Category Archives: Just spurs

The Slightly Later Than Scheduled Festive Reflection

Posted by on January 6, 2012 3 comments

Jermain Defoe Blonde

So, it feels pretty good to be a Spurs fan at the moment right?! Six points off City with a game in hand and possibly even more satisfying, six points in front of Arsenal with that same game in hand. I’m looking forward to the FA Cup this weekend and I’m hoping we will make short work of Cheltenham even if most of the first eleven are given what would be a well overdue rest. I do have a soft spot for Cheltenham because of the amazing racing entertainment the town provides me with in March but their football team, not so much.

Even the bookies are starting to take our league form seriously as you can now see quotes as short as 8/1 for Tottenham to win this season’s title. I still personally think we have to much to do to overhaul Man City and I’m sure Utd will bounce back after two straight defeats but what has really impressed me this season is our winning mentality. The game against West Brom this past Tuesday night really illustrates that fact. Roy Hodgson had a few injuries to key players and basically set up his team to take a point. They were very hard to break down and until Sisqo scored, it was looking like being one of those nights. In season’s gone by, that is the sort of game we would have ended up losing through a lack of concentration or determination but Harry now appears to have the players instilled with a belief that they can win every game, no matter the circumstances.

Some fans were saying the point against Swansea was a disappointing result but I definitely would have taken a draw before the game. Only one team has managed to go to the Liberty Stadium and win this season and when you consider it was our third game in quick succession, avoiding defeat was a good result. The performance against Norwich was sublime and Gareth Bale showed once again why he is one of the very best players in the Premier League. While one of the positives of us not being involved in the Champions League this season is our excellent domestic form, Bale not being able to show what he is capable of against the European elite is certainly a negative.

Now the January transfer window is upon us, I expect to see Spurs linked with the usual infinite fictional targets. Samba and Cahill are the most realistic names for me but with Dawson apparently set to start against Cheltenham, our centre back injury problems are easing slightly. A number of my close friends are Millwall fans, so it’s nice to see a couple of our younger players being loaned to the Lions. Hopefully it will be a win win situation, with Ryan Mason and Harry Kane getting some much needed first team action, while also helping Millwall stay in the Championship.

This could well be the key month as far as our title hopes are concerned. Homes games against Everton, Wolves and Wigan with a trip to Man City in there for good measure. City have tough Cup games against Man Utd and Liverpool which could well work in our favour. Is January 2012 going to be the month when Tottenham actually sit on top the Premier League? I bloody hope so!

Satay House lol lol

Posted by on December 7, 2011 5 comments

Benoit Assou EkottoHow can anyone dare to question the abilities of my favourite Satay House fan Benoît Pierre David Assou-Ekotto? Not to be confused with the wife and child killing wrestler Chris Benoit, Assou-Ekotto has been one of our best players this season as far as I’m concerned. That is in addition to having the world’s biggest head of hair and saying ‘lol satay house’ on the majority of his tweets. Obviously he’s playing in a very good team, but their aren’t many better left backs in the Premiership currently. His link up play with Bale is consistently excellent and some of his cross field balls are so accurate it’s scary. Ekotto was labelled as a weak link by some idiot this week and while I wasn’t his biggest fan a few seasons ago, Pierre has improved out of all recognition and is also such a likeable character.

I had to come up with three transfer targets for a piece I was writing for the Metro this week and while I found it hard to think of any players that would better what we already have at the club, a new left back was certainly not on my mind. Carlos Tevez was however and while I knew it was a massively long shot, I didn’t expect Milan to say they were having a nice little chat with him an hour later. I might have to re write that now eh?! Maybe we could do with a top class centre half the right side of 30 to cover our hugely talented but equally injury prone mob. Christopher Samba was my weapon of choice but Gary Cahill would suffice. Oh and I like the look of a chap by the name of Fernando Llorente. Scores for fun if you’re reading Harry, he’d be worth a little bid in Jan.

I’m doing the Paddy Power podcast tonight, it revolves around Spurs and betting, the only two things I know much about…arguably anyway. Spurs’ chances of winning the title is the theme I believe. I feel their quote of 16/1 is on the stingy side, but we are less than half the odds of Arsenal so maybe Paddy has got it about right.

You can listen to my Clive Allen interview at The Fighting Cock website. I couldn’t work out the uploading procedure properly. I will at some point learn how to do it, but at the time I was busy trying to volumise my hair to Assou-Ekotto proportions before visiting my local satay house….

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Where do we go from here?

Posted by on June 29, 2011 11 comments

Does anyone else feel like Tottenham are stuck in limbo? Probably too good for the Europa League, not quite good enough for the Champions League. A situation that it appears impossible to free ourselves from. I’m not interested in the riches of Manchester City or Chelsea. I feel like any achievements they make mean very little as there are no real obstacles in either side’s way other than the impatience of their respective owners. It must be boring supporting sides with an unlimited budget. Or is it more boring being stuck in the Europa League for the foreseeable future?! I’m not sure.

Bring back the UEFA and Cup Winners Cups please. Straight up knockout competitions where teams play at their best rather than continual life sapping trips to Eastern Europe on a Thursday night. I realise there is a fair bit of revenue involved but I’m willing to do a fun run or a few boot sales to make up the shortfall. The majority of football fans whose teams aren’t involved in the Europa League have zero interest in it. For those whose teams are, it’s minimal at best until the latter stages.

I’m assuming Harry is going to treat the Premier League as our priority and the Europa League as a run out for players not seeing regular first team action. At least that’s what I’m hoping. Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Man City, Liverpool and Tottenham. They are the top six clubs in the country fighting for just four elite places. My problem is I now think that Liverpool are more likely than Tottenham to oust one of those first four mentioned. Is that the pessimist in me or the realist? I was surprised when we went to Anfield and turned them over at the end of the season, especially when the Pool had been in such good form. It could likely be my pessimistic outlook that garners these types of results for us so I should probably try and maintain it.

I suppose the forthcoming season was always going to be a little anti climactic following the euphoria of a Champions League campaign. I’m just not looking forward to it. More about hanging on to our stars than buying new ones coupled with the prospect of losing Harry Redknapp to England at the end of it. Am I missing some light at the end of this dark rather boring tunnel?!

Is our season over?

Posted by on April 4, 2011 13 comments

Five points behind Chelsea, six off Man City. We haven’t scored in our last three games, haven’t won in five. Since the 16th January, our strikers have only scored six goals between them. Worst of all, Tottenham are highly unlikely to be playing Champions League football next season. A heavy defeat in the Bernabeu on Tuesday night would really finish us off. Even the biggest optimist would struggle to see us winning the Champions League and I’m worried whether the players will have the motivation as well as the threat in front of goal to go to Chelsea, Man City and Liverpool and get results.

Admittedly, we have three home games coming up in the League against Stoke, Arsenal and West Brom. Maybe things will look very different after that, but the fact we couldn’t manage to beat any of the bottom three sides in our last three games doesn’t exactly inspire me with confidence.

Tottenham’s destiny is most certainly still in their own hands. On top of the games at the Lane, Spurs also have to go to Chelsea and Man City. Having dropped so many points in recent weeks, the likely scenario now is that we go into those games desperate for a result. Had we managed to beat a couple of the relegation candidates, the pressure would have been on Chelsea and City to win their home games.

There have been a number of stages this season where we have dropped off the pace a little and I’ve been worried we would struggle to get back in the hunt for a top four spot, but every time the lads have managed to get back involved. I certainly wouldn’t be having a bet on Spurs at the moment and I just don’t like the look of the little gap that’s developing or the fact Man City scored the same number of goals in one game as Spurs have managed in their last six…

Things feel a bit stale

Posted by on March 22, 2011 8 comments

For a couple of months now, it seems thing have gone a bit, for want of a better word, stale. Blackpool and Fulham aside, results have still been good overall but we just seem to lack both killer instinct in front of goal as well as a bit of spark. I can’t quite put my finger on it because everyone is playing well still and we are creating chances but something is lacking.

Van Der Vaart has certainly gone off the boil in recent weeks and he was the one giving us that energy boost and that bit of world class magic. He still doesn’t look fully fit to me and that’s likely why he’s hauled off quite so often. I can’t knock Modric and his play in midfield has been exceptional but his goal return this season is poor. That’s not to say he’s doing anything wrong, if the strikers were hitting the back of the net it wouldn’t be a problem.

I’ve been saying this for a long while, even before the season got underway and I still think we need a world class out and out goal scorer. The problem is, there aren’t many of them around. I’m not sure whether it’s because the way the game is played has changed slightly in the last five or ten years or just the quality of strikers has dropped, but you don’t seem to get your twenty five, thirty goal a season men like you used to. I think Defoe isn’t far off world class on his day and is a top Premiership striker but his inconsistency is becoming an issue. Although Pavlyuchenko is a bit of an enigma, I’d be tempted to give him a little run in the side. Not that I think he’s on Defoe’s level, but just to offer us something different and freshen it up a bit.

It could be that I’m taking too much of a short term view and things will suddenly spark into life again in the next few weeks. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticising anyone and this season has already proved way beyond anything I could imagine, it’s just a little frustrating dropping points that we are more than capable of picking up. This is especially when a top four finish is so crucial to the continued progress and development of Tottenham, and it seems as though the 4th spot is very much there for the taking.

Maybe the Champions League furore has taken the edge off our league form slightly but if that is the case, what the players need to realise is that they won’t be playing in it next season unless they start picking up some points. Even Liverpool aren’t out of the Top 4 battle after their recent good form. I feel like Wigan is a must win game for us now, the problem is I’m not sure it’s a game we will win with a trip to Madrid on everyone’s mind just a few days later…

Could we fare better than Arsenal?

Posted by on March 11, 2011 6 comments

So, the dream has become a reality and Spurs have made it to the Quarter Finals of the Champions League. After being three nil down against those pesky Young Boys in the first qualifying round, Harry Redknapp and his European soldiers are now just four games away from the final of Europe’s biggest football competition.

While the away leg at the San Siro was an assured professional performance the likes I haven’t seen from a Tottenham side before, Wednesday’s home game was an uncomfortable ninety minutes where our players dug in, defended well and secured their passage into the last eight.

Jermain Defoe’s big talk at the start of the season about Tottenham progressing further than the Gunners in the Champions League no longer sounds so stupid. The question now is can they fare any better than Arsenal against the Catalan Giants? Should we draw them in the quarter finals, I won’t be too despondent. While I think it will be a near impossible task over two legs against Barca, anything is possible in football. We have the players to hit them on the break with better effect than Arsenal could manage. Lennon and Bale give us an outlet that Arsenal didn’t have.

While avoiding Barcelona in the next round would be preferable, no side left in the competition is going to be an easy touch. Admittedly Milan aren’t as good as they once were but they are no mugs. Spurs have proven they can mix it with the best sides in European football and appear to have the confidence to take on any team. Our league form may have suffered a little as the results against Blackpool and Wolves illustrate but I’m willing to swallow it if it means this European adventure can continue for a bit longer…

Absolute
I’ll be on Ian Wright’s show on Absolute Radio sometime between five and six tomorrow if anyone wants to hear me talk more nonsense about Spurs!

Submit Your Questions for Harry Redknapp

Posted by on February 3, 2011 43 comments

Here is your chance to ask Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp the question you have always wanted him to answer.

Yahoo are conducting a web interview with Harry and have asked for questions from White Hart Pain readers. Simply submit your questions in the comments section and the best ones will be fired at the Spurs boss on Valentine’s Day.

The more original the question, the better the chance of it being selected, but try and keep the obscene stuff to a minimum please…I know it is probably a waste of time saying that but I’ve done my part. ‘Would you smash it?’ and the like definitely won’t make it through!

Full details can be found at the link below.

Harry Redknapp Interview

Where does Pienaar fit in?

Posted by on January 21, 2011 12 comments

So it looks like Harry Redknapp has pulled off yet another coup in the transfer market by signing Everton’s star midfielder Steven Pienaar on the cheap. Admittedly, his contract was going to expire in the summer, but paying Everton a couple of million to secure his services now makes sense. The only issue is, where exactly do we accommodate him?

Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a great singing and addition to the Tottenham squad. I just don’t see him getting much game time. Obviously, an injury or two and things could change dramatically, but is Piennar going to be happy spending more than 50% of his time warming the bench? I don’t think so. While he can play anywhere across the midfield, his preferred position is as an attacking left winger. Gareth Bale could probably do with a rest from time to time, but I can’t see that being enough game time to satisfy the South African.

An option in center midfield would be playing him instead of Palacios but I don’t really see that working when we are already a bit too attacking in that area as it is. We can generally get away with it at home but in away games especially, I think Palacios should be starting the majority of games despite what his uneducated detractors say. The fact Pienaar is capable of playing across the midfield means he does give us a great option but does this only serve to make him more of a bit part player?

The player’s record at Everton has been impeccable and even this season when there has been so much doubt over his future, Pienaar has continued to give his all. If he sows the same type of commitment and desire at White Hart Lane, I’m sure he will quickly become a favourite with the Spurs fans.

In summary, I consider Steven Pienaar to be a great acquisition for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. Only time will tell whether he can carve out a regular place in a midfield already over flowing with talent and options.

Apologies, Ian Wright and Wrighty7

Posted by on November 29, 2010 1 comment

Sorry about the lack of updates recently. I’ve been living in a parallel universe where Tottenham win almost all the time. They beat Arsenal at the Emirates in the Premier League and qualified for the last 16 of the Champions League with a game to spare. Instead of gifting the opposition late goals and having no luck, Spurs now snatch victories from the jaws of defeat and make their own luck. It’s a shame I’ve had to return from this place but we all have to come back to reality sooner or later.

Another strange thing happened to me while I was there. I chatted to Ian Wright following the scintillating win against Arsenal on his Absolute Radio show and was followed by Wrighty from the Wrighty7 Arsenal Blog. Listening to those two Goons discussing where it all went wrong is even more entertaining than my bit. It starts at around 38 minutes after Teddy Sheringham is interviewed. You can download the podcast at the link below.

Ian Wright Podcast with Mabbs and Wrighty7

As things have been going so well recently, there hasn’t been much pain for me to cover. Hopefully things will continue in this vain and you will just hear from me sporadically!

Bargain Borrowing

Posted by on August 3, 2010 11 comments

Tottenham Loan DealsSo, no players want to sign for us on a permanent basis then! The fact we can’t tie any of our top transfer targets down is a little disheartening but it’s probably also an indication that Harry Redknapp isn’t prepared to buy second rate players just to bring in bodies. He seems very much of the opinion that if the price isn’t right, we should just move on.

Redknapp has been quoted in the press today saying loan deals are probably the way forward for Tottenham in the current transfer market;

“I can see loans happening. I’ve got three players in mind that would not cost a lot of money.

“If we can pull off the deals you are talking about £8million or £9million for three players. Loans would certainly be a real possibility.

“People are going to loan players from all over the world, there will be loads because clubs are struggling to pay the wages. There will be high earners they have to loan out.”

I’m not really sure how I feel about loan deals. Part of me thinks it’s a good thing. You get the player in for the season just paying wages and if it doesn’t work out, you don’t have to retain their services. Often, these players are looking to put themselves in the shop window and put in decent performances throughout the season.

Usually where loans are concerned, it’s players from the top clubs going to smaller outfits. A side in the Champions League having to bolster their squad with loanees seems a little ridiculous. However, with the new rules regarding squad sizes, times may be changing. The wealthiest clubs are going to have a number of players surplus to requirements and loan deal may be the only viable financial option.

The only issue I can see is whether these big name stars are going to have enough hunger coming to Spurs on a temporary basis. Will they just rest on their laurels? If you take Jamie O’Hara’s spell at Portsmouth as an example; he worked his socks off week in week out. I can’t see many of those on the fringes of the Manchester City squad doing the same for Tottenham. Only time will tell I suppose. I’d imagine some business will be done one way or another this week.

Other news;

I’m going to be the Spurs contact for Ian Wright’s Saturday football show on Absolute Radio.

I’ve been asked to share this Arsenal story with you all;
Arsenal Celebrations

You can join our Fantasy League for this season below
2010/11 Fantasy Football

Once you have chosen your team, click on leagues then enter the following code to join the EBA League:
163104-47048

And finally, you can follow me on Twitter here
Mabbs on Twitter