Urrrrgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Is the feeling this morning, much as it was the feeling last night, before the twenty five million nerve-calming beers kicked in.
Actually I suppose it’s really ‘Urrrrgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh’ followed by ‘ffffuccking spurs’.
A great derby? No, not a great derby. A fat turd of a pain in the arse derby, where the pressure of the night seemed to put our strengths and our weaknesses under a magnifying glass. We were great going forward at times, particularly Robin, and promisingly looked dangerous at set pieces. The way they pushed forward to get back in it after the wind caught the famously twatlike David Bentley’s clearance was good to see.
But on the other hand we were shaky and indecisive at the back, and at time seemed to be playing with that familiar uncertainty where you just know something bad’s going to happen, where it feels almost as if the players are willing the opposition back into the game.
The game reached its nadir in Gael Clichy’s horrible error for their third goal, unfortunate for him because he’d looked good until then, but it was that kind of night, and there was a sense of horrible inevitability when Asbo Lennon arrived to steal the draw.
I’d have preferred it if Eh?Boo-him had made a terrible error, and then he might be dropped, but then I remember that Eh?Boo-him can never be dropped because he knows what Arsene did last summer.
And you might argue that one minute longer and we’d have taken the three points, but it’s those minutes on which title challenges are built. Still, Gael’s a bright chap, and hopefully will learn from it.
Another man who might want to learn from last night is Manuel Almunia, but then again you’d hope that they covered ‘holding onto the ball’ in goalie school a bit earlier in the course, in fact just before the class where you learn especially ‘not to flick the ball back out into the path of onrushing attackers’, and about a term before the Nayim Seminar on how not to concede to random hoofs from the middle of the pitch.
He’s clearly a good shot stopper, and he had a great game midweek, but there was a moment towards the end of the first half last night when he punched a corner out when it would have been easier to catch it which to me summed up what’s not quite there with him: something about him doesn’t inspire confidence, and when your defence is already fragile the last thing you want is to worry about the keeper.
Very frustrating, but anyway. There’s nothing to be done now except hope that the guys can pick themselves up in time to build momentum through the weekend for the Turks and ManUre next week.
I think it’s also legitimate to derive a huge amount of pleasure from quite how happy it made the little Spurs fans at the end after they secured there point to haul them up to, oh wait, bottom place in the league… Mind you, I suppose when you’re locked in a relegation struggle it’s all about hitting that 40 point mark, and every away draw counts…
Loading ...
