Spurs 2 Reading 2 (FA Cup 3rd Round)

I’m now officially bored of Paul Robinson and the managements persistence in starting him, waiting for him to somehow iron out all his goalkeeping quirks (which are working out to about 3.9 mistakes per game). He’s shit. He knows he’s shit and yet everyone inside the club appear to ignore the simple fact of the matter that he has no self-belief and he’s shit. One or two show stopping television saves doesn’t redeem him from his weekly David James impersonations. Calamitous is too gentle a description.

Take Reading’s first goal. Softest ever? Robinson got his positioning all wrong. It was hilarious. The second Reading goal was also partly his responsibility with another lame effort of a save, pushing the ball out to Hunt for the equaliser. Not that Robinson can be blamed for the draw. Keane and Berbatov both missed guilt-ridden opps in front of goal. On another day, we would have notched up 3 or 4 more goals. But it’s a bit frustrating when we’ve rested 3 players and they’ve changed 8, and we don’t win. But what you gonna do?

One thing we can do, other than work miracles in the transfer window is to resolve the goalkeeping problem once and for all. Playing him week in and week out waiting for him to change form to positive from shambolic is a fruitless exercise.

Drop Paul Robinson.

FA Cup odds

4/1 Chelsea
9/2 Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool
12/1 Spurs
20/1 Blackburn, Everton, Newcastle, Portsmouth
28/1 Man C, Villa
33/1 West Ham
50/1 Bolton, Middlesbro, Reading, Sunderland
66/1 Birmingham, Fulham
100/1 Wigan

I think William Hill have taken the 6-4 win over Reading in the Prem as the template for Tottenham's 'we will score one more than you' tactical assault on this years FA Cup. I think they are being overly generous. I actually have a bad gut feeling about tomorrow. Another goalfest is highly unlikely, and Reading won't want to see a repeat performance (four goals away from home and nothing to show for it). Kitson will fancy his chances again, so it's probably down to Spurs and how they defend corners. Not sure how much improvement can be achieved in training since the Villa defeat, considering the general lack of improvement we've shown in defending set-pieces in the past two years.