Challenge Spurs™ - The Kings of Calamity

Welcome back Paul Robinson. Cult figure at the Lane? First few season he was undeniably a crowd favourite. Long term contract, England's number one. Helping to gloss over his weakness were those shot-stopping television saves and a confident Spurs defence. Take away decent form from the team, and the cracks were suddenly more transparent. Do you drop a keeper who drops clangers every week to try and help him rebuild confidence with a gentle kick up the bum in the reserves or do you perceive until his form changes for the better? Robbo, from that air-kick in Croatia to countless conceded goals from distance, saw him go from a big smiling personality to a broken desperate caricature of what once was a certainty that he would be Spurs for a decade.

We never dropped him. His form got worse. And much like the loyalty players 'in-form' don't show to clubs like Spurs when they manoeuvre themselves to Old Trafford, we shifted him out of the club. The irony of replacing him with Gomes and then not dropping Gomes for his current form, is once more wonderfully ironic.

So, expect hilarity of world class proposition on Sunday afternoon, unless 'arry surprises us all with a selection that includes Alnwick or Cesar. King, Woodgate, Jenas and Bale should all be fit and ready for this. Did you shudder when I mentioned Bale?

After the poor showing at Craven Cottage, tomorrow has to be a carnival or electric football, one touch push and run. I'll take a 1-0 scrappy win at this point. Need maximium points from the next three games before we entertain Man Utd and welcome back Berbatov to the Lane.

It's one of those season where I don't think a team in our position (20th - 7th) will be free of the teams around us. Same for all of us in this grouping. You need to win maybe 5-6 games on the trot to start feeling confident of dropping points in successive games. Drop points in successive games at the minute, and you might just find yourselves rock bottom again.

Prediction: 3-1 Spurs.

In Defence of Robbo

On Sunday, The Observer run a story that would not have gone amiss on the back pages of The Sun or Daily Mirror. Not a single quote or any type of evidence other than the assumptions and opinions of the journalists (it took two people to write it). They told us that Paul Robinson's was told by Spurs in a meeting with the chairman that he could leave the club. Then we are told that Defoe will sign a contract but leave in the summer.

The article then bounces back to Robinson and how Levy wants him gone due to Robbo publicly backing Martin Jol back in October prior to the arrival of Ramos. What we are meant to believe is that Levy was furious with Robbo to the point of wanting him kicked out of the club. But this isn’t the most ridiculous part of the article. That’s saved for the part that explains Damien Comolli (also anti-Robinson) went to the ‘extraordinary’ length of advising the then England manager (Mr McClaren) to drop Robinson some months BEFORE the Euro 2008 qualifier against Croatia.

Just try to picture that. Comolli telling McClaren to drop Robinson when at the time. Are the Writers Guild of America moonlighting fro the British media? There’s also nothing surprising about Robinson reacting badly to being dropped. Badly can be interrupted into ‘angrily’. Unless the journalists were present and witnessed Robinson being dropped how the fuck do they know anything about how he reacted? Oh yeah, ‘our sources’ tell us. I keep forgetting the press have insiders all over the shop.

I can handle the press printing bullshit. It’s a commodity they rely on. Robinson, bless him, hasn’t gone beyond losing form. He has lost the part of him that made him the best English keeper. He’s gone from very good to very average. But that doesn’t mean he won’t make a recovery. That recovery will happen if he admits to himself he has a problem, something he doesn’t appear to have done at any stage this season and since the air-kick in Croatia.

The recovery is also dependent on how the Spurs fans take to him when he returns to starting line-up. You can’t deny him the fact that at the end of his first year at Spurs he was probably the most popular player at the Lane. 7 year contract, superb all round form. England’s number 1.

Since then, things have progressively got worse for him. From Mr Dependable to Mr Calamity. Signs first appeared in the 07 season. This season has been an unmitigated disaster, with over 10 goals or so being down to his bad decision making and judgement. But any suggestions of him being hounded out of the club, by the board or the players is disgraceful.

Let’s kick him out. Yeah. Great idea. Much like when we thought Pat Jennings wasn’t good enough anymore and sold him to Arsenal. What a brilliant piece of business that turned out to be. Robinson’s form should have been dealt with a long time ago. It wasn’t. We still have no keeping coach since Segers left. He’s confidence will never improve if he is playing with the back four he’s had in front of him most of the season. Maybe with King back, things will begin to take shape.

Sometimes the lack of loyalty and the way we turn on our own is shocking. So, I will hope the media are making up stories and the fickle Spurs fans are just a minority. Otherwise, its shameful.