Category Archives: Banter - Page 2

The Facebook supporters are the reason we won’t win tonight

Posted by on April 14, 2010 14 comments

I’m happy with the way things have gone this season. I never honestly expected to win anything or manage a 4th place finish. Top 6 was always what I realistically thought Spurs would achieve and that still looks like being the case. There has been some good and some bad but overall you’d have to be happy with the strong squad Harry Redknapp has managed to build in a relatively short time.

What has really got to me this season is the new breed of Facebook supporters. Status updates such as ‘The Cup’s coming home to the Lane’ and ‘Top 4 is in the bag’ only ensures the FA Cup will be coming nowhere near the Lane for the foreseeable future, neither will top class European football. I know you are going to have to deal with dickheads whatever club you support but we seem to have more than our fair share at Tottenham. I’m sure any real Millwall fans will be feeling the same pain currently. Their surge in Facebook support the last few weeks has been spectacular and the majority aren’t real wall but will paint their faces and get the big foam fingers out because they have won a few games.

Don’t get me wrong, I went to town when we beat A5ena1 and again when we won the League Cup because we had actually achieved something. As soon as these cocks open their mouths, I’m convinced it puts the mockers on us. What makes it worse is as soon as the inevitable happens, every other football fan is ready to pounce. The amount of status’ on Sunday digging Spurs out was unreal. Even people that have never watched a game of football before and are only interested in Eastenders and M Dubz as lesuire activities were having a pop.

I’m not confident about tonight and I’ll be very surprised if we win but please can we keep the big talk to a minimum until after the game. I hope we can make North London Derby Day a time when real Spurs Supporters unite in denouncing Facebook Tossers and their status updates because they have destroyed our season.

Why does everyone but Harry love Pavlyuchenko?

Posted by on March 2, 2010 35 comments

Although Roman Pavlyuchenko seems to be the current favourite among the Spurs faithful on the back of his goal scoring exploits, manager Harry Redknapp doesn’t appear to be a massive fan of the Russian.

Regarding Pavlyuchenko, Redknapp has been quoted as saying, “when he wants to play and wants to work he’s great.” He has been a bit more positive about the striker since those comments but I still feel like it’s painful for the Spurs boss to say anything complimentary where Pav is concerned.

I don’t know what’s gone on during training, maybe he is lazy, but generally when Pavlychenko has been given a chance to play, he has scored. While I’m a bit unsure about the rest of his game, you can’t argue with a striker that gets in good positions and puts the ball in the back of the net.

I think you can understand the reasons why Pav would have got disheartened and perhaps a little lazy since Harry’s arrival. When a player signs for that type of money, he would expect to be getting regular football. Not even making it onto the Tottenham bench at times must have hurt. Maybe he didn’t handle himself in the best possible way but a lot of this can be put down to his agent and them trying to get a move away from the Lane during the transfer window.

It must have been even more frustrating seeing Robbie Keane be allowed out on loan as well as Eidur Gudjohnsen’s arrival. Pav probably thought that he would be in the exact same position before the transfer window opened, sitting on the bench if he was lucky. With no World Cup to showcase his talents in, it was looking like being an awful season for the Russian.

Luckily, he took the opportunity of a twenty minute window against Wigan to turn things around. His sudden appearance in the team has made the season more interesting at a time when it was becoming a bit stale and will hopefully give our other strikers something to think about.

I’m not totally convinced by Pav’s overall play but he’s scoring for fun and you can’t help but love him! Why doesn’t Harry?

Let’s keep our fingers crossed for Harry and for Sol

Posted by on January 15, 2010 11 comments

Last time I commented about Harry Redknapp’s tax problems and shady past I was told in no uncertain terms I was in the wrong. Last time I commented on Sol Campbell I was accused of being all kinds of prejudice. Therefore, I thought why not get them both involved today and you can really go to town on me!

A few weeks ago I said Harry’s tax issues could have an adverse affect on our season. Thus far, you couldn’t say this ongoing issue has been bothering the players at all. It does however put the club in the press for all the wrong reasons. Personally, I don’t really care what he did elsewhere but it’s obviously not a positive thing having his boat on the front page of the tabloids every other day for non football reasons.

I don’t know what the process is from here, if it’s just a case of paying back what he owes or if there is a possible prison term but we can well do without any of it now Man City have a new manager who has managed to teach them how to defend a bit in a matter of weeks. Our top four push is looking a lot tougher now so we need the manager to be able to focus fully on doing some decent business in the transfer window, not stuck in meetings with his brief.

As for our old friend Sol, it’s so nice to see him back at Arsenal. I’m very much keeping my fingers crossed for the lad in the hope he doesn’t have a nervous breakdown during a match this time around. It’s sad that we are no longer treated to pictures of Sol in the tabloids with various females and I find it disgusting that anyone would suggest this has anything to do with the fact he could no longer afford to weigh out Max Clifford. All the best for the season Sol.

The biggest Spurs flops of all time

Posted by on November 11, 2009 42 comments

With Roman Pavlyuchenko today insisting he must leave Tottenham, it made me think back to players of years gone by that have arrived with big reputations only to depart before making any impact whatsoever.

Pavlyuchenko cost £14m just over a year ago, that’s serious money in today’s market for a player that isn’t English. Pav has seen his chances limited under Harry but when he has played, he’s done nothing to justify that huge price tag. We’d be lucky to get £4m for him at the moment.

Other players that immediately come to mind are;

Hélder Postiga, the supposed Portuguese Superstar who turned out to be anything but.

Sergei Rebrov, cost a lot of money but amounted to little.

Kevin-Prince Boateng, a Comolli special, £5.4m of fake royal rubbish.

Who are your biggest Spurs flops?

Harry’s not worried

Posted by on November 6, 2009 2 comments

fosters manager tableJust when Rafa Benitez thought things couldn’t get any worse, a study published by Foster’s today reveals the Liverpool manager is officially one of the most worried managers in the Premiership.

The leading Aussie beer brand analysed the interviews and statements from every Premiership manager since the beginning of the season using its Ozometer, an algorithm developed specifically to analyse language and word sequences to determine how worried or carefree a person is. More than a thousand different quotes were assessed enabling Foster’s to create a league table of the most and least worried football managers in the top flight.

Villa’s Martin O’Neill ranked as the least worried of manager in the Premiership, topping Fosters’ league table. The research found that, over the course of the season so far, he has been almost one quarter (24.7%) No Worries. He was at his least worried during weeks four and eight of the season, when he was 56% and 53% worry free, coinciding with wins against Birmingham City and Chelsea. He is currently enjoying another stress free week with the Ozometer showing him to be 48% no worries, despite the fact his side only managed a draw against Everton at the weekend.

Hull City manager Phil Brown ranked as the most worried. Analysis of his interviews shows that he is 30% more worried than Martin O’Neill, with a no worries percentage of minus nine. He was at his most anxious after losing at Burnley in week 5, with his score plummeting to minus 53%. Bolton Wanderers’ Gary Megson, Birmingham City’s Alex McLeish and Blackburn Rovers’ Sam Allardyce join Brown in propping up the table with scores of minus 8%, minus 5% and minus 3%respectively.

However, this trio was only marginally more worried than Benitez who scored minus 2%, making the Liverpool boss the 6th most worried gaffer in the Premiership. Rafa’s outlook improved visibly after his team’s recent win against Manchester United, but dropped to minus 14% after the dramatic loss to Fulham last Saturday when the referee’s red cards reduced his team to nine men. His score is likely to drop further this week as Liverpool’s Champion League dreams hang in the balance.

Alongside Martin O’Neill at the top of the table are Chelsea’s Carlo Ancelotti and Arsene Wenger closely followed by Spurs boss Harry Redknapp.

Despite being second in the Premier League, Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson sits just mid-table in the league table of worriers, weighed down perhaps by the loss of Ronaldo and his obsession with referees. Fergie can muster no more than a disappointing 11th place in Foster’s No Worries league and has even displayed negative scores after winning games.

Sports psychologist and ex-Sporting Partnerships presenter Dr David Lewis comments: “Psychologically, worries are most likely to rise in situations where there is high pressure of us to succeed but uncertainty about whether we will do so. Therefore it is hardly surprising that managers like Benitez have been plagued by worries throughout the season. He should be careful not to fall into the common trap of Denial – refusing to accept any problems exist when it is obvious to fans that they do. An optimistic approach to life would help him see opportunities where others see only setbacks, and to look forward with confidence.”

Foster’s brand manager Natalie Clearie said: “It’s good to see Martin O’Neill setting an example to his Premiership peers. No Worries is an attitude. It’s about having a positive, Aussie-like spirit no matter what life throws at you, not just when you’re doing well. It seems most of the managers in the Premiership need to ‘get some Australian in them’.”

Foster’s will be keeping football fans entertained with the latest no worries news and views, and its pick of the best of the web, via its Twitter feed. To join and have your say, please follow us at twitter.com/FostersUK

Sol, Sick Chelsea Fans and Super Crouch

Posted by on September 24, 2009 26 comments

I know as soon as I dare to mention Sol Campbell’s name, hundreds of people get straight on the comments to jump to his defence, but the bloke is seriously unbalanced. He’s gone from one of the best defenders in the country to one of the biggest jokes in a relatively short space of time. I doubt he’d sign for Arsenal if he could have his time again; it all started going wrong from that point! Thankfully Harry has come out and said he would never sign him for Spurs although I doubt anyone with half a brain thought that was even a slight possibility.

I’m assuming most people know about the sick Jermain Defoe song a large proportion of the Chelsea fans were singing on Sunday. I won’t repeat the lyrics here but suffice to say it involves his brother. I know there are a lot of songs that are near the mark but this is too much as far as I’m concerned. If this had been a song directed at Sol, the majority of the Chelsea fans would be behind bars by now!

5-1 victories are a nice habit to be getting into, especially away from home. Hull, Doncaster and now Preston have all been on the end of Spurs’ new favourite score line. I thought it would be a tight nervy encounter last night, not only because of PNE’s solid record but also our makeshift defence, but it proved to be an easy passage into the 4th round of the Carling Cup for Tottenham.

Harry has a bit of a problem with who starts on Saturday with Crouch in such great form. I’d imagine he’ll go with the Keane out of position and Crouch and Defoe starting together option again. I’d prefer to see one of the three on the bench to give us a better balance in midfield but whatever the starting line up, I’m quietly confident Burnley will be the game that sees us get back to winning ways in the league.

Poor Pavlyuchenko and Well Done West Ham

Posted by on August 26, 2009 68 comments

He certainly appears to be the 4th choice striker as far as Harry Redknapp is concerned and now Roman Pavlychenko has decided 4th place isn’t good enough and he wants to leave Tottenham because of his lack of first team chances.

‘No footballer likes being on the bench game after game,’ said the 27-year-old.

‘I could lose my place in the Russian squad for the 2010 World Cup.

‘I’m ready now to listen to offers from other clubs. But I can’t say anything concrete right now.’

I’m not surprised by the fact he wants to move on but I am a little surprised at the timing of his decision. Surely it would have made more sense to try and get a move before the season started and not after just three games and on the eve of a Carling Cup tie he is likely to start against Doncaster.

Pavlyuchenko must have realised he would be spending a significant amount of time on the bench this season, especially after the arrival of Peter Crouch, but he has a chance to impress tonight and put some pressure on the manager. If he didn’t start tonight, then I would have understood a decision of this nature after the game but to come out publicly beforehand makes little sense to me. He would have been far better off waiting until January. It only needs one of our other strikers to pick up an injury, and things could change completely for the Russian.

In other news, West Ham fans have likely ruined our chances of hosting a World Cup in the near future. Some of their comments on my post from Monday speak for themselves but their actions last night were a disgrace. Hopefully they get the punishment they deserve but I can’t think of a punishment severe enough for taking away the 2018 World Cup.

Well done West Ham, I hope you are proud of yourselves.

I love beating West Ham

Posted by on August 24, 2009 40 comments

I really do. Not all their fans are arseholes but from a lot of the stuff they came on here with last season, a large proportion are. I do have a lot of time for Zola and Clarke though and it must have been a tough game mentally for their players after the tragic Calum Davenport incident.

It wasn’t an impressive Tottenham performance as it was in our first two games of the season, but it was impressive if you are impressed by Spurs grinding out results, something we haven’t been able to do in seasons past. It’s also nice to see Aaron Lennon’s finishing improving. If he can just try and look up a little more before crossing and playing final balls he’d be priceless. He isn’t far off it now.

It will be interesting to see who starts against Doncaster in the Carling Cup 2nd Round match but you’d imagine most if not all the players that have been on the bench recently will be in the starting line up. It is a difficult one because I don’t think it’s a game you can take lightly but those players wanting to impress will likely make up for any lack of match sharpness.

I’m taking nothing for granted against Birmingham but it’s a game you’d expect us to win at home 9 times out of 10. Another victory would give us huge confidence going into the Man Utd game on the 12th September, followed by Chelsea away the following Sunday, the game that is obviously the bigger test. Ok, Utd will be no picnic but there is no reason to fear any team at the Lane these days. Going to the Bridge does get me a little scared!

Hull v Tottenham – Live discussion

Posted by on August 19, 2009 41 comments

Link to live pictures (cheers Danny)

I thought this might be interesting, feel free to get involved. If it works I’ll make it a regular thing during games.

Teams
Spurs
1. Heurelho Gomes
2. Alan Hutton
22. Vedran Corluka
19. Sebastien Bassong
32. Benoit Assou-Ekotto
7. Aaron Lennon
12. Wilson Palacios
6. Tom Huddlestone
14. Luka Modric
10. Robbie Keane
18. Jermain Defoe

SUBS
23. Carlo Cudicini (GK)
5. David Bentley
9. Roman Pavlyuchenko
15. Peter Crouch
16. Kyle Naughton
21. Pascal Chimbonda
24. Jamie O’Hara

Hull
1. Boaz Myhill
19. Steven Mouyokolo
6. Michael Turner
5. Anthony Gardner
3. Andy Dawson
15. Bernard Mendy
20. George Boateng
44. Seyi Olofinjana
11. Stephen Hunt
18. Caleb Folan
25. Daniel Cousin

SUBS
12. Matt Duke (GK)
8. Nick Barmby
10. Deiberson Geovanni
16. Peter Halmosi
17. Kevin Kilbane
23. Kamel Fathi Ghilas
24. Kamil Zayatte

Bar Hutton in for Ledley, it’s the same side that beat Liverpool on Sunday, fingers crossed for another positive result, COYS!

Adebayor is doing the right thing

Posted by on July 21, 2009 19 comments

I’ll start by saying I’m not Emmanuel Adebayor’s biggest fan. He’s arrogant and while very talented at times, is lazy and inconsistent in equal measures. That said, I think he’s made the right move leaving Arsenal for Manchester City. I know the majority of fans think it’s just about the money but I don’t believe that to be the case.

The players Man City have signed thus far look mightily impressive and by all accounts, they are just getting warmed up. Robinho, Tevez and Adebayor have the potential to be as good as Henry, Etoo and Messi in terms of what they could do for Man City. They are certainly far better than Van Persie and get my ankle from row Z Eduardo, who while both very talented both are very temperamental and it will be interesting to see how they will get on for a whole season without the big man. A make or break season for pink boots Niklas “you’re shit” Bendtner one suspects.

Although Adebayor has been a bit hit and miss in recent times when he is good he’s a real handful often unplayable – we (spurs) know this add to that he weighs in with crucial goals in big games as Man U will testify. Can Sparky get the best out of him? I think so, Wenger is a genius with most things he touches, but I think Hughes could have just a big an impact on Adebayor. And not only the Welshman, the players and ambition he sees around him, yeah the 170 large a week is a right touch and without a doubt probably sealed the deal but trophy opportunities at City look more of a possibility than at the Emirates at the moment. Hughes is an underrated boss as well, he showed his managerial skills when he gave Arsene Wenger a tactical master class last season up at The City of Manchester Stadium, City giving Arsenal a 3-0 drubbing. Before this he turned Blackburn from a team playing the ‘kick anything that moves’ style of football into a team that actually weren’t too bad on the eye. OK last season the away form was a joke, but the home form was immense, players like Barry and Tevez will relish the away days so it surely wont be long before they are picking up points all over.

You know I wouldn’t be surprised if Cesc Febregas is a little bit jealous of his former team mate. He must be seriously considering his options after five dry years as well as being witness to the amount of top talent that has been sold during that period. Yes Spurs have been guilty of the same in selling Berbatov and Carrick but these are players that have left because we could not offer Champions League football, that is not the case at Arsenal. Adebayor has left for a side not even in Europe, who admittedly have offered him good money, but surely this just emphasises the lack of ambition down at Arsenal? Are Man City contenders for the top 4 next season? Why not, they have made some astute signings and have a good manager, who are the weakest in the top four, Arsenal? Definitely. Will Adebayor’s decision look so materialistic next season, well it wont if he’s on an open top bus with the top of the FA cup on his head singing blue moon, and if they double that up with 4th place a few people might being eating humble pie.