The Morning After The Night Before – What Went Wrong For Spurs?
The morning after the night before is often a sobering occasion. Why am I chained to a lamppost? Who is this not particularly attractive lady sleeping next to me? Why the f*ck aren’t we in the League Cup Final? That kind of thing.
For the long suffering fans of Tottenham Hotspur, last night was just another chapter in a miserable catalogue of underachievement and disappointment. 20 minutes of scintillating, breathtaking, poetic football thoroughly spoilt by 190 minutes of dogged defending, dodgy tactics and the inability to double-check a team sheet. Only Spurs.
The kneejerk reaction of a minority has already started to call for the head of Martin Jol, something that is as unlikely as it is ridiculous, but the thought that the great man himself might be scratching his head this morning over another heart wrenching derby defeat is worrying to say the least.
This tie should have been out of sight by the end of the 1st leg, perhaps even the 1st half of that game. The so called ‘youth team’ of Arsenal possess a great deal of talent yet their limited experience should have been punished in front of a White Hart Lane crowd baying for blood after Julio Baptista scored the first of his unorthodox hattrick last Wednesday. They should have been buried by a side keen to show that they would not tolerate facing a second XI in a domestic cup semi final.
Instead, we put the brakes on, a tactical switch that would prove all the more costly considering our two attacking focal points, Lennon and Berbatov, would play no further part in the 2nd leg. It should be abundantly clear that, when fielding an inexperienced side that had already proved themselves in reaching a semi final, Wenger’s brief would be that they had nothing to lose. “Go get those goals back”.
The advantage was lost pitifully and very rarely has a draw tasted so authentically like the bitterest of defeats. Baptista got his 2nd and 3rd goals of the evening, Spurs groaned and Arsenal sang. And when that happens, it really must be going their way.
Yesterday began even better than most ‘big game’ days. ‘Sheringham heading back to Spurs’ read the tabloids, along with 3 or 4 promising names that had been mooted for several weeks. Had we known at the time that none would have signed by the stroke of midnight, it might have been translated as an inadvertent message from the cruel red top hacks that it would have been better off staying in bed.
No Lennon, no pace. No Berba, no physical presence upfront. No attacking changes until a goal down, no ambition. Even passion, surely inherent during a cup semi against your local rivals was lacking from so many of the players. Are Jermain Defoe and Jermaine Jenas REALLY as upset as the fans this morning? I hate to say that I don’t think they are.
What Tottenham need is a battler, an Edgar Davids minus a few thousand miles. Nolan, Barton, even Savage, all wear their heart on their sleeve, run for ninety minutes and, perhaps most importantly, aren’t shirt swapping and hugging their local rivals after losing a cup semi final. And that’s why they are so adored by their fans and so despised by the opposition: they want to win.
All is not lost for THFC and this defeat will be nothing more than a minor blip should our cup form continue and the final victory of the season takes place at Wembley or Hampden Park. But if the current incumbents of that famous white shirt aren’t motivated for a game like Wednesday then it could all be a little too familiar when the silverware is handed out in May.
About the author Carl Jones
i could not agree more.
Good article but what frightens me is MJ’s comments on the Spurs website today. He asks whether Spurs should have tried to hold onto the lead – a little obvious “yes they should”. But the implication is he doesn’t realise that sitting back (which is what the team did) only invites people to attack you. Spurs are not strong enough in midfield or defence to sit back. MJ increasingly takes the negative, sit on a small lead approach. There is only one Spurs way Push and Run – attack.
What a pityful lot we were last night. I sat there embarassed at our display especially in extra time. Jol is a likeable guy but is too cautious to say the least. He has to learn how to use Defoe, Keane and Mido (Berbatov) as an attacking 3 at least when were playing in WHL?
Defoe and Jenas should have been taken off last night. The lack of going forward and lying too deep is our problem. Thank God for Michael Dawson !!!
What am I doing in this team? Where is this team going?
If we had taken off the players that were ineffective last night we’d be playing with robbo, daws, chimbo and mido (when he came on!) – everyone else was simply there to collect a pay cheque!
For me Gardener had a good game 2 – shame he had to come off, but he’d a got sent if if not subbed!
having watched last weeks game against arsonal when did we ever score a goal with kean and defoe up front, they cant hold the ball, thats why it keeps coming back so fast, thats what all the opposision about us, bring on pekart, bring on barnard, give the shirt to someone who will fight for the ball, and by the way zicora, hudd, lennon and malb are our best midfield easy, janus is in out and his passing is crap, kepp loosing the ball and youll keep us underpressure, hold on to the ball and they wont score, kind of poetic
Can someone please explain Ghaly to me? Kept giving the ball away and then looked around sheepishly, hoping noone had seen.
Also, you have to wonder why Ahmed didn’t start, especially considering the amount of long balls we were playing up to the front 2. Very disappointing (so was the 45 minute walk back to the car because the police kept sending us the wrong way round)
Yet again, when it comes to it, Jol cannot deliver. We had the ‘food poisening’ fiasco when we missed out on 4th place last year, then a cock up with the team sheet for this semi final. Ghaly is appalling, one of the worst players to pull on the Spurs shirt and I fail to see why Jol likes him. Why not bring Routledge back from Fulham and play him on the left, switching with Lennon? Araenal had pace, they passed well, they fought and the anticipated the Spurs moves. We have a decent few players, Chimbonda, Dawson, King, Lennon, Jenas, Huddlestone, Berbatov and Mido are all decent players and could bring us glory in years to come. But all the time we buy rubbish to replace rubbish we will struggle. Good players don’t want to come to Spurs and when we finally do part with decent money – £10 million or so, we end up with Zokora who’s about on a par with my granny – she is 87. Clear out the rubbish, including Hughton and Jol and start getting the decent players to perform.
we have no fight we have no pace we have players who dont care for the club the shirt the badge i watched the match on television back home in belfast and from six hundred miles from the ground i saw that we needed a target man up front defoe dosnt care anymore keane cant hold on to the ball for more than two seconds and jenas if he is the future of my beloved club then god help us
I am glad that Jol is The Spurs Manager….and not all these people who gave stupid opinion
for a balanced view read top spurs daily editorial by Jim Duggan
Rocha – unbelievably rubbish! Why do Manure get Ronaldo from Portugal and we get Postiga and the new Vega? Commoli is not up to it – sold an improving Davenport and bought a useless waste of space that has alreday cost us and still no one who can deliver a decent cross with their left foot. Jol – when are you going to realise that when the ball is lamped up to two dwarves it is going to come straight back!
I AGREE WITH YOU !
I have said it so many times before – Spurs need to fight and show some real commitment to the games.
I really hope that Jol, Levy and Comoli now understand what the rest of us have seen and known for a long time:
GET A HARDMAN (or two) to make the Spurs team start to fight for victories !
I think some of the comments about jenas are a bit harsh he has been out for 8 weeks and i think he is a good player,ghaly was by far the worst player on the pitch and not because he had a bad game but because he is a bad player,also would like to point out we were missing our 3 best players (king berba lennon)i just hope spurs stop signing lots of 3 million pound players and buy quality rather than quantity.if we beat man u on sunday this will be forgotten!
I was very dissapointed like most other spurs fans, but bare in mind this arsenal teams success against Liverpool the previous round. The reason why they have done so well is because there is no pressure on them. If they lose, its “oh well, it was our B team” if they win, its what we have seen the previous rounds and last night. The onus was on spurs to win, also we needed the final [for european qualification] much more than they did, hence more pressure.
I do however think that spurs are lacking a real pressence in central midfield. Jenas, Zakora and Hudds are all 8 out of 10 players at best, we need better than that. Our defence, individually is excellent [maybee not left back] but they have no real protection in front of them, hence a very high goals against tally this season.
Lets not forget how far we have come under Jol though, two seasons ago, we would have not expected to beat arsenal, and we are still in two other cup competitions. We are sound financially, and [if] we get into Europe, we should be able to address our weknesses again in the summer. I would not change the board/director of football/manager for a long time, as they are still building. Lets just be patient………..Better fucking beat Man U though or sack em all!!!!
Topspurs are spamming everyone.
Perhaps they should try writing something interesting for a change instead if they want hits………
In response to Super Yids comment.. if Tottenham beat Manchester United on Sunday I’ll do a streaker at the Northern Ireland game on Tuesday night!
A much more balanced analysis than most and you’re right we were disappointing. The one point I disagree with is that Jol can be blamed for his tactical switch. That was forced upon him by Berbs’ injury; he had no choice. If Mido had come on and run around like a lemon everyone would have said why does Jol insist on little and large rather than getting our best players to play together. The fact is he chose a very good footballer and a passionate Spurs man (Keane) to come on and he played terribly. This still had nothing to do with the fact that our midfield gave away the ball every 5 seconds with misplaced passes. Martin Jol can play for 1-0′s a bit too much at time, but the fiasco at the Lane was not his fault.
Our biggest problem at the moment, and particularly against a team like Arsenal is our inability to retain possession…
I can explain Ghaly to you – played out of position. Yu’ll never see his potential stuck out on the wing…