed which may be a bonus, as we do not have any other left footed central defenders. He is 6ft 2inches and us very good in the air. The downside to signing him would be that he is completely untested in England and this may mean that like Mertasacker at Arsenal he may need time to settle in. On the plus side he has made positive noises about a move to the Lane, so his heart would definitely be in playing for Spurs.

JAMES TOMKINS

 

Tomkins has represented England at every youth level and is currently in the U21's squad. He has been in fantastic form for West Ham this season and is approaching 100 games for the club, even at his young age. West Ham fans can not speak highly enough of their young centre back, and it would be difficult to take him from the hammers, especially given that we have already taken Parker from them. He would be a very good signing, and he would only become a better player being able to work alongside experienced defenders like King, Gallas, Nelson and Dawson.

WALTER SAMUEL



The Argentine would bring a wealth of experience but no long term future. There are some rumours circulating that he wants the chance to play in England before he retires and Spurs could be his preferred destination. Whether we want him remains to be seen. 

JULIAN VELASQUEZ

Velasquez is a little know 21  year old Argentian defender, who has been strongly linked with Spurs in recent months. However this would surely represent a huge risk.

BRUNO UVIV


The Brazialian youngster is already on trial at Spurs and has widely been tipped as the successor to King. His talent remains to be seen but the chances are he will be signed up along with one of the above.