started.
Last night was not a good night, it started badly and slowly got even worse. It was never really going to be a good night when it starts with the premise that I wanted both the Woolwich scum and ManUre to win, unconscionable but true with them facing respectively Villa and Pugwash’s scouse outfit.
Then ‘Arry decided to make things worse, I don’t know maybe he was distracting by this morning’s court appearance, but bizarrely he penned Jenas’ name into the starting XI team sheet, not only that but Kaboul seemed to be down as right back and Gudjohnsen was up front.
Not only do I hate Jenas – and believe it or not it takes a bit for me to hate something, I usually can’t be arsed exerting the effort to fully hate – I hate when he plays because I know his presence is going to drive me up the wall. Every misplaced pass, every ponce about, every minced skip and it was all there last night. Never more so than with the goal,the winning goal as he merrily skipped into the box in full mince, as Jones ambled in behind him to score. It was Jenas all over throughout his whole career.
When will ‘Arry learn? I know he wants to rest players and so rotate, so Palacios is on the bench but with the amount of cards he racks up he’s going to have breaks anyway with suspensions, why not wait until they come round. But no ‘Arry thinks away to Wolves we can get away with any fight in the middle of the park, he can stick in the softest player this side of Robinho, to provide the mettle and win the ball. Well he thought it up until half time when watching 45 minutes of that atrocity brought ‘Arry to his senses. The Jenasite has an effect on the team that is detrimental.
That lack of steel in the middle doesn’t help a defence that can be shaky at the best of times, without Ledley and Dawson having one of those off days. It was a penalty, should have been given and is unusual that Spurs got one their way for a change, does it make up for the stonewaller against Defoe at Villa? No.
A defence not helped by Kaboul at rightback. So he was brought in as cover there, when all the other players were dumped out on loan last month. Oh great. Joy of joys. Who wouldn’t have preferred Hutton there last night, even those that were glad to see him offloaded probably. Well seeing as he wasn’t available how about and I know this is a wild and crazy idea the kid you brought back from his loan spell at Sheffield, Walker, after all he is an actual fullback. I know call be daring and impulsive.
Younes was inept, also heavily responsible for the goal, the winning goal, while being useless during the rest of the game. But then he wasn’t the only one, only one that wasn’t would be Bale. The only outfield player that came out of the game with any credit and that is a credit to how he’s changed his Spurs career around these last few weeks.
Gudjohnsen started his Spurs career somewhat surprisingly, did ‘Arry really take to heart the “long ball” jibes from Villa’s ‘keeper, Friedel, after seemingly brushing them off. Shouldn’t he have been played into the side through sub appearances rather than just being shoved in there without much top flight game time behind him of late. He started with a few good touches but faded fast. Though was it the pitch to be playing fancy dan stuff on, saying that the long ball option, when Crouch entered the fray didn’t exactly work either.
‘Arry says the worst display of the season, he’s not wrong. The last few games haven’t been great but at least chances were created last night they were few and far between, was there in in the second half? And so Wolves do the double over us, having scored a whole two goals in the process, though of course conceding none.
Three trips to the Midlands and two points to show for it, did ‘Arry figure fourth place was lost anyway – if you get done over twice by relegation fodder Championship side like Wolves do you deserve a Champions League spot? – so concentrated on the Cup game against Bolton on Sunday?