There is still hope
Saturday, April 23, 2011 at 11:13PM I reckon I've got it sussed out.
All we need to do is sacrifice fifteen virgins (one for each remaining point) in the centre-circle at White Hart Lane and then take five voodoo dolls representing each club we have left to play and hang'em upside with pins inserted.
Whilst the sacrifice takes place (for reasons relating to legality we can't actually sacrifice people so I've spoken to a friend who knows someone who knows someone who can put me in touch with a farmer and for a nominal fee covering insurance purposes we can borrow fifteen lambs although we have to return the meat post-ritual or we'll lose the deposit)...Okay, so whilst the sacrifice takes place on the pitch we need to then set fire to the voodoo dolls and pray to Mait' Carrefour, the Haitian god of magicians and lord of the crossroads, promising him the souls of the sacrificed virgins (he won't know the difference, the souls are unlikely to bleat after they transcend) in return for Champions League next season. We also need to bury Chirpy in a shallow grave. Nothing to do with the ritual at all. Just, you know, might as well kill two birds with one stone.
I reckon that just about covers it and it's as full-proof as anything can possibly be. Got it all planned out on my clipboard.
No need to waste time on how to line-up our forwards best. How to get them to play with passion and desire starting off with the fundamentals like moving around the pitch a bit and controlling the ball. How best to structure our midfield for assured balance. Where to slot in Lennon for maximum impact. How to retain the required level of tenacity in games against lower-placed clubs as displayed against the bigger sides. How to get the message across that even if the opposition hasn't lost for a fair while, we should be storming it at home in a flurry of fantastics rather than once more failing with frustration.
Also no point in dwelling on the harsh reality of irony whereby said failure is shared by all involved, including the players that might want to transfer their way out in the summer due to the club not being involved in a competition because the same players failed to take us back there. Or is it the managers fault? Or is it mine for thinking we'd get on fine and that we were not over-extending? Regardless, where's the killer instinct? That has to be question that hides behind another disappointment.
You want killer instinct? You want it? If you want it, you do it yourself. You get on the phone to a farmer and you order some baby sheep.
Fourth spot. It's still on.
We simply need to win every single game remaining and City need to slip up the once in addition to playing us.
Believe.
We got written off every single game leading up to Eastlands last time out. Nothing is impossible until it's impossible and it's not impossible. Not yet. When it finally is I'll applaud the team for a quite stupendous season, one with regretful blips that have cost us in the long run. But that's for another me in another universe, one where we finish outside the top four filled with melancholical madness, whilst an emo Spooky sits in front of his webcam reading out poetry and despairing with endless dejection.
Screw that universe.
Now excuse me. Got me some shearing to do.
Just remember what I've done for you next time you tuck into your lamb chop and potatoes.
Reader Comments (96)
I think I said this before somewhere but I think Jim is actually Harry.
@Ziege
I cannot rule out you may well be right, as I seem to be in a minority of one here. But will someone please tell me why it is when you look at our resources you think that we should be doing better than Manure, Arse, Chelsea, Citeh, Liverpool, Everton, Villa, Sunderland and Newcastle?
My point is that for the last three weeks, we have had the lynch mobs in full flow. Some of the comments are well made and others are about as well informed as Bluebottle from the Goon show. In all this time, very few people have bothered to do anything other than blame, but everybody is an expert.
I am not trying to excuse what is happening at the moment, but as I said earlier, the real damage was probably done in the first six games of the season when we should have got 18 pts and only got eight. If that had happened, we would be ten points ahead of city now. When we were screwing up at the beginning of the season, there were murmurings, but we were in the CL, and nobody was really that worried. But now we are out of the CL, the virulence of the language over the past few weeks has been close to unbelievable and it is all based on a combination of the team overachieving and thus giving us unrealistic expectations.
Ziegemonster, TMWNN, Dubaispur, Belgianspur, Stratty, DaveK......
Because of you guys, there is still hope.
Harry Redknapp has done a lot of good. We appreciate. But let it not be over exaggerated.
Given that he was previously oscillating between Pompey and Southampton - fighting relegation day in day out - and is now a sure in for England manager, I can say Spurs has paid him really well. We gave him the chance to manage a great team, full of great players, who were misperforming badly. He did o.k.
Harry's "Houdini" status came about because he was able to quickly identify where teams were not doing the "basics" right and, with the use of a simple 4-4-2 system, return misperforming teams to decent ways and avoid relegation. He was never a super tactician. That is why he is failing so miserably with his first attempt at a tactical game. His 4-5-1 is comical.
If Lennon will from now henceforth be treated like Kranjcar due to the Madrid misunderstanding, its going to be full out war with Jamie's father. www.dearmrredknapp.com. I won't be able to stand it. His three-goals-a-season best friend Peter Crouch being rescued from the sinking Pompey and shoved down our throats was an understandable, albeit very bitter, pill that had to be swallowed. But I cannot stomach any mistreatment of Lennon. Lennon is ours. Harry Redknapp found him here. He has no right to destroy one of our best players so as to succeed in his quest to replace our right side players with Everton's Phil Neville + Piennar. If Neville shows up...Its over for us guys. We will be "lucky" to avoid relegation in the next three years.
Is it true that we've won 1 game in the last 9?
The management of players is a wanting. I'm not too sure that Kranjcar, Taarabt, GDS, Bostock etc could not have contributed more to our season. The last two times that Kranjcar played, he scored two amazing winners. And yet, somehow, Everton's Piennar is ahead of him in the pecking order. GDS might not be Chicarito, but how many goals has the prolific Defoe and Crouch scored this season to keep him out? Are we sure no one else could have been given a chance?
Adel Taarabt, whom we sold for less than 1million pounds at the beginning of this season has immediately proven himself and is now worth atleast 10m. All in one season. Can we really trust that this management team is capable of distinguishing between a good and a poor player?
If they are not stopped soon, we may soon wake up to pictures of Phil Neville menacingly displaying the Spurs shirt on Sky........and (our own) Aaron Lennon being dished out to West Ham as part payment for Scott Parker.
We need to act fast.
Spurredon,
Site wasn't accepting my posts for a couple of hours so this is a response to your next to last post in which you said we cannot be expected to finish above sixth because our stadium is too small, shorthand for limited financial means, I assume.
I would argue that our current league position is due to points dropped against the likes of WestHam, WestBrom, Blackpool, Everton and Stoke, financial minnows in comparison to Spurs,
Further, we have been comfortably holding our own against the likes of Chelsea, ManCity, Liverpool and Arsenal, teams with greater resources in terms of stadium size, cash infusions from owners, sponsorship, prize money etc.
To sum up, results over the last two seasons show us performing well against richer clubs, performing badly against poorer clubs so your theory that our position is a function of our relative financial strength is not supported.
I have read your posts on the same subject on the "other" spurs site that shall remain nameless, where you were pretty adamant about only looking at league position, but I strongly suggest you need to be more granular in you analysis. Granted, limited financial means may keep us from winning the league but there have been so very many losses or home draws against weaker teams, which cannot be attributed to financial conditions.
Some have made the case that many of those losses were CL hangover, but we have had a previous debut season in Europe combined with lengthy run in domestic cups when we still managed to equal our prior year's league position. In addition, we have a larger, higher quality squad but the squad players are not being used and a pretty amazing number of young players are out on loan. I doubt this was a financially motivated decision given that these youth players' wages are likely quite low.
We also need to re-examine the management decision to get rid of the reserve team. Is there any other established premier league side that does not field a reserve side? This makes it even more difficult for squad players to come in and out of the first team since they have no opportunity to maintain match fitness e.g. Kranjcar and is even more troubling for players coming back from injury e.g. Huddlestone. If Everton can afford a reserve team, surely Spurs can.
I maintain that our current under-performance is due to mismanagement, mostly Redknapp but Levy has to take some of the blame as well. Do Man City have more money than us? Yes. Is that why we dropped four points to both west brom and west ham? No.
Ronnie, it's 1 from 10 all competitions, 1 from 7 in the league. Pretty grim.
Spooky, was ist los mit posting. Still total upgefuckt.
@Ziege
I don't know why people don't seem to understand what I am trying to say. I am not saying we are a bad team. What I am saying is that when we screw up, I am not so surprised bearing in mind our resources But as soon as we screw up, the lynch mobs are rushing out to to the hardware shops to buy lengths of rope, and Levy, and or HR are the targets of the mobs fury.
We have gone from being a mediocrity to challengers for a CL place to Q/finalists in the CL, and we are still contenders for next years CL, though it is very much in the hands of others as to whether we do it again, but there are people here who refuse to give HR or DL or both any credit for this.
My nomination for the best game of the season, was that 1-0 at AC, where we played with two DM's who were the stars of the show. Brilliant performance. Whose idea was that? Did the team pick itself and the players decide on tactics themselves, or was that HR's idea? Before any says it, I will say that I think it's a pity that we did not stick with this formation. There are people on these forums who will tell you that the only reason we beat any team is nothing to do with HR, but because the other team is having a bad day.
Again, looking at Levy, and our relatively meagre resources, how have we done so relatively well in the past couple seasons unless he has made some sort of contribution? If he has been as detrimental as some suggest, why aren't we fighting relegation?
I have read comments on these sites from people who think they have all the answers saying that all that needs to be done is...., or we should have signed A, B, C and D, or the reason why we didn't sign was because ENIC had milked the club dry. The last of these statements is quite clearly a fallacy, which if the posters had bothered to do a bit of research they would have known. Even today, I am reading in one site that the problem with us is that we wont pay the wages demanded by top players, and then someone else on another site complains that the reason we can't shift our Turkeys is because we are paying them too much.
To put it in context, there is the story of the business that was looking for new ideas to expand the business, so they asked their staff if they had any ideas. Someone said "We should cure cancer". The boss thinks brilliant idea, and asks how are we going to do it. The employee replies that he doesn't know, but he also thought it was a good idea.
My original interventions on this and the other site was because we were getting posters making ludicrous, contradictoy and uninformed claims about the financial management of the club which were adding nothing useful to the debate, and needed to be corrected. For want of a better word, these are the "cancer curers".
I know most of our failures have been against lower ranked teams, but for me the real scandal of the season has been that for all the money that City has spent, they are one point ahead of us, at a time when we are underperforming, and are crapping themselves in case we overtake them. But nobody at City is questioning the value for money they are getting because they don't have to account for the money. If Levy had spent the sort of money they have and all we were doing was hanging on to fourth place by a narrow margin, I'd be tearing my hair out telling you what a useless wanker Levy must be.
Couple of stats for you: I am told Man City's wage bill is almost as big as our turnover for last season. Also Chelsea have spent more on transfer fees since Abramovich joined, then Spurs have in their entire history.
The problem that i see is, every time its a must win situation, Harry decides to change the team around, and play players out of position. If he just plays players in their best positions, and inform players, I can see no reason on us not playing well.
I have said before, that we need to play with players who are defensive as well as offensive, like Chelsea and Manu play.
And for me the players who can give us this and should play all the time, are Sandro, BAE, Kabul. If Harry wants to play Tommy with Modric in the middle, then why not play Sandro as a sweeper just in front of the CB, in a 4-1-4-1 formation, or revert to this when we need to hold onto a lead, and the opprtunity to catch teams on the counter attack.
Blimey, TMWNN and 'hope' in the same sentence. Had to read that twice such was my surprise.
SpurredoninDublin, there's been a certain amount of overreaction which has been born out of abject frustration and the chickens (cockerels?) on the their way home to roost. We knew it would be more difficult this season than last; City spent heavily and we had CL football which has, understandably, made it difficult for the players to concentrate on the bread and butter of the PL. We also knew before the end of last season that our strikers were not up to it, yet nothing was done. Even without a non-striker clear out, the team is massively under-performing in the league against sides with much fewer resources.
Don't get me started on tug boat Tommy.
Dont know how anyone can blame the formation for our lack of goals??
Does no one remember the west ham game..... or the blackpool game..... maybe a combination of 40 attempts on goal in both. What on earth does our strikers missing sitters or NEVER attacking the front post for bales crosses have to do with formation???
If our strikers had put away 4 of those 40 chances.....3 against b'pool and 1 against west ham we would be at least 3 points clear of City.
Thats just two examples. What about the City game on the opening game of the season also where we battered them but couldn't find the back of the net.
Im certainly not saying Harrys formation has been perfect, it clearly hasnt. And im sorry but Defoe should not be missing sitters like he has done because he doesnt like the formation he is playing in.
Some of you guys are mad! statistics dont tell any kind of story.
Well argued points Spurredon.
What bothers me most right now is the vitriol directed at Harry and the Harry-Out movement.
Apparently taking us from the bottom of the League to the CL in 2 seasons was nothing to do with Harry, any competent manager could have done it, in which case why didn't any of the previous crop do it? Harry already had all the good players so it was easy, but his predecessors who had these players didn't do it did they?
Harry scrapped the reserve team because he felt that the standard of games played didn't give a fair indication of a player's potential and that loaning would show who could perform and who couldn't. It's something that can be argued from both perspectives in that Obika for example is not a goal-machine in the lower divisions but on the other hand that could be because of the tactics and supporting players deployed at the lower level club. Having said that, there are reserve team games played from time to time when the loanees are recalled to monitor their progress in a higher calibre team. So far this change hasn't produced any results but it is still early in the process.
Ferguson at Utd. wasn't an instant success at a club with huge resources both financial and in terms of players and scouting networks. It took him years so why the rush to judge Harry? I suspect part of it is that he doesn't acknowledge that he makes mistakes and doesn't brook criticism, but anyone who dared to question Ferguson soon got short shrift even before his success.
I'm not saying that Harry is another Ferguson. In many ways I sincerely hope not, but let's just stand back a bit, take a realistic look at where we are in terms of the League and give the man time to build and progress.
@TWMNN
If you read Stratty's input on this, he will tell you that we had two strikers who scored 37 goals between them last season, which on paper should have given us some encouragement. Not to split hairs with you, but a truer version of what you have said, is not that nothing was done about it, as it appears we made offers for several players, but we couldn't sign anyone for a number reasons. In fairness to Stratty, he doesn't appear to say the strikers were adequate, but the tactics were wrong. By the same token, I have to wonder why we didn't persist with the tactics we used in the 1-0 over AC.
@Davek.
Your Fergie point is valid in my opinion. If you look at the way Jol was treated, I think Levy destroyed the impetus of the team. In Jol's time, he had built a team that was capable of qualifying for Europe on a regular basis, when prior to that, I don't think we had played there for for ten years. Someone suggested that Ramos is a better manager the HR, and that the only reason why we finished so low down in the Ramos year was because once we had qualified for Europe the players took their foot off the gas.
I have two probs with this theory. The first is that Ramos was not the sort of manager who would tolerate this, and the second is that there is difference in prize money of £800k for every place in the PL so I don't think the board would have accepted this either. I think that DL had started a rot in getting rid of Jol, that totally demoralised the team, and it was only when HR came along, that this rot was stopped. I think if, Jol had been given the same leeway as Ferguson, we would now be arguing about something else being Spurs fans. Instead we ended up with HR. For what it's worth, I thought signing him was the equivalent of re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.
So as can be seen, I am quite capable of criticising both HR and DL, but for all that, my memory is long enough to recall where we were before these two got together, and in one particular area, DL has performed brilliantly, and that is in the financial management of the club.
So we didn't sign a striker because of the prices and wage demands. For those of you who take the attitude that we should never let money be a consideration, I would remind you again about Leeds United. Remember how many of us were opposed to the signing of WG. If it hadn't been for him this year, I think we would have been in the bottom half of the PL. Those who say pay the wages and bugger the consequences, only have to think about Joe Cole to feel that DL got that one right.
The failures this season have had a number of reasons, including the horrendous injuries we have had to our defence, but one area where we have been pretty close to foot perfect, has been the finances of the club. Assume for one moment that we had signed both Torres and Suarez in the last window, this would have had to be 'cash funded'. One injury and you are paying £5 mill a year to a player who is watching from the stands. If either or both fail to perform, we are £80 mill in debt with another two Turkeys on our hands, and now we have to sell Bale and Modric. And of course because we have to sell them, we are unlikely to get full market value.
It seems that very few people agree with me about this, and I am not arrogant enough to think that everyone else is wrong and I am right, but I sleep pretty well at night knowing that the finances of the club are in the hands of Levy rather than a Ken Bates character, but for all that, I wish we could be as financially irresponsible as City.
Urghhh, Spurredon, you are a very frustrating character. You have some good points, but you also have an idee fixe that apparently prevents you from taking in what other posters are saying.
The theme, for the most part, is "underperforming club", not "bad team".
Despite the length of your replies, you haven't actually responded to the point that I and several other posters have made--we're dropping points against financially weaker clubs so how can Man City's money be to blame for that?
Re strikers, yes, it would be nice to have the wherewithal to buy a big name, but Berbatov was not a big name when we bought him. I follow the bundesliga as well and there are any number of useful looking not yet marquee strikers there. When in recent history have we not had at least four strikers at this club? Tried to sign a striker and failed to do so is...a failure, a management failure.
The infallibility of Levy is nonsense--he has screwed up repeatedly and severely--how much did the Ramos debacle cost the club, financially and in terms of moving backwards. Let's review--compensation to Jol, let's hope Chrissy got a few bob as well, compensation to Sevilla, compensation to Leeds, then when it finally hit the fan and we were adrift at the bottom of the table, compensation to Ramos and Poyet and the rest of the backroom staff that came with them. Two points from eight games was down to Ramos and getting out of that situation was due to "Anybody but Ramos" taking over, not some particular genius from Harry. Remember the start of that season? Everyone expected us to break the top four and win a cup or two. And it's been ten years, Daniel. Where the **** is our new stadium? After the stratford bull****, are we any closer than we were ten years ago? Not if you listen to Daniel--all those plans for redevelopment of current footprint are non-viable, so how many millions is that down the drain, and his current focus is on a useless court battle, more money wasted. And per some of your other posts, we've only actually made money half the time.
RE your concern that this is over-reacting, suddenly a la lanterne, not really. There's been simmering discontent among many but champions league success was papering over the cracks. Well, the paper's been ripped off and now we're all looking at and discussing what to do about the cracks.
Saying we can't do anything about them until we somehow increase our financial heft is completely defeatist--the flip side of you "cure for cancer" analogy. It's not that far removed from Jim's be grateful for sixth place and you saw how popular that view was.
@spurredoninDublin
"But as soon as we screw up, the lynch mobs are rushing out to to the hardware shops to buy lengths of rope, and Levy, and or HR are the targets of the mobs fury."
Then who should the "lynch mobs" be looking to string up, you pedantic twit... the tea-lady? The groundsman? The porter?
When an army lose a war who's expected to fall on their sword? The man/men in charge, that's who !!
And I won't even deign to pick over "But as soon as we screw up"... As soon. As soon... Ohh my sainted auntie
@Ziege
My original point was in relation to some of the posts blaming the financial management of the team and in particular the comment that Levy and Lewis had made fortunes out of the club as a "Cash cow". This is quite clearly wrong. I am not too sure of the actual figures, but I am certain that the dividends paid out during DL's stewardship of the club, is in the region of about £5 mill in ten years. That works out at a before tax return of 0.4% per annum, which is slightly higher than investing in an old sock under the mattress.
Somebody else on another forum, suggested that it would be a good thing for the club to have financial probs, so that a new investor would come in and buy Levy out. The likelihood is that it would be an asset stripper, because there is very little money for dividends in football.
Regarding the failure to sign players, I accept your point about the German market but without wanting to accuse you of hindsight, first of all, everybody was talking in terms of a Pele. If we had signed a relative unknown from Germany, there would have been the usual screams, and had it failed, everyone with an opinion would have said "Why didn't we sign Pele in the last window". When we were struggling in mid-table an unknown Berbatov was acceptable, but now we are in the CL, we need world class. This is not my view, but the mindset of many of the supporters.
In general without responding to every point you have raised, my rants have been based on the fact that there are many posts by people who obviously have never run a business, who have simple answers and explanations for everything. And because of this assumed knowledge they have (note the use of assumed rather than presumed), the feel free to add to the mix by saying that Levy is crap and should go.
Taking a look at the list of our illustrious leaders since I have been a fan, before Levy, there was Sugar who the fans spat upon. He saved us from being bought by Maxwell, after Scholar had run the club into the ground financially. Scholar took over from Bearman and Wale. These two refused to renew Pat Jennings contract, and in return, he paid them back by signing for Arsenal, though he never wanted to leave the lane in the first place. Amongst their other achievements, was the signing of Terry Neill as manager, who then went to Arsenal taking several of our best players. They also thought that when Bill Nicholson resigned, (he never had a contract in his 16 years as manager), an adequate pay-off was a paltry £10k.
The conclusion really is that all Chairman are crap unless their name is Mansour or Abramaovich, because what the fans want from the chairman is unlimited spending whether the club can afford it or not, and if the spending fails and the team goes bust, then the Chairman is still crap. A real poison chalice of a job.
Yet with our crap chairman, we have in four out of the past five years been in Europe after a long absence, and in the one year we failed, HR's first in charge, we were as close as one goal away. So to come back to my original intervention, DL has presided over a team that were a medocrity and had resources that entitled us to finish sixth in a good year and now we are regular contenders in Europe. My point was never about our failure to beat lower ranked teams.
However, since you've raised the issue, it is a disappointment, and as I have said already, I think we should have been third this year. But in the totality of things, I don't think this detracts sufficiently from the advances we have made under Levy, for me to say that he is crap, and then tell you how badly the club has been mismanaged financially, especially when there is no evidence of this.
As for City, the real point is that if they had not access to the irresponsible wealth that we can only dream of, we wouldn't be talking about whether we can catch them for fourth place, but whether the bindippers were going to catch us.
@tonyblue
Again we see the typical over-reaction of our fans with the use of the word "War".
If you want to use this as an analogy, you should recall the Russian Generals who invaded Finland and were so crap, that Stalin had them all shot. The reason they were so crap, was that Stalin was so worried about about a coup, that he had all the good generals shot years earlier. When the Finns eventually lost, their Generals were treated as heroes for having taken on a much bigger foe and almost beating them.
But I digress: Why do we have to lynch anyone at all?
To try and lighten the mood a little, I stumbled across a Spurs forum today which was full of the opinions of Spurs supporters at the start of the 2008/9 Season.
With the benefit of hindsight, it makes great reading. A lone voice is calling for Ramos to be sacked. I would have agreed with that. When asked who should replace him, he suggests HR. Wow. Later on, someone is predicting that Ramos might become the best ever manager in our History, and others are complaining about a crap CB, who will not get a look in as soon as we sign Corluka. The CB is Dawson.
Somebody else writes: "And so it begins. This just after one defeat. Let's find a scapegoat, a hate figure". Same old Spurs
We all have opinions and most of us exchange them politely, thank you, but I love the co-incidence that today, there are some of us who think there is a crisis in the team, and not to offend anybody who thinks that way, but I think the start of the 2008/9 was a real crisis.
Here's the forum, and if you can spare a while to browse the posts, you might find them amusing.
http://forums.tottenhamhotspur.com/showthread.php?t=7554&goto=nextoldest
I don't think there is a crisis, certainly nothing of the 8 games 2 pts sort, but it's just disappointing that we had a chance to build on a fantastic season last year, with a good squad that compares well with Man City's, but just can't get it together. Lack of a decent striker, tactical inconsistencies (for every AC Milan, there's a Lennon stuck out on the left or a Kranjkar left to rot when some players look rather knackered), consistently poor results against relegation candidates (not just one-offs) - all points of frustration.
Been away so seen no football but the camp seems somewhat divided. Can't wait to see what is written here if Bale leaves in the summer.
In line with what has been written before I think Harry should leave. but only because of this whole England job scenario, it has to be unsettling the whole set up of the club.
Time will tell, but if one thing is for sure, over the last 20 twenty years I don't think we have had it this good.
Saturday: "I find it hard that now everyone expects us to be in the Champions League."
Monday: "We belong in the top four."
hey?!
Sadness has befallen us. City have won. 1 - 0.
The goals scored league never lies you know. We will (and should) finish 6th.
How (and why) did Liverpool get it right? During a heated argument with an Arsenal fan earlier in the season, a humble Liverpool fan attempted to intervene and share his comments and I...well I requested him, rather harshly, to shut up because "we are not in the same league".
Oh my! The embarrasment is going to be never ending. How did they do it?
Don't look now but we're only 3pts (and actually 2.5pts with GD) up on Liverpool with a game in hand. I get the awful feeling that the game against Liverpool is going to be for the Europa league spot not the Champions League.
Then so be it. Personally, I'd rather not waste our time/energy on Europa.
Spooky,
Blood sacrifice is SO Iron Age druidian.
What we need is a good old fashion vision quest.
I'm firing up the sweat lodge and breaking out a bag of peyote.
I will find Harry's spirit animal and wrestle it to the ground.
@Ronnie
Liverpool have improved by employing Clark as a coach and Dalgleish as a man motivator.
We have the Motivator (at least for grown-ups, Darren Bent excluded) but not the Coach.
Does anyone seriously believe we'll beat the chavs this weekend?
All we need to do is sacrifice fifteen virgins (one for each remaining point) in the centre-circle at White Hart Lane and then take five voodoo dolls representing each club we have left to play and hang'em upside with pins inserted.
Steady on there Spooky, first we had the anti semitic debate now we might have angry virgins clambering all over us with Papa Doc Duvalier mounting some sort of voddo prejudice action. WHL, the centre of all heresy!
Fuckin 'ell, never felt so rough in my life. Got some unholy clusterfuck of an illness at the minute. Just logged on to pay a bill and will now return to bed. Just heard City won last night.
To dream, the impossible dream...
to SpurredoninDublin
I appreciate your comments but fact remains we are the 15th richest team in the World and on the field we excel at under achievement year after year. One season and CL doesn't change that . The lack of genuine investment and genuine success is clear for all to see. Levys reign has amounted to a coca cola cup! Well done...!! and that's that. He meddles and argue's over pennies and misses out on quality players with his non professional approach to the transfer market. Buy players in the Summer, then you get them for all games the following season. The guy is a prick!
Levy for better or worse is the one who can set the level. I totally understand the financial arguments and understand we can't spend mad Leeds styled money and have issues regarding a stadium etc but he has put his money where his proverbial mouth is in the last couple of transfer windows. This could all change of course if he does something to really build out the squad over the summer and make some key signings (after removing the essential dead weight) but if he doesn't we'll just revert to being a midtable club. I do think he and 'Arry are going to make an attempt to sign a key player or two in order to retain our best players. We'll see.
Frustration pouring out of every pore. I still think Redknapp has reached his 'sell-by' date. He has allowed us to drop too many points where we needed them and there was never the spurt of enthusiasm required when the games were ''just 3 point'' games, and not ''big'' games. It's fucking wrong.
If we can beat the Arse away and AC and Inter Milan and hold our own with the likes of Chelsea, Man U and Man C why not Blackpool, Wigan, West brom, West Ham and Wolves. What the hell is going on.
We need Moyes in there to shake things up. Harry, Jordan, Bond, Allen, Sherwood and Ferdinand all seem a bit 'laid back' and 'laid back' is how I would describe the team when we are playing mediocre teams. We blew the CL qualification because of this. Fuck off Harry and take your cronies with you.
I think the transfer window argument and the lack of investment argument are red herrings. There is little doubt that on paper we should have beaten West Brom, Wigan, West Ham at least once and a couple of others. Even if only two or three of those results turned out the way we expected then things would look very different indeed. We've mixed it with the best, competed and even won. Not long ago we would have died on our arse against the so-called Top 4 but not any more. So the trouble lies with why we dropped points in games we should have won. It's not ability. It's not lack of quality players. Could it not be psychological - lack of killer instinct? Wrong attitude? No leadership on the pitch? HR has been looking for "characters" to add to the squad, perhaps we need one or two winners who've been there, done that and get stuck in. Or is that too simplistic?
555 , or maybe just a really good striker would do it ? I believe we have winners and the hunger to go forward is there , only our strikers aren't there where they need to be. And have not been for most of this season. Some say Pav would score more then Defoe or Crouch , i tend to agree but he has his major downsides 2 ...
Spooky , always been huge fan of the blog but not really of the new lay out , but hey it's just decoration - it's the content that matters.
Its actually all vdV's fault....
I'll elaborate tomorrow when I gather my thoughts.....
Dont get too excited in the meantime though!!
I blame Irving Scholar.
Hope you're feeling better....
Schalke were awful. Worse than us at the Bernabeu. It seems Mourinho has already unsettled Pep before the big game tomorrow. He'll do anything to win. What a merciless bastard..... Just what we need. No mercy.
You know, looking at Liverpool beat Birmingham 5 - 0 over the weekend, I tried to remember the last time we played against a team we were expected to beat, totally dominated them, and won comprehensively. I think it must be way back when we defeated Wigan 9 - 1. Nowadays, every single team feels that they can beat Tottenham Hotspur. And to be honest, we struggle to win against all teams. Spooky, and many others here, have found ra way to enjoy what they refer to as "the last 10 minutes of biting your nails off" but I think, given that most of these teams that torture us are usually from the bottom tier, its simply due to our manager being outplayed. Poor tactics. We obviously have the better players.
I think Redknapp should not go...yet. But it is imperative that he abandones the "jobs-for-the-boys" camp he has set up promptly. For instance, due to the horrific performances of our strikers this season, we have to say goodbye to LES FERDINAND. He must be the "specialist" that came up with the knock downs only idea. He doesn't seem all that intelligent, especially given his blank face when the game is going badly. Could he be the "hoofing specialist" that must leave for us to progress?
Its going to be Man U vs. Real at....what could have been......"our" final. Sucks!
It really does come down to not beating teams who are totally inferior to us in most positions. Piss poor coaching is clearly the fault.
Ferdinand!
Yes Spooky,
Ferdinand must go! (together with his four strikers)
Just wanted to make sure the bandwagon got it's push.
les-out
that has so many connotations.
It's going to work on so many levels. It's win win.
Les is less!
Its going to be Man U vs. Real at....what could have been......"our" final. Sucks!
Apr 26, 2011 at 10:42 PM | Ronnie
I humbly take that back and salute the great Leo Messi and Barca's superb tactician Pep Guardiola. Mourinho's gang of savages - very expensive savages - surely cannot come back now.
Fulham 3 - 0 Bolton. We need atleast one result like that. We too are a serious footballing side - you know!
We won't even get 5th spot! You all realise this I hope!! Levy is terrible and we never take the chance to go to the next level, so we we always lose our best players and who could blame them. Then we are stuck with the usual shit like Jenas and Defoe, 2 defenders that take over £100k a week that never play. We are such a joke!!! Pav,Defoe and Keane need to go..Jenas please just give the cunt away for free. This Summer we will spend money, but we will make more!!! That's the agenda with Levy...Cunt,cunt,cunt. Just to clarify Levy is a Cunt,cunt,cunt!! Cunt of cunts, he is a bastard of a cunt and a cunting cunt, he is tighter than a nuns cunt!!! My prediction..We will lose one of our top players liek Bale or Modric, Ven Der vaart and we will still have most the crap like jenas,defoe,pav next year..we won't build on the opportunity, but we all know this.