the stomach punch

Posted on March 1, 2012

It’s been a long few days since the final whistle echoed from Mike Dean’s whistle at the Emirates last Sunday, and yet the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach has yet to subside. As a Tottenham supporter, I feel like the much-hyped North London Derby was a patented Bill Simmons’ “stomach punch” result.

Tottenham's Brad Friedel and Ledley King

by the look of their body language, both brad and ledley know how i feel.

Those readers familiar with ESPN writer Bill Simmons will know exactly what feeling I’m talking about… but for those you still in the dark, take this quick detour to catch up to speed.

Losing so badly to your biggest rival is always going to be a painful experience, but the manner in which Spurs fell to the Gooners and the banter/circumstances/hype that surrounded the match pre-kick off combined to make watching this loss the football equivalent of swallowing a medieval flail: painful. We entered the match as favorites, sprung out to an early lead, and crashed spectacularly by allowing five unanswered goals. Out classed, out hustled, and out thought: it was an ass kicking of the highest order.

However, if I’m really attempting to use Simmon’s Levels of Losing system to describe how the 5-3 shalacking felt to a Spurs supporter, I have to admit that this wasn’t exactly a “Stomach Punch” match by definition, despite it feeling like I took one the gut. But just because it isn’t that level of a loss, it doesn’t mean it couldn’t actually be classified into several of Bill’s other categories in that column. Actually, the loss was so freaking comprehensive that simply placing it into a single level of losing doesn’t really do it justice. Let’s examine how and why this match disparagingly fits into so many categories in detail.

Level X: The Monkey Wrench
A match where either a) the manager of your team made an idiotic game decision or b) a referee robbed your team of impending victory.

Like any typical fan, the first scapegoat I targeted after a loss of this magnitude was the referee. And being completely honest, Mike Dean had a nightmare out there. And though I’d love to blame him for the Spurs’ woes, it’s important to remember that his nightmare was in both directions. His inconsistency affected both sides of the battle, and he really set a negative tone for the match by letting it get very chippy, very early. It was almost like he had been looking forward to dealing out a deck’s worth of cards, and invited it by allowing rough play from the opening whistle.

However, I’m not dense enough to think it was his fault Spurs lost so dramatically. Nor do I think his decisions swayed the outcome in the slightest. No, the root cause for this loss falls squarely on the shoulders of Tottenham’s own manager-in-demand, Harry Redknapp.

I can see the logic in why Harry opted for the same starting line-up that featured in the 5-1 demolishing of Newcastle two weeks before. But in trotting out a traditional 4-4-2 formation this past Sunday, you had to wonder if ‘Arry even remembered who we were playing. This wasn’t the depleted Newcastle side that we faced the week before — who were missing two of their normal back four (the Taylors) and their two most mercurial midfielders (Tiote and Cabaye) — but instead a balanced Arsenal 4-3-3 with a world-class striker at its apex.

My mother could have told you that the Woolrich were going to play through the middle with the extra man, and they were always going to dominate possession with only two men in the Spurs midfield. The numerical disadvantage itself was at least partially at fault for Parker’s sending off. Outnumbered, Scotty was trying to do it all on his own and, as a result, made some badly timed, lunging tackles.

why harry chose to take off saha, who had been working twice as hard as adebayor, still confounds me.

The gaffer recognized his folly by the half, and he had the team revert to the 4-3-3 that’s brought them so much success this year… but the choices Redknapp went with to make that happen probably were only half right. Kranjčar made way for the extra central midfielder we so vitally needed in Sandro, but then van der Vaart came on for Saha to help aid possession. The problem with that was two-fold.

First, Saha wasn’t the striker that needed to come off. Adebayor was embarrassingly worthless, having reverted back to the unmotivated and lazy bastard we all hated during his stints at Arsenal and City. His work ethic was pitiful, he was constantly fishing for calls, and was generally out of position for the entirety of the match. Saha might not have the same potential in his old-man legs any longer, but at least he was using them.

Secondly, Lennon should have come in instead of Rafa. While I get the idea of bringing on the Dutchman to help wrestle away a bit of the possession, I think stretching the Arsenal defense with speed on both flanks would have been more effective than trying to beat Arsenal at the possession game they hold so central to their cause. Instead, he left Bale to wander the middle of the park like an Alzheimer’s patient and put Rafa right in the same space to do the same thing.

On the whole, it was if Harry had no clue how to approach the match. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say with the way he screwed the pooch with the match tactics, I’d think he was trying dissuade the FA from offering him for the England job. After that match, maybe I’d rather he goes anyway.

The interesting thing about the game falling into “The Monkey Wrench” category is how a good chunk of the referee qualification actually came from the Gunner faithful, who were still moaning about Dean’s decisions even after they won. The most common complaints included his awarding Gareth Bale a 33rd minute penalty for a supposed dive, and Arsenal not being awarded for two early penalties of their own for a handball on Parker and a foul on Gibbs. First off, all of those were actually correct decisions. Both Gibbs (right leg) and Szczesny (left leg) caught Bale ever-so-slightly for the penalty call, the Parker handball was unintentional and would have been extremely harsh to give, and Gibbs literally collapsed into his defender when he realized he was about to lose the ball. Secondly, quit bitching… you won, by a hefty margin. There were even a few overly enthusiastic claims that Dean was caught celebrating Tottenham’s second goal… again, from fans whose team won the damn match.

Level IX: The Full-Fledged Butt-Kicking
Sometimes you can tell right away when it isn’t your team’s day, not just the epiphany but everything that follows — every botched play; every turnover; every instance where someone on your team quits; every “deer in the headlights” look; every time an announcer says, “They can’t get anything going”… you just want it to end, and it won’t end. … but you can’t look away. It’s the sports fan’s equivalent to a ninety minute torture session.

if someone would have told me before the match that walcott would have a brace in the NLD, i would have laughed in their face.

Now I’m sure a load of you are screaming, “But Tottenham were up 2-0 inside of 35 minutes!” But that’s just looking at the scoreline, which told very little of the events unfolding on the field. Yes, Arsenal’s defense was horrendous in the opening half… but so was Tottenham’s. No Spurs fan in their right mind saw that opening and thought to themselves, “We’ve got this one in the bag.” I also don’t think there’s a single one of us out there that would say that this match wasn’t a full-fledged butt-kicking either.

Despite the early success with two goals, Spurs remained overly reliant on the direct route in hoofing it up to Ade/Saha. When it became apparent that this method no longer worked and Harry changed to the wider formation Tottenham should have started with in the first place, they still tried to hoof it up to a guy that wasn’t even working for the ball. Instead of bringing on Lennon and pushing Bale back out to the wing to provide a dual threat, they left him isolated, out of position in the middle. By the time they attempted to play a more possession-oriented, wider game, Arsenal had run away with the match.

It was horrible watching it go down, knowing there was nothing the boys could even do to flip the result. I would literally rather be water-boarded than be forced to watch the last 48 minutes of that match again.

Level II: The Goose/Maverick Tailspin
Cruising happily through the regular season, a potential top four team suddenly and inexplicably goes into a tailspin, can’t bounce out of it and ends up crashing for the season.

This potential end result currently haunts my nightmares. Could this match have been the tipping point for entire season? Sure, it’s a very gloomy outlook on the effects of the match, but it’s not as if these types of collapses haven’t happened before.

Going into the match, Spurs held a relatively massive 10-point lead over their hated neighbors, a figure that could have ballooned to an insane 13 points if they had won. We had definitely been the better side up to this point in the season — at least on a consistency front — and look assured of a Champions League spot next season. Arsenal seemed ripe for the picking, fresh off of a blowout in Milan (who we scraped by last year) and a particularly poor performance against Sunderland in the FA Cup. To me, it was clear that the Tottenham players all thought they thought they could walk in and mop the floor with the Gunners… in their own kitchen, no less.

After the loss though, we’re now sitting a worryingly narrow seven points above the Gunners. With United lying in wait next weekend — and Parker suspended for his idiotic red card — that gap could easily be whittled to four points if the Arse can manage a win away to a buoyed Liverpool. If we do suffer defeat at Old Trafford too, it could be a difficult task to resuscitate our mojo for the home stretch of the season. And if we struggle to recapture that early season form, we could find ourselves slipping into a dogfight with the rivals we once felt so comfortably ahead of in the race for the Champions League.

———————————————————————

Many of my fellow Yiddos are calling for calm in this “crisis”, and rightly so. There’s a lot of season left to play out, and at least Spurs do have a margin — albeit a narrower one — to help fend off competition for European places. Both Chelsea and Arsenal have a tough schedule ahead of them too, so there’s plenty of chances for them both to drop points.

But I’m still going to sound the alarm simply because that’s what I do best. And we probably deserved the loss as karmic retribution for old ‘Arry letting Adebayor take a penalty in front of the Arsenal crowd.

Long story short, losing to Arsenal scares me. And though it’s been bad having their uppity fans rub the loss in our faces, it would be even worse if they ended up in the higher position at the close of the season. We handed our closest rivals a big boost, hopefully it won’t come back to punch us in the stomach again in May.

biting the hand that feeds you

Posted on February 28, 2012

look at all of those hooligans... at lest that's what MLS is wants me to think.

I talk a lot on this blog about the progress MLS has made over the last few years. The league has experienced a gradual but noticeable raised profile, and that’s been due to the league enhancing itself across the spectrum: more soccer-specific stadiums, increased global awareness, improved on-pitch product, budding rivalries, exclusive TV deals, and — perhaps most importantly — a growing devoted fan base.

I’ve talked at length about how impressed I’ve been with the improved atmosphere at MLS matches, and that is due in large part to the growing number of true supporters groups that show up for every match that their team. Some of these have gained some “notoriety” for their rabid support, such as the LA Riot Squad, Seattle’s Emerald City Supporters, Portland’s Timbers Army and Chicago’s Section 8. But there are countless others for each club that are present at every match banging their drums.

So when I read this week that MLS has come down heavy on some of it’s most devoted fans, my first reaction was, “Isn’t the league just biting the hand that feeds it?”

Don Garber and Friends issued sanctions on Tuesday against Houston Dynamo’s supporters for their multiple violations of the MLS Fan Code of Conduct over the course of last season. Because of these violations, the Dynamo faithful such as the Texian Army are banned from bringing flags, banners, drums and confetti from away matches indefinitely (but probably just for the fist two away matches of the season). I ask you, how exactly is the all-too-rare MLS away fan supposed partake in healthy, competitive banter with their rival fans without such instruments? I suppose they can still sing, but that’s not exactly a skill that most MLS supporters groups have perfected yet… especially when only 20 of you can travel to fill the chorus in the first place.

So what horrid indiscretions did these “hooligans” commit to deserve such harsh punishment from the league?

They “ignited” illegal smoke bombs on three occasions (at FC Dallas, at Sporting KC, and at the MLS Cup Final in LA).
There were multiple supporters using obscene language and gestures at the MLS Cup Final.
They threw various objects that presented a safety risk thrown onto the field in the direction of players and stadium personnel, also at the Home Depot Center.

Look, I’m all for MLS trying to protect its fans, players and personnel. But of those three violations, really only one warrants any sort of safety attention, and that’s items being thrown on the field. I’m by no means condoning this kind of action from fans, but punishing the entire fan base for a handful of unfavorables tossing plastic water bottles and a mini-flashlight at Landon Donovan is a bit overboard. There were plenty of Dynamo supporters in that section that not only paid for a ludicrously priced MLS Cup Final ticket and took a 28-hour bus ride to get there, but didn’t throw a damn thing. Why should they be punished for the acts of a few idiots?

As for the obscene language and gestures, could you imagine the English FA attempting to police and punish these actions in the Premier League? Of course not. If so, you’d see away fans banned from every match. And while I don’t condone this behavior either, I’ll be the first to admit that I’ll drop an F-bomb or two during the course of every Tottenham match I watch… it comes with the emotions of being an invested supporter.

MLS fans of the Independent Supporters Council

fans that are willing to travel across the country to attend an MLS "independent supporters council" are not the ones you want to be punishing.

And smoke bombs… well, I still don’t see why MLS has such a problem with these. Sure, they obscure vision and could possibly incite panic, but the open nature of most MLS stadiums means the smoke tends to clear quickly. They’re even creating a bit of a double standard on the practice, as they practically set off their own during significant matches.

If they’re having problems with individual fans, use CCTV and match footage to identify the problem makers, and ban them individually. It’s not that hard, especially considering England already use this template to police their hooligans. The way it’s currently set up, it’s an all or nothing cut off that will ultimately hurt the league in the long-run.

What MLS really has to remember about this situation is that these diehard fans are the lifeblood of this league. It’s not the Eurosnobs such as myself, who will only attend a few matches a year, that are going to help the league convert non-soccer Americans into fitba fans. Rather it’s these “superfans” that will be the ambassadors the league so desperately needs to grow the overall fan base. These are the fans that will inevitably drag some of their MLS-virgin friends to one of the many games they attend each season, and ultimately some of them will become fans themselves.

Look, I don’t disagree with the league needing to deal with fan control and to deal with the limited number of hooligans amongst it’s devoted following. But if they end up alienating these fans, their biggest and most ardent supporters, the league could drive away their most valuable assets… the ones that pay your bills.

wrong side XI: left mid

Posted on February 22, 2012

this is part X in the “wrong side XI” series, where i’ll be selecting my very own starting eleven, assuming of course that i could choose any player from any team in the world. you can read the rules i’ll be following to make my team selection, and what formation i’ll be squeezing them into, on the first post in the series.

Ezequiel Lavezzi, Gareth Bale, Eden Hazard, Cristiano Ronaldo, Juan Mata

my shortlist for left mid compiles players from all over the world: argentina, wales, belgium, portugal and spain.

At long last… we finally reach the front three of my hypothetical team. It’s been a long time coming, considering that this series was originally intended to wrap up prior to the end of Summer 2011. And while I’ve spent roughly the last 10 months (occasionally) working on this project, debating relatively boring positions, we’ve now crossed the threshold into the so-called “glamour” positions.

Whether you want to call this player a forward, an outside midfielder, or a winger, he’s almost exclusively an attacking player. Sure, my formation defines this position as one of the five in the 4-5-1. But in practice, it’s a position that behaves much more like one of the forward three in a 4-3-3.

In general, I expect these players to attempt to receive the ball high and wide on the touchline. From there, they can do what they like: drive further forward on the flank, cut into the middle, or drive in a cross. In fact, I expect a large majority of my attacks to funnel through the left or right mid’s feet as I would instruct my players to look to the wings as option #1. Defensively, I just want them to high pressure when the ball is near, and track back whenever the other side breaks.

The job of picking this player, as you might expect, isn’t very easy. The primary reason for this is the cornucopia of wide attacking players that I enjoy watching. The second is because many modern wingers are becoming more and more ambidextrous in their wing of preference. But I’ve got a good set of contenders in mind that I doubt many would argue with… jump past the break to see if you would or not.

Continue reading →

ten words or less #47

Posted on February 20, 2012

the last time the minnows of stevenage graced this blog, it's because their scott laird was punched by one of his own fans as they upset newcastle in last year's FA cup.

If this wasn’t a vintage “FA Cup Magic” weekend, I apparently don’t know what one is. One “upset” was on the cards, as the O’Neil bump effect continued on as Sunderland definitely thumped Arsenal and sent them crashing out at the Stadium of Light. Stevenage triumphantly/frustratingly held — and let’s be honest, outplayed — Spurs, earning themselves a lucrative replay at White Hart Lane. Liverpool thumped an unlucky Brighton side to temporarily re-over-inflate their fan’s expectations for the rest of the season. And Chelsea… well they continued to look piss poor as Birmingham City forced a replay at St. Andrews where they’ve only lost once all season.

The FA Cup’s been enough to fill a hundred story lines on its own, which has predictably delayed my job of finishing my next full length article. So as I struggle to push out the next post, enjoy these articles by writers who are a bit more diligent and focused than myself.

Why Chelsea are stupid not to let Mata reign centrally. – guardian.co.uk

Smart. Someone buy me this. – thebeautifulgear.com

Behind the scenes video from Alex Morgan’s SI photo shoot. – theoriginalwinger.com

Adidas HQ gets a shiny, futuristic makeover. – contemporist.com

Villa taking advice from Cleveland Browns. This will end poorly. – foxsports.com

I bet you didn’t think that futsal was that dangerous. – kickette.com

Potential bidding war brewing? Anfield Cat up for adoption soon. – dirtytackle.net

Am I to take a female “model only” club seriously? – theoffsides.com

Americans buying Tottenham? Not sure how I feel about that. – express.co.uk

This year’s football feel-good story is undoubtedly “Zambia”. – inbedwithmaradona.com

the long awaited cinderellas

Posted on February 15, 2012

Over the last five to six years, the UEFA Champions League has become a bit of a dull affair. Season after season, we get to see the same super clubs battling it out with one another to see who gets to be this year’s queen of the ball.

when i first watched APOEL play in the champions league this season, i was very confused. did someone let tottenham back in and force them to wear odd, yellow-stained kits?

Don’t get me wrong: the football on display over that time in the Champions League has generally been fantastic. We’ve been lucky enough to witness some dazzling individual and team performances. How can I really complain about getting to watch the best players in the world competing for the world’s preeminent title?

Well as it turns out, I can find something to complain about within just about anything.

Taking a closer look at the participants in the UCL Round of 16 over the past five seasons (’06-’07 through ’10-’11), only 15 of the 80 clubs have come from outside the traditional top five European leagues (England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France). That 18.75 appearance percentage for clubs outside the top five leagues drops to 15% for the quarterfinals and all the way to a donut for the semifinals onward. In fact, looking back over the last 15 seasons, only Porto’s magical run to the trophy in 2003/2004 featured any club outside the top three leagues taking part in the final.

If that type of trend isn’t concerning to you, it should be. Participation in the group stages and later of the Champions League is the footballing equivalent of a club hitting the lottery. The €5.5 million guaranteed to each of team might just be enough to sign a reserve player at a Bayern Munich or Real Madrid, but for clubs from the smaller leagues, it could be enough to stave off extinction. And the more the Champions League group stages are dominated by the bigger sides from the bigger countries, the greater the divide becomes between the big and the small. It won’t take much more than that to sentence an entire class of club acorss Europe to their doom.

Some don’t see that as much of a problem for the sport, as it’s just football prescribing to the “survival of the fittest” mentality that’s bound to come with the influx of money into the sport. They believe we’ll all be better off watching Barça and United square off again anyway, what with their superior skill and marketing might.

barcelona vs manchester united in the champions league final

thanks in large part to fc basel, we have been "spared" another barcelona vs manchester united final.

So despite Michel Platini’s best efforts to boost the participation of non-marquee league clubs, it’s clear that this is a tournament steadily becoming one for the have’s rather than the have-not’s. And to me, that’s a really sad thing.

While I’m always a fan that loves to take in and lay witness to extraordinary players doing extraordinary things, I’ve got an unmistakable urge to root for an underdog, too. Maybe that’s something ingrained in me as a Tottenham fan (and which duly made last year’s adventure extra special), or perhaps I’m conditioned to it from growing up in a country with wildly popular knockout tournaments that are primed to launch a Cinderella or two. But ever since the rise of the Premier League and the revamp of the European Cup into the Champions League, the tournament has had an increasingly distinct lack of underdogs for which we can root.

This season, however, has been a departure from that trend.

This Champions League campaign features a comparatively massive five clubs from outside the Big 5 Leagues, or 31.25% percent of the field. Not only is that the most we’ve seen since the 2001/2002 edition, but it’s the same as the previous two editions.. combined. There’s no way Platini can keep from cracking a smirk every time he hears those statistics.

Now, admittedly, three of those five sides aren’t exactly newcomers to this elite level of European football. And unsurprisingly, all of them all come from Europe’s best-of-the-rest leagues. Benfica of Portugal (League Rank – #6) is the most successful of that group, having won the competition twice, and finished runners up once. Russian Premier League (#7) sides Zenit St. Petersburg have a UEFA Cup to their name, and CSKA Moscow have made numerous appearances in Europe’s top competitions.

But, those two remaining clubs — Switzerland’s FC Basel and Cyprus’ APOEL Nicosia — are the real, live Cinderella teams that this tournament has been sorely awaiting.

FC Basel’s home Swiss Super League is ranked 13th in Europe, which most years would have enough to make them the team hailing from the lowest league in the Round of 16. But this year, they’re joined by an APOEL side that hail from a league ranked 21st in the 2010 Coefficient rankings from which this year’s tournament field was decided. At least In the 10 years of Champions League data that I’ve poured through, no league has ever contributed a Round of 16 (or equivalent) side with a lower UEFA Coefficient than the Cypriot Championship.

Now before anyone bites my head off for calling these teams Cinderellas, I am aware that both sides have at least made previous forays into the Champions League group stages.

APOEL Nicosia — or ΑΠΟΕΛ Ποδόσφαιρο if we’re writing it in proper Greek — have only once qualified for the group stages, in the 09/10 edition. Though they finished bottom of their group, they did manage split the spoils three times in group consisting Chelsea, Porto and Atlético Madrid. That campaign was highlighted by an impressive 2-2 draw with Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, in which Nenad Mirosavljević scored an 87′ equalizer. Prior to that year, APOEL hadn’t ever managed to advance past the 3rd qualifying round.

underdogs with star talent -- like basel and xherdan shaqiri -- are breathing life into a tournament that was starting to feel stale.

Basel, meanwhile, have performed slightly better than their fellow Cinderella side in Europe’s top competition. They’ve managed to reach the Group Stage four times, the most ever for a Swiss team, but they’ve even done one better by reaching the final 16 when they qualified for the now-defunct Second Group Stage in the 2002/2003 tournament. That magical campaign included a number of impressive results, such as two thrilling ties with Liverpool, tying Manchester United away, and defeating Juventus at home.

But just because both teams have had (relatively minor) successes in Europe before, that doesn’t mean they’re not true Cinderellas.

Though the Swiss side are probably better known for being “the side that looks like Barcelona that’s not actually Barcelona”, their qualification to the group stage was historic in that they’re the first team from Switzerland to ever directly qualify for the stage by winning the league. They Swiss champions have also boasted one of the most impressive young players in the tournament in Xherdan Shaqiri, though the impressive winger will depart for Bayern Munich in the summer. It’s always easier to root for an underdog when they’ve got an exciting star player to watch.

APOEL are the debutante Cypriot side at this stage of the competition. As a club based in an island nation of only around a million residents, they’re pitted against a Lyon side that hail from a metropolitan area of around 1.4 million residents and the second largest in France. Just to even reach the Group Stage, they had to navigate through three qualifying rounds against stiff competition: Albania’s Skënderbeu Korçë, Slovakia’s ŠK Slovan Bratislava and Poland’s Wisła Kraków. Thanks in large part to these exploits, APOEL manager Ivan Jovanović was named Serbian Manager of the Year. If that’s not a Cinderella side, I don’t know one that is.

Perhaps understandably though, neither side are being favored to advance any further in the tournament. But that doesn’t mean they won’t move on, either. Despite losing their first leg yesterday 0-1, APOEL are capable of upsetting an unusually weak Lyon side… especially with the second leg at home. Basel’s chances of advancing are slightly less likely, with their tie against mighty Bayern looming next week. Bigger upsets have happened though.

Regardless, even if neither team advances, both clubs have proven that there is room in European club football’s ball for an unfancied side or two. Other small clubs from around Europe have undoubtedly taken notice, and will use Basel’s and APOEL’s success as inspiration for their own ambitions. Coupled with Platini’s Financial Fair Play coming into effect in the coming seasons, it could be just the boost those clubs need to find the belief that they too can make an impact.

And if that’s the case, perhaps we’ll get a yearly dose of the Cinderella magic in the Champions League, instead of once every blue moon.

playing the game

Posted on February 3, 2012

When the clock struck midnight GMT on Tuesday and brought an end to another hectic transfer window for Spurs, I admit that I was initially left a bit dumbfounded by the moves the club made. Who did we bring in? They’re both over 33! Has Levy lost it?!?!

spurs signing blackburn's ryan nelsen (above) and everton's louis saha, both considered past it by lower clubs, didn't exactly show "ambition". or did it?

I angrily hashed out an outline for a scathing post — rife with references to nursing homes and a need for another ambulance on match days — detailing how these aren’t the type of players that a club supposedly harboring title ambitions should be signing, and that they shipped off players who were better than the players replacing them. However, as fits of rage tend to do to me, I was too worn out and frustrated to complete the article that night.

The workday on Wednesday provided me ample opportunity to further reflect on the transfers. And the more I thought about it, a potentially bigger plan seemed to unfold from them. Maybe there was more to these signings than I had initially thought.

Let’s take a deeper look at the departures from White Hart Lane, first:

Roman Pavlyuchenko finally engineered his long awaited exit from the club with a reported £7.5 million move to Lokomotiv Moscow. Aged 30, he’s nearly four years younger than the man who replaced him in Spurs strike corps. Yet despite showing flashes of an ability to produce brilliance, his inconsistency led him to spend most of his time in North London on the bench, bitching about lack of first team chances and/or pining for a transfer. Either way, Pav moving on was always the most likely move to happen this January.
Sébastien Bassong — another player frequently linked with a move away from Spurs — departed to Wolves on loan, with an option to buy at the end of the season for what’s expected to be a fee of around £4.5 million. Though not a bad player when not caught with his pants down, he was rather prone to a major error now and again. At nearly a decade the junior to his replacement, and with a severely depleted Tottenham back line, Bassong’s departure was one that left me the most worried.
Steven Pienaar’s return to Everton on loan was also another puzzler. With Lennon struggling for fitness, and Gareth Bale’s style of play always seeming to invite a crunching tackle, Spurs aren’t exactly up to their teeth in wingers at the moment. Though not as direct as Bale or Lennon, Pienaar was a great player to be able to bring off the bench. But thanks to a long injury lay off, Harry never really grew that fond of the guy, so a move wasn’t that unexpected.
getting rid of pav's high wages and poor attitude will be more beneficial than if spurs had held on to him through the summer.

Vedran Ćorluka’s loan to Bayer Leverkusen, much like Pienaar, leaves Tottenham dangerously thin at the right back slot. At 25, he’s also significantly younger than his replacement, and he was never a player I bemoaned to see on the pitch due to his comfort on the ball. But, with speed a priority in Spurs style of play, Charlie’s propensity to look like he had a refrigerator strapped to his back while running made him a prime suspect to move on. Although I suspect this move is more to do with him securing a spot in Croatia’s Euro squad than a want to leave the club.

What’s the one thing all of those players has in common? They’re all players in their prime that were desperate for first team football.

Securing money now for Pavlyuchenko was clutch, as a poor performance at the Euros would have severely deflated his sell on value in the summer — something strikers are particularly at risk of during major tournaments. But loan moves for the rest were brilliant bits of business, too. All three are likely to feature prominently for their new temporary sides for various reasons (injuries, league position, etc.) so if they perform well, Spurs will be in position to ask for larger sums for them all come the summer.

Now let’s take a look at Spurs two arrivals:

Louis Saha comes with the stigma of being old and injury prone. Despite that, and much like Pav, he’s still capable of producing a moment of magic. Even better though — and very unlike the Russian — is that he’s actually still capable of producing a match-dominating performance. Though with only two goals this term, one would hope being surrounded by higher quality players will bring that out of him more frequently.
Ryan Nelsen also arrives with a dodgy fitness history, but a boatload of experience to balance. He captained the only side at South Africa 2010 that left the competition without a loss. Nelsen has 172 Premier League caps to his name, and was a major contributor to Blackburn Rover’s relegation-staving efforts last season after forming a formidable partnership with oft-Spurs target Chris Samba. And his four year spell with D.C. United also inspires… confidence. Yeah.

So what do these elder statesmen have in common? They are proven veterans — a.k.a. Premier League Experienced Players – who know that they’ll have to fight if they want to see playing time, and won’t pitch too big a fit if they don’t make the starting XI. Oh yeah, and they were both FREE and are likely on significantly less wages than the players they replaced.. Considering that both have signed relatively short contracts, if neither works out, we’ll be rid of them quickly without having to pay anything extra.

Effectively, we’ve swapped skilled back-ups with problematic attitudes for slightly-less skilled back-ups AND stayed cash-positive. On closer inspection (and assuming that our loaned players perform well), the moves actually set the stage for Spurs having enough to make a bid for a world class player or two in the summer.

Combining the £8m for Pav, plus conservative estimates for cash from the sales of Bassong (£5m), Pienaar (£6m), and Ćorluka (£6m) in the summer, and you’re left with at least £25 million. Further sales of fringe players such as Giovanni dos Santos and potential Champoins League money could easily raise that total.

with levy saving money this window, it could clear the way for a massive buy in the summer. i'd prefer that move to be for this guy.

For that kind of money, you could make a pretty big big splash in the transfer market. Loïc Rémy, Bafetimbi Gomis, Leandro Damião and — most preferably – Fernando Llorente, are all players within reach with that much cash in Levy’s back pocket. Even if they have to pay over the odds for that elite striker we’ve all been craving, there should still be enough left over to buy cover at right back, on the flanks, or in the center of defense.

So while this revelation obviously has me excited, I’m not stupid enough to not see that this plan also has tons of potential pitfalls.

The most glaring and obvious problem Levy’s thriftiness has caused us is the current crisis at right back. With Walker picking up a hamstring injury in the win against Wigan on Tuesday, Ćorluka off to Germany, and the young Adam Smith loaned to Leeds, there are no fit, natural right backs in the side. Sure, Kaboul and Nelsen can deputize, but they’re not exactly comforting options.

Even more concerning is how confident Levy seems to feel that Tottenham are going to finish in the top four. If he wasn’t that confident, would he have resisted his penny-pinching ways and kept the better players on the books? I don’t know the answer to that question, if you’re waiting for a response… hence my concern.

Look, Dan Levy has played the game that is the transfer market far better than any other manager/sporting director in the top six over the last two years. And though this January’s moves don’t seem the shrewd on the surface, they could pay off and pave the way to Tottenham establishing themselves as a new force in the Premier League.

But if we somehow manage to shit the bed and slip out of the top four, I have no doubt that the whole house will go to hell. Falling out of the Champions League means we’ll no longer have any incentive to offer Bale or Modrić to stay. They’ll likely have to sell one, if not both. While that’s another £70 million to spend, it’s even more to replace.

And if that happens, I’ll be really, really pissed that I didn’t write that scathing post I had originally planned.

ten words or less #46

Posted on February 1, 2012

louis saha rushed in for tottenham medical

louis saha was rushed in for a late medical to complete his move from everton to spurs.

As the dust settles after another underwhelming transfer deadline day, I’m sure all of you readers are fed up with transfer news and gossip. I am, at least. In an effort to stray away from that topic of conversation, and to give your brain a break from digesting it all, I’ve put together this TWOL that contains absolutely zero transfer news. Except for the mocking picture above. So if you’ve come here look to catch up on yesterday’s “madness”, you might want to navigate elsewhere.

Barça’s kits next year: taking Blaugrana to literal the extreme. - football-shirts.co.uk

Milan disrespecting a man to whom they owe so much. – foxsports.com

The perfect artwork for me: one part nerd, one part Spurs. – onasixpence.bigcartel.com

FIFA’s looking into allowing four subs… only in injury time. – guardian.co.uk

I want to play Norwegian Bubble Football right now. – kckrs.com

Trolling Atlético fans, Spanish press, and knock-off kit manufacturers. - reddit.com/user/coolinwithcosta

Pushing your best player out the door, Philly? Bad idea. – delcotimes.com

Don’t click this unless you have a lot of time. – si.com
courtesy of an old high school frenemy, @Ryan7Hurley

Bravo to whomever “amended” Dan Borislow’s Wikipedia profile. – kickette.com

Someone needs to make Twellman and Wynalda watch this. – youtube.com