Tottenham Hotspur
Glory Glory was in ebullient mood this morning after watching Spurs turn in a performance worthy of champions over the weekend. glorygloryeze strode in with a purposeful gait, bade everyone a chirpy “good morning!” and then beckoned me over for “a quick chat”. He put his arm on my shoulder, grinned a brilliant white grin, and said:
“This was an unbelievable attacking performance! In fact, was that the best first half of attacking since Bolton at home in March 2007?? What a signing Saha could be – Ade clearly is better with a striking partner and that performance should shut up thse who wanted him dropped. Ok, his goal/shots ratio is not the best by my word his workrate most of the time has been phenomenol. Pav + 7M for Saha is looking like a VERY GOOD bit of business.
Plus to me it’s clear that in Saha we now have a striker with a real heading threat from set-pieces. I expect him to create at least one against the Gooners – now that mertersacker is likely to be out.
Well played everybody! Well played Harry!”
All the while, however, my attention kept being drawn to the other side of the room, where Pandy was bouncing up and down on a trampoline, splattering red paint on the wall which eventually revealed the words:
“Friedel – 8. Reads the game so well, a couple of top class saves as well.
Walker – 6.5. I thought he wasn’t great today, some shocking deliveries. He is improving defensively, and for the most part he was good today, but he made a few poor decisions and let Coloccini run into a gaping hole late on. In a few years I think he will be a quality player.
Dawson – 8. Very tidy performance from Dawson again today, just shows what he can do with the right partner.
King – 9. Classic Ledley today, read everything so well, handled their strikers brilliantly, was brilliant on the ball as well.
Assou-Ekotto – 9. Good finish under pressure and some truly incredible passing. He completed 7 or 8 very difficult pinpoint passes to set off dangerous attacks.Kranjcar – 7.5. A bit slow on the ball, should probably have scored another, but a good performance nonetheless, and a very good finish.
Parker – 9. Immense today, he put in a silly amount of tackles and he was brilliant on the ball, held it up when he needed to, played it quick when he needed to and rarely lost possession.
Modric – 8.5. Very good game from Modric, the way he beats players at close range is just incredible and he defended well again today.
Bale – 8. Good game, loved the cheeky lob through to Adebayor.Adebayor – 9.5. Easily his best performance in a Spurs shirt which takes some doing, that game just shows how important he is to us. Missed a couple of possible goals but other than that a perfect performance, 4 assists and 1 goal in a 5-0 win, incredible.
Saha – 9. So intelligent, his movement is much better than Defoe’s and having both him and Ade against an unprotected back 4 caused havoc, those were 2 brilliant finishes as well. Then we take him off and bring Defoe on… our squad is looking very good right now.Lennon – 7.
Defoe – 7.5.
Nelsen 7.The match was over when the subs came on but Defoe looked bright, Lennon and Nelsen didn’t have too much to do.
Harry – 10. Yiddo!
10 points ahead of 4th with 13 games to play, 5 points behind 1st. COYS!”
***
Over at Planet Spurs, Lonspurs was so impressed by the combination up front of Louis Saha and Emmanuel Adebayor that he had baked a large cake and spent all morning intricately spelling out his thoughts on it with icing. With remarkable penmanship (if it can be referred to as such), he wrote:
“I must say, they really did seem to link up well for that second goal against Newcastle.
It shows that age isn’t really any barrier if you’re in the right team with the right manager. You only have to look at the careers of Teddy Sheringham and Ryan Giggs to appreciate that.
I find it quite incredible that Saha couldn’t find the net, then comes to us and whacks in two. His general play was good, too. I remember Gary Neville on Sky saying he knew what Saha could do and that at times he thought he was unplayable at Man Utd. Big praise indeed coming from one of the best, most consistent right backs club and country has seen in a long time.
Let’s hope Saha can stay injury free, because I think it is the fact that the older players are more prone to injury rather than the fact that they can’t produce good form.
As we all know, Scott Parker has been absolutlely brilliant for us, but I always fear he is going to get injured because he throws himself around at everything and is so brave. Thankfully, he’s a tough nut.Gallas, of course, is a case in point because he has missed a large chunk of this season through injury. That said, he put in some stout performances last season and in my humble opinion was worth bringing to the club.
One last point about Ade. Personally, I was overjoyed when Harry brought him to the club, because I remember in his Arsenal days he was practically unplayable, too. However, I wondered if he was ever going to recapture his old form ( what with the Togo incident and his bust-up with Mancini) but I have to say we certainly saw glimpses of it against Newcastle.
If Saha finds a ‘new lease of life’ and Ade stays on fire, with the skill and depth we’ve got in our squad, I don’t think we need to fear anyone in the Premiership.”
Then, completely unexpectedly, ChrisPienaar walked right up to me and yelled in my shell-like:
“I just dont understand why we struggle so much to accomodate VDV sometimes. He should be told to play as a striker really and not worry so much about coming back. When he was playing with crouch last season he was banging in the goals and although he lacks the pace of others he is a deadly finisher and when he plays should be encouraged to push forward and leave midfield duties to modric and parker.”
…and then just walked off. Strange.
Newcastle United
NUFC-Forum was in philosophical mood this morning, with various occupants citing elements of Nietzsche ‘s works to illustrate the understanding they were willing to grant such a defeat. Of those communicating in laymen’s terms, toonbarmy succinctly posited:
“I don’t think anyone expected anything out of this game. I am just disappointed about the like’s of Guthie, Santon, Perch and Ba, I honestly thought they would have some fight in them, but it seemed like they were going through the motions. Even tho we were bound to lose, Ben Arfa coming on was the right choice. It would have made some of us smile a little seeing HBA nut meg someone at the very least.”
There were howls of derision in some quarters from those who felt it their right to have a ruddy good whine, although Mainsy kept it together enough to point out:
“bad day at the office. We took our beating, now we just need to lick our wounds and get it all back together.
Simpson needs some motivation.
Guthrie needs someone progressive beside him.
Jonas needs a rest.
Ben Arfa needs a game.
I think until we get him fully integrated cisse should be an impact sub.
Start setting up to control games. Maybe even take a leaf out of spurs book and smother attacks they way they did to us.”
***
I then made a beeline for ToonTastic where Howay, looking resplendent in his Danny DeVito avatar, was delivering an interesting tactical observation to a conference room full of stern-looking people:
“Pards has to stop the high line against quick sides now, it works against slow sides but he surely understands now that it will get us killed against sides like Spurs, West Brom, Chelsea etc. I’m just glad we’ve got Wolves next and they shipped 5 goals too so hopefully it’ll be a nice confidence booster before we host the tramps.”
A scathing laugh emanated from the back of the room. Everyone span around to see PaddockLad standing by the entrance, grinning maniacally and clutching a half-eaten hotdog. He said, also maniacally:
“Shipped 10 goals in the last 2 league away games, with a cup defeat at the mighty Brighton the jam in that sandwich. We’re currently abysmal away from home. Thats not good enough, even by the medicore standards I have for the club.
Not trying to scaremonger but there are things to be addressed. Wolves will tell us a lot. If Tiote and Cabaye are back and form isnt better, then talk of the champions league will look even more stupid than it does now. We really are quite bog standard even with our first choice 11, the fullbacks in particular on Saturday were shiocking and we have little or no decent cover for them. Or anyone else for that matter.”
The room emptied in pursuit of PaddockLad, who ditched the hotdog and hotfooted it into the distance, cartwheeling and whooping like Daffy Duck. I couldn’t say why.