can’t stand to see him play for Spurs either.
‘Arry apparently met Wilson Palacios’ mum out shopping in the week and she made sure her son would be playing on Saturday against Everton. One of his first starts in a while, no doubt Kranjcar will be on the phone to Croatia, bit of luck Jenas’ mum has already blocked his number.
Well someone said a while back that “Champions League hangover” had a nice ring to to, not so on Saturday. The early game of the weekend is nearly always a bit of a damp squib, it’s not helped when on team has been run ragged with ten men in Italy on Wednesday. ManUre and Chelsea get an extra day rest, funny that.
You’d think it was nothing to worry about though after that midweek second half display, playing against a side that have done nothing so far this season except beating relegation fodder in their previous game. But there was a general feeling that Spurs were a bit shagged out after their big time excursion. So another bunch of points dropped at home, after again going behind but this time only being able to drag it back to a draw.
Saying that it’s a game with the chances created they should have one against a side that came to do a job that didn’t include much in the way of attacking. But Spurs were sluggish and didn’t get out of the blocks with any zip. Chief among that was Bale, now it is understandable what with the way he’s been running up and down the left wing since the beginning of the year, not just this season, added to that he’s seen as such an influence that makes the other side focus a lot of their attention on stopping him. Now this stopping came in many form, not always legitimately and when the likes of Rat Boy Jr weren’t out kicking, Bale was surrounded by at times up to 5 blue shirts. Not ideal for a player that ‘Arry has given most of this week off because his batteries are a little run down.
So with Bale, almost negated, it fell to others to fill the spot. Now van der Vaart wasn’t as effervescent as we’ve seen but he was always there or there abouts, getting on the end of things and wanting the ball. In the main though it was Modric who stood up, probably the best we’ve seen from him of late, was it the armband or the lack of Huddlestone or is he just coming round.
Everton took the lead against the run of play as the gravitational pull of Yakubu’s arse was to strong for him to keep his feet as he tried to turn Kaboul, who had a decent game on his return – not too soon with the way Gallas and Bassong floundered together, who thought we’d be wishing for the return of Kaboul so much? Baines scored from the resultant free kick – not the first howler by an inept ref on the day – haven’t seen the best left back in the world Ashley Cole score one like that for a bit.
Spurs then had the game but there was a general lack of guile around the park and things tending to end up as long diagonal crosses from Hutton. Now it worked for the equaliser as Howard flapped the ball bounced of Crouch and found van der Vaart half a yard out right in front of an open goal, hell even Darren Bent couldn’t miss this one, the Dutch made sure slamming it into the empty net. That’s the thing about him more than most of Spurs’ other midfielders, I know he’s meant to be nearly a second striker, he gets in there for those knock downs.
Now Crouch got a lot of stick around teh interweb and from the stands – as they called for Pavlyuchenko – for missing chances and general play. Now again it’s not his fault that long balls are humped up to him from the wrong angle, very little from the byline, and he was fouled most of the time, again missed by the inept officials. But maybe he has to adjust his game for a bit of it and stop going for goal himself, especially for headers where he’s off the ground as it’s not his best game, and just go for more knock downs.
I can somewhat see ‘Arry’s point that with the way Everton were just defending that playing it just on the ground wouldn’t have worked so well, not like Spurs’ are handed a one man advantage in so many games like certain other sides. Lennon hardly tried to get to the byline and cross from there, coming inside to much, yes Hutton overlapped but again didn’t cross from the line. But with Bale being double, triple, quadruple, quintuple teamed the likes of Modric, vdV, Lennon should have had more space to break down the defence.
As for Palacios, well he started off reasonably well with some good tackles but then got booked, what a surprise, ten minutes in and wasn’t quite the same. At the start he wasn’t quite up to the level when he first arrived from Wigan but was better than we’ve had of late, his replacement at half-time, Sandro, was better, though of course he picked up a yellow as well.
Two more points dropped at home though and of course no favours done to us by Stoke and Citeh yesterday.