Challenge Spurs™ - The Kings of Calamity
Saturday, November 22, 2008 at 11:31AM
spooky in Challenge Spurs™, gomes, match preview, paul robinson

Welcome back Paul Robinson. Cult figure at the Lane? First few season he was undeniably a crowd favourite. Long term contract, England's number one. Helping to gloss over his weakness were those shot-stopping television saves and a confident Spurs defence. Take away decent form from the team, and the cracks were suddenly more transparent. Do you drop a keeper who drops clangers every week to try and help him rebuild confidence with a gentle kick up the bum in the reserves or do you perceive until his form changes for the better? Robbo, from that air-kick in Croatia to countless conceded goals from distance, saw him go from a big smiling personality to a broken desperate caricature of what once was a certainty that he would be Spurs for a decade.

We never dropped him. His form got worse. And much like the loyalty players 'in-form' don't show to clubs like Spurs when they manoeuvre themselves to Old Trafford, we shifted him out of the club. The irony of replacing him with Gomes and then not dropping Gomes for his current form, is once more wonderfully ironic.

So, expect hilarity of world class proposition on Sunday afternoon, unless 'arry surprises us all with a selection that includes Alnwick or Cesar. King, Woodgate, Jenas and Bale should all be fit and ready for this. Did you shudder when I mentioned Bale?

After the poor showing at Craven Cottage, tomorrow has to be a carnival or electric football, one touch push and run. I'll take a 1-0 scrappy win at this point. Need maximium points from the next three games before we entertain Man Utd and welcome back Berbatov to the Lane.

It's one of those season where I don't think a team in our position (20th - 7th) will be free of the teams around us. Same for all of us in this grouping. You need to win maybe 5-6 games on the trot to start feeling confident of dropping points in successive games. Drop points in successive games at the minute, and you might just find yourselves rock bottom again.

Prediction: 3-1 Spurs.

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