At last a journalist albeit a football 365 journalist who reports on the 'arse' that is spurs

WHY OVER-CONFIDENT SPURS WEREN'T WORTHY OF WINNING THE WORTHY Monday February 25 2002 By Steve Anglesey OTHER STORIES Let Us Watch Football In The Pub Football365's England World Cup Ladder Call it schadenfreude. Or, if you like, call it SteffenFreunde. But whatever you want to call it, there was a sense of justice about Blackburn’s Worthington Cup final victory against Spurs on Sunday. Not just because Rovers, four points adrift from Premiership safety and missing three regular starters, had comprehensively outthought and outfought an international-stocked side which man for man should have taken them to the cleaners. No, this victory seemed particularly sweet after an absurd week of build-up which cast Spurs as a great footballing dynasty waiting to happen (a theory surely shot down by the fact that they have beaten only two current top-ten sides throughout this entire Premiership campaign) and the class-free manner in which they reacted to what was a deserved defeat. Tottenham’s manager began the week by calling the Worthington Cup merely a 'stepping stone' to the greater glories ahead, saying he could now get on with 'the second phase of the plan', and Tim Sherwood had insisted: "I believe this Spurs side has the players to win the Championship." They ended it with Teddy Sheringham moaning about a penalty call which never came and ungenerously pointing out that: “Their goalkeeper was man of the match, which tells its own story.” Glenn Hoddle, meanwhile, saw it like this: "We could have averted both goals and we also had opportunities to bury the game. Les had three chances, Gus Poyet had another and then there was the penalty decision. That just sums it up.” No-one is suggesting that the former England manager should have publicly castigated his own players, as he did so disastrously and with such disloyalty during his spell as national coach - although there would certainly have been plenty of candidates for disdain among his senior professionals. More than a few grudging words of congratulation to Graeme Souness’ hard-working opponents – who dominated for long stretches, kept possession better and created significant chances of their own - might have been nice, however. Instead, in virtually all the post-match interviews with the losers, we heard the shell-shocked disbelief of a side which believed its own hype. Did Spurs arrogantly believe that all they had to do to win was turn up – that, as their former player Chris Waddle suggested on Radio Five Live before the final: “It's almost a foregone conclusion”? We will never know, but their key personnel are not noted for their modesty. Sheringham described winning the treble at Manchester United thus: "I had great involvement, in the end, and I take a lot of credit for that." Sherwood, who recently suggested that Sven-Goran Eriksson might do worse than to take him to the World Cup this summer, is notorious for informing reporters summoned to a press launch of one of his endorsed products that: “I am only going to talk about laminated wall coverings tonight.” Hoddle, meanwhile, is the man who famously belittled David Beckham in training and then believed he could still retain the confidence of his players even after selling their secrets via his World Cup diary. As a famously-irritating Tottenham supporter is fond of pointing out, you couldn’t make it up. Yet you cannot knock their confidence and even after a shattering defeat, Sheringham was declaring on Monday morning: “We have enough quality to come back and to win things in the future. As a team and as a squad, we are learning.” Let’s hope the lesson includes a little humility.

AM

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

Answers

Hoddle also questioned taking Owen to the last world cup, and noted that Owen wasn't a natural goalscorer, which I suppose is true as his goalscoring is unnatural

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

'They ended it with Teddy Sheringham moaning about a penalty call which never came and ungenerously pointing out that: “Their goalkeeper was man of the match, which tells its own story.” '

Chimp - "The fact that Shay [Given] was man of the match tells you a story"

Bitter?

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

'Owen wasn't a natural goalscorer, which I suppose is true as his goalscoring is unnatural'

Class MacBeth, LOL

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

Remember last close season, an article reproduced here which compared how Hoddle was quietly assembling a multi-talented team at Spurs while Newcastle were floundering aimlessly.

You have to laugh really.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

I remember that article Jonno (It's still somewhere in the archive). It went on about how they'd bought quality in Sherringham and Poyet, (while we'd bought Bellamy I seem to remember) and how much better positioned Spurs were than us for an assault on the championship. :o)) I can't resist trying to find it.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

Glenda is also famous for belittling Andy Cole by saying he needed five chances to score every goal. What wonderful peotic justic that AC should score the winner yesterday that began all the nasal whining from them Spurs. Ungracious tossers!

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

Am I grateful that we have Mr. Robson as a manager. Long may it continue. He supports his players, he rarely has a go at them in public, perhaps 3 or 4 times this season for one or two of them (the boozing incidents excepted), but you can tell by who he sells and who he buys and how we play that he knows exactly what it takes. I particularly liked his comments this weekend, that we have speed and fighting qualities. Compared to Mr Robson then Glenda, Arsy Whiner, O'Dreary and the likes look awful.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

An interesting stat from both matches:

Both Newcastle and Blackburn had more shots, both on and off target, than their opponents yesterday.

They may not have been better chances, but they were chances. What about Dabizas' two other chances, surely they are as good as Kilbane's bobble, bobble shoot and Phillips' handball, volley.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002

Some Arsenal fan rang 606 and sugested that the Spurs defeat was down to some indiscretion committed in another life.

-- Anonymous, February 25, 2002