The snarling elegant beast in need of Carroll...or a ballerina
Wednesday, January 5, 2011 at 3:22PM Being Spurs means you spend an awful lot of time preparing yourself for a fall. Whether it’s a game we are expected to win or the final nervous ten minutes with backs to wall, heroic and clumsy in defending. You bite your nails, chew through your hand and then munch up your arm until your mouth turns and starts eating through your face and head. You get the picture. It's brutal. I'm sure most fans of other clubs experience similar levels of impact that expectations can have on the heart, mind and soul. For us, it's been in our DNA for decades. But alas, no longer. The wonders of genetic engineering, breeding new Lilywhites with traditional flaws eliminated. Not quite perfect, research costs money and takes time. But this hybrid beast is one that does things it wasn't originally born to do in prior incarnations.
It's snarls. It bites. But can still move elegantly.
This is a new age and we are having to, every now and again, give ourselves a steady slap to our own half bitten face. A reminder that things are not quite what they use to be. And that when quirks, hiccups do occur - it's not a complete throw-back of past darkness but rather the type of blips most top tier teams and sides vying to be top tier suffer from by virtue of averages. You can't always play well. Secret is to still win when you don't. And that takes guts and focus, because you can find yourself having to do so often meaning it's easy to self-doubt and allow heads to drop despondently. But if you believe...
Belief is something that comes with winning and is the blood that pumps through the veins as you go from walking to sprinting to running. You can measure all this by how disappointed we are with our failure to beat Chelsea at home (not the best example due to the dramatics of the final ten minutes). But the point being, we win and draw far more than we lose so therefore, we fuel our progression onwards. We don't have the fear in us. And we don't drown in our own giddiness either, thanks to our focus shifting from one game onto the next.
We didn't play stupendously well over the Christmas period. Arguably you could say we've had pockets of pomp across the whole season, never outstanding one game after another. A case of one day we either play with swagger and win or we play with fragmented balance and still win. And on the odd occasion we lose. That extra bit of experience Manchester United (along with having whathisface Ferguson at the helm) sees them undefeated. Growing pains have had us on the receiving end of one or two nil points. As expected. We are still susceptible to those blips thanks mainly to some inconsistency to the backline and the lack of obvious stone cold conviction up front. But we are pushing to better ourselves. All the time. On the up, no argument there.
So having accumulated nine out of nine, what of our next trip?
Everton away, statistically, would have most predict this as a draw or less. Got to place hand on heart and say I will be gutted if we don’t win. Because statistics aside, pound for pound, we should be containing and beating them. With no disrespect meant to the Toffeemen. The way we've played in recent games has seen us display traits that personally say a lot more than a textbook Tottenham dvd performance.
We grind, we fight. Down to ten men twice, so what? Let's pass the ball like there's twenty of us running around the pitch. And then the pockets of pure scintillating counter-attacking football reminds us all that even at 60% Spurs can produce a 95% moment of devastation that results in three points.
I hope that there is not too much tinkering in terms of squad rotation tonight. Although it's not an imperative end of days must win, it's most defiantly an opportunity to continue with the momentum, when you consider that other clubs might drop points this evening. Also, complacency. We have to respect Everton and not take it all for granted. Obvious statements. Basics.
Which brings me to the conclusion of the article (almost). As we continue to push forwards, avoiding the blips, there is no need for a massive rock of the boat. We're sailing. Just need to fit it with a powerful motor to speed things along. A basic, simple and obvious addition(s) if we want to reach our destination before others.
Running theme this season: consolidation. We have the players to deliver the bullets (Lennon, Bale, vdV, Modric). All we need is the hit-man with the gun ready to pull the trigger. Doesn't have to be anything more than what's required. For the right amount, Carroll would do. What with Dzeko gone to City. But mugging off Newcastle with a bit of money and a couple of players in a swap would probably take some supreme hypnotising from Levy.
Carroll might not exactly be the White Drogba but if you forget about his age and his lack of Prem experience and the way he looks - and close your eyes and imagine him on the pitch running down the centre giving our players a genuine target who can head and smash it in, there is hardly need for over elaboration. Does he work hard? Yes. Does he work the channel with fire in his belly? Yes. Is he a ballerina? Well no. You can't have everything.
The counter argument will obviously be one that he lacks the intelligence of a Benzema or one of the many other continental forwards like Llorente we've been linked with (I wouldn't say no to either of them by the way) and that Modric and van der Vaart and all our intricate play just outside the box would be wasted on him. Although quite how a threaded ball will confuse the big lad, I don't know.
'He's just a tall Jermain Defoe' you might say. 'He's just a more weighty Peter Crouch' you laugh. Any foreign player could always turn out to be just another Pav or Rebrov. And our current batch of forwards are hardly masterminds of movement. We all know Harry likes to keep things…simple. Of course, we also know Spurs at one point wanted (supposedly wanted) Kenwyne Jones. Who is obviously the black Andy Carroll.
We'll see. As long as the chairman and Harry sign players they want or accept wonderful wonderful opportunist gifts like the one Madrid gave us last time round. And as long as we don’t splash money on a player who is not worth the splashing when the splashing soaks you in cold water (in other words, Bent wasn't worth £16M, neither was Bentley and a thank you to Sunderland for pricing us out of Jones at £20M). To spell it out, for the money Newcastle will want, it's probably a non-starter. But it's good to talk.
And regarding Beckham, like I mentioned in a previous blog, he will do well for us for what he can do on the training pitch.
And to finally conclude, regarding Everton away, I'll take another three points. Swagger or no swagger. If it's good enough for United, it's good enough for me.
Reader Comments (62)
FUCK OFF JENAS YOU USELESS CUNT! YOU TOO CROUCH YOU FEEBLE FAILURE.
The haters are back so i see , some players can play a lot of bad games and get no stick while others ...
Lukaku btw is very expensive and far far far from being the finished product and not strong enough to cope with some of our very fickle fans.
Can you lot just listen to yourselves ffs JJ's been immense for us lately.......ever had an off day? Or are you all Superheros? We rarely have any joy up there and if you really, deep down, thought we'd beat Everton last night then you're new to this game!
I, deep down knew that Chelsea would win last night, (they didn't) and was hoping for a nil, nil at the Swamp. Villa done us a huge flavor the other night putting us 4th proper. Again, everyone, including me, thought we'd sit 4th overnight! So last night we lost, but we're still 4th. Happy days..... not doom and fucking gloom!
It's all relative, If you've got Rabies, and someone offers you swine flu, you'd bite they're arm off!
We'll beat Man United at the lane
'JJ's been immense for us lately.......ever had an off day?'
Are you serious? Immense?
Why play Jenas and Modric in the middle at Everton? Why start with that fuckwit beanpole?
We needlessly lost ground last night and if we don't improve the frontline, pronto, this will quickly, if it hasn't already, turn into the season that could've been.
Listen Wisky Tom... I admire your ability to attempt to rationalise even after a sad loss. And that was a sad loss. I was screaming at the telly from about 50th Minute that Harry is waiting for us to concede before he makes a change...coz the Everton goal was always coming. But, you ability to accept mediocrity I do not admire.
How many times have we had the "JJ's been immense for us lately.......ever had an off day?" argument in the last 5 years? The guy runs around a lot...which is often mistaken for working hard - a virtue much admired in the UK. But c'mon, he is guaranteed Shit and has been for the last 5 years. Can't we really aim higher? Even West Ham, the team thats always at the bottom, have a better CM than us.
Jenas - when he finally moves from his comfort zone of THFC - will be deployed as a rightback by an astute coach and we'll all wonder why we never thought of that. There he can run up-and-down all he wants but his lack of awareness and skill will not do too much damage. Palacios was poor against Fulham, but atleast he allows Modric to play. Jenas crowds out Modric's space yet he never seems to contribute anything of significance to our attack. He then runs back to defend...but stops...allowing their rightwinger an easy - winning - free header.
And what about running towards your own players with his arms stretched, asking for the ball, without caring to look up and see where your teammates are, only to receive the much demanded ball, do your trademark turn only to realise that you are surrounded by opposition players and have no clue where your teammates are - and then ,naturally, the pass to the defenders/goalkeeper. Leaving fans wondering - wtf was that all about? 5 years of that shit and Jenas is still going strong.
'Needlessly lost ground' It was Everton away!! We've amassed 9points from 3 games leave it out!
We all know Crouch is shit! but who got the goal at Eastlands when the chips were down?
And yes 'immense
'accept mediocrity' - Nah
Accept, sitting 4th - accept, playing champions league football - accept, beating Arsenal at the swamp, accept we are going places.....yes!
We lost......so lets not start throwing shit all over the place and look more at the bigger picture.
Just as well we didn't have to rely on the gormless prick to score the goals to get us into that position last season, eh?
21 league games in and he's scored one solitary goal. He is PATHETIC!.
The only thing immense here is your imagination. The sooner we're shot of that spineless little shit Jenas, the better.
Knee-jerk over one bad result? Yes. But we'd be challenging for the title had we one decent striker. It's so fucking frustrating. SORT IT OUT NOW!
I really want Carroll. Not just, I'll accept it if we sign him, I really want him. More so than the European guys benig mentioned. Yes he'd be expensive but he's English so what do you expect. He could be a one season wonder although I doubt it.
His performance against wasn't brilliant but it was on a par with the majority of Crouch and Pavs games.
Give Newcastle what they want: Bentley, Crouch and some cash. Hell chuck in Niko and Gio too.
If we really offered £20m for Carroll and were turned down (as some reports say) then there is absolutely no point pursuing this. There would be uproar in Newcastle if he was sold and Pardew is well aware of this, it would take a bid of ridiculous proportions to land a striker who in my opinion seems to be flavour of the month. Whilst taking on board what Spoony says about Toon fans raving on about him for years...I'll take the Geordies words with a healthy pinch of salt and smashing goals in in the Championship is not necessarily a good indicator.
I remember a certain Mr Sutton having a fantastic season and every top club wanting to sign him up and we know what happened there.
On Jenas.... yeah, he's shit.
If we get mugged off by Newcastle in buying that Pikey (can you say pikey) ? for over 20mil i'll dig my eyes out with rusty spoons !
As weds game clearly shows we need a top class striker and Scott Parker, lets move Keane Bentley O`Hara and Woodgate to fund this, but guys don`t be blinkered about Andy Carroll, he`s very good in a weak team, but how would he fit in at the lane in a much better team, has he the pace for fast breaks from Bale or Lennon, would he understand and position for Modric, is he versatile or just a one trick pony. I believe he`s good with the type of football the toon play but we are a class above and would have to adjust to his style of play, so for me it`s still Llorente by a mile.