Spurs hit another Brum note – but it’s all down to some terrible luck...
IT was another fantastic night of floodlit football, full of gritty tackles, classy passing moves and some superb goals.
No, I’m not talking about the Camden New Journal football team, whose five-a-side prowess was often too good for a team from one of our anaemic newspaper rivals in a match on Monday night. (We won’t embarrass the Camden Gaz-thingy by printing the scoreline – but we smashed seven past their hapless keeper).
Nope, what I’m on about is the Arsenal display on Saturday night at Aston Villa, a performance which saw the Gunners show new-found composure in times of need.
Arsenal have been known to cave-in in situations like this, but they held firm against a Villa team in its best form for years.
Contrast that composure with the trademark panic at White Hart Lane on Sunday. Top Four Tottenham summed up their miserable existence in their inability to hold on to a lead against Brum City. How they danced around as fouling Robbie Keane scored two goals and how miserable they looked when Seb Larsson scored in the last minute to leave them with nothing. Larsson is a talented player – too hot for Top Four Tottenham, but not good enough for Arsenal, who released him a couple of seasons back.
If you can afford to let that kind of talent walk away, the players who pull on the famous Arsenal red and white must be the cream of the crop.
HAVING spent the best part of 50 years following the Spurs, I have to say I believe this must be the unluckiest team in our club’s history.
I have seen some great sides, witnessed some great players, and enjoyed some great games. But never before have I seen such uncalled-for calamities on the field of play.
On Sunday, it was a long-range effort that the Brummie winger Larsson will never repeat.
Hark back to the end of the campaign two years ago. The most important game for sometime, having been in fourth spot for over half the season, and the team are felled by a bout of food poisoning.
Look at our teamsheet: we currently have only one specialist centre-back fit, Michael Dawson. Our treatment room is packed with defenders. I hear full-back Benoit Assou-Ekotto has been ruled out for the rest of the season following a knee injury. Ledley King’s return has no firm date, while Anthony Gardner and Ricardo Rocha are both nursing sore ankles.
I do not really understand this concept of bad luck – but what I know is we’ve had a fair helping of it in recent times at White Hart Lane. When the wind changes, let’s hope it blows some in a southerly direction along Seven Sisters Road.
