if not in the league.
Another good win and performance from Spurs last night in the 3-1 come from behind UEFA Cup win over Club Bruges.
Scoring doesn’t seem such a problem in the cup competitions so far, compared to the lack of Premiership goals.
This certainly turned out to be a good game, after an indifferent start by Spurs, who seemed a bit sluggish to begin with Bruge looking not bad until they scored the opener. Which was about the only time in the game Dawson didn’t clear the ball, this was more due to him trying to run off a knock he’d got a little bit beforehand but after that one slip up he didn’t give them another sniff.
Berbatov took all the plaudits and rightly so, looked right on his game and well worth the £10.9m price tag, scoring two and setting up the other from Robbie Keane. His first, the equalizer, was a cracking shot that could have easily been a row Z job and his header for the third gave the ‘keeper no chance. In between his through ball for Keane’s goal was expertly delivered through the defence right into the Irishman’s path to score another great one.
Up to that point I’d had my doubts about Keane on the night, he looked a bit off his game and I was getting a little pissed off about the repeated attempts with the outside of the right boot when a swinging left could have done a better job, it’s not as if he can’t use his left and it’s only there to stand on like most players.
Would like to know the possession stats for the second half, as Bruge hardly seemed to have a kick, as Spurs showed a certain bunch how to score against an unadventurous side when you have all the ball – and when you do that Terry the stands won’t be so empty that you have to whinge about it.
Only down side again was the presence of (schhh) you know who, why is he the only one never rotated? Lennon, Ghaly, Murphy, Zakora, Huddlestone and when fit Malbranque should be ahead of him in the starting XI. Every time he got the ball there was a groan as he dithered not knowing what to do, which ened up as usual with a stumble and losing the ball, or a pass to no one, or playing it short to play Dawson or Ledley into trouble, or when you saw Chimbonda – or Chimbomba or Shimbomba or whoever was playing right fullback “live and exclusive on ITV4” – flying up the wing it was a pass behind him making sure he stops and the play is slowed down. I won’t let this lie…
Now just the small matter of Chelski coming up on Sunday.
Tch tch! The boy Jermaine had another great game, second only in class to Berbatov…! Intelligent passing, unfussy and accurate tackling, and all-round sensible possession play, especially as Zokora tentatively felt his way back into the rhythm of the game…
I’m unable to make it to today’s game, and had to give up my ticket due to working duties – as such, I’m feeling more confident than usual that we might finally FINALLY beat them…
You won’t convince me, or all the Toon fans I know who even in their position laugh at Spurs for buying him.
They had to win after that 😉