You'll always find you can't smile without Tottenham

Can't even begin to describe the feeling. Schoolboys own stuff.

No disrespect to Young Boys, Bremen and Twente. Wednesday's game away to Inter in the San Siro is what it's all about. Sure, we can afford to lose it. So if that's the case, what is there to fear? Bit of dignity if we ship a few at the wrong end perhaps, but I'm not talking about the necessity to go all la-la land with tactics. Play for each other, as a strong unit, play to our strengths. Focus. No shame in losing to the Champions of Europe. But what a dvd it would be if we nicked it.

Rafa might try to get a little too clever what with his experience of Spurs in the Premier League. If Crouch starts will be very interesting to see how Inter plan to deal with him, considering Rafa knows the player well. What we could do without is the lack of mental strength if we do happen to hiccup (no first half V Young Boys, no second half V Bremen). Just ninety minutes of cohesive, structured football with a touch or two of ye olde Spurs magic. Tasty team is Inter, they will no doubt have a go at us. So f**k it. Have a go back.

Not dismissing a controlled, deep laying defensive minded midfield (players tracking back, chasing down the ball), pressuring their players when off the ball, attempting to retain it when on it. I'm all for frustrating them, but let's not pretend they don't have the better more experienced players.

Our power is one of belief and complete and unequivocal front.

Fortes fortuna adiuvat.

This is the thing about us. Expect the unexpected, even though the most obvious is also likely to happen too. Never a boring second supporting this club. Heads up. I'm giddy with delight. That Crouch header at Eastlands...it's brought us here. Why bite your nails? Enjoy it.

It's enough to make me break out in song...

We have no King or van der Vaart and I'm scared that we'll get stuffed
Enough to drive the fans to drink I don't want us to f**k up
But I have faith in Harry cause Spurs are on the up
On the up in the San Siro

But you will always find him twitching on the bench in the dugout

Me and the Park Lane shrugged when Rafael saw red at home
Don't fret we've got Jermaine Jenas so we are not all alone

Jermaine Jenas. What is he supposed to do?

That's why you'll always hold your head in your hands at matches
You will always hold you head in your hands at matches
You will always hold you head in your hands at matches

No Ledley but we've got Gallas and he'll play at the back
He'll have Eto'o in his back pocket there's no chance he'll ever slack
Leaving Hudd to quarterback the midfield and enjoy a Big Mac

Glory glory night in Europe in Italy on Wednesday
Glory glory night in Europe in Italy on Wednesday

4-5-1 don't laugh at it we won't be sitting back
We'll look to strike and run the flanks giving Rafa a panic attack

Just give the ball to Bale in the San Siro on Wednesday
Give the ball to Bale in the San Siro on Wednesday

You'll always find you can't smile without Tottenham
You'll always find you can't smile without Tottenham

Based on You'll always find me in the kitchen at Parties (Jona Lewie), obviously.

Let the games commence...

You'll have probably noticed Rafa Benitez has thrown it out there that Spurs will shag it up thanks to our difficult fixture list. Spurs will lose points is the headline on the official Liverpool site (from yesterday). And Rafa tells the reds:

“It depends on us and if we can keep winning our games. Tottenham have difficult games so I think we’ll be closer, and we’ll see. Every week will be different.

“After the Europa League we have Birmingham and that will be very tough. But if we can win our games, I think they (Spurs) will lose some points and I think we can be there.

“I hope it can still be a successful season. You can always have bad seasons, but the main thing is the reaction of the players. We will try and fight until the end, and then we’ll see.

“Hopefully we can get in the top four and progress in the Europa League.”

Don't know about you, but I find this sort of thing inspiring, and so should the players. Yes, Liverpool are fairly boring and have had an unspectacular season but they are seasoned CL qualifiers so to be engaged by them in this manner should be used positively by our lot. Guaranteed at one point, 4th for Liverpool, wasn't it Rafa? 31 games in and we are the ones who have remained anchored to fourth, and when we've slipped down a place or two we've dug deep and climbed back up. With thanks to others around us (guess who?) who have remained inconsistent through-out. Nothing wrong with our form. If you take a look at the season thus far there is more likelihood of Liverpool dropping points than there is us.

I don't think for a second Spurs have had the type of mentality at any point in the season where we've gone into a game expecting to win without effort. And we continue to take nothing for granted - players and fans alike. We've fought hard every time and when the odds are stacked in our favour, we've been professional about it. The only weakness has come in the shape of complacency which cost us at Everton and Birmingham. The defeats at home against Stoke and Wolves boil down to frustration and lack of composure breaking down said teams who parked the bus. It's been a learning curve, a steady progression.

Sure I'm bias and believe it would be a travesty if after all our hard grafting, Liverpool squirm their way into the Champions League. And Rafa is obviously saying what he's saying so it plays in the minds of our players. We're in the winning position, its ours to lose.

But it's not Rafa we should be concerned about. It's the enemy within. Which he's obviously hoping to summon with his choice of words. The inferiority complex that sometimes sees us choke against the really big teams. A self-fulfilling prophecy that seems to force the issue against us, placing us firmly back in our box. In the past the players almost subconsciously surrendered as though the expectancy to lose the game weighed heavily on their shoulders. Happened earlier in the season against Chelsea, Utd and Arsenal.

Times have changed. But we still need to prove it.

So, thank you Rafa for the pep talk and letting us know you care. Far more understated and subtle as far as mind games go, but we all know his track record when he opens his gob.

Did the transfer window make you smile?

I was snowed in yesterday and worked from home. I did take a moment to venture outside. I like the crunchy sound snow makes when you walk around in it. I built a snowman. It stood proud in the garden for all of ten minutes before Harry Redknapp and Daniel Levy drove past and offered me £15M for my creation. I accepted. Apparently he's a perfect replacement for Jermaine Jenas in midfield because he won't melt as fast when the spot light is on him.

Aaaaaaaaaand, I thank you.

Robbie Keane is back, making a mockery of Liverpool, Tottenham’s transfer policy and Keane himself. Yes, I know. We never wanted to sell him in the first place. It’s not been a pretty transfer window, has it? Or has it?

Re-signing someone we sold has been the general trend that Levy and Redknapp have adhered to this month. Financially we’ve written off a lot of debt (and the £8M more we spent to bring back Jermain Defoe cancels out the £8M we got from Liverpool for our Irish loan deal star). The whole sorry state of the Keane affair rests with the politics at Anfield between Rick Parry and Rafa Benitez.

“You want Gareth Barry? He’ll cost us £18M. I'm not bidding £18M for Barry. Let’s sign Robbie Keane instead for £20M. What’s that? You don’t want Robbie Keane? Tough. He’ll have to do”

You can't blame Keane too much. Boyhood dreams are hard to ignore. The obvious downside is that we’ve not had him for the past six months and his form and confidence is shot. Although if we had of kept him in the summer, re-signing Jermain Defoe from Pompey might not have happened. Then again we probably would have signed Defoe regardless. Even though both players don’t exactly have the best working relationship on the pitch, it’s doubtful Harry would have ignored the opportunity even if it doesn't make logical sense. He'll have to work out this particular conundrum in 10 weeks from now.

Defoe picking up a nasty injury (which did not apparently exist prior to him signing for us and occurred during an indoor training session) has more or less forced us into re-signing Keane.

10 weeks without JD means we could not afford to place all hopes on just Pav and Bent. And that Utd kid. Whatshisface. Fact is, as ridiculous as this whole back and forth transfer merry-go-round is and the added risk that Keane might not be the same player he was when teamed up with Berbatov there was no better option out there for us. Better the devil you know. He's scored over 100 goals for us. He has that urgency we need and he’ll hit the ground running, probably with the aim to appease the Spurs fans that are uncertain about his return and more so Liverpool and Benitez for letting him go so soon.

He’s still eligible for a winners medal (under PL Rule 22c) so he won’t be able to play in the game up at Anfield on the final day of the season if Liverpool are still in with a chance to grab the title. Major conflict of interest. But it’s far more likely he will play as Utd will have been crowned champions long before that game. Let’s hope we don’t have to win there to stay up.

Liverpool fan at work was positively beaming this morning, telling me to ‘…have your crap back’. That's £8M worth of crap, thank you very much.

As for the fans that are banging on about how we should have signed Arshavin in the summer. Well yes, possibly but Zenit are an atrocious excuse for a football club when it comes to dealing with payments. And AA along with his agent have managed to whore themselves across Europe waving their knickers and flashing anyone who dares to look in such a shameless and embarrassing way that the positive hype has been drained out of the whole affair.

Arsenal have completed the longest drawn out panic buy in Premiership history. The player is joining the only club that showed an interest in him, he’s that desperate for a big money move. Not that Arsenal are a bad choice if playing in England is 'his dream' for the week. If he reignites their push for 4th spot he’ll be just as happy as Wenger who will be hailed a genius for such an intelligent purchase. Where he fits in once they have all their players back is anyone’s guess, but here’s hoping he flops and Arsenal finish 5th. You know, for a laugh.

The BBC get their knickers in a twist

Class player, complete mercenary. Not convinced he would have been right for us considering we have Modric in the side. It’s bad enough that Pav had 5 months of Russian football behind him when he signed for us and is still not 100% match fit IMO. Arshavin is a player that would need to be bedded in softly softly. Maybe if he was signed in the summer it would have worked out ok. Still, he’s meant to be shit hot right? How many clubs lined up for him? I’ll shut up now. If he plays on Sunday, he’ll probably dick us.

Elsewhere, we tried to offload our £4.5M teenager dos Santos to Portsmouth for £7M (the logic here being a ‘healthy profit’ too good to turn down). The deal fell through due to the fact that dos Santos is not match fit and Adams requires players he can use from the off. I’ve spoken about this before. We have a culture at Spurs of dismissing young players without any respect for patience and development. He can’t be that bad, surely? Does Harry not rate him at all? Is Levy prepared to put this down as another dud buy from our departed friend Comolli? In fact, was he bought as ‘one for the future’? Considering he’s been out injured for a while and thus not match fit, why are we looking to offload him with such casual dismissiveness?

dos Santos was exceptional during his days in the Mexican U17 and U21 teams. He showed promise at Barcelona but in his final season was very hot and cold. They sacrificed him because of the wealth of young talent they have there (Bojan is outstanding and a far better prospect). Or did they know he flattered to deceive? A one-footed forward with no extra dimensions to his game. Maybe Harry simply doesn’t think he is cut out for the fight we have ahead of us. Confidence wise, it can’t be good for the young lad. Another ‘one for the future’ Tomas Pekhart has joined Slavia Prague on loan. And Gunter has gone to Preston for a month. I’m hoping our academy team (that continue to impress in all the world-wide tournaments they compete in) don’t disappear into obscurity when they all turn nineteen.

So. Defoe, Chimbonda, Cudicini, Keane, Palacios. Does Harry now have the proper players he requires to help balance the team and add depth to the squad? Appiah is still with us, and has another month of getting fit and proving his worth before we have to make a decision about offering him a contract. Even though we were meant to give him a decision a week back.

So was this January a success?

• We needed a quality number two to cover and compete with Gomes. Done.

• We needed a central midfielder. Preferably a holding or defensive midfielder. Combative is what we ended up with signing Palacios who has a bit of everything. Done, sort of (and it does mean that we might well have to rely on Zokora stepping up in that holding position).

• We needed defensive cover. Chimbonda. Love him or hate him, we can now play Corluka as centre-back if need be. Pascal can play across the back four if called upon. Done.

• We needed a striker. We re-signed Defoe. Done, but fate had other ideas.

• We needed another striker due to DJ's injury. We re-signed Keane. We don’t have to concern ourselves just yet with how we plan to fit JD and RK in a starting line-up. I guess any striker signed would have had to be in the same mould as a Keane and Defoe, so we would have had the same dilemma regardless. So done.
  

But are we now defensively intelligent in midfield? Is Palacios the answer? What now for Jenas? Is the team (best starting eleven) now balanced from the back to the front? Can a team without a true left-winger work? Do we need a true left-winger? If Zokora is a Harry fav, then are we planning on sticking with the 5 in midfield and one upfront? Should we have signed a Crouchesque type of player (like we did with Kenwyne Jones)? Have we really improved the squad buying the player we need or have we opted for another round of scatter-gun bullet buys? Will Harry stop referring to the ‘we only had 2 points when I got here’ sound-bites?

Compared to some of the other clubs, and regardless of the fact we have re-signed players, we haven't done that badly in terms of bringing in quality. It's whether it all works out, second time around. Will the jigsaw pieces fit alongside the ones already slotted into the puzzle?

So many questions. All could be answered in 90 minutes this Sunday. Selection, formation, tactics, application. Harry takes 50% responsibility. The other 50% is down to the players.

I'm smiling. Nervously.

Raficulous

Rafa Benetiz is angry. Apparently Harry Redknapp and Spurs are tapping up Robbie Keane. Tell you what Rafa, how about we return the 'donation' your club made to the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation and we'll take back the player and you can quietly admit to yourself that you haven't got a clue what it is you're doing at the moment.

(Arguably, neither do we.....)

It's now a trend that no manager is permitted to make any positive comment about a player who doesn't play for their club as this now constitutes 'tapping up'. I know Harry is a bit norty at times, but directly answering a question from a journalist about a player isn't exactly underhanded tactics is it? If we wanted to tap him up, we'd get Jamie Redknapp to make a massive phone call to Robbie and invite him round for some Mario Kart action and tell him that Spurs will have him back, embarrassing boyhood dream blotch included.

What Liverpool did in the summer WAS underhanded, which is why we got our little donation to the charity. What Liverpool are doing now is probably their way of making it look like Robbie Keane has been unsettled so that it's easier on them when they let him go. It's all Tottenham's fault, innit?

News in this evening that Defoe is out for several games (probably 3 weeks) even though the initial rumours suggested he had broken his foot and was out for the rest of the season. I've had 6 text messages already from suicidal Spurs fans. Still waiting on the official word, but I don't expect Spurs to say much until after Mondays transfer deadline. The more desperate we are to bring in a player, the more an opposing club will demand we pay. Keane or otherwise.