0-0, how exactly?
Monday, August 16, 2010 at 8:20AM I have to say I was left requiring a cold shower to cool myself off, having got slightly hot and bothered. I'd hate to think of the mess I would have made had we actually scored a goal or three. Blistering. Pulsating. This is Tottenham. It's basically more of the same from last season. And whether our forwards (all four of them) sharpen up or we manage to bag a genuine canny trickster striker before deadline day - I'm more than confident we're going to push onwards yet again.
Let's face, we had the players before Redknapp arrived. What we lacked was direction, structure, belief...you are more than familiar with the list. He got the basics right and yadda yadda yadda. We finally achieved what we've been flirting with for so long. Sustained progression resulting in 4th spot.
Obviously, pre-season had many of us asking if we had the mentality to continue to play at the standard of last season - with improvements in areas that needed improving. We'll find that out in due course, I'd say ask the question again after 15 EPL games. And although I'm not about to positive knee-jerk after the opening 90 minutes of our season, I'd say I saw enough to have that shower running cold for many weekends to come.
We battered City in the first half. Joe Hart's day and his team will be happier with the point than we were. Outstanding Harry called it. Can't really add anything more to that. We just looked a proper fully fledged team. No residue of those nasty depressive tears from displays of yesteryear, pre-HR. You know how it is, us fans, you expect a signing or two because new blood can add to squad depth and galvanise a side further. And I'm not saying that we should completely discount an additional player or two - but this game reminded us that we have a pretty tidy set of players as it is (we still need a player or two, but can we at least lay to rest the fallacy of importance of pre-season games now, please?)
One or two will regain their high standard in the coming weeks (Lennon still seems a little bit off-key, perhaps one too many summer Cubans?) What I (we) witnessed was a Spurs side that simply works. And did so with the tradition we lust.
Modric, tenacious rather than magical but adapted very well against City's five man midfield, running around the pitch biting at their ankles, tackling and nicking the ball. Think, white short version of Palacios with a mullet. Huddlestone controlling and dominant. Why bother to even be surprised with this? Dare I suggest this might be our most effective midfield partnership (as seen v Arsenal, Chelsea, City last season)?
Okay, so perhaps Moddle wasn't so much effective (magical) going forward as he can be, but as a unit - it worked. It all worked.
Back four - solid. BAE played alright, didn't he? Yeah, no? I'll let you lot argue that one out. Special mention re: his tackle on SWP, start of second half.
Bale is just ridiculously good, much like Daniel Day-Lewis in 'My Left Foot'. There's a reason why My Right Foot went straight to dvd, and it's the same reason why the ball went wide from Gareth's not-his-left-foot foot. Agonising and disappointing. He's still a beast though. And one of our WMD's. Keep him fit, for the love of all things beautiful on God's Lilywhite planet.
The Crouch-Defoe-Keane-Pavlyuchenko quad rotation lacked cutting edge. Heard that before, haven't we? But there's goals in them, I'm certain of it. We still need that ooze of class to push us upwards which we've all been waiting for since the end of the World Cup. At the expense of what unlucky player, I'd say it will be between Keane and Pav. If...if we managed to actually sign someone. Group stage CL football would demand that, IMO. Although the EPL has to remain the priority (and all of the above can comfortable repeat last seasons feat, but that might not be enough for 4th - we might need something extra to push us that little bit further). And how is Harry expected to keep them all happy? (look out for the next blog post).
Gio (why the persistence with agent talk over his future?) didn't have enough time to truly impact the game. But I liked the cut of his jib.
Gomes? Did he have a shot to save?
First half then, Crouch; Defoe, Huddlestone, BAE (deflected), Bale (post) then Lennon, Defoe again - all with decent efforts. Hart annoying in his defence of the goal. Second half, SWP should have scored (BAE innit), King deflected header could have also given them a goal. Pav had a couple of shots, and Bale and his right foot (arguably the easiest chance of the game) and Pav late on.
Okay, so second half City retained the ball better and had us chasing them down quite a bit, but they never threatened to the point where I was watching through my hands. Yes they have stupendous depth, but Mancini's obsession with all things defensive will probably be detrimental to them in the long run. They also had three debutants out there so I guess we should revisit this particular question (will they gel?) in around 15 games time also. And it serves to keep our feet firmly on the ground for a few games longer also.
I guess you could say we exhausted ourselves some what, but still carved out chances to win it. Toure and Kompany key players for them. Should have won it, deserved to win it. But heads up, it was a corker of a 0-0.
Clinical. That's the word for the weeks ahead. Make possession count, and try to avoid making the opposition goalkeeper man of the match, by ya know, sort of placing the ball out of his reach.
Laters.
Reader Comments (34)
Thanks Spooky, best brain and keyboard on the web! I was sort of anxious about our goal-scoring ability until you put it into perspective. Keep up the great work..
1st
Shit...too late. Anyways. We did play as a good cohesive unit. Football is a team sport and our team totally dominated City's individuals.
How is not really the question , we all know how we ended up with 1 point , we are utter crap in front of goal thats why
Euuuh no just joking there , Hart was outstanding and i for one enjoyed the display of our boys in lillywhite ... I am not ashamed to say i love our little monkey boy for rising up last season after such a terrible period and becoming the world class left (euh back, winger , midfielder ?) he is for the moment.
Also great to see that Gio has made it back to WHL , never really believed he'd come back but there he is (for another week probably) ...
We looked pretty fine in all areas, just some tweaking needed. Central midfield is going to be an area that I will not worry too much about. Adding Sandro to the mix and you know we have depth there and we have players who know each other well (excluding Sandro who might take a while to adjust).
Up front though, we need rid of one of our players. I'd say Keane is the favourite to go. Couldn't even guess who'd we'd draft it.
As you say Spooky, wake me up in 14 games time when Levy has brought in the world-class finishers, we have trounced Stoke away and are in the CL proper.
Hope I wake-up!
Sometimes it's nice to be romantic but if you want to have results and to reach targets you must be realistic and down to earth. We've played well but comparing with last season we've dropped two valuable points against a team we always win at home for some years now. We've misted a terrific opportunity to have a crucial win over a still unsettled MC side. In football you don't win points by the number of the missing chances but by scoring goals. We desperate need a world class goal scorer who can operate efficiently inside the box and can score on a regular basis. A striker who, like some of our supporters said, knows where the goal is and can convert 1 out of 2-3 chances. Also we desperate need, and this is equally important, a scoring midfielder.
Okay, so the verdict is out. We need firepower, but who?
Loved it! Great to be a Spurs fan...able to stand up and drool-shout how good we are finally.
Interesting that Harry stuck with his creative and alledgedly lightwieght midfield and omitted Palacios as he did at the end of last season.
Huddlestone 'lightwieght' shurly shome mishtake.
Shades of it ain't broke.
Loved the performance against a talented team which the pundits correctly predicted would take time to gel.
About Easter by the look of it (hopefully.)
The Champion' League (Don't you just love that phrase?) line up should be interesting. Pavlyuchenko Keane Palacios, Kaboul , Bassong, Cudocini to start? Or will Harry play it safe.
From the players I know there are 3 who can operate efficiently inside the box and can score on a regular basis: Dzeco, Suarez and Fabiano.
Cheers Spooky, but it's scary how you keep getting inside my head with your blog ;-)
Two points dropped. Shame massive shame we didn't score. It's not end of the world stuff but a win would have been wonderful. We need to take our chances, excuse my French but we need to be cunts in front of goal. Hit the target, foaming at mouth, like we want to relegate the opposition.
agree with loanx, we need our midfield to chip in with some goals, and then the opposition will have to stretch their defence, to combat the midfielders and strikers, and then our strikers will gain more room, we ripped city apart, and if we had a lampard type scoring midfielder, in our team, we would be even more dangerous, and go on to not just chase 4th place, but the premiership, we do all the good build up , swift attacking moves, but we dont put it in the net, and thats what counts, still very good performance, just frustrated we didnt get the goal.
we cant just rely on our strikers for the goals, because all the other top teams have scoring midfielders, liverpool=gerrard, chelsea=lampard, man utd=scholes,giggs, arsenal=fabregas, thats what we need, and have always needed, oh for a hoddle, in our spurs side, now there was a scoring midfielder, and a true world class player, he made rooney look average, and thats no exageration.
COME ON YOU SPURS
Bales right foot didn't look so bad in our win against Chelsea a few moths ago!!
Nothing to worry about I say. Yeah, it's a shame, but we looked so good, and can't really balme our strikers to be honest.
Kind of glad we missed out on Joe Cole after the weekend as well. Did he look any better than any of our players? NOPE.
Modric and Huddlestone are the two that need to step up with goal scoring. My money is on Hudd getting more than Luka.
No chance of us signing a free scoring midfielder. I think Huddlestone will score 10 this season. If Modric manages the same amount we should be covered. Big ask.
I've been saying for the past few weeks, that the game is about players, not names. Its about playing as team, not paying out huge sums for 'marquee' signings. Of course getting a big name in warms the blood and raises the expectations, but time again some fans forget, that Tottenham Hotspur are a bloody good team, and are a force to be reckoned with at the Lane. Constantly I heard the reference to Wengers 'kids', yet our side are still a young side, who if kept together can cause a major impact in both the PL and CL, this season and hopefully the seasons to come. If we had just a tadge of the Gooners good fortune or faced Alumunia, we all kNow that result would have been different on Saturday. Bringing in Cole would have been a huge mistake in team terms where would have played on Saturday for example, and which player who started would have made way for him? Just think if any of City's forwards had signed for us, we'd have been in clover, yet their only world class performance was by a player who cost 600k!
hearing strong rumours that we will be signing loic remy, he looks pretty good, and harry watched him the other week, and was impressed, supposedly he plays like thierry henry used to, if thats true , then i say get him in quick, because even though he played for arseholes, you couldnt deny , he was great for their team.
also saw sandro the other night, and he was impressive running the midfield, tackling authoratively, his passing is crisp, always showing for the ball, and looking comfortable when he has it, and when needed, he can get out of tight situations, with fancy brazilian skills, hes a good headerer, and hes got a good shot, so he will be a great addition to our squad.
not saying we need to bring in a scoring midfielder, because lennon, modric, huddlestone, krankjar, should all be able to chip in with some goals, they just need to be more positive in their minds , that they can do it, because when i see them in a goalscoring position, they just dont look like they believe they will score.
lets hope woodgate gets over that injury, and is fit to play for us again, id love it if he came back into the squad.
The midfield depth will came in handy for our CL group stage experience. Once we (hopefully) dispatch Young Boys. Sandro wont be arriving for a fair while yet.
Based on yesterday's performance, I just don't get why some people think BAE is a liability. He was solid, passed the ball simply to the midfielders and Bale to charge down the wing, and executed a perfect saving tackle to snuff out City's best chance. Okay Bale may be better at attacking from left back, but overall I'm currently preferring BAE at left back allowing Bale to play left wing and Modric central, rather than Bale left back and Modric left wing.
Also why do some people think it's worthwhile posting '1st' when they think they're going to reply to the post first (and half the time they aren't even first)? What exactly is the point of that?
Well we saw 2 examples of how sweetly Huddlestone strikes the ball. What a foot!
Ben - Ekotto was involved in a sequence of incidents (mainly 2nd half) where he didn't take the ''safety first' route. He came out on top in all but the SWP one on one incident - which means that I will have to give him the benefit of the doubt. He is not a liability, but I feel that playing like that, he will be caught out a few times this season.
A great opening to the season, where the only thing missing,was the hat full of goals that we so richly deserved, but couldn't quite nail.
I am not too sure if we need any new players, I would rather that opposing GK's play their usual game against us, rather than "Roy of the Rovers stuff that Hart produced on Saturday.
Is it my imagination or did most GK's last season have their best games against us? For City to have such a defensive MF and still allow us to have so many good attempts on goal as well as the bucketful of corner kicks we were awarded, tells me that if anything, we are even better this year, than last.
We should not be thinking in terms of 4th, but 3rd in the PL if this match is anything to go by. IMHO, only two players of the 14 who contributed nothing: Gomes because he didn't have too, and Keane.....?
looked great, still a little worried that 5 minutes from half time and until they got substituted the entire play seemed to be hoof the ball to crouch and watch man city bring it back, once crouch was off we seemed to settle again, no coincidence that this was city's strongest session too. It's a shame we resort to it, England do to when he's on the pitch, it's not like it suits his game style even, we had a throw in in our own half which went to his head and immediately became a city attack, yet when played to his feet I have never seen him lose the ball. I admit there are times when a fast return and long counter has worked, but it doesnt seem to be an effective sustained tactic when in the same time a nudge forward to huddlestone can produce a similar ball to lennon or bale to feet and effect
not scoring a shitload against man city: thats a booking
whoever is posting under the name howard webb - you have me in stitches every time. keep it up
Great Article Spooky. Cheers!
Ditto what Bonse said.
Hudd and Modric need to contribute more to the goal scoring. That is the beauty of Kranjcar, midfield player who knows how to hit the back of the net.
re midfield scorers - Hudd and Mod are probably under specific instructions to not get into the box so much, definately not as much as Bale or Lennon. Them's the ones who should be scoring more goals. In a 3 man Central midfield, like the ones Gerrard, Fab, Lamps etc have been in, there is scope for 1 of the 3 to regularly get in the box. Not so in a 2.