Linesman sinks Spurs
A difficult game in difficult conditions saw Spurs slip to their first league away defeat this season. A great strike by Kevin Nolan won the game in what was largely a scrappy affair.
Bolton were better than Spurs in the first half and harried our midfield who found it difficult to supply the front men. Nevertheless we scored an equaliser just minutes after Bolton took the lead but the linesman, who was generally dreadful, ruled it out for offside. Even fat Sam, all credit to him, said it was a goal. Bolton then hit the post.
Spurs were much improved in the second half and played the better football. Bolton were pegged back but defended well. Robbie Keane came on and did ok but nothing spectacular. Jenas hit a great volley which was cleared off the line and Mido was unlucky to hit the post and not the equaliser and the Stalteri hit the bar with a cross turned shot, thanks to the wind.
If the linesman hadn’t being wearing his Bolton kit Spurs would have gone in level and I think would have then pushed on to win the game based on the second half performance. However it was not to be and we take away nothing when we deserved a point.
The next games for Spurs are West Ham, Wigan (A), Sunderland (H), Portsmouth, Middlesboro (A), Birmingham, West Brom (A) and Newcastle. Spurs should be looking to take at least 20 points from those games to get us back into a winning run and set us up very nicely as we go into the new year.
COYS!
posted by Paxton Road at 10:23 PM
16 Comments:
Sending this from my blackberry at Manchester airport. Just spotted some members of the board waiting to board their private plane, schticking themselves like we've just gone top of the premiership. Call themselves fans?? Bunch of publicity grabbing egotists. Said it from day one, Jol et al flatter to deceive. Bring back Big Al and GG. WE WANT WALSHY ON THE PITCH. THE HAIFA HIT SQUAD
10:36 PM, November 07, 2005
Have to say the first post is dillusional!
10:51 PM, November 07, 2005
this is all crap... spurs could not handle the ball in midfield. Besides the volley, Jenas was horrible, Carrick was nothing special and Davids' passes were short of decent. Our touch was bad all match long, Keano was not involved when he entered and for Jol to bring on our least talented player in Brown late when we had no control all match was a terrible decision. I agree we were unlucky with the Defoe decision, but for Christ's sake we must improve our midfield play if we expect to make Europe.
11:14 PM, November 07, 2005
Is someone at sky sports taking the piss????? Not only did they have Alan "muggygoonerscum" Smith,the most biased, anti-spurs pundit ever to grace the nations ears, dishing out commentary BUT everyone of their reporters have got it into their thick skulls that Bolton "haaaaaaaaave it" Wanderers completeley outclassed us.......is their some kind of conspiracy?????
For the first time in 13 years of watching footie on sky i found myself crying out for Andy Gray to step in, take charge and ideally bang some heads together!
Not taking it away from Nolan's strike (great goal!) but i hate losing to poor sides......Bolton got found out second-half! As soon as they lost Davies and the wind was in their faces, BW were a poor team and we need to be beating these sort of sides! Just still not sure that we've got someone who can unlock doors when teams like BW shut up shop ("park the bus"). Players of the past like Gazza, Teddy, Ginola etc had the ability to create something from nothing and were never short of ideas! Maybe we missed young Lennon on the night......what a prospect!!!
Finally, does anyone know the addresses of either tonights "silver fox" linesman or El hadj "cheating, diving, useless, clumsy" Diouf.......i'm in desperate need of venting my anger!!!
Lets pick ourselves up and hope that tonights loss was the last one of what has been a positive and i hope you'll agree exciting 2005!
ps. good luck to all our young english lads this weekend!!
11:18 PM, November 07, 2005
Totally agree with the anon 11.14 pm scribbler.
Fact.. Bolton were shit
Their midfield were poor in distribution and running off the ball.
Davies and Diouf never had the ball early enough and but for one shot by Nolan were never going to score.
Fact... Jenas was poor , Carrick was invisible for most of the game, Davids was all work and no end result.
Fact... Mido was crap
Fact .. Defoe was our only danger man and was unlucky with the offsie .
Our best chances fell to the Po who had a nightmare and scuffed his shot.
Salteri was garbage.
Robinson flapped again and was lucky not to be punished.
King and Dawson were solid and were the only real plusses.
Keano was lively and should play more.
Fact ... Brown was shit.
So we have played 3 matches against Man U ... Arsenal and Bolton.
Fact.. only 2 goals
Fact.. only 2 points.
Fact... We are not as good as our press tells us we are.
Good night
11:28 PM, November 07, 2005
Rather watch Arsenal... we were crap
11:30 PM, November 07, 2005
All huff and puff but once again no end product. We just don't look like scoring at the mo. Too many cameo performances this season. Have we honestly put in a good 90 mins? NO
11:41 PM, November 07, 2005
i cant understand the so called spurs supporters on this site. if the 2 offsides had gone the other way, if we didnt hit the post but scored, if we didnt hit the bar but scored........ifs and buts i know, but give them a break. it was a scrappy match, bolton got the breaks, spurs didnt. end of. a week ago you were all saying never been as excited for a 100 years etc. talk about fickle. judge the team at the end of the season , not 90 mins.
COYS
12:16 AM, November 08, 2005
and why are all the slating comments anonymous ? show your faces ya bastards !!!
12:18 AM, November 08, 2005
Does anybody know why Lennon was not even on the bench? Understand Jol's idea to put more tough, experienced players in the middle against the workmanlike Bolton, but Lennon would have been perfect to come on instead of wasteful Jenas or even Tainio.
Bolton with their big lumbering defenders would have big trouble dealing with the pace and trickery...
1:00 AM, November 08, 2005
why lennon was mia...
http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/article.asp?hlid=323354
1:42 AM, November 08, 2005
Our midfield just didn't seem to settle at all tonight, especially first half. Bolton's midfield seemed bigger and stronger, and hunted our man on the ball in packs of 2 and 3 all night long, shutting us down regularly...
This is where width was lacking to go around the back of Bolton and threaten them...
Some of our players had a poor game (Lee), but that happens...
We desperately need Routledge and Lennon back to give width to our attack.
Remember spurs fans, our team can't play beautiful football every game, some games will be tough and scrappy, we just need to grind these type of games and get a result.
Sometimes, a bit of luck helps, and decent officials too.
COYS.
5:36 AM, November 08, 2005
my god u call yourself fans i watched that spurs game i was impressed yes mido played like crap and yes jenas didnt do much to say the least but even so we went to the fortress of the rebox and we were bloody unlucky by playing poorly so hello to all you wankers were a bloody good side except we need the right combination in the midfield that asian bloke needs to f off he cant cross for shit
6:25 AM, November 08, 2005
Those who criticised the team for last night's "defeat" should watch the match again.
1) It was an EPL quality match with a Sunday League quality linesman. 2 wrong offsides calls very much cost us.
2) Monday night is a miserable time for a team to travel and play 300 miles away from home.
3) The midfield did look slightly off-form but there was still enough quality on display. We controlled the midfield for a majority of the match. Never easy to break down a big Bolton side defending with 10 outfield men.
4) We were just unlucky last night. Just too many strings of non-luck coming our way.
5) Let's look forward to the next match, v the Hammers. We should stay on the positive side. Even Chelsea can lose.
7:12 AM, November 08, 2005
I THOUGHT WE PLAYED QUITE WELL CONSIDERING THE PITCH WAS AWFUL AND IT WAS A COLD MONDAY NIGHT UP NORTH. I DON'T AGREE WITH SLATING ANY OF OUR PLAYERS AT ALL, JENAS HAD A DECENT GAME AS HE HAD A VERY GOOD SCISSOR KICK SAVED OFF THE LINE SO IF THAT HAD GONE IN......WHAT WOULD U FICKLE BUNCH BE SAYING NOW ABOUT HIM!! HES A CLASS ACT AND SO IS CARRICK.
IT WAS ONLY ONE GAME AND OUR FIRST DEFEAT SINCE AUGUST IN THE LEAGUE.......I WILL ONLY START MOANING IF WE DONT GET MAXIMUM POINTS FROM THE NEXT FOUR GAMES........WEST HAM, WIGAN, SUNDERLAND AND POMPEY. BUT IM VERY CONFIDENT THAT WE WILL GET 12 POINTS FROM THESE GAMES.
COME ON U SPURS!!!
12:05 PM, November 08, 2005
Hi all.
I too watched the whole of the game and frankly was disturbed by what some of our passing seemed indicative of: a lack of communication.
I don't know what the exact problem was but our midfield was not what it could have been, certainly in the first half, and our play was too dis-jointed to be acceptable, especially when we know what spurs are capable of. I did feel that Carrick was quiet and was frankly disappointed with some of the play from Davids - he simply lost the ball too many times. Additionally, the fact that long balls were being played to points of the pitch where there were simply no spurs players either meant that the passes were hopelessly inaccurate (which I don't believe) or that there was an expectation that there would be a spurs player there... and there simply wasn't.
To me this means players were being played out of position... and there was a lack of positional team 'understanding'.
On top of that, there were at least 2 significant offsides given, that simply were wrong decisions... and the game should at least have been a draw.
I don't think Bolton were particularly good and I also think spurs were off the boil, which made Bolton's time a lot easier. Offensively, Bolton did very little, to my mind, in the first half, apart from their two goal opportunities, one of which they converted. Defensively, one might argue that they were ok but I just don't know whether the lack of action in the spurs striking area was down to our lack of creativity or whether Bolton can get some credit for shutting us out.
Bolton were astoundingly lucky to get a win... and were even less significant in the second half, when spurs did play a bit better. I thought Mido did not play very well... apart from a lovely run, where he somehow managed to dance past 2 or 3 bolton defenders (I hope that was Mido anyway!) but only to run out of space and to hit bodies on the shot. Additionally, it was Mido that hit the woodwork from about 2 feet out. Ok, it was only a last moment reaction shot but it is about converting opportunities when you get them, so that was pretty disappointing... especially after a lush volley from someone (Jenas? Carrick?) that could have been a most beautiful goal, had a bolton defender not got lucky and blocked it (and he didn't even know about it until it hit his chest).
As for Diouf... Dawson was a bit unlucky to get that yellow... but let's face it, he wanted to kick the s**t out of that cheating git... and just couldn't help putting the boot in (he he).
Also, I have no idea why Jol thought Michael Brown would save the day. I don't enjoy slating people but I judged him on what he did with the ball, and thought he really looked inferior, if one compares his ball control, passing, etc to that of his team-mates.
In reflection, I believe we still have a big problem in midfield, when it comes down to selection and position. This was demonstrated by having calibre midfield players on the pitch yet not getting the potential performance levels out of them.
All-in-all, a disappointing result, especially painful when refereeing blunders denied us the consolation of a point.
12:07 PM, November 08, 2005
Post a Comment
<< Home