Tottenham, Internationals, Fleet Spurs – A Week In The News
By Alan Hill
Kyle Walker out of England squad. [Photo: Jav The_DoC_66]Alan’s 2013-14 Season Diary no. 22
Sunday 10 November pm
Tottenham vs. Newcastle. See Logan’s full match report. Telegraphing passes. Giving the ball away. Wasting free kicks and corners. Cautious slow build up. Two men on Andros Townsend who runs into trouble trying too hard. Jan Vertonghen out of position at left back. Michael Dawson and Vlad Chiriches looking scared of Loic Remy from the start.
Played better in second half. Tim Krul made 14 good saves all together. It was the most by any goalkeeper in 8 years in the Premier League. We have had the most attempts on goal of any team in the Premier League this season, 73. The bottom line though is that the finishing isn’t clinical enough. We lose again 0-1.
Underdog Weekend
Moneybags MC are also turned over by Sunderland. That’s about £300 million spent by them and us in the past year and we both lose to Newcastle and Sunderland. This has been an Underdog weekend. Norwich, Newcastle, Sunderland, West Brom, Palace, all getting wins or draws. The Europa League curse strikes Swansea too. 0-2 down to Stoke in the first half. Arsenal have been hit by a stomach bug overnight. Badly affected their players. Four enforced changes. This really will be the (stomach) acid test of their character. If they weren’t sh*tting themselves before, they are now. Fantastic pumped up header by Van Persie, the “Arsenal” player from a corner. 1-0 United.
Memo to AVB and Spurs: that’s how to make the most of a corner. That’s the final score. I stand by what I said before kick-off. Arsenal’s title in May. Aargh, wash my mouth out.
Olympic Stadium
According to Saturday’s Sun, the Fat Lady still hasn’t sung at the end of this particular (soap) opera yet. It says the House of Lords report on the legacy use will be published later this week and may contain some interesting comments on Orient’s chances of a ground share with West Ham.
Wednesday 13 November
International break. So far so good. Pretty quiet so far on the news front. A pleasant change from the brouhaha in the last one over Greg Dyke’s FA commission and Roy Hodgson’ comments. Long may it continue. Michael Carrick, Steven Gerrard, Kyle Walker, Robin Van Persie, Daniel Sturridge, Harry Kane have all dropped out from international friendlies with injury. No doubt we can expect – and rules should require – that for their own good, none of them should appear in their league team’s next game.
Thursday 14 November
Tottenham have brought down a lot of criticism on their heads by threatening legal action against little club Fleet Spurs for using the cockerel logo as part of their badge. According to a BBC TV news article yesterday, the have been using it ever since the club was formed many years ago by army veterans, out of love and respect for THFC. Spurs have said they have to do it because of the way the law works and that if they do not stop Fleet Spurs, it will weaken their case when they try and stop others from profiteering on the logo. That sounds a bit weak and the club is coming across like an ogre and a big time bully. I think it would be preferable if they changed their tack and gave permission for limited use of the logo and supplied a bit of sponsorship instead. Much better for the image. If I worked in PR for Arsenal, I would step in and do exactly that.
Friday 15 November
It will be interesting to see how Southampton do against Chile tonight. Seriously though, I may well watch Sweden vs. Portugal. It’s seems a shame that either Ronaldo or Ibrahimovic won’t be at next year’s World Cup.