Spurs vs Birmingham City Review- 90 minutes that mirrored our season

So that’s it for another rollercoaster year at Tottenham Hotspur and it ended in a deserved victory but also a performance that highlighted all the deficiencies that have been a constant thorn throughout this season.
It also ended in relegation for Birmingham City, a club who if I’m honest I won’t miss. I must admit I was a bit taken aback by Birmingham’s attitude which seemed to be to just gain a point and hope for the best. Whilst surely and as it actually transpired a victory would have seen them safe. However there performance yesterday did not merit 3 points. Nor did their performance on a cold December day up at St Andrews when our failure to kill them off resulted in a draw. I would assume this sort of negative attitude has summed up their season and for that they were rightfully relegated.

However at times like this you need to emphasise with your fellow football fans, we are all of course kindred spirits following our teams up and down the country, spending our hard earned wages and more often than not our teams will let us down. Luckily I have never had to experience relegation with Spurs but it must be an awful feeling and full credit has to be given to the Birmingham fans who stayed behind to applaud their team off the pitch. It was a a topsy turvey day, and it was hard not to get caught up in the immediate excitement of what was going on, as only Blackburn out of the five teams in peril managed to keep their heads above water for the entire 90 minutes of football. At different times during the day the permutations were such that it was :

Blackpool and WIgan going down
Wolves and Wigan
Birmingham and Wolves
Wolves and Wigan
Wolves and Blackpool

Until finally when Wolves scored to make it 3-2 it finally condemned Birmingham and Blackpool as the unlucky two. It was all dreadfully confusing. People were checking BBC and Sky Sports, whilst others such as me with the awful 3G reception at the Lane were working out the permutations manually via the programme. Interestingly why do Blackberrys seem to get decent 3G at Spurs but the Iphone just goes down totally. It really is quite the irritant, sort it out Mr. Jobs.

In all the excitement of the relegation battle the majority of the Spurs crowd forgot about our own rather mundane battle with Liverpool to get into the Europa League. Villa beating Liverpool hardly registered for the majority of the Spurs faithful, a clear indication that this was an opportunity lost to consolidate our Champions League place and the bogey prize of beating a mediocre Liverpool side who should have been nowhere near us in the first place is hardly something to shout about, especially when you consider that we finished below an equally average Arsenal team, despite the protestations from our deluded Country Bumpkin Neighbours from down the road.

The game itself was a mirror of our season. yet again we struggled to break a team down and conceded a sloppy goal because we failed to close down a long range effort. Its getting exasperating beyond belief to see the same issues time and time again not being resolved. If it wasn’t for two marvellous pieces of invention from Pav, we would have lost the game 1-0. For all our possession, the lack of a killer ball and clear movement within the six yard box is a worry. This could improve once Huddlestone is back to full fitness as its clear he is our main creative outlet and gives Luka far more freedom to buss around in dangerous areas. hard as it is , it looks to me like Defoe seems a mere shadow of the player he was, he seems to have lost that yard of pace that made him a poacher and without that he looks very ordinary. The less said about Peter Crouch the better, although there was a rather unpleasant incident where he got into some verbals with a fan in the East Lower. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand Crouch, I long for the day that he leaves our club but at the same time there is no need for fans to abuse our own players whilst they are in our colours. Having said that Crouch is paid a fairly hefty salary to not react to this provocation and he should have either asked a steward to get the fan in question removed or turned the other cheek. Nobody comes out of incidents like this with much to crow about and I do question grown men thinking its their god given right to scream abuse at fellow individuals, its hardly something they would do on the street. On the other side of the scale Crouch has been awful a few Champions League highlights aside and I really do hope we have seen the last of him.

Crouch gets abused by a fan

However pressure on the players is not uncommon at Spurs, its been there for as long as I can remember and I remember a quote from Glenn Hoddle from back in the 1980s that sums Spurs fans up
“It is difficult to play at WHL as the players are always under pressure from the fans. Fans at other clubs want success every year but at Spurs, they demand it.”

I’ve often wandered if being a Spurs player is a poisoned chalice, because there is no doubt the expectation and the burden of tradition and history weighs strongly at the Lane and at times can be as much of a negative as a positive.

Pav on the other hand was born to be a Spurs player, infuriating as he is talented, when he does well it tends to be spectacular but is as inconsistent as the club he plays for. He also plays football with a smile on his face and you can’t help but warm to him. Although we need better I really do hope he stays, there is a genuine bond between him and the fans and in these days where this relationship gets increasingly polarised “Super Pav” is a player to cherish. He is also our top goal scorer alongside VdV with 14 goals, paltry in comparison to some of the heavyweights in the Premiership I concede but certainly a return given the amount of playing time he has had that means he has to stay. Given Redknapp’s quotes below it would seem he agrees:

“He has dynamite in his boots,” Redknapp said of the Russian.

“When he is on form he is fantastic. I have been to France to watch players three times this week and I’m looking at them and thinking they’re not as good as Pav is.”

Its a telling sign, at least Redknapp recognises Pav’s talent, its time for him to get the best out of him.
Moving onto Harry, its lovely to see yet again he has rounded on the fans. I have to say the interview is a disgrace, apparently this is “as good as it gets” for Tottenham. Erm no it doesn’t Harry. He seems to be a man who knows his limitations and is now trying to push his achievements to the fore. Seriously stop banging on about beating Arsenal at the Al Quaeda Library, Newcastle, West Brom and Aston “Bland Drab and Boring” Villa have done it. Arsenal are a poor side overrated by their deluded “fans” who somehow think they were good enough to challenge for the title. Why not focus on our failure to beat such a limited side at home, rather than point to a somewhat fortuitous victory which whilst no doubt enjoyable because its always nice getting one over (yet again) on the unwashed scum from down the roadhowever apart from local pride there’s nothing else in it in the bigger picture because quite frankly Arsenal are not in the class of United, Chelsea or even a Man City and we should have been comfortably above them. On the other hand the victories against the two Milan sides whilst far more impressive than winning away at Arsenal are scant consolation for a season where if it wasn’t for a 93rd minute winner, would have meant we would have failed to beat any of the bottom fours sides in the Premiership and also lost to three out of those four. Its these areas where Harry needs to concentrate and improve if he’s to take the club forward, not continue to try and defend his failures this season.

Yesterday Chelsea sacked Ancellotti for finishing second, it seems Abramovich has lost patience with a man who only last season delivered the club’s first ever Double. From the outside looking in, its a curious decision by the owner of London’s Fourth Club. There of course have been rumours flying around for ages about Harry going to Chelsea, though even I can’t imagine Abramovich being quite so stupid. I’d welcome an Ancellotti Redknapp swap, as mooted a few weeks back.

So the curtain now falls, attention will turn in the short term to next week’s showpiece at Wembley before we move onto an England qualifier but as ever the football heart beats first and foremost for my beloved Tottenham Hotspur.

Its been emotional, its been heartbreaking, its produced moments of ecstasy and brilliance as well as being infuriating and at times ridiculous. No other team can go from being so utterly awful to so amazingly sublime with quite such astounding regularity. But most of all this is Tottenham, and this why our club chose us. We are Tottenham.

Roll on Next Season

Player Ratings

Cuducini – 7 Not much to do and was unsighted for the goal. Generally has come in and done well
Kaboul – 7 – Had a steady eddy game at right back
Rose – 8 – Great to see a young player come through and good competition for Benny
Dawson – 7 – few nervy moments but looks assured alongisde Ledley

The King of White Hart lane – 8 – I love this man like I love my family. A Legend.
LEDLEY LEDLEY
HE’S ONLY GOT ONE KNEE
HE’S BETTER THAN JOHN TERRY
LEDLEY LEDLEY

Lennon – 7 Busy but struggles when teams are defending deep
Sandro – 8 – What a player. Do we really need Scott Parker
Huddlestone – 7 – Cruised through the game in 1st gear, a fully fit Hudd makes so much difference. The best English passer of a football at the moment.
Modric – 7 – Quietly effective as ever, though not as authorative as in other games.

Crouch – 2 – No comment
Defoe – 4 – very poor, little movement or nous

Subs

Pav – 8 – Scored twice, had decent momvement. A talent, keep him and get the best out of him
Krancjar – 6 – Probably the last we’ll see of him in a Spurs shirt, criminally underused and always carries an attacking threat. We won two on the spin and he scored the winners. We have won 3 in 15 since Redknapp dropped him. Go figure