Friday Night Football. Let's never speak of it again.
Friday, January 27, 2012 at 11:07PM Watford 0 Spurs 1
If the game where Hoddle scored that wonderful wonderful chip was enthralling, this 2012 FA Cup match (from a Spurs perspective) was an abomination in comparison. Harsh, but a fair assessment. It really wasn't very good from start to finish. Watford, hardly Brazil but very unfortunate to have not scored. All things considered, a 1-0 win and progress into the next round is hardly scoffable. New Spurs, can play without edge and still claim victory, riding lady luck bareback...willing to take the risk.
We lined up with a strong side. On paper more than decent. The reality altogether a different experience. No true shape and absolutely no width. Thankfully Lennon was on the bench for the second half but before we got there we had to endure very little in the way of anything of substance. Midfield was unbalanced, Luka lost out on the left. Rafa in there somewhere doing something. I think. Actually I don't know. I kept having to check the starting line-up to confirm and then reconfirm the existence of some of the players out on the pitch. No fluidity, no smart, sharp movement and passing. There was no tempo other than chasing Watford back when they came forward. Rose and Walker under early pressure whilst we lacked direction.
Modric and Rafa struggled to gain influence. The two forwards (JD and Adebayor) waiting rather than gathering. There was no apparent system to our play that would have allowed the variety of in-team units to work together. Retaining possession, recycling possession, push and run. Nothing. It progressively got worse. That's until van der Vaart scored on 43 minutes from a counter attack (a Walker threaded ball) to the anonymous enigma who scorched the ball into the net from twenty-five yards. Although how anyone can notice how a player can be anonymous in amongst a sea of anonymity is beyond me. I was just happy to see someone attempt a shot on goal.
Second half, Luka off and Lennon on gave us width. Pace. Eased the pressure on the flank Rose was patrolling. Still, we continued to ride our luck with Murray clear on goal hitting the post and the rebound squandered by Deeney. Wakey wakey, right? Wrong. More coma-inducing football followed. We did carve out a chance or two (rose cross Walker header Loach save). Rafa was slightly more involved in the play, in that he got to touch the ball. Have to admit I found myself easily distracted by the want for Yorkshire tea. Also, had to call Sky up because my Sky box lost its signal (was watching the game on an internet feed on the pc). On the phone to Sky they asked me to unplug the box which I did. Then press the backup button, keeping my finger pressed down on it. Then I was asked to re-plug the box in. I kept my finger on the backup button, but could not reach the plug. I needed assistance to complete this so I called out for the missus. I then proceeded to turn into Alan Partridge.
"Dan...Dan...Dan...Dan...Dan...Dan....Dan..."
I burst out laughing when she walked into the room. She had no idea why and gave me daggers for distracting her hair straightening until I explained the necessity for the Sky plug to find its way back into its socket. It fixed the problem. Highlight of the game that was. Not relevant to the football, but thankful for ye olde living room improvisation theatre rescuing me momentarily before the bleak return to the internet stream.
Rafa hit the crossbar. But Watford continued to press. Without being patronising either way, we played poorly with plenty of disinterest. Friday night football, obviously not our stage. But even with our lack of oomph, Watford for all their plucky resilience and belief still couldn't get past Cudicini and his heroic save when it looked a certain equaliser. 25 shots to 6, supposedly. That's 25 Watford efforts to our lazy half dozen.
I really did expect us to walk this when I saw the line-up but credit to Watford for at least turning up. Not sure if that was a City hangover being flushed out of our system or just one of very very (very) few below par performances we've witnessed this season. Perhaps evidence that a slightly weakened Spurs side is detrimental to momentum. Perhaps evidence that players did not wish to run around a lot and get injured. Sometimes we don't have much choice but to take that risk. Props to Livermore. I noticed you Jake. Either way, its done. We're into the hat and we can look at the far more important business of the league and Wigan at home.
What? Come on now, the FA Cup...its still an afterthought I'm afraid. The magic has yet to spark us into life. Perhaps in the next round.
Regardless, we win. Onwards we go.
Love the shirt.
Reader Comments (13)
We were shit, and could not be asked, maybe us fans that went tonight could not be asked either in the future.
Spurs fans were singing Watford is a shit hole and i wanna go home, for me that is what I wanted after the whole experience of tonight .
1st!!! Agreed spooky a very below par even awful performance barring Dawson and walker , modric apparently unwell but well out of salts. Overjoyed to be in the last 16 on robotics peformace maybe just maybe our year? P.s did arry appear twitchy in the post match interview I think so!
I got up at 6.45 am on a Saturday for this? I can only assume that the GFC has caused Spurs players to holiday in Watford. Abysmal display.
'Arry post match: "Adebayor tweaked something, not sure what though"
Then walks away laughing.
Classic.
Yes poor, but surely we have learnt something. E.G. Rose cannot defend, Spurs are only good when we have real pacy wingers who play wide, attacking a packed defence through the middle does not work, Livermore really does belong he is a good one for the future, Defoe needs through balls on the floor, and in any game you need luck.
Bad choice of line up again, parker clearly needing a rest and carrying a knock paired with Livermore in midfield and ship modric out on the left, really?
We hear how niko only isn't making the team because of bale then proceed to play modric instead and then bring on Lennon,a right winger, instead of niko.
No wonder ade looked disinterested, he could see he wasn't goIng to get a sniff with that kind of service.
Totally disorganised and disinterested on a heavy pitch. Fring syers chomping at the bit to get some game time.
Actually felt a bit sorry for Watford such was their application to the game compared to ours. Youre better than that spurs, sloppiness is a habit we don't need to be picking up at this time of the season. Let's hope there's a couple of signings on their way to give us a shot in the arm. Coys!
Awful performance....what a difference it makes when Harry is off the training field for a week....same thing happened against Fulham away. Harry not even told by the club Doctor that Modric has rough for the last three days! We were lucky tonight and I can only pray that Harry has some good fortune next week. He is crucial to our club.
Rose and Dawson being useless was something I already knew, but there were 9 other hopeless cases in Spurs shirts. We still lack the forward we've needed for about 3 years now and Samba would be a wonderful buy.
I think its safe to say that VdV will play week in week out no matter how terrible he plays and will get 90 minutes too. Redknapp is too afraid to drop him and will ruin the balance of the team to keep him in the starting line up. Comes to something that he scored our goal, which was more of a backpass than a shot.
We rave about a "great squad" but all I've been able to see for a long time now is a good starting 11 and 2-3 decent subs, for example, if BAE or Ade get injured, we are stuffed.
meow
Hey it was a bad performance but we won. I think we need to go for a big win against wigan another 9 goal thriller maybe? Not very likely but we should win comfortably. Just to get back to winning ways and set ourselves up nicely for a tough couple of weeks. I think we are still in the rase. Just barely, have to be positive. Manchester clubs have the dreaded europa league coming up on thursday nights, who kmows they could slip up.
Dear E4_Yid,
Rafa was subbed in the biggest game of the season at Shitty, with ca. 30 minutes to go, so, no, he won't be playing 90 minutes every time. Which from my point of view is a problem - even when he plays just as shit as everyone else (i.e. Friday), he can create danger and win the game for us. Did anyone else even come close to threaten a goal for us against Watford? Was that all his fault? He scored a goal and hit the bar, while being clearly well below par.
Maybe if one of Defoe or Ade would have sat this game out, and we pushed Rafa up instead, with either Niko/Lennon/Pienaar in the side on the flank we would have been a bit less hopeless going forward. I don't know. Or, if you really wanted to see Rafa out of the team, then retain Ade and Defoe and bring in Niko or Lennon instead of vdV on the flank - but then I am not sure who would have fired us into the next round. I doubt the complete sense of apathy and disinterest that was evident from our display would have evaporated from the team together with vdV.
Hope that wasn't very confrontational:) have a good weekend everyone! Come on QPR and Villa!
I have this nagging feeling that our mojo has gone on holiday
The night before this game, I dreamed we lost 5-1 to Watford. But the game was worse because I didn't get to wake up from it.
I don't think this season I've had to do the whole peep-through-cracked-fingers-on-covered-face thing and this match I was doing it for the last 30 minutes.