Sunday, October 01, 2006

Zokora's Cheating Didn't Win It - Spurs Did!

Let's have it right, Didier Zokora has proved himself to be a lively addition to our midfield, but today he showed he also does impressions - specifically, Didier Drogba.

The bottom line is that until football has the same technology employed as other sports - be it a video ref or similar - then Tottenham's name is just another added to a too long list of teams that have benefited from inadequate refereeing.

But it wasn't just our boy's Chelsea-esque mime and Defoe's powerful strike that separated these two. Whist Pompey had more possession, Spurs were the ones nicking the ball off the opposition's toes. Our marking and movement were unrecognisably sharper. Dawson was the best boy in the playground for me. Intelligence, passion and absolute will.

Berbatov's endless looks of dismay at Robinsons hoofs up to him said it all. It's a depressing, unproductive tactic and when the ball was played on the floor - I thought we looked good.

Portsmouth weren't a pushover but if they choose to hide behind the penalty decision alone then they're kidding themselves.

We were better than them.

39 comments:

Anonymous said...

Harry (Rednapp) can take his booze reddened ugly mug home and moan all he wants. We outplayed them and refused to give up. End of.

Anonymous said...

We looked alot better today, the first 20 we seemed to be passing the ball around like last season. Good to see berbie back he looks sharp and i'm warming to ghaly as well. Zokora is looking like a great buy lets face it how many times have we got a penalty for diving( remember pires v pompey and drogba and ronaldo)

People try and hide behind lame excuses bottom line is jenas alone should have left em dead and buried, starting to lose my patience with him at the momenthe's runs his arse off i'll give him that but his composure in front of goal is getting silly(extra practice in training is needed JJ)

But who cares a much needed 3 points king and berbie are back let's push on up the table. YID ARMY!!!!

Anonymous said...

we beat them for 2 simple reasons - (1) the front 2 actually moved giving the midfield options and (2) the introduction of ghaly gave the midfield bite, balance, width and allowed jenas back in the middle. we finally ground out a result as we did so many times last season.

murphy is finally starting to show some form, which comes with a run of games. dawson was awesome.

on the penalty, it simply isn't the spurs way. it was won by cheating pure and simple. dont get me wrong, the win and 3 points are much welcomed, but i hope that zokora or anyone else doesnt win a penalty like that again. jol needs to put him right in training.

onwards and upwards though. lets hope this is the start of a decent run and the 'sack jol brigade' return to their slums whence they came.

COYS

Anonymous said...

Please ! how many goals were scored playing on the ground? Are you forgeting that if it wasn't for Berbatov's header, bye-bye??Thanks God he jumped. Keep jumping and scoring!

Anonymous said...

9.28

are you for real?

or should i ask, are you a kangaroo?

Anonymous said...

de de de de.........didier zokora........de de de de......didier zokora!!! good performance but second half was a bit poor. great support from us lot..so fucking loud it was unbelievable...sol campbell deserved everything he got!! cunt

Anonymous said...

just got in!

hahahaha sol got lashed out of it alright. happy days.

zokora? not every week son, but happy enough I'd say.

coys!

Anonymous said...

Good performance in the 1st half. Better balance in midfield(Left=Murphy, Mid=Zokora & Jenas, Right=Ghaly). Its Shame Tainio has fitness problems and had to be rested. Because a fit Tainio would have made our midfield even stronger.

At half-time Jol replaced our right back Chimbonda with Huddlestone. Ghaly switched to right back, with Jenas slotting in ahead of him and Huddlestone partnering Zokoro in the centre of midfield.

Ghaly's passing and inter play whilst on the right wing in the 1st half was much better than Jenas's in the 2nd half (Jenas is a much better player in central midfield.) We also missed Chimbonda's solid defensive play in the 2nd half as Ghaly is not in his league at that position.

Nether the less, Zokora is improving with every game, and I was impressed with Berb's 1st game back from injury.

Alex said...

I really don't think Ghaly was as impressive as some people are making out. He was really good against Slavia for a few minutes, but to start him today was a bit unreasonable. He didn't look convincing for most of the game. I do agree that the amount of long balls in the second half was a bit depressing and gave Portsmouth a lot of unnecessary possession. Jenas did well in the centre and made lots of chances for himself (which he refused to put away). Murphy was also very decent in the first half. I don't think we were magnificent, but in the end a win is a win and I'm happy with it however we got it.

Anonymous said...

Does that win put you up as far as mid-table now? Well done.

Anonymous said...

your birds like a table - big fat legs and always well layed before breakfast - gooner scum

Anonymous said...

LOL! We have as big a cheat and diver in the team as anyone we've ever criticised, and (almost) everyone here is happy about it! Just goes to show what a funny old game it is, and how even funnier we supporters are. We should be ashamed of Zokora, because he blatently cheated, but we aren't. In fact, we all called for a penalty when the actor went to ground and cheered when the non-goal was converted and counted. So long as cheating helps us rather than counts against us, we're fine with it. Well done Didier! We love ya! The ref was suckered by your dive. Great stuff.

Anonymous said...

The more penalties we win like that the better. Who cares that it was a dive? We need to win any way we can and if a bit of cheating here and there makes the difference, I for one don't care. I thought Didier did his dive well and made a total fool of the ref and basically won us the game. Let's hope he saves his next one for a big game like Chelsea or Arsenal.

Anonymous said...

It is a shame that the winner was from a dodgy penalty.
Since the much heralded arrival of foreign players, this has been rife. It is now a part of the game that only British players and fans haven't endorsed. FIFA and UEFA have only started to react to it but I've seen it all my football life (I'm 42) when foreign players are involved. The diving, play acting, asking for bookings etc. will always be there now so we shouldn't act so astonished when it happens.

Harry's right; video technology would have sorted it straight away. If the players knew that the referee had some support they might think twice. We are using trial by jury more and more, maybe every game should be reviewed as a start and punish the cheats with money (2 months wages)............

Anonymous said...

Wow - you SPurs are cheats
join the list of cheats like Defoe and that cheater Jenas

Anonymous said...

For once I have to agree with Harry (Hotspur)and keep up this less negative posting HH, how many times have we come away from a match and said "we should have had a penalty"? or "we should have had 2 penalties"?. what goes around comes around and I'll take any fucking goal at the moment!! However this surely strengthens the call for touchline video replays for match officials and all other types of touchline technology.
We were far better during this game and Harry Rednapp is looking for any old excuse, if it was his player that dived he would take a penalty, its a shame that he can't be more like our Mr. Jol....Honest!

Alex said...

Check out my blog article on the dive. If you want my opinion, it's a disgrace to the player, the club and the fans. He's a great player and events like this could ruin his reputation.

Anonymous said...

Typical. If it had been Drogba you would have moaned for a week. As it is when it's one of your own it's OK.

Just take the 3 points you got after getting outplayed and cheating and shut up.

You're a bottom half team and that's that. All the comments on this page ain't gonna change that.

Anonymous said...

we cheated plain and simple. never again spurs. zokora was a dsisgrace to win it like that and it gave me the hump. it just is not the tottenham way.

COYS

Anonymous said...

It was a dive, it's what hey do in France all the time, he will learn and stop doing it, it was clear that Jol was going stop him by his manner afterwards.
More to the point is the attitude of the radio, television and papers who are all wringing their hands now but don't really give a monkeys.
Take Pires' blatant dive against Portsmouth in 2003, he was nearly 3 feet from the defender but he got the penalty arsenal equalised and all the Radio, television and papers say now is that arsenal went unbeaten all season, don't get me wrong we have to accept that it was a magnificent achievement but nobody now qualifies it with the pires penalty, and that is why I say that nobody really cares about cheating in the long run.
God knows we've been on the wrong end of it for years, we've always paid for our honesty.

Anonymous said...

Cecil you're acting like a big girl.

Anonymous said...

spot on 7:31!!

Zakora's not a baddie, he just wants to do well....I rather like the ct of his jib...

Anonymous said...

Exactly right. We have been on the wrong end of it for years and years. Whilst that doesn't make it right, it means I'm not that bothered if we get a bit of stick for it.

We generally play honestly, I've seen Robbie Keane say when it wasn't a free kick to the ref when it was in our favour.

We're not Chelsea thankfully, and we don't all chase the ref everytime he blows for the other team.

Anonymous said...

Funny Ol' Game

As a team we never played with the kind of swagger you would associate with a top 4 team...but overall played just well enough to deserve the 3 points.

Individually some decent performances from:

Dawson - was like a rock and stood out in a decent defence.
Zokora - has it all! tackling, strong runs, simple passing -class!Murphy - in the first half showed the vision we have been missing.
Ghaly - nice enthusiasm, willing to try to initiate creation.
Jenas - worked very hard, end product in last 3rd denied him MOM.
Huddlestone - always looking for the ball and good strong tackles.
Berbatov - welcome intelligent leader of the front line.

Clearly we have a squad of 'decent' players in abundance, just not sure if we have the overall skill level required to make the top 4 yet. BUT at the same time can't see us finishing far outside of 5th position again this season and have a good chance of winning the UEFA, which would still be great progress compared to the last 15 plus years.

IMO we may be 1 or 2 more world class creative players away from being the finished article. The kind of players that add that something different. This should include 1 skilful left sided player and 1 playmaker. Some of you may feel the answers are already in our current squad, but are just out injured. As it is still to be seen whether Malbranque is one of those flair players we so badly need and of course we have Lennon to come back into the side. We will have a better idea of the potential of this side by January.

Despite what people may say about our lucky penalty and David James' mistake, I am a firm believer that you make your own luck and I thought we made enough half chances to justify our luck.

The nerves will go away as we build on our points to gain us back our confidence.

Very happy with the end result today as we really needed these 3 points to kick-start our season even though we're already 7 games in!. We could now go on a run, winning our next 3 games against Villa, the Spammers and Watford. Another 9 points up for grabs and I feel at least 7 of these points is very realistic...COME ON YOU SPURS!!!

Harry Hotspur said...

Great Post from Don Vincenzo.

But what's your opinion on Zakora, mate??

Anonymous said...

Zokora is looking world class HH, but I take it you mean Zokora's dive?...I am one of those bad apples who has been turned sour by us being on the wrong end of similar bad decisions for so long, that a wrong decision in our favour came at a crucial time for us yesterday. Lets not beat ourselves up about that one too much lads...:) BUT saying that think we would have found a "legitimate" winner anyway if that incident wouldn't of happened. That situation seemed to make our players even more nervous (could it have been karma?, starting to sound like Glenn Hoddle...lol!). If we wouldn't have got that decision think one of our other half chances would have been put away. Gotta give it to JJ, he had a couple of really good gos, but yet again fluffed them up, plus brought a decent save out of Englands No.4! If that one, would have curled into the right hand top corner, I may have given him MOM for that one!

Anonymous said...

vinny - apple turned bad ?! i know we won, but don't we want to win the spurs way? i know at the moment a win is a win but......!!

you give a very honest opinion on the players. however, i feel the only negative was the form of ekotto. he really does look one for the future given a few more games, but did you notice it was yet another goal scored against us from down our left flank? just a point.

also, on the zokora dive, this was about the 3rd or 4th time hes done this, but without the profit of yesterday!!! i really hope we don't see it anymore.

aside from the above couple of points, it was a well deserved win and a very satisfying performance, topped off by judas's mistake for the first goal!! maybe Mido has a point after all.......... :-)

COYS

Anonymous said...

Dannyboy - well spotted on Ekotto, you hit the nail on the head. Looks like he has loads of talent and athleticism, potential to be a great wingback, but at the moment looks slightly vulnerable at times. Lets hope he learns and becomes the complete article, as we dont want to have to go shopping for leftbacks again either!

Anonymous said...

And Mido has dissapointed me this season, along with Tainio (both of whom I was an advocate of) and Ziegler. But at least the latter 2 dont talk bollocks that could wind the opposition up in a positive way. Mido should do his talking on the pitch. And at the moment he only deserves a place on the bench.

Anonymous said...

vinny
mido needs to grow his hair and get his strength back ! he could certainly take a leaf out of berbatovs book and try running - my only complaint about him - he seems like a lazy git.

COYS

Anonymous said...

Dannyboy - yeah which is strange cos last season he through himself around more when he was heavier and seemed to have more passion. Hopefully he will rediscover that. But will be a good weapon to come off the bench though, as long as he is happy doing that.

Anonymous said...

Bet Mido got the right hump when Jol told him to shut it, and then goes and talks up Judas in the media himself!

Anonymous said...

yeah but jol talked about judas after the game. rumour has it, when jol put his arm round him after the game and whispered to him, he said " well played son, glad you made the mistake in 38 seconds, no hard feelings, now f*ck off you judas scum."

vinny, looks like we're taking over this site! better be careful as people are gonna talk and HH will get the hump !!!

COYS

Anonymous said...

don't worry danny boy, i'm enjoying the exchange of views. (Am I becoming voyeuristic? A bit like Wenger!)
Just one question for Vinny.....

"Ghaly - nice enthusiasm, willing to try to initiate creation."
Initiate Creation? Sound to me like a technical term for fore play!

And Dannyboy; enough already about "the spurs way".
That all happened in another era. in these days of Statistics, medical sport science and big money foreign players who come and stay for a few years for the money, I think you are dreaming.

At least you guys have an in depth opinion of what's going on at the club, keep it up!!

Oh and for all the gooners who come to this site; Go and get a life or a girlfriend or go and do some voluntary work. Unless, like your top nonce wenger, you are voyeurs who want to spend their time poking their kiddy fiddler noses into other people's lives!!!!

Anonymous said...

anon 8.08
maybe I am a dreamer - i just remember the flowing entertaining football we played in the eighties ala hoddle, perryman, ardiles, crooks, archibald - what a team that was. in my opinion, hoddle is the best player I have ever seen in a spurs shirt - sky showed about 20 of his goals before introducing him yesterday, pure class. but i digress.....

well done spurs of today for grinding out a result. things are getting better, bit by bit. a fortnights break then back to business. what we gonna talk about til then???? HH - you gonna put something controversial on here ??haha

COYS

Anonymous said...

HH - "Initiate Creativity" could be "foreplay" if you like, with the climax seen as the goal being scored...lol!!! After all no foreplay...no orgasm...usually!!! P.S. did I tell you Im a gynacologist?...thats why I deal well with Gooner fans as they're all like c*nts...lol!

Anonymous said...

Ghaly can initiate my creativity anyday!

Work like an Egyptian!!

Anonymous said...

Thought Ghaly made all the difference on Thursday and a pity he was pushed back on Sunday. Would like to see him, Zok, Murphy and Hudd as the midfield and give Jenas a rest or drop him or whatever..

Anonymous said...

MAD BLOG