title winners do.
But apparently losing at home to Blackburn is what you have to do. Spurs beat Everton and the media go into build them up mode, a draw against Wolves and they immediately switch to “Spurs have blown it”.
Yet over the Chrimbo period Spurs are the only ones of the runners and riders not to lose a game, especially not a home game against Blackburn Rovers. But anyway less of the shite spouted by the likes of Alan Hansen.
So anyway other than it wasn’t a loss it wasn’t a good draw. A poor performance, which garnered a point. Typical ‘Arry to start things off by changing a winning formula. He’ll make the perfect England manager, as with all those that have gone before he’ll pick the team based on who they are not how they performed. So Parker was in and Livermore out.
We got a typical Parker performance, this claptrap about him having an off day doesn’t wash. The usual whingers going on about van der Vaart dropping deep. Well someone had to because that supposed conduit between the back defence and the attacking players was absent. Huge gap in front of Kaboul and Dawson, where was Parker? Not doing his job, skipping around somewhere else. With one of the few chances Wolves had with a shot from Frimpong, why was the player allowed all the freedom of the park when Parker was just milling about at the edge of the box? He made a cursory attempt to get close but skipped away. The when he ends up as the furthest forward he just hasn’t a clue and good openings are just given away with stupid back-heels and the like. Livermore looking forward and not just passing the ball straight back to the player he received it from would have just worked better here.
Added to that we’ve got the new favourite from ‘Arry. Not that long a go it was switching the wingers, a plan that didn’t work repeatedly until a couple of games it came up trumps with goals from Lennon on the left. Now after shifting Bale inside and up front against Norwich – where it eventually worked – it’s become his new favourite. Only problem being it hasn’t worked and it just congests the central area. While out wide Assou-Ekotto has vast acres of the pitch to himself, just screaming for Bale’s presence.
On the other side Walker was in the same situation, some better crossing from him was called for. But as against Everton the old push and run (© Tottenham Hotspur) triangle was worked once, it created a chance but was never tried again. With the likes of Bale, Lennon, Benny & Walker with their pace it should be done repeatedly. To the bye-line and get the ball over. Especially with a central midfield packed out by a blocking opposition.
Then we’re left with ‘Arry’s substitutions. There were many that could have come off for Defoe, well before the striker’s 74th minute introduction. Bale and his wild, inept, shooting high over the bar was a leading candidate. But maybe it should have been a like for like substitution. Adebayor was having yet another dog of a game, some absolutely awful touches of the ball. It’s seems so long now I almost can’t remember the last time he actually had control of the ball. A time when it wasn’t just bouncing of some part of his shin. Anyway with his poor performance, that also cost Spurs the victory along with some more inept officiating, where he needlessly turned in Bale’s goal bound shot and was, incorrectly, flagged offside. He wasn’t offside but he just didn’t need to give the linesman the chance to flag him. What with this and the Stoke game you start to think that officials don’t look to see if he is offside they just expect it.
Anyway with that poor performance and the fact next up it’s Citeh and he won’t be able to play against his parent club, surely Defoe should have been given a longer run out with next week’s fixture in mind. Not that I’m saying Defoe is the answer, a lot of people seem to have forgotten the amount of chances he misses when screaming for his inclusion at the expense of others.
So the game in general, as with the aforementioned Adebayor goal more inept officiating at the forefront as Wolves were given a corner when it was a goal kick. Inept defending by Spurs ensued. Again complaints about Friedel not coming out and leaving it to the defenders. So he comes out, misses the ball because he’s blocked by Kaboul and Dawson, isn’t there to make the save that Wolves scored the rebound from.
Then the rest of the game is classic Wolves, clodhopping fouls and time wasting, though to give them credit they started that straight from the kick-off and didn’t wait until they’d scored. It did lead to one funny moment as the Wolves ‘keeper and defender slightly bumped each other and fell down to waste time the ref did allow the trainers on to apply a bit of magic spray which miraculously brought the pair back to life, though neither left the pitch as is supposed to happen after being treated on the pitch. The ref decided as there was no foul and this was just a classic piece of time wasting he’d give a drop ball and quite rightly Spurs contested it. Just a shame it never came to anything, McCarthy would have gone ballistic and it could have been pointed out they were hoisted by their own petard.
Modric scored a good ‘un, well that’s his second for the season and as the rest of his attempts during the game showed that’s our lot for the season from him.
So it’s points dropped which just brings into focus the importance of the next game so much more…