The future's bright, the future is still Lilywhite
Monday, April 26, 2010 at 12:30PM What's that now? 68 games away from home against top 4 sides leaving us with a bitter taste of regret in mouth? Hindsight is a wonderful thing and I'm thinking I should embrace the fact that Wilson has not been great this season and we should have shown balls and kept the same line-up without having to shuffle players for the sake of over-cleverness. Even though I did think we'd be 'ok' if we did just that.
BAE at right-back, uncomfortable and out of sorts. Bale at left-back, almost felt like he'd been gagged and tied to a chair. Safe to say that Hudd/Moddle in the middle with BAE left-back and Bale left-wing should be our line-up for the remaining games. But don't fret, I'm not about to knee-jerk. We got it wrong. But take away two stupid clumsy defending errors (the two pens) and the roll-out of the red carpet for Nani (three errors then) and things might have been different. Even with the changes in line-up.
Though I still feel we didn't show half as much guile as we should of. Not disgraced, but all a bit of a limp effort in the end. We didn't give the occasion the swagger it deserved. But then it was by no means looking (from either side) to shape up into the classic game most (wanted) expected. On the bright side, Azza is back amongst us. King is a frigging freak of nature. And Bale is best played offensively.
We should have played football, taken the game to them. To dare is to f*cking do, right? I cited state of mind in my match preview. But perspective please. It was United. Perhaps not a storming version of Ferguson's men what with Rooney up in a box, but if you're going to make mistakes, you don't make them in their patch - especially when they have a title at stake.
So, six points from nine then? You simply cannot be disappointed with that, considering that few expected us to win even one of the three, let alone two of them. Makes you think that before we entered the month of April, only the insane (me) would have stated 'we will finish 4th' - considering our fixture list compared to others.
City drew at the Emirates (Zzzzz). Villa and Liverpool both won. This chase for fourth spot continues to twist and turn. Although nothing much has changed this past weekend other than the important footnote for all sides involved; that one more defeat will spell the end.
City v Villa will be the one to watch as it will no doubt shape the tension for our visit there. We first need to avoid the banana skin of complacency when Bolton visit the Lane.
So what next?
Spurs - Bolton home, City away, Burnley away
Villa - City away, Blackburn home
City - Villa home, Spurs home, West Ham away
Liverpool - Chelsea home, Hull away
Spurs 35 played, 64 points - 3 games max 9 points - 73 pts max
Villa 36 played, 64 points - 2 games max 6 points - 70 pts max
City 35 played, 63 points - 3 games max 9 points - 72 pts max
Liverpool 36 played, 62 points - 2 games max 6 points - 68 pts max
We may have failed to conquer our Old Trafford demons, but redemption awaits. It's in our hands. We have shown grit and heart and style through-out the season to continually remain up top in the mix. With every hiccup, we down a glass of cold water, and crow.
Bolton (H) - We need to be professional. Focused. The Lane has to rock in the same manner it did against the red and blue scum. We simply have to dismantle them and apply the pressure on the other contenders. As noted, pick up and bin that banana skin.
City (A) - Cup final day. The £30M+ game. Potentially. The irony that things might work out that City have to win at West Ham on the final day of the season to finish 4th is tinged with the type of irony that would see a new statue built outside Upton Park to commemorate the occasion. Tevez scoring the winner would have the home support cheering louder than the travelling City fans. And then there's the irony of us playing away to Burnley (same colours as WH). Shades of 2006 all over again. If City and Villa score-draw (if if if), a win at City's patch and it's done and dusted (as long as another 3 points is collected).
Burnley (A) - Relegated. If we failed to win here (no disrespect to their club and fans) we don't deserve to finish 4th.
So all this is easily simplified... Just beat Bolton and City and it wouldn't matter what the other sides do, it wouldn't be enough for them.
So all you crazies, keep the faith.
And keep on believing.
Reader Comments (82)
PS, We should already be on to our lawyers on the City goal keeper crap. Thats another problem we have, we never shout about anything!!!
I agree, lemonade, that post made me piss myself. Very funny. cheers!
Once again, we do not have to worry about goal difference anymore. It is highly unlikely that we will tie Man City on GD going into the last match, the only team to worry about on that is AV. We already have a 10 goal advantage over them. Liverpool is too far behind to even worry about points and GD.
Looks like it's happening:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_city/8644269.stm
Unbelievable. It's their own fault that their squad is unbalanced and they spunked millions on strikers they don't need (Santa Cruz) rather than having decent goalkeeping back up. If they don't think that Neilson's up to it then why sign him in the first place? Reduces the transfer window to a joke.
As for having Hart out on loan, surely that also tips the balance in their favour in that it makes Birmingham a stronger team against the likes of us and Villa whereas he's ineligible against his parent club, meaning that Birmingham are weaker for those fixtures against City.
I've worked out that if Villa beat City this weekend, we can still lose to City, as long as we beat Bolton and Burnley, even if City win their other game.
If we beat Bolton and Burnley, that would leave us with 70 points, the maximum that Villa can get, and with our goal difference being 10 better, it would mean Villa having to stuff City and Blackburn, and us be stuffed by City in order for them to catch us.
If City lose to Villa, the maximum points they could total is 69, meaning they wouldn't be able to catch us either.
Liverpool aren't a worry, if they catch us, then we would have been caught by either City or Villa any way.
Obviously if City beat us, and Villa, then thats them taking fourth place. It's really too close to call, and I'm so nervous I'm shaking writing this comment.
So lets all cheer for a Villa win on saturday, and hopefully the lads can deliver and give us 3 points against Bolton.
COYS!!
It's a zen koan really: If we deserve fourth we will win our next games. If we win our next games we will deserve fourth.
To mix religious metaphors and paraphrase Hillel: "the rest is commentary"
Against Bolton.....Benoit Assou Ekketto, Dawson, Bassong, Kaboul Bale, Modric, Huddlestone, Lennon Crouch & Pav....my initial thoughts....Want to stay tall and big at the back so Kaboul and Hudd will be helpful. Crouch as well. I'm hoping the width provided by Bale and Lennon opens things up for Modric down the middle.
And who are Man City to sign as their emergency goalie?
Marton Fulop.
You can just see it, can't you...
I'm waiting for Brook to come back from school so we can go out and have fun !!
David- The game was lost at right back. If Charlie wasn't injured arguably the team selection would have been good enough for at least a point (assuming he wouldn't concede a penalty). Kaboul as far as I'm concerned is not an assured RB and would possibly have done just as bad (if not worse) as BAE/Wilson. Therefore the only other options were walker who was never going to be ready for this sort of test, especially away (...Sunderland!) or the option that we went for. This mean't that the left side had to be jiggled because we needed a left back whilst BAE was on the right hand side.... step forward Gareth Bale. I understand some people say he was stifled in that position, however he did brilliantly attacking from LB earlier in the season (also linked up well with modders in front) and it is supposedly his actual position, despite what others may think. Therefore that mean't we had to drag modric out onto the left and who would you have preferred in the middle with hud....Jenus? No it was always going to be wilson. We had to play that team because of our problems at RB. Simple.
Now I realise the counter argument to this is that we have 2 other perfectly good RBs out on loan and harry shouldn't have let them go. However we don't know if he had a choice in the matter as the powers that be may have got cash incentives too good to turn down from sunderland/middlesborough in order to get these players in. But considering our problems at RB I think we held our own, and did well to get back into it. Unfortunately it only takes one or two defensive mistakes to loose to United and thats what happened. There isn't much harry could do about it and at least he tried to alter the team when he realised it wasn't working and had the balls to put wilson at RB. After that we looked better for it but again it was RB that was where the game was lost.
Moving on I'm hoping Charlie will be back soon, I've said before I'm not his biggest fan but he is solid defensively. Its going forward that he does my head in because he is so god damn slow! I think it was nycyid who reported that the physioroom.com said he'd be back on the 1st (This saturday). Whether that means he will be fit to play or just back in training I don't know. But its clearly a position we need to strengthen over the summer. We may be able to put kaboul back there temporarily against bolton as they will be less of a challenge for him. Then hopefully Charlie will be back for the Wednesday and we can play the team everyone wants to see against City.
Lemonade, I do the exact same thing. This one time, I was too slow and even though I had my bits out, I forgot to change the site. Was left sitting there with a picture of Tommy Huddlestone staring back at me. Try explaining that away...
As a teenager a friend of mine was pleasuring himself in his bedroom, and the telly happened to be on at the same time although he claims he wasn't watching it. Then the ultimate nightmare, Mum barges in on him and catches him in the act. Cue mutual embarrassment, mumbled apologies and quick retreat. He then looks up and sees what's on the telly - The World's Strongest Man. Poor chap has to contend with his Mum thinking he's got a Geoff Capes fetish.
lemonade and spooks: 'alt & tab' its the windows geeks gift to the rest of the world
Oh yeah, and spooks, two words; 'tommy sauce'.
I used to wank over Geoff Capes aswell!.....when he was asleep.
Don't know about you, but when Lennon made it 4-4 at the Emirates last season I didn't have any bitter taste in my mouth....
Agreed "We should have taken the game to them".
I think we showed them a touch too much respect.
SHEFFSPURS - I am not convinced about Kaboul either, but he did ok in the 2 previous games at RB.
If we had the choice of playing him at RB against Man U and therefore making no other positional changes to the team from the Arse/ Chavs game it would have been a better option.
We disrupted half the team just to accomodate BAE at RB.
Didn't Palacious play at RB recently for part of a game ?
As you say we don't know why we sent Hutton, Naughton and O'Hara on loan but its done now.
I was just frustrated that we handicapped ourselves in the Man U game.
Never mind, supporting Spurs has never been easy!
the papers are saying Robbie keane is off to Wolves in the summer months..........now that really is somthing to get your cocks out for Spooky/Lemonade!! He can F*** off.
Here's an interesting thought... If we win all our upcoming games, and Arsenal lose all of theirs, we could finish 3rd... I think that's worth aiming for... Maybe we could get a someone who has a knowledge of performance enhancing drugs to enlighten all of the Scum's opponents for the rest of the season. But do we know anyone who has knowledge of such things?
Wolves is too good for Keane I want to see him at the Orient.
Racist
Harry's good when injuries and suspensions pick the team for him.
Its when he has to make decisions that he gets it wrong.
Mind you how he's supposed to know that Palacios is going to play so badly I'm not quite sure.
He's gone from sliced bread to stale bread. He's not as good as we all thought he was: mind you I never did. He reminds me a lot of Zokora without the pace.
Mind you we do tend to make snap judgements, Gomes and Bale come to mind.
Modric has gone from too small for the Premiership to, too weak for central mid, and now he's the love child of Dave Mackay and Hoddle and the central midfielder we've been crying out for.
Anyway I've done the BBC predictor three times today and we've points to spare.
And what do points mean?
Correct.
@Sheffspur
When Physioroom.com gives a date it is "Estimated return to full training" so dont expect to see Charlie this weekend.
As for fourth i think its ours with wins against Bolton and Burnley & Citeh drawing with Villa & us.
COYS!!
let's hope villa beats man shitty, then we will only have to win over bolton and burnley and we can even afford loosing to city and will get 4th spot trough better goal difference than villa
All this we should have taken the game to Manu. Name one team who have done that and got a positive result ?? even Real Madrid with the Real Ronaldo lost doing that. Only Liverpool get results up there and only because of playing 5 across with 2 DMF & having Torres. I agree that Wilson should not have been accomodated. It was like he was playing it was a training match and was quite frankly crap.
On a not altogther unrelated subject you have to ask was scrapping the reserve team such a good idea. We have our supposed second are string who should be here challenging for a place are out on loan and the remaining squad are nowhere near what you'd call match fit. You could even attribute the Derby performances to the fitness benefits of playing 3 matches in quick succession. At old trafford after a week later it was like if the team had just got outta bed 5 minutes b4 kick off.
The Invisible Jenas:
I think the problem with the reserve team is that players on the fringes of the side (i.e. Dos Santos, Taraabt, O'Hara, Naughton etc) very quickly become disillusioned with live int he reserve leagues. I for one fully agree that first team football, whether it be at Premiership, Championship or a lower Division level will always be more competitively fought than reserve team games.
O'Hara's been one of the few saving graces of Portsmouth's season. He's played nearly every league game and played a significant part in their cup run. How many games would he have played at Spurs? A handful, perhaps, certainly no more. Better he comes back a more experienced player and genuinely challenges for a first team place (or is sold at a premium) than kicking his heels on the side lines, waiting for an injury to offer him an opportunity, growing ever more disaffected with life at the club and his frustration poisoning the changing room.
Would we really have played any better at Old Trafford if any of our on loan players were in the first team picture for Man United?! I doubt it very much.
@Matty K
I agree with that, but there are always trade-offs, such as having to play BAE on the right when Hutton is on loan, or Kaboul as a CM when O'Hara is on loan.
I'm not saying these loaned plays broke our season or anything. Loans are better for Spurs in the big picture sense, but can lead to short term difficulties when injury or suspension strikes.
@MK i agree about the competitivness & experience of playing on loan for the player. However i believe it weakens the squad numerically, competitively and having no reserve matches, fitness and match sharpness is not up to standard. Going on loan = good for players, bad for squad.
Looks like Fulop will line up against us & Villa.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_city/8644269.stm
"We first need to avoid the banana skin of complacency when Bolton visit the Lane. "
Brilliantly worded Spooky. COYS!
Can someone please explain to me why citeh have been allowed to sign another goal keeper becuase Given is injured and their other options are either on loan or crap?
Fcuk 'em, let them sign whoever they want, as long as we go and do the business it doesn't matter.
2 games + 2 wins = 4th place
Get it done.