Don't take Defoe to the World Cup Fabio...he's evil

We win. Away. Score three goals, and keep a clean sheet. We do it with a mix of the ugly and the sublime, in the mud, up North. And back down South, one of London's freebie newspapers decides to run the headline that has Jermaine Defoe pencilled in as some type of Dark Sith, waving his light-sabers around with no remorse and unnerving petulance. The Facere is strong with this one. Much like the farce is strong with the Evening Standard and their blatant side-step to say something positive about Spurs. You'll be equally shocked to hear the report of the game has nothing to do with Matthew Norman, unless he's ghost writing for Tom Collomosse.

So, basically our win has had the shine taken off it because Defoe did a norty tackle. Yes, yes, because losing your rag is something that is simply forbidden if you're not Wayne Rooney. Tom poses the question 'How would he react to a sly dig in the ribs or a kick on the ankle' during a World Cup quarter final? Don't fret Tom, Wayne will give him some hints and tips on how to control his temperament, because we all know JD is an animal on the pitch, isn't he just. Week in week out, all the goals he's scored count for nothing because they're blanked out by his suspect attitude in games.

Dry them Tom.

Dashing towards the ball is also apparently more condemning evidence that our top scorer is a liability.

Edgy.
Irritable.

That's our JD according to the ES.

So one bad stupid tackle, and it's deserving of 80% of a match report? Really? Is he like this every week? Does he get sent off regularly due to violent conduct or stupid reactions? Of course he bloody well doesn't.

Absolute bollocks journalism by an absolute melter trying his best to avoid discussing a decent win away when a few thought we'd perhaps stumble and lose more ground.

Tomorrow the Evening Standard is set to publish a piece about how Modric is over-rated because anyone with a mullet in this day and age can not possibly be good at football.

Terrible Norman still living in the Sky

I know I love to use irony in oh so subtle doses in my blog articles and on occasion some of you don't quite grasp the context of the point being made and react with a four letter word, slating me for being pessimistic or negative, screaming that I'm detrimental to all things Spurs and that I do more harm than good. And blah blah blah. You get the picture. Sometimes writing style or satire or opinions can be lost in translation because what's been written is a little raw and not that obvious at first glance.

I'm not here to appease every single Spurs fan because its nigh impossible thanks to the uniqueness of human kind and the countless levels of humour we possess (or don't). I write for my own sanity and hope that somewhere in the depths of these articles there is something that can stir emotion and discussion. I don't ever expect every single reader to be impressed or agree. Much like I may not bother to concern myself with the opinions of, lets say, one or two cultured folk who frequent the official Tottenham Hotspur message board. Because I can't possibly articulate to their Oracle-esque level of astuteness and insight.

Bloggers/blogs in general are an acquired taste. Much like people you hang around with. Friends. Or acquaintances at home or away games. You like some, you don't like others and some of them you hate and can't even fathom how you even support the same team. Football journalists are in essence bloggers that get paid full-time to write up their educated and respected opinions on the game for national newspapers and their on-line equivalent web-pages. Their writing is more refined. And more professional. And mostly short and concise. And has the safety net of an editor. It has to be because of the targeted audience and the fact that they need to appeal to a wide cross-section of people. Not everyone agrees with them and at times their bias might shine through. And on other occasions there's a far more obvious agenda to their piece. Much like anything in the written press. Much like anything anywhere. Including the blogosphere.

Now we know Tottenham get bad press most of the time, mainly because we are an easy target made easier by the people associated with the club mouthing off or mugging themselves off. And I don't ever expect to read anything pro-Spurs all of the time and there are moments when there is more than enough decent coverage of our never-boring existence. Other fans of other clubs will probably say the same thing about the press and their team. But Spurs tend to get the most negative coverage outside of the Top 4.

Sky are obsessed with just four clubs and we usually find ourselves in for more Mickey Mouse jokes and Keystone Cop mock-ups than we can handle compared to other teams who suffer similar fates. And when things do go right, they have to remain impartial. Although they tend to be clever here by overplaying and overstating the positives because they know it will be easier to write up a damning effort at a later date when we tumble back down.

And then there's Matthew Norman.

This morning, a work colleague walked up and muttered, "Have you read this?", passing me yesterdays edition of the Evening Standard and before he could turn to the page I answered yes. He was laughing, not so much at my expense (the article was a match review of the NLD) but more so at the content of the article, asking why they had allowed an Arsenal fan to take the piss out of Spurs so publicly and blatantly. He laughed even louder when I informed him that Norman is a Spurs fan and that it should be more than obvious to most that only a Spurs fan could take the piss out of Spurs in such a blunt self-deprecating fashion.

"That makes sense" he replied. Bless him, he's a gooner. And French. So some of the subtleties of the English media are still lost on him.

Norman is basically the quintessential representation of what other supporters believe Spurs fans to be most like. Miserable depressive melters, always complaining. He does however make some valid (if more than obvious) points about the game, but they are lost in the midst of some of the usual twaddle we come to expect from the esteemed members of the press.

Its as though Norman is trying so hard not to be biased (in our favour) towards us that he has lost himself at the other end of the spectrum. He hardly ever has a good thing to say about Tottenham (I'm not sure whether he did after our initial 100% start to the season or whether this harks back to the Levy/Standard incident, although his doom and gloom pre-dates that) so when things don't go to plan be certain he'll be there to point and laugh. Because he can. Because he's Spurs. And because we are obviously devoid of other supporters and media-people pointing and laughing at us. Until the club start playing 'Grande Marche Chromatique' at home games when the team trots out, Norman and friends will remain relentless.

He could have quite easily made all the points he needed to make without it sounding so arse-kissy. Or maybe he does hate us for the torture of failure the club have put him through over the years. Perhaps this is akin to a comedian taking the piss out of a certain type of person and being able to get away with it because he is of the same ilk. I have to be careful here because I could be called a hypocrite, mainly because my letters to the chairman are not too dissimilar in self-deprecation. There's a number of Spurs fans that went into melt-down over the weekend who were far more angry and upset. But Norman will be read by many. Angry Spurs fans on a message board by few in comparison.

Like I said, his opinions are valid. His delivery is questionable because of the arena it sits in. If I'm being blind to the fact that there are journalists out there who do the very same thing to their own team, then name names.

I know I'm not the only person who laughed out loud at his description of Huddlestone (an oak tree in central midfield) and lambasting Robbie Keane's pre-match fighting talk. But to dismiss all the progress we've made under Redknapp - unquestionable progress - well, this reeks of institutionalised hack-talk as though he was contractually obliged to always be on hand to slaughter us.

I'm not requesting Norman or anyone else for that matter write up something complimentary when there is nothing complementary to write. And I'm also fully aware that if he was a Chelsea or West Ham fan writing up articles of this manner about Spurs, then people would bemoan the blatant agenda. So what we have in Norman is the token eternal Spurs sufferer exaggerated tenfold who has been beaten down season upon season by transitional and false dawns. He would make a far better Spooky than me. But he ruins it all by appeasing to the consensus (sponsored by Sky Sports) and is left drowning in a sea of typical stereotypes. It's the way he conforms that blights him every single time.

The first gem:


Every win this season, apart from the increasingly devalued opener against Liverpool, have come against weak opposition, with all three away victories at bottom three clubs.


Does Andy Gray ghost write for Norman? So basically, the Liverpool win no longer matters because everyone is beating them, well, everyone apart from Manchester United. And our away wins, given to us by virtue of the Prem League fixture list computer, are not relevant because the opposition are considered unworthy and happen to find themselves bottom of the table, including West Ham who managed to secure a point against Arsenal, when we took all three off them (WH that is) when we visited Upton Park. Are we meant to only beat weak teams who are mid-table or above because the rest of them don't truly count?

Traditionally, we hardly ever have success away and get dicked over by weak opposition all the time. Yet this season, we've lost twice away - both at Top 4 clubs when we know the likelihood of that happening is fairly likely. But have faired more than decent since Harry's arrival and had the best away record going into Saturdays match.

In addition there is no mention (much like Andy Gray failed to do so) of Arsenal's opposition at the Emirates thus far this season: Pompey (20th), Wigan (12th), Blackburn (17th) and Birmingham (14th). But it would be blasphemous for anyone to point this out. I'm guessing the reason why we never do well in the league is because we never beat the weak teams, and when we do its not considered good enough because we still can't beat the strong teams. We beat Chelsea at home last season. But that doesn't mean anything if we don't follow it up with wins against the likes of West Ham or Hull. Something is definitely lost in translation. Because the suggestion is, Spurs are up in 5th place because we've flattered to deceive by defeating the shit teams that reside in the Prem therefore the fixture list has created another illusion that came to a sudden and final abrupt ending at the Emirates. Arsenal have lost to Man Utd away and Man City away and have beaten a host of shit teams at home. Including crappy Tottenham. So I guess they're also flattering to deceive too and their dream is soon to be over.

Perhaps the paradox is too much for the likes of Norman and we should resume acceptable service. Harry, I suggest two points every eight games will do the trick.

His second nugget concerns a curious nod towards Martin Jol's tenure at White Hart Lane.


This time there is no hotel chef to scapegoat, and the question posed by their lily-livered capitulation concerns not how far Tottenham have progressed under Redknapp, but how far they've regressed since the comparative glory days of Martin Jol.


2006 was special because the side ticked over consistently and arguably had it been for a more active Jan transfer window we would have had 4th spot wrapped up long before the last game of the season. But where exactly is the sense made by comparing Harry (who has only recently made it past 12 months) to Martin Jol? Considering that Jol's teams choked on so many occasions I'd say that it's a little premature to start comparisons. How on earth have we regressed exactly considering the mess the club was in under Ramos? And Ramos won us a Cup, but you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who rates his time at Spurs and even less people who would have him back. Our points accumulation thanks to Harry has been more than impressive. But who cares for stats when the lack of performance proves that it’s the same old Tottenham and the Top 4 monopoly remain completely uncontested once more. Which has the vast majority of Normans counterparts across the country wiping away the single drop of sweat that had hoped to begin a journey downwards across their forehead.

Perhaps in another parallel dimension where Prem games are live on terrestrial TV and Richard Keys has no hair, Spurs visited the Emirates last weekend with Modric, Lennon, Woodgate and Defoe in their line-up. Arsenal however had Fabregas, van Persie, Gallas and Arshavin all out through injury and suspension.

If we won we'd not actually read about it in the press the following day because Norman would probably spend the best part of the match review telling us how under-strength Arsenal were and how they were missing key players in key positions and that a side lacking the best forward and their main creative outlet along with their playmaker and seasoned centre-back stood no real chance. And that this one game, this collection of 90 minutes found within the blow of a whistle at both ends is not season defining nor conclusive or relevant to the past or future in the manner it is being depicted in.




Who am I kidding? He'd never find himself in that position. Probably because we'd still manage to lose the game. Altogether now...

doot doot doodle oodle OOT doot do do
doot doot doodle oodle oot doot do do
doot-doodle oot oot
doot-doodle oot oot
doodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-oodle doot doot...

We love you Matthew, we do......

Matthew Norman, the rainbow of the Evening Standards sports section. His latest creation can be found here.

On Monday I awoke to find a message left on the mobile in the middle of the night by a friend whose voice suggested a little sorrow-drowning after events on the south coast the previous afternoon.

"All right, you won't pay the £2.99," it ran, "and I accept that was a silly price to ask. You can have them for 49p the pair, payable in instalments of 1p per annum over the next half century, which includes an additional penny as an interest payment."

The pair in question are, of course, season tickets for Tottenham Hotspur, the offer following a performance of barely credible spinelessness at Portsmouth.

What jesting and tomfoolery you and your friends partake in. Leaving each other zany text messages. You kill me, you really do. But let’s be frank about this. There is no text message, is there? You’ve made it up for the sake of a hard-hitting, yet laced with mocking humour, dig at the mess the Lilywhites are in. Maybe next season, the money you save from not purchasing your season ticket in the West Stand can be spent on some creative writing lessons. Or a facelift.

Honestly, word of advice, either have a photo of yourself looking or at least pretending to be happy or don’t have one at all. You look like your face is about to collapse in on itself. I know things are rotten at the moment, but come on man, drag yourself up from the gutter of despair. Some day you might get that Sunday Supplement call-up.

I rang back last night to check whether yesterday's thoroughly undeserved avoidance of UEFA Cup disaster in Poland had changed his mind. "Yes it has," he said. "I'll waive the interest."

I’d like to see phone records please.

At the end of a week in which two monstrously inept displays combined with an exhibition of vicious idiocy towards Sol Campbell to add an underlayer of visceral revulsion to the familiar top coat of bemused incompetence, it's hard to know where to start.

How about with the brutal irony that, within days of Jermain Defoe elegantly converting a penalty against the club that dispensed with him, fellow discards Robbie Keane and Dimitar Berbatov broke their scoring ducks in the Champions League while manager Juande Ramos feels unable to play Darren Bent, sole survivor of that Fab Four, alongside Roman Pavlyuchenko even when Spurs are trailing?

Hold up, is this the same Jermain Defoe who so elegantly missed a penalty for Spurs at Upton Park? I know things are bad Mr Miseryguts, but let’s not drown ourselves in self-perpetuated gloom. We have enough of the real stuff to go round. This Ramos/Bent/Pav conundrum is nothing new. It’s been discussed and dissected more times than you’ve failed to smile at moments when it’s appropriate to do so (watch an episode of Curb your Enthusiasm – I guarantee you, you will laugh out loud).

As for the Campbell abuse, it’s an element we all agree is shameful. But let’s not tarnish the vast majority of Spurs fans with the same label the other idiots deserve.

Or perhaps we can look to Germany, where Ramos's successor sits atop the Bundesliga with Hamburg? Martin Jol seems too good natured for schaudenfraude, but it's tempting to imagine a wry smile toying with the corners of his mouth.

This is the same Martin Jol who couldn’t quite reach the next level with regards to the psychological barrier that needed to be jumped for us to achieve some kind of glory (even though we grasped the Fisherprice type in the end with Ramos)? The problems behind the scenes started a while back, before the dizzying offer was made. So are you laughing at Spurs or are you ever so subtly pointing the finger of blame at Daniel Levy?

Good luck to Martin. But ‘what ifs’ are quintessentially what other fans laugh about, regarding Spurs fans. To Dare is to What if? Why even bring up Jol? Or is this the bit in your article where you pretend to be a West Ham or Chelsea fan, and ‘ave a larf at our expense? The one that got away.

Alternatively we might wonder whether, after a year in London, Ramos still speaks too little English to handle the post-match interviews, or whether he delegates them to the apparently deranged Gus Poyet, because they're beneath his dignity?

Then again, you could generalise, and wonder whether anyone at the club — the chairman Daniel Levy, survivalist "sporting director" Damien Comolli, Ramos and his players — has the faintest idea of what they are doing? But there, perhaps, the answer speaks for itself.

I don’t get paid for my blog, and hardly anyone reads it, so when I summarise what everyone already knows, it doesn’t matter. But when a paid journalist does it, it’s like getting paid for having the ability to copy and paste.

So I prefer to start and finish with those supporters whose Wildean wit extended on Sunday to chanting false claims about Sol Campbell.

What are you referring to? Are you privy to something? What false claims? Not defending the chants or the fans who chanted them, and – hypothetically speaking – if something was in fact true, it still wouldn’t make it right, singing about it in an abusive manner. But what you’ve done here is simply chickened out of saying anything with substance. Just a faint nod in the direction of what happened. Nothing more. You not going to say anything about the racist claims? Or the fact that Campbell has made claims of racism before, many years back , before his half-time disappearing act at Highbury. No? Because when he first made those claims, it backfired. Nobody believed him, because there was no racial chanting. He suggested we were racist because we boo'ed him and called him Judas. But let's sweep that under the carpet, yeah? Make it easier for you to write in the one-dimension.

I would like the media to highlight the 'You're Spurs and you know you are' chant, aimed at Defoe, who is black. I think its relevant.

Regardless of whether such chanting constitutes a crime (this may not be the ideal day to ask Sir Ian Blair about that), I offer this challenge to those who maintain a seething grudge over Campbell's departure for Arsenal in 2001.

Clarify for me exactly what Campbell would have gained by spending the last seven years at a club that sells its good strikers, keeps its poor ones and buys new ones it doesn't wish to play; at which managers who succeed brilliantly elsewhere mysteriously fail; one with a chairman who cannot master the economic necessity of buying land on which to build a much needed new stadium; a club which continues to live off ever more remote past glories because its present is hideous and its future dismally uncertain.

Do you really, hand on heart, support Spurs? Really? Can you prove it? Can anyone prove to me that Matthew Norman is a Tottenham supporter? Apart from the miserable face, a common West Stand trait, is there any substantial proof? Because the above illustrates what a fan of, I don’t know - Arsenal perhaps, would say of the matter.

The rest of that almost-wanting-to-be-passionate rant is ok. It’s what I’ve been preaching for years. Hey, I almost felt like I was connecting with you there! Wow, I've come over all giddy. If you were a girl, we could meet up and have sex.

If anyone can persuade me that Campbell owed an ounce of loyalty to such a club, let alone to fans who disgrace themselves year after year with the incontinence of their misplaced spite, I may be able to put two season tickets their way at a quid a shot.

Extortion, I know, but even in a credit crunch a chap has to turn a profit.

A credit crunch reference. It's like I'm on the train reading the Metro.

Again, do you mind looking at it from the perspective of a Tottenham fan? When Sheringham left the club, he told everyone he was going to leave. Completely up-front about it. Honest. We gave him plenty of digs when he returned in red colours, but he had the last laugh on everyone. And when he returned proper (he came home, his words) we took him back with open arms.

Now compare it to Campbell. He lied for two years, compounding it with various ‘why question my loyalty?’ soundbites. It was completely self-made, with additional misguided help from the esteemed Sky Andrews. So of course we hate him. Fans do not begrudge players who show a bit of honesty, who are upfront. It’s the ones who wear rival colours of a team they have yet to sign for or deceive those around them and do the dirty right at the death, with an earth-shattering curve-ball. Campbell is deserving of terrace ‘abuse’, but not the abuse he was subjected to at the Pompey game. I’m talking about chants of ‘wanker’ and 'Judas'. That’s still ok right, to call a player a wanker? Campbell owed us something regardless of him wanting to leave the club. But he was gutless to do it the right way. The very fact he is blind to what he did, immensely so, is testament to the type of man he is.

But we should move on, right?

And feel free to send me the season tickets. I can have a bonfire come final whistle on Sunday. We could toast some bagels and discuss impending life in the Championship. Happy days.

Levy bans The Evening Standard

Matthew Norman is a Spurs fan. Not a very good one. See, unlike me, I want them to achieve success, whereas Norman prefers that Tottenham struggle for all eternity because he can then make biting remarks about the club/the players/the board and people would mistake him for an Arsenal fan thus providing him a sense of wellbeing that I’m sure allows him to sleep like a baby.

I haven’t read the Standard for a while. Would appear Daniel Levy has and from the sounds of it there’s been some name calling. Rather than ignore it, our guilt-ridden chairman has decided to strike with furious vengeance and ban the paper (and thus I'm guessing the reporters) from White Hart Lane. Apparently all because of the paper persistently printing ‘negative stories’ about the club.

Hmmm. You mean like the negative stories generated by your good self and that Kemsley character in the past week or so? Those type of stories?

I can appreciate that most, if not all, of the (footballing) media are blood-sucking dieased ridden leeches that base their ‘factual’ reporting and exclusives from information given to them by ‘club insiders’ (wink, wink). They swagger with ill repute disguised as freedom of speech believing they can print anything and claim everyone has the right to read it and believe it (no matter the lack of facts).

Now I’m not suggesting that Spurs don’t deserve the 'farce' tag after last week. But its been proven countless times in the past 10 or so days that the press have mis-quoted and then mis-quoted the mis-quotes. No different to the denials coming out of WHL – but that’s not the point. The truth - to our understanding - is enough to be reported on. We dont need it smacked about and then set on fire so it makes for better reading. Ok, metaphor didn't quite work there did it. I should ask David Mellor for advice.

Levy has fallen into a trap. And has given himself yet more unwanted media coverage with his blame everyone but the people who should be blamed tactics.

If you pee yourself during PE and a class mate tells everyone at school (everyone who wasn’t present to see the rather public humiliation) about it, exaggerating the story and saying you also pooped yourself – this doesn’t mean uninviting him from your birthday party is going to change the fact that you wet your pants in front of everyone and that its believed you also did a number two.

Fact is, you did pee yourself in public. You can’t run away from that fact. If someone wants to exaggerate the story, there’s not much you can do about it either. People tend to believe the lies more than the truth. And even if you know you didnt soil your pants, if 100 kids think you did - then that becomes a truth because it has 100 believers saying it.

See that’s what you are Levy. You're that kid. You’re a bed-wetter whose gone public, pissing yourself silly in front of all your class mates because you left your PE kit at home and you’ve been forced to do gym in your Mickey Mouse Y-Fronts and when the PE teacher points at you and then at the monkey bars you colour your pants yellow. Next thing you know, they’re calling you Shitty Pissy and the girls think you smell of tramp.

Why on why give Matthew Norman the green light to go ape-shit on your sorry arse with his bland sleepy articles? I mean, fucking ‘ell, doesn’t Matthew Norman sit in the West Stand at White Hart Lane? Normally I would encourage this kind of anarchy, but the bloke is not someone I’d have standing next to me in the Park Lane end. He's the type to complain when we're winning 3-0 because a crisp packet blew onto the pitch just before Keane side-foots home.

"Looks like a packet of Monster Munch in the penalty area. Pickled onion. Completely takes away the majesty of the counter-attack. Not happy with this at all"

Can you envisage his next column? Or the back page of today’s Evening Standard?

And what’s he guilty of? A sustained set of (personal) attacks at the club and chairman? What next? Revoke his season ticket? I feel a little left out over here.

Kemsley, Donna Cullen (director of communications) and Levy - you should all get themselves a box of Pampers to share.