lasted.
It all had to come to a crashing halt at sometime, old failings had to return, a wake up call had to ring and those that are only interested in the so called top 4 –
It all started so well, even before that first minute opener by Defoe, you looked at that ManUre midfield and figured not that great. Fletcher, “the anti-football”, a very limited player no matter what the experts may tell us. Anderson, not much better, normally flouncing around just kicking anything in his path, check his passport sure he’s Brazilian and not one of them Scottish Andersons? Giggs, most overrated player in the history of the Premier League, great players don’t miss so amny open goals, hit so many defenders with crosses and don’t look confused, players like Darren Bent look confused. Scholes, well there’s a red card waiting to happen.
The only problem with all that is if they don’t play on grass as they do on paper and Spurs don’t play the way they should. And that of course is what happened. Three against, that’s five let in at home already in tree games, half of what they conceded the whole of last season at home and the seasons didn’t exactly start in the same manner.
Ah Modric, would it have been different if not for Bowyer? Well who knows ‘Arry might have picked a similar side to the one here but surely he would have gone for “not changing a successful side”, meaning Keane wouldn’t have been nominally placed out on the left, where he didn’t work and it didn’t work for the structure of the side. Without Keane dropping off the front, helping the midfield and linking the play it showed a problem with the big man, little man up top set up.
The other problem was the moving away from the style played in the opening four games of the season, playing the ball on the floor, through teams was abandoned for a more direct, lets bang it up to the big man. Maybe in that respects Defoe’s cracking overhead opener from Crouch’s nod on didn’t help…
Not Crouch’s fault, he had it over the ManUre defence most of the evening, really troubling Vidic, but it led more and more balls like that, which didn’t work as Defoe didn’t get a sniff. Along with the fact it looks like the Premier League refs have taken a lead from FIFA and are going to target the player for being tall. Much like last World Cup where Crouch was officially singled out for special treatment by refs/linesmen it looks to be happening here as well, no matter what actually happens usually Crouch being fouled the ref will blow against him. Shirt pulled, knocked in the back, pushed over he gets it all with no reward at all.
It’s one of the areas Spurs will have to learn to play the ref, maybe another is trying to instruct the ref on his job as well as the ManUre players do. Yes Scholes was rightly sent off, the first challenge on Defoe could have been a straight red anyway, Evra could have gone for sticking his head into Corluka, Vidic was lucky to stay on, cynical trip on Lennon and then going straight through the back of Crouch in a revenge challenge. Should the Spurs players have made more of it the way Giggs, Rooney, Fletcher etc. got Palacios yellow carded?
So the old faults are back, dominate for first 20 minutes, then get pegged back, goals conceded from set pieces and shots from outside the box. I mean it’s Giggs taking the free kick and you can’t get him to hit one of his two usual targets the wall or row Z. And when you want some fight to get back into the game everyone goes missing, the left back is on his tod covering one half of the pitch, falling apart at the seams.
And when you think things can’t get worse Jenas comes on…
…in the end the best team won who were down to 10 men, which makes it even worse. But then they’re still fourth with 12 points and doing a bit better than 12 months ago…