track.
In less than half a minute Spurs might have rescued the season last night at Bolton, for their first away win at the Reebok stadium.
‘Arry rightly went with the same side who beat the previous piece of relegation fodder at the weekend – funny no talk of tiredness and rotation when winning – and as at the weekend Spurs bossed it. Bossed it with no final product as per damn usual.
Chances were there and again spurned as so often this season, last season… every season. Funny how Bale gets praised for a cross that goes right across the face of goal – the one time he chose to actually go down the left and get to the byline in the first half – yet when Lennon does exactly the same thing on the right he gets abused for his final ball
. Final ball that would have been killer if someone had bothered to actually bust a gut to get into the area.
It took just over half an hour as Sandro – the Chinese pronunciation of which fits all know stereotypes you can think of – stormed into the box after another missed opportunity, he was having another blinder, maybe the passing was off but the tackling and blocking was there again outshining he who thankfully wasn’t involved. Well he might have handled, Bolton weren’t happy at the corner given. They were less happy as van der Vaart chipped the corner to Modric, who chested it down and then increased his league goal tally for the season by 33%, with a hell of a strike that just curled away from the despairing dive of the Bolton ‘keeper.
But as per usual they didn’t capitalise on this and went in at half time with just the single goal lead. The second half played out as per usual, there was an early chance for van der Vaart to play Adebayor clean through on goal but the pass was careless and sloppy. The for all the Dutchman’s sublime play there was quite a number of really casually slack passes in easy situations, while his strike partner was competing with Danny Rose for the worst first touch, that’s when not running into cul-de-sacs.
The usual post break 10 minute slack off period was back for Spurs as Bolton pushed and the visitors rested on their laurels. Culminating on Ngog’s backheel onto Reo-Coker, rushing all on his lonesome into the box to fire past Friedel. Reo-Coker, I mean for god sake his signing was the turning point in me figuring Coyle was a half decent manager. How can you let a bum like Reo-Coker score against you.
At that point and for the following ten minutes it only looked like Bolton scoring a second. Spurs were all over the place and the hosts were right up for it as Kevin Davies elbows were flying everywhere, that’s when he wasn’t falling over to try and win free-kicks.
Then in a classic counter Bale was actually on the left – he did spend a bit more time there in the second half – doing what he does best and should be doing nearly all the time. Hareing past a defender and getting a cross into the box for the oncoming van der Vaart to side foot the ball into the far corner. Luckily Adebayor got out of the road of the shot, he does seem to be in the road of a lot of attempts. It was 25 seconds from the kick off to the game now really being over as a gorgeous ball from Modric – he does seem to be enjoying life sans-Parker – into the path of Lennon, who yet again skinned his defender and put the perfect ball across the six yard line for Adebayor to pretty much tap in.
Took a little longer for the game to be really over, 7 minutes, as something actually came of Bale in the middle – it does work when the opposition are going all out and all over the place – nice one-two with van der Vaart and ball through to Adebayor who had a bit to do, rounding the ‘keeper and then desperately getting the ball onto his right foot.
Takes Adebayor’s tally from 31 league games to 15 goals, now he’s had number wrongly disallowed as well, could have been a twenty goal league campaign and he’s worked for the team, worked better than pretty much all expected, but his he worth the punt. Citeh will want a bit for him after this campaign and selling him to a sort of competitor. He’ll want a fair whack in wages. If his first touch wasn’t so often really crap that his second is a tackle, if he didn’t get in the way of other’s shots and if he didn’t weakly give up the ball running into cul-de-sacs then you’d have to splash the cash. But it is and he does…
Any road up, back into fourth, one point behind the scum – could have done without conceding and maybe getting another to overhaul their goal difference – and two games to come…
Bolton Wanderers 1 – 4 Tottenham Hotspur