It’s been a long time coming. The fact that both Gary Lineker and Nico Claesen have both long since retired (and increasingly worrying for me that they were both boyhood heroes of mine) means that it was a hell of a long time since Spurs actually put the West London chancers to the sword and as the years wore on (Arfa Arfa match* aside) and the Russian roubles flowed in and out of Stamford Bridge, it began to look like it would never happen.

Enter Martin Jol and his merry band of men, stage left.

I’ve been highly critical of Martin Jol this season and at times, I feel, rightly so. His tactics looked poor, the squad had no cohesion, they looked unable to create anything in attacking areas and his reliance on either of the misfiring dwarves Defoe and Keane left me in Glenn Hoddle head scratching mode. Putting it politely my knee was jerking like mad and as is the way with Spurs I was calling for his removal. Shows how much I know.

At White Hart Lane (we’ll still keep that 3 Point Lane nickname I think except this time the points stayed with the real big boys) Jol outfoxed The Special One when it came to tactics and his side on a strong run already after being buoyed by quality performances in Europe against Slavia Prague, Besiktas and Club Brugge put on a master class of athleticism, skill and determination and finally ended that awful record that has hung around our necks since the days of current TV presenters playing careers.

To go behind to a Claude Makalele goal early on just brought back all of those old memories of previous Spurs-Chelsea games but with the equally rare sighting of a Michael Dawson goal we forced our way back into it and never looked back.

Chelsea will never be an easy side to break down under Mourinho but some of the interplay and attacking skill from Spurs was breathtaking and none more so than Robbie Keane’s run which left Khalid Boulahrouz on his arse on the sideline as Robbie crossed for Aaron lennon to hit the winner. In a week when both Keane’s performance levels and Lennon’s shooting talents have came into question I’m glad to eat my words.

John Terry finally got what he deserved with a second yellow card getting him his marching orders and as the mask slipped on the champions we saw once again that unless they are getting preferential treatment from referees they aren’t willing to play fair or in a sportsmanlike manner. Six bookings for Chelsea players for the second game running just shows how unprofessional the setup has become at Stamford Bridge. Graham Poll had an excellent game as referee and still all the Chelsea management can do is complain about the referee in the post match interview.

As with Arsene Wenger, the big boys just can’t handle a little competition and as soon as things begin to go against them they throw the toys out of the pram. It’s not big and it’s not clever Jose so drop the attitude, we’re all bored with it and unless you win the Champion’s League this season I’ve a funny feeling that your paymaster will be too.

Not to take away from Spurs though, they played brilliantly to a man and as the final whistle went you could see on the faces of the players, the management and every fan in a capacity crowd at White Hart Lane just how much it meant to finally take three points in this fixture. All we can hope for now is that it won’t be another twenty years before it happens again.

COME ON YOU SPURS!!!

This entry was posted on Monday, November 6th, 2006 at 7:56 am and is filed under Tottenham Hotspur. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.