A game with plenty of everything. A Walt Disney sponsored penalty and Scotch Mist.
All in all, a decent performance from Tottenham. Admittedly against Animaniacs in Newcastle training shirts, but these are the friendlies...
Cerny was superb. Needless to say the penalty was a nonsense and he expertly dealt with 'go number one' and 'go number two'. The initial foul by Chimbonda was appalling and he needs to get that kind of rubbish out his system before the season starts.
Jenas. Dannyboy is clearly delighted and largely, so are we all. He made a couple of duff passes, but the rest of his distribution great his touch sublime.
He is absolutely at his best deep midfield spraying the ball wide or slotting through breathtaking midfield bypassing balls. The latter are wonderfully effective, when snapped up by the forward line they cause the opposing defense real headaches. Suddenly the attack is on. Short passing is a waste of his talent.
My only concern on Jenas as captain is his leadership. We collectively 'went missing' for some of the second half and I don't yet know that he is the man to take the Lillywhites by the scruff of the neck and liven them up.
Elsewhere Bent's goal was classy, intelligent fare. Defoe was crying for a ball he could untangle.
Huddlestone needs time and space or can look cumbersome, their lot offered him neither, clambering about him like some sportswear clad remake of Gulliver's Travels.
The friendly status of this tie gives Kaboul some diplomatic immunity in relation to his small schoolboy errors, but his last third contributions were terrific. His free kick was exceptional. He will scare the monkey out of the Premiership if he can deliver this class of set piece play.
Taarabt appears to be in from a mold similar to that of Ronaldo. I genuinely don't have issue with that. At one stage he actually beat three players and then shielded the ball from four! His willingness to run at 'em and shoot is gripping stuff to watch. The only concern... here it comes.... is that he knows when to go for glory and when to share the wealth.
Pleased to see Stalteri increasingly looking the part, but Chimbonda and Gardner must both lose the 'professional foul' cobblers form their repertoires at once. It's great to see some backbone in the squad, but we're not Chavs, so let's fight fair.
Plenty of positives... Bring on the next lot then, says I.
*Here's some highlights c/o ryethfc*
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Tottenham Hotspur On Tour: The Orlando Pirates Highlights
Posted by Harry Hotspur at Thursday, July 26, 2007
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23 comments:
"He is absolutely at his best deep midfield spraying the ball wide or slotting through breathtaking midfield bypassing balls.".....What fucking game was you watching?...mate you have always shown your lack of knowlege of the game...just keep repeating rthe stories from the other sites and leave the commentary alone for fucks sake!!!
8.43 Thanks for sharing your insight moron. How is that whole 'eating with cutlery' thing working out for you, by the way?
i agree with the comment about the hudd..dont think he's gonna make it..he's not mobile enough for the prem and has no sense of position what so ever
Told ya days ago Petrov was going to Man. City. I was called a twat, again, by the biggest twat there is, the foulmouthed Dannyboy, a piece of crap who doesn't have a clue and does nothing but bossing around those who know. Well, here it is, twat. Spurs signings are shit, twat. Go junmp in the lake and wash your dirty mouth, twat!
anon
how dare you criticise Jenas?! Remenber - knife, fork, spoon.....
coys
I agree with you Harry – I’m not the biggest fan of Jenas at times, and he can irritate the hell out of me sometimes! But his performance against the Pirates showed why MJ and others regard him so highly. Just hope he can perform like that regularly in the prem.
Well said Harry....8.43 obviously knows everything there is to know about football, so your suggestion re: a new source of learning is first-class....perhaps he could move on to vocabulary after that.
11.48... We regret to inform you that we really have raised the bar in relation to 'Resident Village Idiot' on this blog and regretfully/to great cheering your application on this occasion, has been binned.
HH.
sorry, gotta agree, with jenas no time for him. Not with his performances last season. wastes all our corners and free kicks. often is the culprit of distrupting a flowing move with a poor pass or lack of intelligence, whatever you wanna call it. Jol has his favourites and jenas seems to be one of them. Regardless of how he plays jol always defends him and continues to give him chance after chance.
In order to get the best from your players, make them earn their place in the team, more hungry, more determined.
To something more positive, thankfully:
I am very excited about the young boy abel t. Saw glimpses of him in his two cameos against west ham and chelsea and to me, he looks the real deal, i know its a bit early, but i have a good eye for talent and i think he is a real gem.
Finally we have an assertive midfielder who can bring the ball to the oppostion with real bite, and threat we have missed that. Beba have missed someone like that. We play too deep and invite other teams, almost as if we expect to concede, which is why berba was so peeved. hopefully with more appearances from this young lad, i think we have added another dimension to our play.
Can't believe Petrov chose the Mancs over us!...obviously too stupid to play for us anyway so in that case f*ck him!, if someone don't want to play for our beloved team then we don't want them either...next.
Petrov said he chose Man City because of the manager. Where does that leave Jol' But he's right: jol is crap. spurs won't win a thing with him.
And HH, guess the village idiot is dear old dannyboy...Read and learn from those who know!
anon 11.48
guess what mate? you're a twat !
coys
I agree completely with LJ on both points. I thought Jenas' play left a lot to be desired last season. In the big games against the top teams, when he was closed down quickly he completely disappeared. Even when he wasn't pressed, he was still so negative in his possession in midfield. He would get the ball and immediately turn and look for a defender to dump it to. He and Tainio both do this to a fault, which is the #1 reason why Lennon got so few touches and had a disappointing season last year.
I would like to see Jol play Jenas in the same role/position as Lampard. Lampard can't pass worth crap or rarely beat someone off the dribble either, but like Jenas, he has boundless energy and is so potent running behind the strikers. Drop Jenas into a position just behind the strikers on the left side, and I think he will really shine.
we'd all do well to ignore the idiots.
glad to hear that jenas looked above decent in this game, hopefully he'll learn how to play with zokora in the midfield. they were incompatible last season.
oh and what's the latest on this mido fiasco? come on, harry, what's the word?
Dear Vinny,
I don't remember ever seeing a quote from anyone at Spurs saying that we were actually after petrov at all. I have however read quotes attributed to petrov in which he stated that Tottenham have at no time spoken to his agent or club about a possible move. He only claimed that Berbatov had tried to interest him in coming to Spurs for what that's worth.
I'm not convinced that we were ever after an injury prone 28 year old who struggled to make spain's 7th best clubs first team.
El,
My post was a little bit reactionary and on further thought and reasoning with other supporters across blogs saw sense in the fact that if we didn't get him, it must have simply been because the management didn't want him. It just felt like the Duff affair all over again like last season, except there was genuine interest in Duff and to be honest as a team we moved on and did good (eventually) while Duff hardly set the premiership alight and similarily to Petrov is known for injuries.
At the end of the day, us punters can speculate, but the real pros make the decisions and seem to have overall done well the past couple of seasons.
Therefore I will continue to dream of star players joining our beloved Spurs, like a kind of blogging "chamionship manager" game as that's what being a fan is all about - opinions on how our team could be improved and win things etc, but the bottom line like so many people rightly say, we can never be sure who we'll actually sign till we see the player standing next to MJ on the official site.
I do admit I hope they have something down their sleeves for 1 last great signing though, as I feel we lacked creativity at times last season, whether it be on the left hand side or bang in the centre of the park, there was just something missing...we shall see my friends.
spot on, vinny
Breaking the top 4. Keep hearing so much about it, and being a spurs fan from as far back as i can remember, i am not gonna get my hopes up, only for them to be destroyed AGAIN.
lEFT WING, CENTRE MID these are two areas where i think we really need some genuine class. Otherwise apart from bent, bale Kaboul i dont see much difference. I only one of those 3 likely to make a real impact in results in bent. The other two have the potential to do well, but are inexperienced and untried in the prem.
Arsenal finished forth with the problem of not finding the net, that was all they missed, if they had a fir striker, i dunno where they wouldnt have ended up, with their young team, who had last year as a learning curve.
So on forth, i am very cautious.
Agreed Vinny. I'm also frustrated at the fact that we've clearly strengthened the team at the front & back, but not where we were weakest last season; the midfield. We can only hope the club spring a midfield Berba-like surprise on us over the next couple of weeks.
Anon 2.13,
You hit the nail on the head. Lets put it this way, I am over the moon with our signings don't get me wrong, especially our willingness to invest in the best young talent around, but then again us Spurs supporters are forever over the moon as we've needed to be optimists the way the past 20 years went, until the past couple of seasons of course. However the realist in me says that yes Bent is Prem proven and a great goal scoring addition, but then again we have have another 3 great forwards, so was not our biggest problem area but a few more goals contribute to the cause nevertheless. The other 2 (Kaboul and Bale) will be great, but are new to the prem and possibly may need a season to bed in (more Bale than Kaboul me thinks though), and just like Zokora did (hopefully just one anyway). It's the creativity on either of the left side or the centre of the park I feel we need something just to give us that little bit of unpredictability, somneone with the key to unlock defences when the going is tough.
El,
Exactly mate, would love to see one more mouthwatering player who could be that creative spark. We rely so much on Berba and Lennon for this and clearly go narrow and predictable when they're missing, as Chelsea proved and took advantage of one annoying evening.
This is why I dont believe the Arse are over yet by any means, as much as I hate them they have at least 3 or 4 players who can be match winners on their day.
Don't get me wrong though, this isn't a moan, just a very exciting time to be a Spurs supporter right now and feel we are so close, maybe just one more magical player to bring magical champions league nights back to the home of football...the famous White Hart Lane...it's no secret that we're very close and who knows, we may even be there already...time will tell...COYS!
Hear we may well be signing Kim Kallstrom in the coming weeks.... could he be the answer to our midfield problems???? In terms of the new signings expect Bent to shine and Kaboul to impress from the start!!!! Finally with regards to Adel Tarabt, where do people feel he could fit in and does he warrant a starting place in the team????
Adel appears at this early stage to have everything except experience. Half a season? A full season? Who knows. I suspect we may be a viera, petit, roy kean or Gazza type player short of a champions league place at the moment. Hope I'm wrong.
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