tumbleweed

Last week, Alan Smith, the ex-Arsenal striker and current Sky Sports commentator - was at Waterstones in London signing books. Or at least that was the intention. For a good ten minutes, he sat there on his own looking glum and staring at the walls and shelves - with a pile of his unsold books at his side.

Seems the modern day gooners memory only stretches back 10 years. No matter what you say about George Graham's boring side, they still won the title twice. At least with Alan, he had some class about him as a player - on and off the pitch. Unlike some of the recent Arsenal players, who are more front and ego.

GG quote of the day

In response to 'what will happen if we lose our next 3 games':

Levy sacks Ramos, taps up a new coach who comes in with a new back room staff, changes the diet, sells 18 players, brings in 9 making a great profit for the club, we all get excited that we're finally going to break into the top four, we win a shite trophy that the Big 4 don't give a toss about and go on holiday...

~ belsizespur

Groundhog day or paradox?

DROP GARETH BALE

13 Prem appearances. 0 wins.

Bale is all smiles - but it's no laughing matter

He is jinxed. I beg the club to drop him from the side to end the curse. He's the anti-victory, personified.

Management need to drop Gareth to help Bale us out of the bottom three, and thus embrace three valuable points.

The stats do not lie.

Drop Bale to Win!

Spurs Paradox of the day

We buy players who will need time to develop at the expense of settled, sensible buys for the correct positions, but at the same time the board demands immediate success from our coaches.

~ DanishWhite, gg.net

Brilliant nail-on-the-head observation that. If completely and utterly obvious to Spurs fans (but not our esteemed chairman).

We simply do not have the right people running the club. Sometimes the easiest solution to a transfer conundrum is just that.....'go with the easiest solution'. And yet we somehow manage to dig ourselves into a deeper mess.

Is Levy seeking the best media/fan friendly Tottenhamesque signing each and every time we dive into the transfer market?

I refuse to believe their excuse regarding players of quality are hard to come by. Its possible they have targets - ones which would wet our pants with glee - but they couldn't finalise them. But chasing these glory players when we desperately need steel in midfield staggers me and the rest of us.

Bentley, Gio, Pav - etc - are additions rather than the necessities we are crying out for. But it's all too late now.

Roll on, Jan transfer window, for more of the same, I'm sure.

Message board blues

Aftermath comments from GG.net:

Spurs are in big trouble this season

From what I have seen this season they look like they would have trouble scoring in a brothel

Its a competitive league this year. Man C and Villa have improved and Hull and Stoke are not rolling over for anyone

We are currently dire. Seriously. Absolutely shocking.

Where's all this flowing, attacking football. Yet again we resort to long-ball tactics that Jol was getting murdered for implementing.

This is Wigan for gods sake.

We are in the shit, let's not kid ourselves. Ramos can go on about 'team gelling' until he is blue in the face, but the fact of the matter is that we are, at the moment, where we deserve to be in the table. And unless Ramos et al can sort things out over the next 2-3 weeks we are in big trouble.

But we're not even seeing the bloody basics.

Simple passing, moving into space, awareness of each other, watching opposition runners. We're simply not doing it.

It was shocking to watch, it really was.

We sold too many good players this summer. I'm not even talking about Berbatov and Keane, they wanted out. I'm talking about Malbranque, Tainio, Lee, Chimbonda. We sign enough shit players I'm fed up of selling decent ones when we find them. Malbranque especially was never going to set the world alight but i always liked him at Fulham and was really glad when we signed him. Last season he was probably our most consistent midfielder by a long way, really hard working and good (if not world class) quality. Could also play ANY position in midfield if need be. Tainio was injury prone, but a decent squad player with decent quality again and versatility. Lee was probably the best option for retaining cover in the full back positions, really decent player and Chimbonda ok he was a bit of a twat, but again was a good player who would have done a good job in the squad.

Why dismantle a team that finished 5th two seasons in a row? Such a team doesn't need dismantelling it just needs fine tuning. Yeah Bentley, Modric, Dos Santos seem decent players with some potential, but they weren't needed at all.

It pisses me off as it seems so simple: this summer i'd have had a look at our team and thought , well its not that bad, but could do with probably a midfield enforcer, a proper left winger, a new goalkeeper and cover in defence (given King and Woodgate cant be relied upon to stay fit). I would also have identified a replacement for Berbatov straight away as it was OBVIOUS to everyone except seemingly Levy and the Spurs management that he wanted out.

I'd have gone all out to get a Berbatov replacement straight away and sold him very early on in the window. Then u get it over and done with, u have a replacement, no negative media drama running all summer unsettling the players and fans and we move on. Then I'd have got a defensive midfielder, didn't even have to be a world class giant of a player, just someone who can steady the ship ffs with stamina, pace and positional sense who can play a simple ball, the premiership's actually full of those kind of players and it pisses me off that we dont have one and its a fundamental reason why we struggle to dominate teams....what use are loads of fancy flair players if you cant get hold of the ball and give it to them?

The ONLY position I'd say we were stronger in than last season is goalkeeper.All we've done in some positions is swap skill for hardwork (modric for malbranque, bentley for tainio) and the weaknesses that we had last season are still there. I've not witnesses a more shambolic summer since the sugar/gross type days.

We're overloaded with skilfull attacking midfielders but have no bite and our defence and organisation is all over the place. It reminds me of when West Ham got relegated with Cole, Carrick, Defoe, Kanoute and all those guys in the team. Teams with brittle spines and lack of organisation just can't hack it in the Premiership and if people think we are too good to go down, then you better start waking up and smelling the coffee.

Ouch.

Oh when the cash, comes rolling in......

In light of Levy and his money-collecting habits, the lads from COYS have provided the following football chants, proving that when they leave alone all the ITK rumourwhoring, they can produce something worthy of a smile. Enjoy.

AIM listed,
la la la,
AIM listed,
la la la.

My old man,
Said be a Tottenham fan,
I said fuck off bollocks,
I'm an accountant.

"Daniel Levy's In-the-Black armeee!"

"Kick the ball with your FTSE, my son!!!"

Cos if you know your share prices...
it's enough to make your heart go ooooohhhhhhhh....
we don't care what the other investment groups say
what they hell should we care
cos we only know
when there's gonna be profit taking show
that Tottenham Hotspur (PLC) will be there....
(sang to the tune of 'Grand Old Team')

"The referee's a banker, the referee's a banker!"

"Oh when the cash comes rolling in, Oh when the cash comes rolling in, I wanna see telephone numbers, when the cash comes rolling in"

COOOOOME ON YOU SHARES

Frazier Campbell

Has been given the number 23 shirt.

Genius PR there.

Busy

Developing the forum:

www.rumourwhores.com

Better luck next time

Worth it?

Nothing breathtaking to report here, but thought I'd share. My brother-in-law is a cab driver, and like all cab drivers, tends to pick up a host of famous people in central London. He picked up Steve Gibson (Boro chairman) last week and got chatting to him about football (obviously). Like I said, nothing new here, but Gibson was very open about his hatred for Liverpool saying he would never do business with them. Hates Rick Parry. Explained how they saved Ziege from hell in Milan (after threats over the own goal in the Milan derby) and how Liverpool went on to tap the player up.

"Whatever I'm telling you isn't anything the papers / people don't know already", he said.

Gibson asked the cabbie what he thought of Woodgate and then said, "You wont think he's great a year from now" and rolled out the olde classic about Woody missing a training session because he had a hair appointment and another story about Woody again missing training because of an in-growing toe nail (when in fact all the player had done was cut his nails too deep and caused an irritation).

"He's only interested in the money"

Cabbie then asked him about Mido, to which he said over Christmas the player was injured and managed to put on a stone and a half in a few days Laughing , "He only has to look at food to put weight on"

Was apparently very friendly.....or bitter, depending on how you look at it.

'That' celebration (from last night)

The corner-flag was basically meant to represent dieting (i.e. its long and thin, just like Kate Moss) and the players were riding the corner-flag to represent they were 'whiping themselves into shape'. The alternate version is that they were roasting Kate Moss. Make your own mind up.

List

Hot

• Robbie Keane notching up his 100th goal for Spurs
• Our first half performance against Sunderland
• Huddlestone's passing and first half performance in same game
  
• The alleged rumours that the 'big signings' were Boswinga and Gonzalez

Not

• The second half performance against Sunderland
• The apparent signing of a 32 year old Brazilian left-back from Hertha on a pre-contract
• Another bout of 'Robbo hands in transfer request'....'Oh no he doesnt'....
• 'Tiago to sign'. Hasn't settled at previous 3 clubs. What the fuck makes us think he can settle in our mess of a midfield?

Really?

• Spurs sign Jason Banton from Arsenal, for £100,000

Who?

Whatever

• King and Berbatov are Newcastle targets. One more, proof that the Sunday papers are written by fucking idiots and bought by fucking morons.