After the appetizer of Young Boys (behave), the arrival of Schteve McClaren's former charges FC Twente signals the arrival of the Champions League proper to the Lane. The Champions League music and the flag waving against Young Boys set my heart fluttering. We've made it to the promised land. We may not be here again next year but for now who cares, we're here, let's have fun. Champions League footie under the floodlights. The atmosphere is going to be electric. I can't bloody wait.
So what can we expect from Twente? Well despite the fact that the 'Wally with the Brolly' has moved on they are Dutch Champions so they can't be shit. A warning as to the dangers of Twente can be found in their draw with Inter in the first game, not just in the result, but in the manner of the goals. The first a cracking free kick from Theo Janssen and the second an own goal from a Theo Janssen corner. Twente are a threat from set pieces and last time I checked we aren't too hot at defending them. The left boot of Theo Janssen will be a huge threat all night and we need to keep corners and silly free kicks around the box (Mr. Bassong take note), to a minimum. That being said, as long as we keep Twente on the back foot as much as possible I think we will be ok.
Now to the boys in European all-Lilywhite. It is possible we will have no-one who missed the West Ham back (although fingers crossed on Gomes and Assou-Ekotto). However, I'm confident that we will still be too strong for Twente. We have seen in the past that visiting teams in the Champions League tend to be cautious and defend deep. Hopefully this should mean that our patchwork defence does not come under too much sustained pressure. Nevertheless, we need all our attacking players firing on all cylinders, including our cigar-chomping winger. Whether 'Arry gives him the arm round the shoulder or the kick up the backside, we need Aaron back on form and soon. I want to see Huddlestone in the quarterback role, exuding authority and stroking balls left, right and centre. Modric and VdV buzzing around like blue-arsed flies creating space, openings, chances. Even if he starts at LB in the absence of BAE, Bale needs to be the unplayable simian marauder we know he can be. Crouch may not be able to hit a barn door in the Premiership but stick a Champions League badge on his arm and he becomes a goal machine. Another couple tonight please Crouchie.
Our club is built upon these floodlit European nights. Glory glory Tottenham Hotspur and all that. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world.
COYS.
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Tuesday 28 September 2010
Spurs are just like Real Madrid
There has been a lot of negativity flowing around the blogs and discussion boards regarding our beloved club and after back to back derby defeats it is understandable.
However, a lot of this ill-feeling is directed towards 'Arry, claiming that he has lost the plot and has taken us as far as he can etc etc. Basically every criticism certain fans had of Martin Jol, dusted off and recited re: Mr. Redknapp. I personally was a fan of our lager-drinking Dutchman and only conceded that he needed to go when it had appeared that he had lost the dressing room, an irreversible and fatal action. So why does 'Arry, in the eyes of many Spurs fans, need to go? To many, our indifferent start to the season suggests a return to inconsistency. A return to our soft underbelly away from home. A clear failure to adequately strengthen the side over the summer in the shape of a world class striker. With heightened expectations, 'Arry has revealed himself to be unable to cope with the pressure of juggling league and Champions League. He has shown himself not to be tactically astute enough to rotate players and tinker with formation. If 'Arry stays in charge, we will be out of the Champions League before Christmas and sitting in midtable. 'Arry out.
Absolute ballbags.
'Arry achieved what 99% of people thought wasn't possible, considering the strength on paper of the established 'Big 4' and the wallet of City, and qualified for the Champions League. We're not in the relegation, we're 8th. We're 3 points off 3rd. Wigan parked the bus and hit us with a sucker punch. It happens. A draw away at West Brom looks a credible result seeing as they turned over that lot down the road on their own patch. Two outstanding displays of goalkeeping kept us from thumping City and getting at the very very least a draw against the Spammers. A win at Stoke is difficult for anyone. Wolves beat us twice last season. 2-2 in Bremen is a very good result and should have been better.
Let's not forget our injuries. Sky Sports is awash with talk of injuries crippling United ahead of their game with Valencia. No Rooney. No Giggs. No Scholes. United have big problems they say. If they lose at the Mestalla this will be why. You can't underestimate the effect that injuries have on a team. No King, Dawson, Gallas, Assou-Ekotto, Kaboul, Defoe or Gomes against West Ham. Arguably 5 of our strongest 11 and 2 first choice back-ups. Away at a team that always raises their game against us. How is a defeat under those circumstances 'Arry's fault? Would Corluka have played like Beckenbauer at CB if Mourinho had been in charge? Would Green have played worse if 'Arry had picked a different lineup? Injuries disrupt consistency, confidence and fitness. If Chelsea had gone to Upton Park without Cech, Terry, Ivanovic, Alex, Ashley Cole, Essien and Drogba and lost, would people have been deriding Ancelotti's tactical know-how? Of course not. People will say that with players like VdV, Modric and Bale we should be beating teams like West Ham anyway. It doesn't work like that. If you have a patchwork defence in place ahead of a goalkeeper they may not be entirely confident in, then leaking goals is a distinct possibility.
Herein lies our connection with Real Madrid. Fans of Spurs and Real have unfulfillable expectations. At Real, Vicente Del Bosque won the domestic double but was sacked for failing to win the Champions League. Mangers since have been sacked for winning the league but not Champions League and more recently failing to topple a Barcelona side which is arguably the greatest ever. If Mourinho wins the Champions League and league this year but fails to defend one or both next year, he will probably be sacked. At Spurs we have lower but equally unattainable goals. Every time a manager achieves something at Spurs, we raise the bar too high too soon and sack him for failing to reach it. We want Martin Jol to get us into the top 6. Done. Keep us there? Done. Top 4? Failed and sacked. 'Arry. Champions League? Done. Signs in the first 6 games that we aren't going to mount a title challenge? Calls for his head.
Please please please let's stop the knee-jerking. 'Arry is the best we've had in years. We're 6 games into the season. Half our squad is injured. We will be ok. Believe. In 'Arry we trust.
Sunday 26 September 2010
Curse of the Champions League?
I would like to be clear straight off the bat that I am not trying to excuse our terrible performance against the Hammers yesterday. I do not believe in curses, jinxes or the work of Eileen Drury.
But I have noticed an interesting pattern that has emerged across the leagues of Europe. This is not designed to make us feel any better about our sluggish start to the season. But maybe it will comfort us just slightly that we are not alone. Harry, pundits and journos have all talked about the 'Champions League Hangover'. If I can stick with this metaphor for a moment, the best teams can handle the boozy midweeks of the Champions League and are fresh to consume the meat and potatoes of the following weekend's league fixtures. The others are glugging down Resolve and smell of the meat and potatoes makes them go all queasy.
Metaphor out of the way, I'm not sure whether I subscribe to the 'hangover' theory, but I get the feeling that at Spurs the whole Champions League thing is all new and exciting and Harry and the players are struggling to find the balance between CL and EPL. Do the players constantly have one eye on the San Siro? Is a rainy night at the Reebok just not what it used to be? (No, it's exactly what it used to be. Shit.) But maybe we are struggling to get our heads down and grind out some back to back wins in the league when we have big exciting Champions League games on the horizon.
Anyway, here is why at least Spurs are not alone in struggling to mix the two.
Spain:
La Liga's participants in the Champions League are perfect examples of experienced Champions League teams that can mix League and Champions League. Valencia, Real Madrid, Barcelona. Siting 1, 2, 3. Something for all to aspire to.
Italy:
Inter are another example of an experienced team that can juggle both. Top of the league and unsurprisingly so. AC Milan are 5th. But Roma, a team perhaps similar in stature to Spurs, are languishing in 17th.
Holland:
Ajax may be top but Champions Twente are 4th with just 3 wins from 7. In the Dutch League 4th isn't very good.
France:
The two French participants have made league starts that make Spurs look like they have flown out of the blocks. Auxerre, who took the same play-off route into the Champions League that we did are 17th with 0 wins and 5 draws from their first 7 games and Lyon are 19th, having already lost 4 times.
Germany:
Our old friends Bremen have had a very similar start to ourselves, sitting 12th with 2 wins from 6 games but including a 4-1 defeat this weekend. Schalke 04 are currently 17th in the Bundesliga without a win.
I know each team will have particular circumstances and reasons as to why they may or may not have started well. But these are all good teams, they wouldn't have finished in the top 3 or 4 of these leagues if they weren't. We are a good team. Let's not panic. Some seasons you start slowly. Is the Champions League a burden if you aren't an Inter, Barcelona or a Chelsea? Some teams across Europe, Spurs included, may feel in the coming weeks that it is.
But I have noticed an interesting pattern that has emerged across the leagues of Europe. This is not designed to make us feel any better about our sluggish start to the season. But maybe it will comfort us just slightly that we are not alone. Harry, pundits and journos have all talked about the 'Champions League Hangover'. If I can stick with this metaphor for a moment, the best teams can handle the boozy midweeks of the Champions League and are fresh to consume the meat and potatoes of the following weekend's league fixtures. The others are glugging down Resolve and smell of the meat and potatoes makes them go all queasy.
Metaphor out of the way, I'm not sure whether I subscribe to the 'hangover' theory, but I get the feeling that at Spurs the whole Champions League thing is all new and exciting and Harry and the players are struggling to find the balance between CL and EPL. Do the players constantly have one eye on the San Siro? Is a rainy night at the Reebok just not what it used to be? (No, it's exactly what it used to be. Shit.) But maybe we are struggling to get our heads down and grind out some back to back wins in the league when we have big exciting Champions League games on the horizon.
Anyway, here is why at least Spurs are not alone in struggling to mix the two.
Spain:
La Liga's participants in the Champions League are perfect examples of experienced Champions League teams that can mix League and Champions League. Valencia, Real Madrid, Barcelona. Siting 1, 2, 3. Something for all to aspire to.
Italy:
Inter are another example of an experienced team that can juggle both. Top of the league and unsurprisingly so. AC Milan are 5th. But Roma, a team perhaps similar in stature to Spurs, are languishing in 17th.
Holland:
Ajax may be top but Champions Twente are 4th with just 3 wins from 7. In the Dutch League 4th isn't very good.
France:
The two French participants have made league starts that make Spurs look like they have flown out of the blocks. Auxerre, who took the same play-off route into the Champions League that we did are 17th with 0 wins and 5 draws from their first 7 games and Lyon are 19th, having already lost 4 times.
Germany:
Our old friends Bremen have had a very similar start to ourselves, sitting 12th with 2 wins from 6 games but including a 4-1 defeat this weekend. Schalke 04 are currently 17th in the Bundesliga without a win.
I know each team will have particular circumstances and reasons as to why they may or may not have started well. But these are all good teams, they wouldn't have finished in the top 3 or 4 of these leagues if they weren't. We are a good team. Let's not panic. Some seasons you start slowly. Is the Champions League a burden if you aren't an Inter, Barcelona or a Chelsea? Some teams across Europe, Spurs included, may feel in the coming weeks that it is.
Thursday 9 September 2010
Rise of the 4-5-1?
With the news today that Defoe will be out of action for 6 weeks despite personally claiming to be fit to face West Brom on Saturday, I got to thinking about the potential for Spurs to adopt that most fashionable of formations, the 4-5-1, on a more regular basis.
With the good old 4-4-2 we failed to break down a Wigan team that Blackpool put 4 past and so far our only league win has come from a 4-5-1 formation at Stoke. I know this is simplifying the argument but the advantages for Spurs are there for all to see now that Defoe is out. First of all, who from our other strikers is going to score on a consistent basis? And who can work together as an effective partnership? Pavlyuchenko is a talented striker but runs hot and cold and when he's cold he's colder than a Moscow winter. Keane is a ghost these days and I think his days as an effective Spurs player are long over, although I hope I'm proved wrong about that. Crouch is good at what he does which is receiving the ball with his back to goal but he is never going to score consistently as he showed last season and the very best defenders in the league can effectively neutralise him. Playing two of our other strikers together has rarely worked in the past and would seem to take up a spot in the starting XI that could go to a more effective player.
Here is where my argument is based. We have just signed Rafael Van der Vaart. We already have Modric, Kranjcar, Bale and Lennon as forward thinking midfielders. Despite having a bit of a stinker against Wigan I think Huddlestone is crucial to our efforts and so should start every week, pinging passes long and short onto a sixpence and generally exuding a quiet authority. Which, if we were to play the 4-4-2, would leave Van der Vaart and Modric to battle for the final midfield spot, assuming 'arry continues to play Bale on the left wing and BAE at full back. This to me seems like a waste. With a 4-5-1, we can have someone like Crouch or Pav lead the line, while Bale and Lennon maraud down the wings, Modric and Van der Vaart wander around with guile and ingenuity generally causing havoc in front of the defence, whilst Huddlestone, Palacios or Sandro can sit back and keep an eye on things. Crouch's general lack of goals would not matter so much if the likes of Van der Vaart, Bale, Modric and Lennon are chipping in with close to double figures themselves.
Midfield is where games are won and lost and it showed against Young Boys in the first leg that getting overrun in the middle of the park can lead to massacres. I believe that we are a better team than Werder Bremen but I am concerned that if we get our tactics wrong, as we did in Switzerland, we could get thumped again. This season we will be coming up against seasoned European teams who are used to playing with five in the middle. Teams experienced with the 4-5-1 can dissect 4-4-2 fairly easily. Can you imagine a midfield two of Huddlestone and Palacios for example against a Barcelona midfield three of Xavi, Iniesta and Mascherano? Ouch.
Midfielders who can score 15-20 goals a season are the Holy Grail for teams. All the best teams have one. Fat Frank at Chelsea. Gerrard at Liverpool (although they may not be a top team anymore). Messi at Barca. Ronaldo at Real. Manchester Utd may not have one free scoring midfielder anymore but the likes of Giggs, Scholes, Nani all chip in with close to double figures. The days of effective strike partnerships, little and large, Quinn and Phillips, Yorke and Cole, Shearer and Sheringham, are over. If you have a lone striker who can score frequently (Drogba, Torres, Rooney), then you don't need a second if you have two or three midfielders who can score on a regular basis.
Maybe the injury to Defoe could allow Spurs to contemplate joining this formation revolution?
With the good old 4-4-2 we failed to break down a Wigan team that Blackpool put 4 past and so far our only league win has come from a 4-5-1 formation at Stoke. I know this is simplifying the argument but the advantages for Spurs are there for all to see now that Defoe is out. First of all, who from our other strikers is going to score on a consistent basis? And who can work together as an effective partnership? Pavlyuchenko is a talented striker but runs hot and cold and when he's cold he's colder than a Moscow winter. Keane is a ghost these days and I think his days as an effective Spurs player are long over, although I hope I'm proved wrong about that. Crouch is good at what he does which is receiving the ball with his back to goal but he is never going to score consistently as he showed last season and the very best defenders in the league can effectively neutralise him. Playing two of our other strikers together has rarely worked in the past and would seem to take up a spot in the starting XI that could go to a more effective player.
Here is where my argument is based. We have just signed Rafael Van der Vaart. We already have Modric, Kranjcar, Bale and Lennon as forward thinking midfielders. Despite having a bit of a stinker against Wigan I think Huddlestone is crucial to our efforts and so should start every week, pinging passes long and short onto a sixpence and generally exuding a quiet authority. Which, if we were to play the 4-4-2, would leave Van der Vaart and Modric to battle for the final midfield spot, assuming 'arry continues to play Bale on the left wing and BAE at full back. This to me seems like a waste. With a 4-5-1, we can have someone like Crouch or Pav lead the line, while Bale and Lennon maraud down the wings, Modric and Van der Vaart wander around with guile and ingenuity generally causing havoc in front of the defence, whilst Huddlestone, Palacios or Sandro can sit back and keep an eye on things. Crouch's general lack of goals would not matter so much if the likes of Van der Vaart, Bale, Modric and Lennon are chipping in with close to double figures themselves.
Midfield is where games are won and lost and it showed against Young Boys in the first leg that getting overrun in the middle of the park can lead to massacres. I believe that we are a better team than Werder Bremen but I am concerned that if we get our tactics wrong, as we did in Switzerland, we could get thumped again. This season we will be coming up against seasoned European teams who are used to playing with five in the middle. Teams experienced with the 4-5-1 can dissect 4-4-2 fairly easily. Can you imagine a midfield two of Huddlestone and Palacios for example against a Barcelona midfield three of Xavi, Iniesta and Mascherano? Ouch.
Midfielders who can score 15-20 goals a season are the Holy Grail for teams. All the best teams have one. Fat Frank at Chelsea. Gerrard at Liverpool (although they may not be a top team anymore). Messi at Barca. Ronaldo at Real. Manchester Utd may not have one free scoring midfielder anymore but the likes of Giggs, Scholes, Nani all chip in with close to double figures. The days of effective strike partnerships, little and large, Quinn and Phillips, Yorke and Cole, Shearer and Sheringham, are over. If you have a lone striker who can score frequently (Drogba, Torres, Rooney), then you don't need a second if you have two or three midfielders who can score on a regular basis.
Maybe the injury to Defoe could allow Spurs to contemplate joining this formation revolution?
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